For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility through it. He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
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Ephesians 2:14-22 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision” (in the flesh, made by hands), that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility through it. He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
Parallel Translations
-
For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation,
having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace,
and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility through it.
He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.
For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God,
being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone;
in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
-
For he is oure peace whych hath made of both one and hath broken doune the wall that was a stoppe bitwene vs
and hath also put awaye thorow his flesshe the cause of hatred (that is to saye the lawe of commaundementes contayned in the lawe written) for to make of twayne one newe man in him silfe so makynge peace:
and to reconcile both vnto god in one body thorow his crosse and slewe hatred therby:
and came and preached peace to you which were afarre of and to them that were nye.
For thorow him we both have an open waye in in one sprete vnto the father.
Now therfore ye are no moare straugers and foreners: but citesyns with the saynctes and of the housholde of god:
and are bilt apon the foundacion of the apostles and prophetes Iesus Christ beynge the heed corner stone
in whom every bildynge coupled togedder groweth vnto an holy temple in the lorde
in whom ye also are bilt togedder and made an habitacion for god in the sprete.
Show all 3 translations
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For he is our peace, which hath made of both one, and hath broken the stoppe of the partition wall,
In abrogating through his flesh the hatred, that is, the Lawe of commandements which standeth in ordinances, for to make of twaine one newe man in himselfe, so making peace,
And that he might reconcile both vnto God in one body by his crosse, and slay hatred thereby,
And came, and preached peace to you which were afarre off, and to them that were neere.
For through him we both haue an entrance vnto the Father by one Spirit.
Nowe therefore ye are no more strangers and forreiners: but citizens with the Saintes, and of the houshold of God,
And are built vpon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Iesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe corner stone,
In whom all the building coupled together, groweth vnto an holy Temple in the Lord.
In whom ye also are built together to be the habitation of God by the Spirit.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (144)
- Galatians 3:28 (vv14–15) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
- Philippians 3:20 (v19) For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
- 1 Peter 2:4-5 (vv20, 22) coming to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious. You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual…
- Colossians 3:11 (v14) where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, or free person; but Christ is all,…
- Colossians 3:15 (v14) And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.
Show all 100 cross-references
- 1 Corinthians 12:13 (v18) For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all given to drink into one…
- Ephesians 3:12 (v18) In him we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him.
- 1 John 3:1 (v19) See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us,…
- Colossians 2:14 (vv15–16) wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.
- Isaiah 28:16 (v20) Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure…
- Isaiah 57:19-21 (v17) I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says Yahweh; “and I will heal them.” But the…
- Galatians 6:10 (v19) So then, as we have opportunity, let’s do what is good toward all men, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.
- Colossians 1:20-22 (v16) and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through…
- Galatians 3:26-28 (v19) For you are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There…
- Romans 5:2 (v18) through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
- 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (v21) Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for…
- Ephesians 4:4 (v18) There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling,
- 1 Peter 2:7-8 (v20) For you who believe therefore is the honor, but for those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief…
- Psalms 118:22 (v20) The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
- 1 Corinthians 3:16 (v22) Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
- Ephesians 2:15 (vv14, 16) having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man…
- Matthew 16:18 (v20) I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
- Ephesians 4:11-13 (v20) He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints,…
- Romans 5:10 (v16) For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his…
- John 14:6 (v18) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
- 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 (v14) For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For in one…
- 1 Corinthians 3:9 (v21) For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
- Galatians 3:10 (v15) For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things…
- Ephesians 2:12 (v19) that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the…
- Ephesians 3:6 (v19) that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus through the Good…
- Hebrews 10:19-20 (v18) Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and…
- Hebrews 11:13 (v19) These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they…
- Acts 10:36 (vv14, 17) The word which he sent to the children of Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all—
- 2 Corinthians 6:16 (vv21–22) What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and…
- John 10:9 (v18) I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.
- Acts 4:11-12 (v20) He is ‘the stone which was regarded as worthless by you, the builders, which has become the head of the corner.’ There is salvation in no…
- Revelation 21:14 (v20) The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
- John 17:21-23 (v22) that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that…
- 1 Corinthians 3:9-11 (v20) For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise…
- 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (v16) But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that…
- Galatians 6:15 (v15) For in Christ Jesus neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
- Colossians 1:20 (v14) and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through…
- Colossians 1:21-22 (v15) You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through…
- Hebrews 8:13 (v15) In that he says, “A new covenant”, he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
- 1 John 4:16 (v22) We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
- Romans 5:1 (vv14, 17) Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
- Colossians 2:20 (vv14–15) If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
- Isaiah 9:6-7 (v14) For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor,…
- John 10:7 (v18) Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door.
- Colossians 2:10-14 (v14) and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made…
- Colossians 3:10 (v15) and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
- Hebrews 4:15-16 (v18) For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like…
- Hebrews 12:22-24 (v19) But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, to the…
- Ephesians 4:16 (vv14–15) from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each…
- Mark 12:10-11 (v20) Haven’t you even read this Scripture: ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is…
- John 14:17-23 (v22) the Spirit of truth, whom the world can’t receive; for it doesn’t see him and doesn’t know him. You know him, for he lives with you, and…
- Acts 2:39 (v17) For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 (v15) Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
- Galatians 2:20 (v16) I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live…
- Colossians 1:12 (v18) giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,
- 1 Peter 4:1-2 (v16) Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has…
- 1 John 4:13 (v22) By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
- Revelation 21:12-26 (v19) having a great and high wall; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names written on them, which are the names of the…
- Luke 2:14 (vv14, 17) “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.”
- Deuteronomy 4:7 (v17) For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him?
- Psalms 148:14 (v17) He has lifted up the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, even of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise Yah!
- Matthew 21:42 (v20) Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was…
- Luke 20:17-18 (v20) But he looked at them and said, “Then what is this that is written, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the chief cornerstone?’…
- Romans 6:6 (v16) knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in…
- Romans 8:3 (v16) For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for…
- Romans 8:7 (v16) because the mind of the flesh is hostile toward God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.
- Romans 8:9-11 (v22) But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of…
- Romans 8:15 (v18) For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”
- 1 Corinthians 6:19 (v22) Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
- 1 Corinthians 8:6 (v18) yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,…
- 1 Corinthians 12:28 (v20) God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps,…
- Galatians 2:9 (v20) and when they perceived the grace that was given to me, James and Cephas and John, those who were reputed to be pillars, gave to Barnabas…
- Galatians 4:6 (v18) And because you are children, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
- Galatians 4:26-31 (v19) But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, “Rejoice, you barren who don’t bear. Break out…
- Ephesians 2:13-14 (v17) But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke…
- Ephesians 4:13-16 (v21) until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of…
- Hebrews 10:1-10 (v15) For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which…
- Zechariah 9:10 (v17) I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow will be cut off; and he will speak peace to the…
- Acts 10:28 (v14) He said to them, “You yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for a man who is a Jew to join himself or come to one of another nation,…
- Ephesians 3:17 (v22) that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
- Ephesians 6:18 (v18) with all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit, and being watchful to this end in all perseverance and requests for all…
- Hebrews 13:20 (v14) Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord…
- 1 Peter 3:18 (v18) Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the…
- 1 John 3:24 (v22) He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us.
- 1 Kings 6:7 (v21) The house, when it was under construction, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and no hammer or ax or any tool of iron was heard in…
- Psalms 147:19-20 (v17) He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done this for just any nation. They don’t know his…
- Isaiah 52:7 (v17) How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news, who proclaims…
- Ezekiel 34:24-25 (v14) I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them. I, Yahweh, have spoken it. “ ‘I will make with them a covenant of…
- Micah 5:5 (v14) He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land, and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven…
- Zechariah 12:10 (v18) I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom…
- Luke 1:79 (v14) to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
- John 10:16 (v14) I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one…
- John 16:33 (v14) I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:20 (v17) We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
- Ephesians 3:14 (v18) For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (144 total citations).
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv14–22 14. For he is our peace. He now includes…
14. For he is our peace. He now includes Jews in the privilege of reconciliation, and shows that, through one Messiah, all are united to God. This consideration was fitted to repress the false confidence of the Jews, who, despising the grace of Christ, boasted that they were the holy people, and chosen inheritance, of God. If Christ is our peace, all who are out of him must be at variance with God. What a beautiful title is this which Christ possesses, — the peace between God and men! Let no one who dwells in Christ entertain a doubt that he is reconciled to God.
Who hath made both one. This distinction was necessary. All intercourse with the Gentiles was held to be inconsistent with their own superior claims. To subdue this pride, he tells them that they and the Gentiles have been united into one body. Put all these things together, and you will frame the following syllogism: If the Jews wish to enjoy peace with God, they must have Christ as their Mediator. But Christ will not be their peace in any other way than by making them one body with the Gentiles. Therefore, unless the Jews admit the Gentiles to fellowship with them, they have no friendship with God.
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And breaking down the middle wall of partition. To understand this passage, two things must be observed. The Jews were separated, for a certain time, from the Gentiles, by the appointment of God; and ceremonial observances were the open and avowed symbols of that separation. Passing by the Gentiles, God had chosen the Jews to be a peculiar people to himself. A wide distinction was thus made, when the one class were “fellow-citizens and of the household” (Ephesians 2:19) of the Church, and the other were foreigners. This is stated in the Song of Moses:
“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel: for the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:8,9)
Bounds were thus fixed by God to separate one people from the rest; and hence arose the enmity which is here mentioned. A separation is thus made. The Gentiles are set aside. God is pleased to choose and sanctify the Jewish people, by freeing them from the ordinary pollution of mankind. Ceremonial observances were afterwards added, which, like walls, enclosed the inheritance of God, prevented it from being open to all or mixed with other possessions, and thus excluded the Gentiles from the kingdom of God.
But now, the apostle, says, the enmity is removed, and the wall is broken down. By extending the privilege of adoption beyond the limits of Judea, Christ has now made us all to be brethren. And so is fulfilled the prophecy,
“God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” (Genesis 9:27)
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 As by the ceremonies and worship appointed by the…
As by the ceremonies and worship appointed by the Law, the Jews were divided from the Gentiles, so now Christ, having broken down the partition wall, joineth them both together, both in himself, and betwixt themselves, and to God. Whereby it followeth, that whosoever established the ceremonies of the Law, maketh the grace of Christ void and of none effect.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv14–22 14 For he is our peace, who hath made…
14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Ver. 14. For he is our peace] That is, our peace maker and peace matter. {a} When he was born, there was among all nations a general aut pax, aut pactio, either peace or an agreement for peace, as Florus observeth. When he took his name, he would not have it either entirely Hebrew, as Jesus, or entirely Greek, as Christ, but both Jesus and Christ, to show (saith one) that he is our peace that hath reconciled two into one, &c.
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{a} ειρηνη παρα το εις εν ειρειν.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv14–22 For he is our peace; i.e. Peace-maker, or Mediator…
For he is our peace; i.e. Peace-maker, or Mediator of peace, both between God and man, and between Jew and Gentile. He is called
our peace, as elsewhere our righteousness, redemption, salvation. God is said to reconcile us, 2Co 5:19, but Christ only to be our peace.
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Who hath made both one; i.e. one body, or one people, or one new man, Eph 3:15.
And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having taken away the ceremonial law, which was as a wall of separation between Jew and Gentile, as appears in the next verse. It seems to be an allusion to that wall of the temple which parted between the court of the people into which the Jews came, and the outmost court, that of the Gentiles, who, when they came to worship, might not come into the other court, and were excluded by this wall.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 19 He is our peace: that is,
He is our peace: that is,
1. He is the Mediator of our peace, the great peace-maker betwixt God and men.
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2.He is our peace: that is, the purchaser of our peace.
3. He is our peace; that is, the establisher of our peace. All which is to be understood, not only of peace betwixt God and man, but also betwixt man and man. Who hath made both one; that is, both Jews and Gentiles one church.
Here note, That there was a very great and deep-rooted enmity betwixt Jews and Gentiles, until Christ purchased their peace and reconciliation.
The Jews derided, scorned, and hated the Gentiles as unclean, compared them to dogs and swine.
The Gentiles, they reproached the Jews for circumcising their flesh, esteemed them, of all nations, the worst; and would hold their nose at the Jews when they met them, and cry, O faetentes Judaei! O ye stinking Jews! and turn away their eyes from them.
Learn from hence then, That the uniting of both Jew and Gentile into one church, was one blessed effect and sweet fruit of the purchase of Christ’s blood; Christ’s offering of himself was intended as a sacrifice for enmities between man and man, as well as for enmities between God and man: He is our peace, who hath made both one.
Observe next, What Christ hath done in order to his making peace between Jew and Gentile;
1. He has abolished the ceremonial law, called here a partition- wall, betwixt the Jews and the Gentiles; in allusion, no doubt, to that wall to Solomon’s temple which separated the court of the Jews from that of the Gentiles, that they could neither come at, nor look at one another. So that this partition-wall being said to be broken down, intimates to us, that Jew and Gentile, who before had two manner of religions, the one in and under a covenant with God, the other afar off, and without God; yet now by Christ are both adopted into the same church, partakers of the same covenants, incorporated into the same faith, entitled to the same glory.
2. Christ has abolished the enmity and perpetual strife which was occasioned between Jew and Gentile, upon the account of the observation of the ceremonial law, and the ordinances thereunto belonging: He hath abolished the enmity; that is, the ceremonial law, which made the enmity between them. The ceremonial law was the cause and the continuer of that enmity which was betwixt Jew and Gentile: this is called the law of commandments contained in ordinances: because Almighty God did actually separate the Jews from all the world, by giving them ordinances and commandments, judicial and ceremonial laws, containing many visible and external observances, which forbade them to communicate with the Gentile world.
Now Christ being come in the flesh, all those observances ceased, and those legal ordinances vanished away; all nations become blessed in Christ, and Jews and Gentiles become one church, both alike the people of God, both admitted equally into covenant, and both alike blessed.
Here note, That the moral law, summarily comprised and comprehended in the Ten Commandments, was no part of the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile. Nor did the death of Christ abrogate this law, nor is it at all abolished: but it was the law of ceremonies only, which the sufferings and death of Christ put an end unto; for when he died, they all vanished; as the shadow disappears when the substance is come.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v14 We have now come to the last part of…
We have now come to the last part of the chapter, which contains an account of the great and mighty privileges that converted Jews and Gentiles both receive from Christ. The apostle here shows that those who were in a state of enmity are reconciled. Between the Jews and the Gentiles there had been a great enmity; so there is between God and every unregenerate man. Now Jesus Christ is our peace, Eph 2:14. He made peace by the sacrifice of himself; and came to reconcile, 1. Jews and Gentiles to each other. He made both one, by reconciling these two divisions of men, who were wont to malign, to hate, and to reproach each other before. He broke down the middle wall of partition, the ceremonial law, that made the great feud, and was the badge of the Jews' peculiarity, called the partition-wall by way of allusion to the partition in the temple, which separated the court of the Gentiles from that into which the Jews only had liberty to enter. Thus he abolished in his flesh the enmity, Eph 2:15. By his sufferings in the flesh, to took away the binding power of the ceremonial law (so removing that cause of enmity and distance between them), which is here called the law of commandments contained in ordinances, because it enjoined a multitude of external rites and ceremonies, and consisted of many institutions and appointments about the outward parts of divine worship. The legal ceremonies were abrogated by Christ, having their accomplishment in him. By taking these out of the way, he formed one church of believers, whether they had been Jews or Gentiles. Thus he made in himself of twain one new man. He framed both these parties into one new society, or body of God's people, uniting them to himself as their common head, they being renewed by the Holy Ghost, and now concurring in a new way of gospel worship, so making peace between these two parties, who were so much at variance before. 2. There is an enmity between God and sinners, whether Jews and Gentiles; and Christ came to slay that enmity, and to reconcile them both to God, Eph 2:16. Sin breeds a quarrel between God and men. Christ came to take up the quarrel, and to bring it to an end, by reconciling both Jew and Gentile, now collected and gathered into one body, to a provoked and an offended God: and this by the cross, or by the sacrifice of himself upon the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. He, being slain or sacrificed, slew the enmity that there was between God and poor sinners. The apostle proceeds to illustrate the great advantages which both parties gain by the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Eph 2:17. Christ, who purchased peace on the cross, came, partly in his own person, as to the Jews, who are here said to have been nigh, and partly in his apostles, whom he commissioned to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, who are said to have been afar off, in the sense that has been given before. And preached peace, or published the terms of reconciliation with God and of eternal life. Note here, When the messengers of Christ deliver his truths, it is in effect the same as if he did it immediately himself. He is said to preach by them, insomuch that he who receiveth them receiveth him, and he who despiseth them (acting by virtue of his commission, and delivering his message) despiseth and rejecteth Christ himself. Now the effect of this peace is the free access which both Jews and Gentiles have unto God (Eph 2:18): For through him, in his name and by virtue of his mediation, we both have access or admission into the presence of God, who has become the common reconciled Father of both: the throne of grace is erected for us to come to, and liberty of approach to that throne is allowed us. Our access is by the Holy Spirit. Christ purchased for us leave to come to God, and the Spirit gives us a heart to come and strength to come, even grace to serve God acceptably. Observe, We draw nigh to God, through Jesus Christ, by the help of the Spirit. The Ephesians, upon their conversion, having such an access to God, as well as the Jews, and by the same Spirit, the apostle tells them, Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, Eph 2:19. This he mentions by way of opposition to what he had observed of them in their heathenism: they were now no longer aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and no longer what the Jews were wont to account all the nations of the earth besides themselves (namely, strangers to God), but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, that is, members of the church of Christ, and having a right to all the privileges of it. Observe here, The church is compared to a city, and every converted sinner is free of it. It is also compared to a house, and every converted sinner is one of the domestics, one of the family, a servant and a child in God's house. In Eph 2:20 the church is compared to a building. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of that building. They may be so called in a secondary sense, Christ himself being the primary foundation; but we are rather to understand it of the doctrine delivered by the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New. It follows, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. In him both Jews and Gentiles meet, and constitute one church; and Christ supports the building by his strength: In whom all the building, fitly framed together, etc., Eph 2:21. All believers, of whom it consists, being united to Christ by faith, and among themselves by Christian charity, grow unto a holy temple, become a sacred society, in which there is much communion between God and his people, as in the temple, they worshipping and serving him, he manifesting himself unto them, they offering up spiritual sacrifices to God and he dispensing his blessings and favours to them. Thus the building, for the nature of it, is a temple, a holy temple; for the church is the place which God hath chosen to put his name there, and it becomes such a temple by grace and strength derived from himself - in the Lord. The universal church being built upon Christ as the foundation-stone, and united in Christ as the corner-stone, comes at length to be glorified in him as the top-stone: In whom you also are built together, etc., Eph 2:22. Observe, Not only the universal church is called the temple of God, but particular churches; and even every true believer is a living temple, is a habitation of God through the Spirit. God dwells in all believers now, they having become the temple of God through the operations of the blessed Spirit, and his dwelling with them now is an earnest of their dwelling together with him to eternity.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv14–22 For he is our peace,.... The author of peace…
For he is our peace,.... The author of peace between Jew and Gentile: there was a great enmity of the Jew against the Gentile, and of the Gentile against the Jew; and chiefly on account of circumcision, the one being without it, and the other insisting on it, and branding one another with nicknames on account of it; but Christ has made peace between them by abrogating the ceremonial law, which was the occasion of the difference, and by sending the Gospel of peace to them both, by converting some of each, and by granting the like privileges to them all, as may be observed in the following verses: and Christ is the author of peace between God and his people; there is naturally in man an enmity to God; sin has separated chief friends; nor can man make his peace with God; what he does, or can do, will not do it; and what will, he cannot do; Christ is the only fit and proper person for this work, being a middle person between both, and is only able to effect it, being God as well as man; and so could draw nigh to God, and treat with him about terms of peace, and agree to them, and perform them; and which he has brought about by his blood, his sufferings and death; and which is made on honourable terms, by a full satisfaction to the law and justice of God; and so is a lasting one, and attended with a train of blessings: moreover, Christ is the donor of peace, of external peace in his churches, and of internal peace of conscience, and of eternal peace in heaven: this is one of the names of the Messiah with the Jews (b);
"says R. Jose the Galilean, even the name of the Messiah is called "peace"; as it is said, Isa 9:6 "the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace";''
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see Mic 5:5 where it is said, "and this man shall be the peace"; which the Jewish (c) writers understand of the Messiah:
who hath made both one; Jews and Gentiles, one people, one body, one church; he united them together, and caused them to agree in one, and made them to be of one mind and judgment by the above methods; as well as he gathered them together in one, in one head, himself, who represented them all:
and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; the ceremonial law, which was made up of many hard and intolerable commands, and distinguished, and divided, and kept up a division between Jews and Gentiles: so the Jews call the law a wall, "if she be a wall", Sol 8:9 , "this is the law", say they (d): and hence we read of , "the wall of the law" (e); and sometimes the phrase, a "partition wall", is used for a division or disagreement; so R. Benjamin says (f), that between the Karaites and Rabbanites, who were the disciples of the wise men, there was "a middle wall of partition"; a great difference and distance; and such there was between the Jew and Gentile, by reason of the ceremonial law; but Christ removed it, and made up the difference: the allusion seems to be to the wall which divided the court of Israel from the court of the Gentiles, in the temple, and which kept them at a distance in worship.
(b) Perek Shalom, fol. 20. 1. Baal Hatturim in Numb. xxv. 12. (c) Vid. Kimchi in loc. (d) T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 87. 1. (e) Caphtor, fol. 95. 1. & 101. 1. (f) Itinerar. p. 28.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv14–21 For he is our peace - Not only as…
For he is our peace - Not only as he purchased it, but as he is the very bond and center of union. He who hath made both - Jews and gentiles, one church. The apostle describes,
1. The conjunction of the gentiles with Israel, ver. 14, 15. And,
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2. The conjunction of both with God, ver. 15-18. Each description is subdivided into two parts. And the former part of the one, concerning abolishing the enmity, answers the former part of the other; the latter part of the one, concerning the evangelical decrees, the latter part of the other. And hath broken down the middle wall of partition - Alluding to that wall of old, which separated the court of Israel from the court of the gentiles. Such a wall was the ceremonial law, which Christ had now taken away.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv14–22 Verse 14. For he is our peace] Jesus Christ…
Verse 14. For he is our peace] Jesus Christ has died for both Jews and Gentiles, and has become a peace-offering, shalom, to reconcile both to God and to each other.
Who hath made both one] Formed one Church out of the believers of both people.
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The middle wall of partition] By abolishing the law of Jewish ordinances, he has removed that which kept the two parties, not only in a state of separation, but also at variance.
This expression, the middle wall, can refer only to that most marked distinction which the Jewish laws and customs made between them and all other nations whatsoever.
Some think it refers to their ancient manner of living among the Gentiles, as they always endeavoured to live in some place by themselves, and to have a river or a wall between them and their heathen neighbours. Indeed, wherever they went, their own rites, ordinances, and customs were a sufficient separation between them and others; and as Jesus Christ abolished those customs, admitting all into his Church, both Jews and Gentiles, by repentance and faith, he may be said to have broken down the middle wall of partition. When, at the death of Christ, the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom, it was an emblem that the way to the holiest was laid open, and that the people at large, both Jews and Gentiles, were to have access to the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
Some think there is an allusion here to the wall called chel, which separated the court of Israel from the court of the Gentiles; but this was not broken down till the temple itself was destroyed: and to this transaction the apostle cannot be supposed to allude, as it did not take place till long after the writing of this epistle.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv15, 19 Eph 2:15-18. Having abolished in his flesh — By…
Eph 2:15-18. Having abolished in his flesh — By the sufferings and death endured therein; the cause of enmity between the Jews and Gentiles, even the law of ceremonial commandments, contained in ordinances — Consisting in many institutions and appointments concerning the outward worship of God; such as those of circumcision, sacrifices, clean and unclean meats, washings, and holy days; which, being founded in the mere pleasure of God, might be abolished when he saw fit. These ordinances Jesus abolished, that he might make in himself — That is, by uniting them to himself as their head; of twain — Of Jews and Gentiles, who were at such a distance before; one new man — One mystical body, one church, renewed by the Holy Ghost, and uniting in one new way of gospel worship: so making peace — Between the two kinds of people, and even laying a foundation for the most sincere mutual love and friendship: And, or moreover, to complete this blessed work of making peace, that he might reconcile both, as thus united in one body, and animated by one spirit, not merely to one another, but unto God, by his death on the cross — By which he expiated the guilt of sin, and rendered God reconcileable, and ready to pardon the penitent that should believe in Jesus; and by which he procured for mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles, the Holy Spirit to work repentance and faith in them, and destroy that carnal mind, which is enmity against God, (Rom 8:7,) and all those sinful passions which are connected therewith, and which render men odious in his sight, and hostile to one another. And came — After his resurrection; and preached peace — By his authorized ambassadors, (to whom he had committed the important trust of treating with sinners in his name and stead, 2Co 5:19-20,) to you Gentiles, which were afar off — At the utmost distance from God; and to them that were nigh — To the Jews, who were comparatively nigh, being his visible church. For through him — Through his mediation, his sacrifice and intercession; we both — Believing Jews and Gentiles; have access — Have liberty of approach; by one Spirit — Inspiring us with faith, hope, and love, and rendering us sincere, spiritual, fervent, and constant, in our prayers, praises, and all acts of worship and service: unto the Father — That is, unto God as a Father reconciled in Christ, and beholding us with paternal eyes of love, complacency, and delight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv14–22 For he is our peace - There is evident…
For he is our peace - There is evident allusion here to Isa 57:19. See the notes at that verse. The “peace” here referred to is that by which a “union” in worship and in feeling has been produced between the Jews and the Gentiles Formerly they were alienated and separate. They had different objects of worship; different religious rites; different views and feelings. The Jews regarded the Gentiles with hatred, and the Gentiles the Jews with scorn. Now, says the apostle, they are at peace. They worship the same God. They have the same Saviour. They depend on the same atonement. They have the same hope. They look forward to the same heaven. They belong to the same redeemed family. Reconciliation has not only taken place with God, but with each other. “The best way to produce peace between alienated minds is to bring them to the same Saviour.” That will do more to silence contentions, and to heal alienations, than any or all other means. Bring people around the same cross; fill them with love to the same Redeemer, and give them the same hope of heaven, and you put a period to alienation and strife. The love at Christ is so absorbing, and the dependence in his blood so entire, that they will lay aside these alienations, and cease their contentions. The work of the atonement is thus designed not only to produce peace with God, but peace between alienated and contending minds. The feeling that we are redeemed by the same blood, and that we have the same Saviour, will unite the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the high and the low, in the ties of brotherhood, and make them feel that they are one. This great work of the atonement is thus designed to produce peace in alienated minds every where, and to diffuse abroad the feeling of universal brotherhood.
Who hath made both one - Both Gentiles and Jews. He has united them in one society.
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And hath broken down the middle wall - There is an allusion here undoubtedly to the wall of partition in the temple by which the court of the Gentiles was separated from that of the Jews; see the notes and the plan of the temple, in Mat 21:12. The idea here is, that that was now broken down, and that the Gentiles had the same access to the temple as the Jews. The sense is, that in virtue of the sacrifice of the Redeemer they were admitted to the same privileges and hopes.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv14, 19, 20 Christ destroyed the enmity which, like a wall of…
Christ destroyed the enmity which, like a wall of separation, stood between Jew and Gentile, and united them into one people. He did this in his flesh, by his own blood, or the sacrifice he made of his flesh on the cross. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv14–22 he--Greek, "Himself" alone, pre-eminently, and none else. Emphatical.
he--Greek, "Himself" alone, pre-eminently, and none else. Emphatical.
our peace--not merely "Peacemaker," but "Himself" the price of our (Jews' and Gentiles' alike) peace with God, and so the bond of union between "both" in God. He took both into Himself, and reconciled them, united, to God, by His assuming our nature and our penal and legal liabilities (Eph 2:15; Isa 9:5-6; Isa 53:5; Mic 5:5; Col 1:20). His title, "Shiloh," means the same (Gen 49:10).
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the middle wall of partition--Greek, ". . . of the partition" or "fence"; the middle wall which parted Jew and Gentile. There was a balustrade of stone which separated the court of the Gentiles from the holy place, which it was death for a Gentile to pass. But this, though incidentally alluded to, was but a symbol of the partition itself, namely, "the enmity" between "both" and God (Eph 2:15), the real cause of separation from God, and so the mediate cause of their separation from one another. Hence there was a twofold wall of partition, one the inner wall, severing the Jewish people from entrance to the holy part of the temple where the priests officiated, the other the outer wall, separating the Gentile proselytes from access to the court of the Jews (compare Eze 44:7; Act 21:28). Thus this twofold wall represented the Sinaitic law, which both severed all men, even the Jews, from access to God (through sin, which is the violation of the law), and also separated the Gentiles from the Jews. As the term "wall" implies the strength of the partition, so "fence" implies that it was easily removed by God when the due time came.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv14–22 14. Our peace—A triangular peace between Jew and Gentile,…
14. Our peace—A triangular peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both and God. One of the Hebrew names for the Messiah was Shalom, Peace.
Made both one—Not by abolishing race distinctions in the physiological man, but by abolishing old antagonisms, and creating a new unity in Christian brotherhood.
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The middle wall—The words, if not an allusion to the wall described in our notes on Joh_2:14, and Act_21:28, are well illustrated by it.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–22 14. he is our peace] “He:”—the glorious living Person…
14. he is our peace] “He:”—the glorious living Person gives its essence to the sacrificial Work.
“Our peace:”—i.e., as the connexion indicates, the “peace” between the Tribes of the New Israel, the Gentile and Jewish believers; such peace that now, within the covenant, “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal_3:28; Col_3:11). The special aspect of this truth here is the admission of the non-Jewish believer to the inmost fulness of spiritual privilege; but this is so stated as to imply the tender companion truth that he comes in not as a conquering intruder but as a brother, side by side with the Jewish believer, in equal and harmonious peace with God.
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who hath made both one] Lit., Who made both things one thing. “Both” and “one” are neuters in the Gr. The idea is rather of positions and relations than of persons (Monod).—“One:”—“one thing,” one community, or rather, one organism. (By the same word is expressed the Unity of the Father and the Son, Joh_10:30.) In Gal_3:28 (“ye are all one”) the Gr. has the masculine, “one [person],” “one [man],” as expressly in the next verse here.
hath broken down … partition] Lit., did undo the mid-wall of the fence, or hedge. The next verse makes it clear that this means the Law. In Divine intention the Law was a “hedge” (Isa_5:2) round the Old Israel, so long as their chief function was to maintain a position of seclusion. And it thus formed a “partition” between the Old Israel and the outer world, not only hindering but, for the time, forbidding such fusion as the new order brought in.
It is possible that the phrase was immediately suggested by the demarcation between the Court of the Gentiles and the inner area of the Temple.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–22 (14) He (Himself) is our peace.—There is clearly allusion,…
(14) He (Himself) is our peace.—There is clearly allusion, as to the many promises in the Old Testament of the “Prince of Peace” (Isa_9:5-6, et al.), so still more to the “Peace of Earth” of the angelic song of Bethlehem, and to the repeated declarations of our Lord, such as, “Peace I leave with you: My peace I give unto you.” Here, however, only is our Lord called not the giver of peace, but the peace itself—His own nature being the actual tie of unity between God and mankind, and between man and man. Through the whole passage thus introduced there runs a double meaning, a declaration of peace in Christ between Jew and Gentile, and between both and God; though it is not always easy to tell of any particular expression, whether it belongs to this or that branch of the meaning, or to both. It is well to compare it with the obvious parallel in Col_2:13-14, where (in accordance with the whole genius of that Epistle) there is found only the latter branch of the meaning, the union of all with the Head, not the unity of the various members of the Body.
Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.—In this verse the former subject is begun. The reunion of Jew and Gentile is described in close connection with the breaking down of “the middle wall of the partition” (or, hedge). The words “between us” are not in the original, and Chrysostom interprets the partition as being, not between Jew and Gentile, but between both and God. But the former idea seems at any rate to predominate in this clause. Whether “the middle wall of the hedge” refers to the wall separating the court of the Gentiles from the Temple proper (Jos. Ant. xv. § 5), and by an inscription denouncing death to any alien who passed it (see Lewin’s St. Paul, vol. ii., p. 133), or to the “hedge” set about the vineyard of the Lord (Isa_5:2; comp. Mat_22:33)—to which probably the Jewish doctors alluded when they called their ceremonial and legal subtleties “the hedge” of the Law—has been disputed. It may, however, be noted that the charge of bringing Trophimus, an Ephesian, beyond that Temple wall had been the cause of St. Paul’s apprehension at Jerusalem (Act_21:29), and nearly of his death. Hence the Asiatic churches might well be familiar with its existence. It is also notable that this Temple-partition suits perfectly the double sense of this passage: for, while it was primarily a separation between Jew and Gentile, it was also the first of many partitions—of which the “veil of the Temple” was the last—cutting all men off from the immediate presence of God. At our Lord’s death the last of these partitions was rent in twain; how much more may that death be described as breaking down the first!
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(2 b.) Eph_2:14-18 pass on from the description of the call of the heathen to personal union with God in Christ, to dwell on the perfect unity and equality of Jew and Gentile with each other in Him, and the access of both to the Father.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14–22 For he is our peace. Explanatory of the preceding…
For he is our peace. Explanatory of the preceding verse of the way by which we are brought nigh. Christ is not only our Peacemaker, but our Peace, and that in the fullest sense, the very substance and living spring of it, establishing it at the beginning, keeping it up to the end; and the complex notion of peace is here not only peace between Jew and Gentile, but between God and both. Consult Old Testament predictions of peace in connection with Messiah (Isa_9:5, Isa_9:6; Mic_5:5; Zec_9:10, etc.) Who made both one; literally, both things, both elements; so that there is now no ground for separating between a Jewish element and a Gentile; they are unified. And broke down the middle wall of the partition. The general idea is obvious; the particular allusion is less easily seen. Some think it is to the veil that separated the holy of holies from the holy place; (Heb_10:20) but that could hardly be called a wall. Others the wall that separated the court of the Jew from that of the Gentiles; but that wall was literally standing when the apostle wrote, and besides, the Ephesians could not be supposed to be so familiar with it as to make it a suitable illustration for them. In the absence of any specific allusion, it is best to understand the words generally, "broke down that which served as a middle wall of partition what is mentioned immediately in the following verse.
Christ and his work of reconciliation. Here we have three topics:
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(1) Christ our Peace;
(2) thereby bringing us nigh;
(3) the subject summed up.
I CHRIST OUR PEACE. Observe the several statements (vers. 14-17).
1. He made both Jew and Gentile one (see Exposition).
2. He broke down the middle wall of partition.
3. He abolished the cause of enmity between Jew and Gentile the Law of commandments in ordinances.
4. He constituted himself a new Man, to which both Jew and Gentile belong.
5. He thereby reconciled both to God.
6. All this he effected by his cross.
7. He not only effected it, but came and preached peace to the far off and the nigh. The idea conveyed is that no single thing was left undone that could contribute to the great double result of reconciling Jew and Gentile, first to God, and thereby to each other. Thus reconciliation to God effects reconciliation between man and man, as sometimes a child, mutually beloved, may effect reconciliation of parents after a difference.
II CHRIST AS OUR PEACE BRINGING US NIGH (Ver. 18.)
1. True Christians have access to the Father.
2. This is secured meritoriously "through Christ.
3. And efficaciously "by the one Spirit.
How much is implied in having access to the Father! Access to his love, his wisdom, his transforming influence, his capacity of satisfying the soul in all its lawful propensities, and blessing it forever!
III SUMMING UP. (Ver. 19.) The relation established with God is not a temporary or occasional one, but close, abiding, indestructible. The reconciliation is effected, not for a day, but for evermore. (Rom_8:35-39)
Vers. 14-16.
Christ our Peace.
He is so by effecting two reconciliations, and thus obliterating two deep and long-standing alienations. He "hath made both one" Jew and Gentile
-and "he hath reconciled both unto God in one body by the cross." Christis our Peace, not simply as our Peacemaker, but as our Peace objectively considered and with regard to our relation to God; for the apostle represents our nearness to God as grounded in Christ as our Peace. He is therefore our Peace, as he is called our Righteousness and our Redemption, (1Co_1:30) and while thus he is our Peace toward God, he is the ground of peace in every other relation, and especially between man and man. Thus he abides our continual Peace, for he did not make peace and end his relation toward us, but is the Source of our abiding reconciliation with God as well as of the continuous enjoyment of peace. Thus the Old Testament prophecies which connect peace with the Messiah find their just fulfillment. (Isa_9:5, 6 57:2, 7) Peace was the legacy which he left to his disciples. (Joh_14:27) It is "the peace to which we are called in one body". (Col_3:15) It is that which "keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus". (Php_4:7) Consider
I HOW HE HAS MADE PEACE BETWEEN JEW AND GENTILE.
1. He did so by leveling in the dust the middle wall of partition that separated them widely for ages, in a word, by abolishing the narrow particularism of Judaism. The wall in question was the ceremonial law law of commandments contained in ordinances given to Israel as a separate people and of positive appointment. The moral law was no part of the partition wail, and contains in itself nothing either to excite enmity or to establish separation between man and man. The death of Christ did not abolish it; it was the law of ceremonies only that was abolished in the cross, for when he died, it disappeared like a shadow when the substance was come. The moral law, as embodied in the Decalogue, was older than the Mosaic institute, and therefore survived its fall. The partition wall that kept Jew and Gentile apart was
(1) an ancient barrier of separation. It lasted sixteen hundred or two thousand years, according as we date its origin from Abraham or Moses. A Puritan Father says, "The foundation of the wall of separation was laid in Abraham"s time when circumcision was first given, for that began the quarrel; reared up higher by Moses" rites; further lengthened and stretched out in all times of the prophets, throughout all ages, till Christ, who came to abolish it and break it down.
(2) It was a high barrier. It kept the Jew effectively apart for more than a millennium and a half, that he might be trained for the universalist dispensation that was to be established in the fullness of times.
(3) It engendered a deep hostility on both sides. It was this enmity" that made the barrier so serious an element of separation. The Jew regarded the Gentile with a proud and supercilious superiority, and the Gentile regarded the Jew as an enemy of the human race. Literature is full of the evidences of this continuous hostility. The Gentiles were called in contempt "the uncircumcised" and "sinners of the Gentiles." Juvenal, Tacitus, Martial, Horace, repay the debt in the language of bitter and contemptuous sarcasm.
1. Consider the grand instrument of reconciliation between Jew and Get, the. "In his flesh." The language refers expressly to the condition of penal curse-bearing to which the atoning Savior spontaneously subjected himself.
2. As the apostle once represents sin as being condemned in Christ"s flesh, (Rom_8:3) so here our Lord is regarded as having in his flesh taken upon him the sins of his people, as the great cause of enmity and disunion, and having exhausted at once the sin of man and the wrath of God on the cross, he thus at once abolished the law of ceremonies and annihilated the enmity which found its occasion in it. The cross is still the instrument of reconciling man to man. The world has made many efforts to unite men on a basis of liberty, equality, fraternity often trying to bring about a union even by the most terrible bloodshed; but no principle has yet been discovered to unite man to man save the gospel of Christ, with its doctrine of atonement through the blood of the cross.
3. Consider the ultimate result of the death of Christ. "To make of twain one new man, so making peace." Those previously sundered were by the cross lifted into a higher unity, and placed upon a platform of equal privilege that obliterated all the old causes of division. The reconciling power of the cross ran through all the relations of men and all the relations of life. The person of Christ crucified became henceforth the great Center of unity.
II HOW CHRIST IS OUR PEACE IN EFFECTING RECONCILIATION BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. "That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." Nothing can be more explicit than the declaration that Christ"s mission was intended to reconcile God and man, who were previously alienated by sin. It is often contended that, as God is essentially a God of love, it becomes us to think only of reconciliation on man"s Side. There are, in fact, two reconciliations, the one based on the other a reconciliation of God to man, and a reconciliation of man to God. The apostle says elsewhere that God has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ", (2Co_5:18) and that it pleased "the Father, having made peace through the blood of the cross, to reconcile all things unto himself". (Col_1:20) The scheme of salvation, whether we take account of the incarnation or the atonement, emanated from the Divine good pleasure as the supreme source of all blessings. It is always important to emphasize the fact that the atonement is the effect, not the cause, of God"s love. The peace here spoken of is peace on a basis of law and justice; for the offering up of Christ so magnified the Law and exhausted all its demands, that, on the ground of that propitiation, God could be at once just and the Justifier of the ungodly. This is according to another passage: "God hath sent forth his Son to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness". (Rom_3:25) If this be so, it is an error to hold that the only purpose of Christ"s death was the manifestation of Divine love. It was, in fact, a manifestation of Divine justice as well as of Divine love; and if it was not a manifestation of Divine justice, that is, if there was no righteousness making that death necessary, it is difficult to see how there could be a manifestation of love in his dying. It follows also that it is an error to depreciate the importance of Christ"s death, and to lay the main emphasis of his mission upon the virtues of his life. The Bible knows nothing of a gospel without a cross, or of a gospel which makes the cross a mere affecting incident at the close of a sublime career; it rather exhibits the cross as the grand procuring cause of life and redemption to man. If you take away the cross, you dry up the stream of blessing which has flowed down through all Christian ages, you put an end to the abiding peace of God"s people, and you paralyze the right arm of the ministry. Therefore we are justified in regarding the reconciliation between God and. man as resting on Christ"s work, and this work as charged with reconciling power, not as it moved the human heart or led to a new conduct in man, but as it introduced a new relation in which men were placed before God. T.C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 For He is our Peace, who hath made both…
Eph_2:14
For He is our Peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition.
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Christ our Peace
1. Christ Jesus is the author of all our peace.
(1) In restoring the amity and friendship which we had in creation, but lost by the Fall.
(2) In vanquishing those enemies which had taken us captive, and wrongfully detained us.
2. There was a separation between Jew and Gentile, before they came to be in Christ.
3. The way to obtain peace is to take away that which bars it. To make two rooms into one, you must beat down the wall which forms the partition. (Paul Bayne.)
Peace from Christ alone
Christ is the author of all our peace; but He applies it successively by degrees. Like Master, like man; like Prince, like people. Christ for a while endured great troubles, and so must His members.
1. In all terror of conscience we must look to Christ. We keep the fire from our faces and eyes with screens; but they are wise who put between their souls and Gods wrath the screen of Christs reconciliation, lest this fire burn to the pit of destruction. This stills the conscience, and fills it with good hope.
2. This must make us cleave unto Christ, even to let our tenderest bowels love Him who has done this for us.
3. Seeing Christ alone is the author of all true peace, this should cause us to seek to be under His kingdom, yea, to give our eyelids no rest till we have enlisted in the army of Christ. Look how you would do, if the enemy had entered your gates, taken your wives and children, spoiled you of your goods. If there were a town near you, where you might prevent such danger, and find safe protection, and live peaceably and securely, who would not with all expedition betake himself thither?
4. Seek to be, like Christ, a peace maker.
5. How miserable the condition of all out of Christ. (Paul Bayne.)
Christ the Peace of His people
I. The substitution.
1. This substitution of Christ in behalf of His mystical body is primary, original. It runs as far back as the council of peace. He became our Peace then, when He entered into the covenant of peace, met the stipulation for peace, undertook to satisfy all the demands of law and justice for peace, and pledged Himself to be that peace.
2. It is permanent--it runs through every dispensation of the Church of the living God. There was not one sort of gospel to preach to Abraham, and another to preach to the present race of sinners. The doctrine of substitution runs through the whole of the Mosaic economy, and hence it is permanent, and comes down to the present moment of the existence of the Church upon earth.
II. The union. The smallest finger in my hand can move, can grasp, can unite with the other, in any effort that is put forth, because it is one with the hand, one with the body, and derives its life and strength and blood from thence; but sever my little finger from my hand, and it has no more strength--it is utterly useless. Apart from Me, says Christ, ye can do nothing. But in vital union with Jesus, the strength which is His flows to the feeblest and weakest member, and is put forth in the mighty actings of faith, and the holy energies of the new man. Moreover, this union is so experimental as always to produce communion. It is close, it is grasping, it is uniting, it is abiding, it is mutual in interest. Moreover, it is evident and manifest, because the world must see that the union which grace has effected between our souls and Christ, has cut asunder the tie which once existed between us and them, has cut asunder the union which made us once very fond of their fooleries.
III. The participation. His justice is perfectly satisfied on my behalf, that I may look upon the bleeding Christ, the rising Christ, the exalted Christ, and the interceding Christ, and say with Paul, He loved me, and gave Himself for me. What serenity! A satisfactory, solid, sacred, holy, serenity of soul; a heavenly calm, a believing acquiescence in the love, and power, and grace, and goodness, of my God, not only in matters relating to Providence around me, but in matters relating to my souls everlasting salvation. (J. Irons.)
The Prince of Peace
I. He is our Peace, in that He makes peace. Peace between God and man--reconciling both (Jew and Gentile) unto God--by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby (Eph_2:16).
II. He is our Peace, in that He gives peace. My peace I give unto you--let not your heart be troubled (Joh_14:27). Or, as it is put here, came and preached peace to you who were afar off (Eph_2:17).
III. He is our Peace, in that He promotes peace. Who hath made both (Jews and Gentiles) one (Eph_2:14). This is ever the practical outcome of the rule of The Prince of Peace. He promotes peace.
1. In the family, subduing the elements of strife and discord.
2. In the neighbourhood, as every successful missionary at home and abroad can testify.
3. In the Church.
4. Among nations.
Note: These senses in which Christ is our Peace are progressive. He has made peace for us, for all men, by His atoning work. He may be our peace, speaking peace within, quieting the tumult of doubt and fear (Mat_11:28-30). And, if we are His, He will promote peace through, and by means of us in every circle in which we move and in every place in which we have influence. (Joseph Ogle.)
Peace already made
When a poor bricklayer who had fallen from a great height was lying fatally injured he was visited by a minister in the neighbourhood. On entering the cottage he said, My dear man, I am afraid you are dying. I exhort you to make your peace with God. Make my peace with God, sir! Why, that was made eighteen hundred years ago, when my great and glorious Lord paid all my debt upon the cruel tree. Christ is my Peace, and I am saved.
Peace and comfort through the Atonement
There is no chance whatever of our finding a pillow for a head which the Holy Ghost has made to ache save in the atonement and the finished work of Christ. When Mr. Robert Hall first went to Cambridge to preach, the Cambridge folks were nearly Unitarians. So he preached upon the doctrine of the finished work of Christ, and some of them came to him in the vestry and said, Mr. Hall, this will never do. Why not? said he. Why, your sermon was only fit for old women. And why only fit for old women? said Mr. Hall. Because, said they, they are tottering on the borders of the grave, and they want comfort, and, therefore, it will suit them, but it will not do for us. Very well, said Mr. Hall, you have unconsciously paid me all the compliment that I can ask for; if this is good for old women on the, borders of the grave, it must be good for you if you are in your right senses, for the borders of the grave is where we all stand. Here, indeed, is a choice feature of the Atonement, it is comforting to us in the thought of death. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Peace in Jesus only
As the needle in a compass trembles till it settles in the north point, so the heart of a sinner can get no rest but in Christ.
Peace through Christ
In the Pitti Palace, at Florence, there are two pictures which hang side by side. One represents a stormy sea with its wild waves, and black clouds and fierce lightnings flashing across the sky. In the waters a human face is seen, wearing an expression of the utmost agony and despair. The other picture also represents a sea, tossed by as fierce a storm, with as dark clouds; but out of the midst of the waves a rock rises, against which the waters dash in vain. In a cleft of a rock are some tufts of grass and green herbage, with sweet flowers, and amid these a dove is seen sitting on her nest, quiet and undisturbed by the wild fury of the storm. The first picture fitly represents the sorrow of the world when all is helpless and despairing; and the other, the sorrow of the Christian, no less severe,. but in which he is kept in perfect peace, because he nestles in the bosom of Gods unchanging love. (American.)
The partition wall removed
1. Every man by nature, in himself, and without Christ, is at war and enmity with God, with His Church, and chiefly those in the Church who are truly regenerate.
2. This enmity could only be removed by Christs bloodshed and death.
3. The uniting of both Jew and Gentile in one Church is a branch of the peace which Christ has purchased.
4. From the apostles designing the ceremonial law by a metaphor taken from houses divided by a mid-wall, or from an orchard, garden, or inclosure, separated from the outfield by a dyke or wall of rough stones, we learn several things relating to the nature, use, and duration of the ceremonial law, which are the grounds of the similitude. And first, as a wall is built by the owner of the enclosure, so the ceremonial law was by Gods own appointment (Deu_32:8; Exo_25:40). Secondly, as a rough wall is made up of so many hard, unpolished stones, not covered over with lime or plaster; so the ceremonial law consisted of many ordinances (Heb_9:10), and those very difficult to be obeyed, and an intolerable yoke (Act_15:10). Thirdly, as a wall or hedge encloseth a piece of ground for the owners special use (which therefore is more painfully manured), and separateth that enclosure from the outfield which lieth about it; so the ceremonial law did serve to enclose the people of Israel, as the Lords own garden and vineyard, for bringing forth fruit unto Himself (Isa_5:7), and to separate them from all the world besides (Deu_4:7-8), as being a worship wholly different from and contrary unto the superstitious rites and worship used among the Gentiles (Deu_12:2), and containing strict injunctions unto the Jews to avoid all conformity with the Gentiles in their garments (Num_15:38), cutting of their hair (Lev_19:27), and such like. Fourthly, as a rough wall is but weak and ruinous, as not being built with cement or mortar to make it strong, and therefore but to endure for a season, until the owner think fit to enlarge his enclosure and take in more of the open field; so the ceremonial law was not to last forever, but only for a time, until Christ should come in the flesh, and take in the Gentiles within the enclosure of His Church, who were before an open field, not possessed nor manured by Him; after which there was no further use of the mid-wall.
5. So long as the ceremonial law did stand in force and vigour, the Jews and Gentiles could not be united into one Church: for seeing by that law the chief parts of Gods worship were restricted to the Temple at Jerusalem; therefore, though scattered proselytes of the neighbouring nations did join themselves to the Church of the Jews, and in some measure observed the way of worship then enjoined (Act_8:27), yet there was a physical impossibility for the generality of many nations far remote from Jerusalem to have served God according to the prescript of worship which then was: besides, there was such an habituate and as it were a natural antipathy transmitted from one generation unto another among the Gentiles against the ceremonial worship, that there was little less than a moral impossibility of bringing up the body of the Gentiles unto a cordial joining with the Jews in it: for the apostle showeth the ceremonial law behoved to be abrogated, in order to a union betwixt these two, while he saith, Who hath made both one, and broken down the middle wall of partition between us.
6. Whoever would make peace betwixt God and himself, or betwixt himself and others, he ought seriously to think upon those things which stand in the way of peace, and set about the removal of them, if it be in his power, and chiefly those evils in himself, of pride, vain-glory, self-seeking, and a contentious disposition, which are great obstructions in the way of peace (Php_2:3-4); else, whatever, be his pretenses for peace, he is no real follower of it: for, Christ intending to make peace betwixt Jew and Gentile, did take away whatever might have impeded it; He even broke down the middle wall of partition between them. (James Fergusson.)
Reconciliation through Christ
Themistocles having offended King Philip, and not knowing how to regain his favour, took his young son, Alexander, in his arms, and so presented himself before the king; and when he saw the boy smile on him, it very soon appeased the wrath within him. So the sinner should approach God with His Son Jesus Christ within him.
The need of reconciliation
Certainly a soul, sensible as to what the loss of communion with God is, counts it hath not fulfilled all its errand, when it hath bare peace given it. Should God say, Soul, I am friends with thee, I have ordered that thou shalt never go to hell, here is a discharge under My hand that thou shalt never be arrested for any debt more: but as for any fellowship with Me, thou canst expect none: I have done with thee forever, never to be acquainted with thee more. Certainly the soul would find little joy with such peace. Were the fire out as to positive torments, yet a hell would be left in the dismal darkness which the soul would sit under for want of Gods presence. A wicked heart seeks reconciliation without any longing after fellowship with God. Like the traitor, if the king will but pardon and save him from the gallows, he is ready to promise him never to trouble him at Court; tis his own life, not the kings favour, he desires. (W. Gurnall.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv14, 19 Chapter 10
Chapter 10
THE DOUBLE RECONCILIATION
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Eph_2:14-18
"PEACE, peace-to the far off, and to the near!" Such was Gods promise to His scattered people in the times of the exile. {Isa_57:19} St. Paul sees that peace of God extending over a yet wider field, and terminating a longer and sadder banishment than the prophet had foreseen. Christ is "our peace"-not for the divided members of Israel alone, but for all the tribes of men. He brings about a universal pacification.
There were two distinct, but kindred enmities to be overcome by Christ, in preaching to the world His good tidings of peace (Eph_2:17). There was the hostility of Jew and Gentile, which was removed in its cause and principle when Christ "in His flesh" (by His incarnate life and death) "abolished the law of commandments in decrees"-i.e., the law of Moses as it constituted a body of external precepts determining the way of righteousness and life. This abolition of the law by the evangelical principle "dissolved the middle wall of partition." The occasion of quarrel between Israel and the world was destroyed; the barrier disappeared that had for so long fenced off the privileged ground of the sons of Abraham (Eph_2:14-15). But behind this human enmity, underneath the feud and rancour existing between the Jews and the nations, there lay the deeper quarrel of mankind with God. Both enmities centred in the law: both were slain by one stroke, in the reconciliation of the cross (Eph_2:16).
The Jewish and Gentile peoples formed two distinct types of humanity. Politically, the Jews were insignificant and had scarcely counted amongst the great powers of the world. Their religion alone gave them influence and importance. Bearing his inspired Scriptures and his Messianic hope, the wandering Israelite confronted the vast masses of heathenism and the splendid and fascinating classical civilisation with the proudest sense of his superiority. To his God he knew well that one day every knee would bow and every tongue confess. The circumstances of the time deepened his isolation and aggravated to internecine hate his spite against his fellowmen, the adversus omnes alios hostile odium stigmatised by the incisive pen of Tacitus. Within three years of the writing of this letter the Jewish war against Rome broke out, when the enmity culminated in the most appalling and fateful overthrow recorded in the pages of history. Now, it is this enmity at its height-the most inveterate and desperate one can conceive-that the apostle proposes to reconcile; nay, that he sees already slain by the sacrifice of the cross, and within the brotherhood of the Christian Church. It was slain in the heart of Saul of Tarsus, the proudest that beat in Jewish breast.
In his earlier writings the apostle has been concerned chiefly to guard the position and rights of the two parties within the Church. He has abundantly maintained, especially in the epistle to the Galatians, the claims of Gentile believers in Christ against Judaic assumptions and impositions. He has defended the just prerogative of the Jew and his hereditary sentiments from the contempt to which they were sometimes exposed on the part of the Gentile majority. But now that this has been done, and that Gentile liberties and Jewish dignity have been vindicated and safeguarded on both sides, St. Paul advances a step further: he seeks to amalgamate the Jewish and Gentile section of the Church, and to "make of the twain one new man, so making peace." This, he declares, was the end of Christs mission; this a chief purpose of His atoning death. Only by such union, only through the burying of the old enmity slain on the cross, could His Church be built up to its completeness. St. Paul would have Gentile and Jewish believers everywhere forget their differences, efface their party lines, and merge their independence in the oneness of the allembracing and all-perfecting Church of. Jesus Christ, Gods habitation in the Spirit. Instead of saying that a catholic ideal like this belongs to a later and post-apostolic age, we maintain, on the contrary, that a catholic mind like St. Pauls, under the conditions of his time, could riot fail to arrive at this conception.
It was his confidence in the victory of the cross over all strife and sin that sustained St. Paul through these years of captivity. As he looks out from his Roman prison, under the shadow of Neros palace, the future is invested with a radiance of hope that makes the heart of the chained apostle exult within him. The world is lost, to all outward seeming: he knows it is saved! Jew and Gentile are about to close in mortal conflict: he proclaims peace between them, assured of their reconcilement, and knowing that in their reunion the salvation of human society is assured. The enmity of Jew and Gentile was representative of all that divides mankind. In it were concentrated most of the causes by which society is rent asunder. Along with religion, race, habits, taste and culture, moral tendencies, political aspirations, interests of trade, all helped to widen the breach. The cleavage ran deep into the foundations of life; the enmity was the growth of two thousand years. It was not a case of local friction, nor a quarrel arising from temporary causes. The Jew was ubiquitous, and everywhere was an alien and an irritant to Gentile society. No antipathy was so hard to subdue. The grace that conquers it can and will conquer all enmities. St. Pauls view embraced, in fact, a world-wide reconcilement. He contemplates, as the Hebrew prophets themselves did, the fraternisation of mankind under the rule of the Christ. After this scale he laid down the foundation of the Church, "wise master-builder" that he was. It was destined to bear the weight of an edifice in which all the races of men should dwell together, and every order of human faculty should find its place. His thoughts were not confined within the Judaic antithesis. "There is no Jew and Greek," he says in another place; yes, and "no barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, male or female. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Birth, rank, office in the Church, culture, even sex are minor and subordinate distinctions, merged in the unity of redeemed souls in Christ. That which He "creates in Himself of the twain" is one new man- one incorporate humanity, neither Jew nor Gentile, Englishman nor Hindu, priest nor layman, male nor female; but simply man, and Christian.
At the present time we are better able to enter into these views of the apostle than at any intervening period of history. In his day almost the whole visible world, lying around the Mediterranean shores, was brought under the government and laws of Rome. This fact made the establishment of one religious polity a thing quite conceivable. The Roman empire did not, as it proved, allow Christianity to conquer it soon enough and to leaven it sufficiently to save it. That huge construction, the mightiest fabric of human polity, fell and covered the earth with its ruins. In its fall it reacted disastrously upon the Church, and has bequeathed to it the corrupt and despotic unity of Papal Rome. Now, in these last days, the whole world is opened to the Church, a world stretching far beyond the horizon of the first century. Science and Commerce, those two strong-winged angels and giant ministers of God, are swiftly binding the continents together in material ties. The peoples are beginning to realise their brotherhood, and are feeling their way in many directions towards international union; while in the Churches a new, federal catholicity is taking shape, that must displace the false catholicism of external uniformity and the disastrous absolutism inherited from Rome. The spread of European empire and the marvellous expansion of our English race are carrying forward the worlds unification with enormous strides, -towards some end or other. What end is this to be? Is the kingdom of the world about to become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ? and are the nations preparing to be "reconciled in one body unto God"?
If Christendom were worthy of her Master and her name, this answer would be answered with no doubtful affirmative. The Church is well able, if she were prepared, to go up and possess the whole earth for her Lord. The way is open; the means are in her hand. Nor is she ignorant, nor wholly negligent of her opportunity and of the claims that the times impose upon her. She is putting forth new strength and striving to overtake her work, notwithstanding the weight of ignorance and sloth that burdens her. Soon the reconciling cross will be planted on every shore, and the praises of the Crucified be sung in every human language.
But there are dark as well as bright auguries for the future. The advance of commerce and emigration has been a curse and not a blessing to many heathen peoples. Who can read without shame and horror the story of European conquest in America? And it is a chapter not yet closed. Greed and injustice still mark the dealings of the powerful and civilised with the weaker races. England set a noble example in the abolition of negro slavery; but she has since inflicted, for purposes of gain, the opium curse on China, putting poison to the lips of its vast population. Under our Christian flags firearms are imported, and alcohol, amongst tribes of men less able than children to resist their evils. Is this "preaching peace to those far off"? It is likely that the commercial profits made in the destruction of savage races as yet exceed all that our missionary societies have spent in saving them. One of these days Almighty God may have a stern reckoning with modern Europe about these things. "When He maketh inquisition for blood, He will remember."
And what shall we say of ourselves at home, in our relation to this great principle of the apostle? The old "middle wall of partition," the temple-barrier that sundered Jew and Gentile, is "broken down,"-visibly levelled by the hand of God when Jerusalem fell, as it had been virtually and in its principle destroyed by the work of Christ. But are there no other middle walls, no barriers raised within the fold of Christ? The rich mans purse, and the poor mans penury; aristocratic pride, democratic bitterness and jealousy; knowledge and refinement on the one hand, ignorance and rudeness on the other-how thick the veil of estrangement which these influences weave, how high the party walls which they build in our various Church communions!
It is the duty of the Church, as she values her existence, with gentle but firm hands to pull down and to keep down all such partitions. She cannot abolish the natural distinctions of life. She cannot turn the Jew into a Gentile, nor the Gentile into a Jew. She will never make the poor man rich in this world, nor the rich man altogether poor. Like her Master, she declines to be "judge or divider" of our secular inheritance. But she can see to it that these outward distinctions make no difference in her treatment of the men as men. She can combine in her fellowship all grades and orders, and teach them to understand and respect each other. She can soften the asperities and relieve many of the hardships which social differences create. She can diffuse a healing and purifying influence upon the contentions of society around her.
Let us labour unweariedly for this, and let our meeting at the Lords table be a symbol of the unreserved communion of men of all classes and conditions in the brotherhood of the redeemed sons of God. "He is our peace"; and if He is in our hearts, we must needs be sons of peace. "Behold the secret of all true union! It is not by others coming to us, nor by our going over to them; but it is by both them and ourselves coming to Christ" that peace is made (Monod). Thus within and without the Church the work of atonement will advance, with Christ ever for its preacher (Eph_2:17). He speaks through the words and the lives of His ten thousand messengers, men of every order, in every age and country of the earth. The leaven of Christs peace will spread till the lump is leavened. God will accomplish His purpose of the ages, whether in our time, or in another worthier of His calling. His Church is destined to be the home of the human family, the universal liberator and instructor and reconciler of the nations. And Christ shall sit enthroned in the loyal worship of the federated peoples of the earth.
But the question remains: What is the foundation, what the warrant of this grand idealism of the apostle Paul? Many a great thinker, many an ardent reformer before and since has dreamed of some such millennium as this. And their enthusiastic plans have ended too often in conflict and destruction. What surer ground of confidence have we in Pauls undertaking than in those of so many gifted visionaries and philosophers? The difference lies here: his expectation rests on the word and character of God; his instrument of reform is the cross of Jesus Christ.
God is the centre of His own universe. Any reconciliation that is to stand must include Him first of all. Christ reconciled Jew and Gentile "both in one body to God." There is the meeting point, the true focus of the orbit of human life, that can alone control its movements and correct its wild aberrations. Under the shadow of His throne of justice, in the arms of His fatherly love, the kindreds of the earth will at last find reconciliation and peace. Humanitarian and secularist systems make the simple mistake of ignoring the supreme Factor in the scheme of things; they leave out the All in all.
"Be ye reconciled to God, " cries the apostle. For Almighty God has had a great quarrel with this world of ours. The hatred of men towards each other is rooted in the "carnal mind which is enmity against God." The "law of commandments contained in ordinances," in whose possession the Jew boasted over the lawless and profane Gentile, in reality branded both as culprits. The secret disquiet and dread lurking in mans conscience, the pangs endured in his body of humiliation, the groaning frame of nature declare the world unhinged and out of course. Things have gone amiss, somehow, between man and his Creator. The face of the earth and the field of human history are scarred with the thunderbolts of His displeasure. God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the King of the ages, is not the amiable, almighty Sentimentalist that some pious people would make Him out to be. The men of the Bible felt and realised, if we do not, the grave and tremendous import of the Lords controversy with all flesh. He is unceasingly at war with the sins of men. "God is love"-oh, yes! but then He is also "a consuming fire"! There is no anger so crushing as the anger of love, for there is none so just; no wrath to be feared like "the wrath of the Lamb." God is not a man, weak and passionate whom a spark of anger might set all on fire, burning out His justice and compassion. "In His wrath He remembers mercy." Within that infinite nature there is room for an absolute loathing and resentment towards sin, in consistence with an immeasurable pity and yearning towards His sinful children. Hence the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at it from what side you will (and it has many sides), propound it in what terms you may (and it translates itself anew into the dialect of every age), you must not explain the cross of Christ away nor cause its offence to cease. "The atonement has always been a scandal and a folly to those who did not receive it; it has always contained something which to formal logic is false and to individualistic ethics immoral; yet in that very element which has been branded as immoral and false, has always lain the seal of its power and the secret of its truth." The Holy One of God, the Lamb without spot and blemish, He died by His own consent a sinners death. That sacrifice, undergone by the Son of God and Son of man dying as man for men, in love to His race and in obedience to the Divine will and law, gave an infinite satisfaction to God in His relation to the world, and there went up to the Divine throne from the anguish of Calvary a "savour of sweet smell." The moral glory of the act of Jesus Christ in dying for His guilty brethren outshone its horror and disgrace; and it redeemed mans lost condition, and clothed human nature with a new character and aspect in the eyes of God Himself. "Now therefore there is no more condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." The mercy of God, if we may so say, is set free to act in forgiveness and restoration, without any compromise of justice and inflexible law. No peace without this: no peace that did not satisfy God, and satisfy that law, deep as the deepest in God, that binds suffering to wrongdoing and death to sin.
Perhaps you say: This is immoral, surely, that the just should suffer for the unjust; that one commits the offence, and another bears the penalty.-Stay a moment: that is only half the truth. We are more than individuals; we are members of a race; and vicarious suffering runs through life. Our sufferings and wrong-doings bind the human family together in an inextricable web. We are communists in sin and death. It is the law and lot of our existence. And Christ, the Lord and centre of the race, has come within its scope. He bound Himself to our sinking fortunes. He became copartner in our lost estate, and has redeemed it to God by His blood. If He was true and perfect man, if He was the creative Head and Mediator of the race, the eternal Firstborn of many brethren, He could do no other. He who alone had the right and the power, -"One died for all." He took upon His Divine heart the sin and curse of the world, He fastened it to His shoulders with the cross; and He bore it away from Caiaphas hall and Pilates judgment-seat, away from guilty Jerusalem; He took away the sin of the world, and expiated it once for all. He quenched in His blood the fires of wrath and hate it kindled. He slew the enmity thereby.
Still, we are individuals, as you said, not lost after all in the worlds solidarity. Here your personal right and will must come in. What Christ has done for you is yours, so far as you accept it. He has died your death beforehand, trusting that you would not repudiate His act, that you would not let His blood be spilt in vain. But He will never force His mediation upon you. He respects your freedom and your manhood. Do you now endorse what Jesus Christ did on your behalf? Do you renounce the sin, and accept the sacrifice? Then it is yours, from this moment, before the tribunal of God and of conscience. By the witness of His Spirit you are proclaimed a forgiven and reconciled man. Christ crucified is yours-if you will have Him, if you will identify your sinful self with the sinless Mediator, if as you see Him lifted up on the cross you will let your heart cry out, "Oh my God, He dies for me!"
Coming "in one Spirit to the Father," the reconciled children join hands again with each other. Social barriers, caste feelings, family feuds, personal quarrels, national antipathies, alike go down before the virtue of the blood of Jesus.
"Neither passion nor pride
His cross can abide,
But melt in the fountain that streams from His side!"
"Beloved," you will say to the man that hates or has wronged you most, -"Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." In these simple words of the apostle John lies the secret of universal peace, the hope of the fraternisation of mankind. Nations will have to say this one day, as well as men.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv14–22 14–18. For he is our peace. It is the…
14–18. For he is our peace. It is the Crucified Christ that brought you nigh, for he, he only, is our peace. The creator of peace between Jew and Gentile; between alienated man and God. Who hath made both one. Jew and Gentile one. The old distinctions are destroyed. All are on the same footing before God. Hath broken down, etc. Having broken down, or ended, the law of Moses which built up a wall between the Jews and Gentiles.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v19 Eph_2:19. So then.—Inference of Eph_2:14-18. Strangers and foreigners.—By the…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Eph_2:19. So then.—Inference of Eph_2:14-18. Strangers and foreigners.—By the latter word is meant those who temporarily abide in a place, but are without the privileges of it. There is a verb “to parish” in certain parts of England which shows how a word can entirely reverse its original meaning. It not only means “to adjoin,” but “to belong to.” Fellow-citizens with the saints.—Enjoying all civic liberties, and able to say, “This is my own, my native land,” when he finds “Mount Zion and the city of the living God” (cf. Heb_11:13-14). And of the household of God.—The association grows more intimate. The words might possibly mean “domestics of God” (Rev_22:3-4); but when we think of the “Father’s house” we must interpret “of the family circle of God.”
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Eph_2:20. Being built upon the foundation.—From the figure of a household St. Paul passes easily to the structure, based on “the Church’s One Foundation.” The chief corner-stone.—“The historic Christ, to whom all Christian belief and life have reference, as necessarily conditions through Himself the existence and endurance of each Christian commonwealth, as the existence and steadiness of a building are dependent on the indispensable cornerstone, which upholds the whole structure” (Meyer). The difference between our passage and 1Co_3:11 is one of figure only.
Eph_2:21. All the building.—R.V. “each several building.” Fitly-framed-together.—One word in the original, found again only in Eph_4:16 in this form.
Eph_2:22. For a habitation.—The word so translated is found again only in Rev_18:2, a sharp contrast to this verse.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Eph_2:19-22
The Church the Temple of God.
I. Enjoying special privileges.—
1. A saintly citizenship. “No more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints” (Eph_2:19). The apostle has spoken of the separation and enmity existing between Jew and Gentile. The Jew, trained to believe in the one invisible and only true God, who could not be imagined by any material form, learned to look with hatred and contempt on the outcast, lawless Gentile, with his idol deities in every valley and on every hill; and the intellectual Gentile looked with philosophic pride on the stern land of the Hebrew and in philosophic scorn on his strange, exclusive loneliness. They were not only at enmity with each other, but both were at enmity with God. Now the writer is showing that by the provisions of the gospel both Greek and Jew are united as citizens of one divine kingdom. They enjoy the same privileges, and are in actual fellowship with prophets and apostles and all holy souls in all ages, and are sanctified subjects of a kingdom that can never be moved.
2. A family life.—“And of the household of God” (Eph_2:19). The Church is a family having one Father in God, one Brother in Christ, one life in the Spirit, and one home in heaven. As in earthly families, there are diversities of character, tastes, gifts, tendencies, and manifestations, but all the members of the heavenly household are bound together by the one common bond of love to God and to each other.
II. Resting on a sure foundation (Eph_2:20).—The materials composing the foundation of the Church are living stones—teachers and confessors of the truth, “apostles and prophets”; but Christ, as the one foundation, is the “chief corner-stone.” The foundation of the Church is not so much in the witnesses of the truth as in the truth itself, and in propagating which truth the first teachers and confessors sacrificed their all. The truth which produced and sustained the martyrs is itself immovable. The apostles and prophets—teachers in the apostolic times—laid the first course in the foundation of the Church, and were careful to recognise and build only one foundation, united and held together by the one corner-stone—Christ Jesus. They fixed the pattern and standard of Christian doctrine and practice. The Christian Church is sure because the foundation is deep and broad, and can never be removed and replaced by any human structure.
III. Ever rising to a higher perfection (Eph_2:21).—The image is that of an extensive pile of buildings, such as the ancient temples commonly were, in process of construction at different points over a wide area. The builders work in concert upon a common plan. The several parts of the work are adjusted to each other, and the various operations in process are so harmonised that the entire construction preserves the unity of the architect’s design. Such an edifice was the apostolic Church—one but of many parts—in its diverse gifts and multiplied activities animated by one Spirit and directed towards one divine purpose (Findlay). Since the Day of Pentecost, when three thousand living stones were laid on the foundation, the Church has been growing in symmetry, beauty, and vastness, and it is constantly advancing towards perfection. The building, though apparently disjoined and working in separate parts, is growing into a final unity.
IV. Made by the Spirit His glorious dwelling-place (Eph_2:22).—The Holy Spirit is the supreme Builder as He is the supreme Witness to Jesus Christ (Joh_15:26-27). The words “in the Spirit” denote not the mode of God’s habitation—that is self-evident—but the agency engaged in building this new house of God. With one chief corner-stone to rest upon, and one Spirit to inspire and control them, the apostles and prophets laid their foundation, and the Church was builded together for a habitation of God. Hence its unity. But for this sovereign influence the primitive founders of Christianity, like later Church leaders, would have fallen into fatal discord (Findlay). The Church is a spiritual organisation, pervaded and made vital and progressive by the presence and operation of the Spirit of God. An organ is composed of several instruments—the choir, the swell, the pedal, the great; and many stops—the diapason, the flute, the trumpet; and yet it is one. And the Church of God is one. One Spirit—one breath of wind turned on by one living Hand—makes all the organ vocal.
Lessons.—
1. The Church is the depositary of great religious privileges.
2. God dwells in the Church by dwelling in the heart of every member of it.
3. The Church provides every facility for worship and service.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Eph_2:19-22. The Church of God a Spiritual Building.
I. The apostle represents the Church of God under the figure of a city and a household.—
1. A Church must resemble a family or city in respect of order and government; for without these a religious society can no more subsist than a civil community or a household.
2. In a city or household all the members have a mutual relation and partake in the common privileges; and though they are placed in different stations and conditions, they must all contribute to the general happiness.
3. In a city and also in a family there is a common interest.
4. In a well-ordered city or household there will be peace and unity; so there ought to be in a Christian Church.
II. The manner in which the Church is founded.—The mediation of Christ is the foundation of our faith and hope. The apostles and prophets are a foundation only as they describe and exhibit to us the doctrines and works, the atonement and intercession, of the Redeemer. In Him all the doctrines of the apostles and prophets meet and unite, as the stones in the foundation are fixed and bound together by the corner-stone.
III. The Church must be united with and framed into the foundation.—Thus it may stand secure. Christ is the chief corner-stone in which all the building is framed. That only is true faith in Christ which regards Him as the foundation of our present hope and final acceptance.
IV. As the Church must rest on the foundation, so the several parts of it must be framed and inserted into each other.—As it is faith which fixes the saints on Christ the foundation, so it is love which binds them together among themselves. If we would preserve the beauty, strength, and dignity of the spiritual house, we must be watchful to repair breaches as soon as they appear, and to remove those materials which are become too corrupt to be repaired, lest they communicate their own corruption to sounder parts.
V. The Church is to grow into a holy temple for God through the Spirit.—We must not content ourselves with having built on the true foundation, but must bring the structure to a more finished and beautiful condition. The Church may grow and make increase both by the progress of its present members in knowledge and holiness and by the addition of new members who become fellow-workers in the spiritual building. God dwells in His Church, not only by His word and ordinances, but also by the influence of His Spirit which He affords to assist His people in the duties of His worship and to open their hearts for the reception of His word.—Lathrop.
Eph_2:19. Christian Prayer a Witness of Christian Citizenship.
I. The foundation of the citizenship of the Christian.—In access to the Father—in the power of approaching Him in full, free, trustful prayer.
1. Christian prayer is the approach of the individual soul to God as its Father.—Until a man utterly believes in Christ he can never pray aright. There are veils around the unbelieving spirit which hinder this free, confiding approach. The touch of God startles memories, rouses ghosts of the past in the soul’s secret chambers; they flutter fearfully in the strange divine light, and the man shudders and dare not pray. A man bathed in the life of God in prayer feels he is no more a stranger and a foreigner, but has entered into God’s kingdom, for God is his Father.
2. That prayer of the individual soul must lead to the united worship of God’s Church.—We cannot always pray alone. The men who stand most aloof from social worship are not the men who manifest the highest spiritual life. Our highest prayers are our most universal. I do not say we don’t feel their individuality, we do—but in and through their universality.
II. The nature of Christian citizenship.—
1. Prayer a witness to our fellowship with the Church of all time. Realising the Fatherhood of God in the holy converse of prayer, we are nearer men. Our selfishness, our narrow, isolating peculiarities begin to fade. In our highest prayers we realise common wants.
2. Prayer a witness to our fellowship with the Church of eternity.—All emotions of eternity catch the tone of prayer. Sometimes in the evening, when the sounds of the world are still and the sense of eternity breaks in upon us, is not that feeling a prayer? We know that we are right, that in worship we have taken no earthly posture, but an attitude from higher regions.
Lessons.—
1. Live as members of the kingdom.
2. Expect the signs of citizenship—the crown of thorns, the cross.
3. Live in hope of the final ingathering.—E. L. Hull.
The Communion of Saints.
I. Society becomes possible only through religion.—Men might be gregarious without it, but not social. Instinct which unites them in detail prevents their wider combination. Intellect affords light to show the elements of union, but no heat to give them crystalline form. Self-will is prevailingly a repulsive power, and often disintegrates the most solid of human masses. Some sense of a divine Presence, some consciousness of a higher law, some pressure of a solemn necessity, will be found to have preceded the organisation of every human community and to have gone out and perished before its death.
II. Worship exhibits its uniting principle under the simplest form, in the sympathies it diffuses among the members of the same religious assembly.—There is, however, no necessary fellowship, as of saints, in the mere assembling of ourselves together; but only in the true and simple spirit of worship. Where a pure devotion really exists, the fellowship it produces spreads far beyond the separate circle of each Christian assembly. Surely it is a glorious thing to call up, while we worship, the wide image of Christendom this day. Could we be lifted up above this sphere and look down as it rolls beneath this day’s sun, and catch its murmurs as they rise, should we not behold land after land turned into a Christian shrine? In how many tongues, by what various voices, with what measureless intensity of love, is the name of Christ breathed forth to-day!
III. But our worship here brings us into yet nobler connections.—It unites us by a chain of closest sympathy with past generations. In our helps to faith and devotion we avail ourselves of the thought and piety of many extinct ages. Do not we, the living, take up in adoration and prayer the thoughts of the dead and find them divinely true? What an impressive testimony is this to the sameness of our nature through every age and the immortal perseverance of its holier affections!
IV. And soon we too shall drop the note of earthly aspiration and join that upper anthem of diviner love.—The communion of saints brings us to their conflict first, their blessings afterwards. Those who will not with much patience strive with the evil can have no dear fellowship with the good; we must weep their tears ere we can win their peace.—Martineau.
Characteristics of Believers.
I. Believers are here described as having been strangers and foreigners.—
1. There are relative expressions, meaning that natural men are strangers to the household of God and foreigners as respects the city of Zion.
2. Consider the natural man with reference to the city of Zion, and the truth of this representation will appear.
(1) He is a stranger and foreigner—(a) By a sentence of exile (Genesis 3). (b) By birth (Gen_5:3; Joh_3:6).
(2) He is proved to be a stranger and foreigner—(a) By features (Gal_5:19-21). (b) By manners (1Pe_4:3). (c) By language. As such he is under another ruler (Eph_2:2), he is at war (Gal_4:29).
3. Though “strangers and foreigners” in relation to Zion, yet men are naturalised in another country.
4. This does not imply living beyond the pale of the visible Church. The Parable of the Tares. An alien to the saints and a stranger to God may be in the visible Church. 5. That there are “strangers and foreigners” in the Church seems a calamity.
(1) They are thereby deceived.
(2) They injure Christians.
(3) They betray Christ.
II. Believers are described as being fellow-citizens with the saints.—
1. They are citizens.
(1) Their sentence of exile is cancelled (Eph_2:13).
(2) They are naturalised by birth (Joh_3:5).
(3) They are reconciled to God and believers.
(4) They are under Zion’s government.
2. They are “fellow-citizens with the saints.”
(1) They have intercourse—holy.
(2) They are united by mutual love.
(3) They have reciprocal duties.
(4) They have common rights and privileges.
(5) They have common honour and reputation.
(6) They have common prosperity and adversity.
(7) They have common enemies.
(8) They have common defence and safety.
(9) They have a common history.
3. As a congregation we are professedly a section of this peculiar and spiritual community.
(1) Do we seek each other’s welfare?
(2) Is our intercourse the communion of saints?
(3) Are we careful of each other’s reputation?
4. Are we as a congregation isolating ourselves from each other? Are we “fellow-citizens with the saints”?
5. The city is above.
III. Believers are here described as belonging to the household of God.—
1. Believers as citizens are God’s subjects.
2. As belonging to God’s household they are His children.
3. As in God’s household—
(1) They are like Him.
(2) They are near to Him.
(3) They see His face.
(4) They enjoy His fellowship.
(5) They are provided for by Him.
(6) They are under His protection.
(7) They serve Him.
(8) They worship Him—His house is a temple.
4. These are very tangible privileges, and belong to this present life.
5. Many may suppose that they are “fellow-citizens with the saints” whose experience does not prove that they are “of the household of God.”
6. For this “household” God has “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”—Stewart.
Eph_2:20-21. The Church a Divine Edifice.—
1. Though God Himself be the principal Author and Builder of this spiritual edifice, yet He employs His called ministers and servants as instruments, among whom He made special use of the prophets and apostles for laying the foundation in so far as they first did reveal and preach Jesus Christ, and commit to writings such truths concerning Him as are necessary for salvation, while other ministers are employed in preaching Christ to build up the elect on the foundation laid by them.
2. There is a sweet harmony and full agreement between the doctrines and writings of the prophets and apostles in holding forth Christ for a foundation and rock of salvation, the latter having taught and written nothing but what was prefigured in types and foretold in prophecies by the former.
3. As growth in grace is a privilege which appertains to all parts of this spiritual building who are yet on earth, so this growth of theirs flows from their union and communion with Christ; and the more their union is improved by daily extracting renewed influence from Him, they cannot choose but thrive the better in spiritual growth.—Fergusson.
Eph_2:22. The Church the Habitation of God.—
1. Jesus Christ differs from the foundation of other buildings in this, that every particular believer is not only laid upon Him and supported by Him as in material buildings, but they are also indented in Him, and hid, as it were, in the clefts of the rock by saving faith.
2. As all believers, however far soever removed by distance, are yet more strictly tied and joined together, so by taking band with Christ the foundation, they are fastened one to another as the stones of a building.
3. So inseparable is the union among the persons of the Trinity that the presence and indwelling of One is sufficient to prove the indwelling of all; for believers are a habitation to God the Father and Son, because the Spirit dwells in and sanctifies them.—Ibid.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv17, 19 From these inspired statements we have the clear and…
ARGUMENT 10
THE CROSS SETTLES EVERYTHING
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From these inspired statements we have the clear and unequivocal revelation that when Christ died on the cross, he utterly destroyed human depravity (i.e., made ample provisions for its total extermination), eternally nullifying all human authority, as involved in the word “ordinances,” which does not mean Divine ordinances, but human creeds, decrees, opinions, and authorities, which have put a thousand heavy yokes of spiritual tyranny and despotism on the necks of all ages and nations.
The cross of Christ not only redeems the world from all sin, which is the devil’s yoke of bondage, but from all human usurpations, institutions, and authorities, sweeping forever from the field of controversy every autocrat, whether human or diabolical, and thus completely and eternally emancipating every human being in every land and climate. Therefore, there is nothing left for the vilest reprobate and the most menial vassal of Satan’s drudgery and the most cringing servitor of ecclesiastical despotism, but to look up to the cross, claim your freedom, and raise the shout of victory. There is nothing left for you to do but shout, since your Omnipotent Christ has heroically done everything else. He has braved the storms of earth and hell, conquered sin, Satan, men, and devils, leaving nothing for you to do but accept the victory and raise the shout.
17,18. We see here that the Jews, though sunk deep in dead formality and hollow hypocrisy, were nearer God than the heathen world. Though the popular Churches of the present day are in the same awful dilemma, they are nearer God and more accessible to the truth than the infidel, pleasure- seeking, worldly rabble. “Through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” The Holy Ghost is the Divine personality of God on the earth, sent forth by the Father sitting on the throne of the universe, and the Son encumbering the mediatorial kingdom. He alone can reveal the Son, and through him give us access to the Father. Hence, in the nature of the Divine economy, the rejection of the Holy Ghost is the awful finale, out of which there is no retreat; i.e., the unpardonable sin.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v20
EPHESIANS
‘THE CHIEF CORNER-STONE’
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Eph 2:20
The Roman Empire had in Paul’s time gathered into a great unity the Asiatics of Ephesus, the Greeks of Corinth, the Jews of Palestine, and men of many another race, but grand and imposing as that great unity was, it was to Paul a poor thing compared with the oneness of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Asiatics of Ephesus, Greeks of Corinth, Jews of Palestine and members of many another race could say, ‘Our citizenship is in heaven.’ The Roman Eagle swept over wide regions in her flight, but the Dove of Peace, sent forth from Christ’s hand, travelled further than she. As Paul says in the context, the Ephesians had been strangers, ‘aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,’ wandering like the remnants of some ‘broken clans,’ but now they are gathered in. That narrow community of the Jewish nation has expanded its bounds and become the mother-country of believing souls, the true ‘island of saints.’ It was not Rome which really made all peoples one, but it was the weakest and most despised of her subject races. ‘Of Zion it shall be said,’ ‘Lo! this and that man was born in her.’
To emphasise the thought of the great unity of the Church, the Apostle uses here his often-repeated metaphor of a temple, of which the Ephesian Christians are the stones, apostles and prophets the builders, and Christ Himself the chief corner-stone. Of course the representation of the foundation, as being laid by apostles and prophets, refers to them as proclaiming the Gospel. The real laying of the foundation is the work of the divine power and love which gave us Christ, and it is the Divine Voice which proclaims, ‘Behold I lay in Zion a foundation!’ But that divine work has to be made known among men, and it is by the making of it known that the building rises course by course. There is no contradiction between the two statements, ‘I have laid the foundation’ and Paul’s ‘As a wise master-builder I have laid the foundation.’
A question may here rise as to the meaning of ‘prophets.’ Unquestionably the expression in other places of the Epistle does mean New Testament prophets, but seeing that here Jesus is designated as the foundation stone which, standing beneath two walls, has a face into each, and binds them strongly together, it is more natural to see in the prophets the representatives of the great teachers of the old dispensation as the apostles were of the new. The remarkable order in which these two classes are named, the apostles being first, and the prophets who were first in time being last in order of mention, confirms this explanation, for the two co-operating classes are named in the order in which they lie in the foundation. Digging down you come to the more recent first, to the earlier second, and deep and massive, beneath all, to the corner-stone on whom all rests, in whom all are united together. Following the Apostle’s order we may note the process of building; beneath that, the foundation on which the building rests; and beneath it, the corner-stone which underlies and unites the whole.
I. The process of building.
In the previous clauses the Apostle has represented the condition of the Ephesian Christians before their Christianity as being that of strangers and foreigners, lacking the rights of citizenship anywhere, a mob rather than in any sense a society. They had been like a confused heap of stones flung fortuitously together; they had become fellow-citizens with the saints. The stones had been piled up into an orderly building. He is not ignoring the facts of national, political, or civic relationships which existed independent of the new unity realised in a common faith. These relationships could not be ignored by one who had had Paul’s experience of their formidable character as antagonists of him and of his message, but they seemed to him, in contrast with the still deeper and far more perfect union, which was being brought about in Christ, of men of all nationalities and belonging to mutually hostile races, to be little better than the fortuitous union of a pile of stones huddled together on the roadside. Measured against the architecture of the Church, as Paul saw it in his lofty idealism, the aggregations of men in the world do not deserve the name of buildings. His point of view is the exact opposite of that which is common around us, and which, alas! finds but too much support in the present aspects of the so-called churches of this day.
It is to be observed that in our text these stones are, in accordance with the propriety of the metaphor, regarded as being built, that is, as in some sense the subjects of a force brought to bear upon them, which results in their being laid together in orderly fashion and according to a plan, but it is not to be forgotten that, according to the teaching, not of this epistle alone, but of all Paul’s letters, the living stones are active in the work of building, as well as beings subject to an influence. In another place of the New Testament we read the exhortation to ‘build up yourselves on your most holy faith,’ and the means of discharging that duty are set forth in the words which follow it; as being ‘Praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, and looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
Throughout the Pauline letters we have frequent references to edifying, a phrase which has been so vulgarised by much handling that its great meaning has been all but lost, but which still, rightly understood, presents the Christian life as one continuous effort after developing Christian character. Taking into view the whole of the apostolic references to this continuous process of building, we cannot but recognise that it all begins with the act of faith which brings men into immediate contact and vital union with Jesus Christ, and which is, if anything that a man does is, the act of his very inmost self passing out of its own isolation and resting itself on Jesus. It is by the vital and individual act of faith that any soul escapes from the dreary isolation of being a stranger and a foreigner, wandering, homeless and solitary, and finds through Jesus fellowship, an elder Brother, a Father, and a home populous with many brethren. But whilst faith is the condition of beginning the Christian life, which is the only real life, that life has to be continued and developed towards perfection by continuous effort. ‘Tis a life-long toil till the lump be leavened.’
One of the passages already referred to varies the metaphor of building, in so far as it seems to represent ‘your most holy faith’ as the foundation, and may be an instance of the doubtful New Testament usage of ‘faith,’ as meaning the believed Gospel, rather than the personal act of believing. But however that may be, context of the words clearly suggests the practical duties by which the Christian life is preserved and strengthened. They who build up themselves do so, mainly, by keeping themselves in the love of God with watchful oversight and continual preparedness for struggle against all foes who would drag them from that safe fortress, and subsidiarily, by like continuity in prayer, and in fixing their meek hope on the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. If Christian character is ever to be made more Christian, it must be by a firmer grasp and a more vivid realisation of Christ and His truth. The more we feel ourselves to be lapped in the love of God, the more shall we be builded up on our most holy faith. There is no mystery about the means of Christian progress. That which, at the beginning, made a man a Christian shapes his whole future course; the measure of our faith is the measure of our advance.
But the Apostle, in the immediately following words, goes on to pass beyond the bounds of his metaphor, and with complete indifference to the charge of mixing figures, speaks of the building as growing. That thought leads us into a higher region than that of effort. The process by which a great forest tree thickens its boles, expands the sweep of its branches and lifts them nearer the heavens, is very different from that by which a building rises slowly and toilsomely and with manifest incompleteness all the time, until the flag flies on the roof-tree. And if we had not this nobler thought of a possible advance by the increasing circulation within us of a mysterious life, there would be little gospel in a word which only enjoined effort as the condition of moral progress, and there would be little to choose between Paul and Plato. He goes on immediately to bring out more fully what he means by the growth of the building, when he says that if Christians are in Christ, they are ‘built up for an habitation of God in the Spirit.’ Union with Christ, and a consequent life in the Spirit, are sure to result in the growth of the individual soul and of the collective community. That divine Spirit dwells in and works through every believing soul, and while it is possible to grieve and to quench It, to resist and even to neutralise Its workings, these are the true sources of all our growth in grace and knowledge. The process of building may be and will be slow. Sometimes lurking enemies will pull down in a night what we have laboured at for many days. Often our hands will be slack and our hearts will droop. We shall often be tempted to think that our progress is so slow that it is doubtful if we have ever been on the foundation at all or have been building at all. But ‘the Spirit helpeth our infirmities,’ and the task is not ours alone but His in us. We have to recognise that effort is inseparable from building, but we have also to remember that growth depends on the free circulation of life, and that if we are, and abide in, Jesus, we cannot but be built ‘for an habitation of God in the Spirit.’ We may be sure that whatever may be the gaps and shortcomings in the structures that we rear here, none will be able to say of us at the last, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’
II. The foundation on which the building rests.
In the Greek, as in our version, there is no definite article before ‘prophets,’ and its absence indicates that both sets of persons here mentioned come under the common vinculum of the one definite article preceding the first named. So that apostles and prophets belong to one class. It may be a question whether the foundation is theirs in the sense that they constitute it, an explanation in favour of which can be quoted the vision in the Apocalypse of the new Jerusalem, in the twelve foundations of which were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, or whether, as is more probable, the foundation is conceived of as laid by them. In like manner the Apostle speaks to the Corinthians of having ‘as a wise master-builder laid the foundation,’ and to the Romans of making it his aim to preach especially where Christ was not already named, that he might ‘not build upon another man’s foundation.’ Following these indications, it seems best to understand the preaching of the Gospel as being the laying of the foundation.
Further, the question may be raised whether the prophets here mentioned belong to the Old Testament or to the New. The latter alternative has been preferred on the ground that the apostles are named first, but, as we have already noticed, the order here begins at the top and goes downwards, what was last in order of time being first in order of mention. We need only recall Peter’s bold words that ‘all the prophets, as many as have spoken, have told of the days’ of Christ, or Paul’s sermon in the synagogue of Antioch in which he passionately insisted on the Jewish crime of condemning Christ as being the fulfilment of the voices of the prophets, and of the Resurrection of Jesus as being God’s fulfilment of the promise made unto the fathers to understand how here, as it were, beneath the foundation laid by the present preaching of the apostles, Paul rejoices to discern the ancient stones firmly laid by long dead hands.
The Apostle’s strongest conviction was that he himself had become more and not less of a Jew by becoming a Christian, and that the Gospel which he preached was nothing more than the perfecting of that Gospel before the Gospel, which had come from the lips of the prophets. We know a great deal more than he did as to the ways in which the progressive divine revelation was presented to Israel through the ages, and some of us are tempted to think that we know more than we do, but the true bearing of modern criticism, as applied to the Old Testament, is to confirm, even whilst it may to some extent modify, the conviction common to all the New Testament writers, and formulated by the last of the New Testament prophets, that ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’ Whatever new light may shine on the questions of the origin and composition of the books of the Old Testament, it will never obscure the radiance of the majestic figure of the Messiah which shines from the prophetic page. The inner relation between the foundation of the apostles and that of the prophets is best set forth in the solemn colloquy on the Mount of Transfiguration between Moses and Elias and Jesus. They ‘were with Him’ as witnessing to Him to whom law and ritual and prophecy had pointed, and they ‘spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem’ as being the vital centre of all His work which the lambs slain according to ritual had foreshadowed, and the prophetic figure of the Servant of the Lord ‘wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities’ had more distinctly foretold.
III. The corner-stone which underlies and unites the whole.
Of course the corner-stone here is the foundation-stone and not ‘the head-stone of the corner.’ Jesus Christ is both. He is the first and the last; the Alpha and Omega. In accordance with the whole context, in which the prevailing idea is that which always fired Paul’s imagination, viz. that of reconciling Jew and Gentile in one new man, it is best to suppose a reference here to the union of Jew and Gentile. The stone laid beneath the two walls which diverge at right angles from each other binds both together and gives strength and cohesion to the whole. In the previous context the same idea is set forth that Christ ‘preached peace to them that were afar off {Gentiles} and to them that were nigh {Jews}.’ By His death He broke down another wall, the middle wall of partition between them, and did so by abolishing ‘the law of commandments contained in ordinances.’ The old distinction between Jew and Gentile, which was accentuated by the Jew’s rigid observance of ordinances and which often led to bitter hatred on both sides, was swept away in that strange new thing, a community of believers drawn together in Jesus Christ. The former antagonistic ‘twain’ had become one in a third order of man, the Christian man. The Jew Christian and the Gentile Christian became brethren because they had received one new life, and they who had common feelings of faith and love to the same Saviour, a common character drawn from Him, and a common destiny open to them by their common relation to Jesus, could never cherish the old emotions of racial hate.
When we, in this day, try to picture to ourselves that strange new thing, the love which bound the early Christians together and buried as beneath a rushing flood the formidable walls of separation between them, we may well penitently ask ourselves how it comes that Jesus seems to have so much less power to triumph over the divisive forces that part us from those who should be our hearts’ brothers. In our modern life there are no such gulfs of separation from one another as were filled up unconsciously in the experience of the first believers, but the narrower chinks seem to remain in their ugliness between those who profess a common faith in one Lord, and who are all ready to assert that they are built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, and that Jesus Christ is from them the chief corner-stone.
If in reality He is so to us, and He is so if we have been builded upon Him through our faith, the metaphor of corner-stone and building will fail to express the reality of our relation to Him, for our corner-stone has in it an infinite vitality which rises up through all the courses of the living stones, and moulds each ‘into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.’ So it shall be for each individual, though here the appropriation of the perfect gift is imperfect. So it shall be in reference to the history of the world. Christ is its centre and foundation-stone, and as His coming makes the date from which the nations reckon, and all before it was in the deepest sense preparatory to His incarnation, all which is after it is in the deepest sense the appropriating of Him and the developing of His work. The multitudes which went before and that followed cried, saying, ‘Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v15 new man
new man
Here the "new man" is not the individual believer but the church, considered as the body of Christ in the sense of Eph 1:22; Eph 1:23; 1Co 12:12; 1Co 12:13; Col 3:10; Col 3:11. (See Scofield "Heb 12:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv14, 19 The reconciliation effected by Christ:
The reconciliation effected by Christ:
v. 14. For he is our Peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us,
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v. 15. having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
v. 16. and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross, having slain the enmity there by;
v. 17. and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
v. 18. For through Him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.
The thought of the passage is that God, by the redemption of Christ, has gathered His Church out of Jews and Gentiles. So far as the present relation between Jews and Gentiles in the congregation is concerned, Paul writes: For He Himself is our Peace, who made both one and broke own the dividing wall of separation, the enmity, in His flesh. Jesus Christ is our Peace, He established peace between the two parties that seemed irreconcilable, between Jews and Gentiles. This great object of His life he brought about by uniting the two contending parties in one perfect unit. This He did by removing completely the wall, or partition, which separated Jews and Gentiles and caused constant enmity. The Mosaic Law, with all its precepts, institutions, and ceremonies, was a fence, or wall, which shut off the people of Israel from the Gentiles, which shut out the heathen from the privileges of the Jews. Christ abolished the Ceremonial Law and fulfilled the Moral Law.
This the apostle explains: (He removed the wall) by abolishing the enmity in His flesh, the law of commandments in ordinances. In His flesh, by the sufferings of His body, by going into death for the sins of the world, Christ has put the Law out of commission, He Bas abrogated the divine Law as a master of men. The curse, the guilt, the punishment lay upon Him, and so the Law has expended its might and power in His case. See Rom 7:6. Incidentally, Christ removed the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. The separation between the two could not exist without hostility, especially since the Ceremonial Law was a law of precepts in ordinances, and as such challenged opposition and enmity. The Gentiles were deterred from joining the people of God by the prospect of being kept in bondage by the countless and detailed instructions of the Law which governed the minutest acts of daily life, even as today people are not brought into church by the preaching of the Law. So Christ’s purpose in abrogating the Law was: That He might create the two in Himself to one new man, making peace. By making peace between the two estranged parties in the manner described, Christ brought about a union of the Jews and Gentiles to a unit, a gathering of the Christian Church from the Israel according to the flesh as well as from the Gentile nations. The holy Christian Church thus formed is the one body of Christ, and Christ’s work in bringing about this union is an evidence of His creative power.
In the same way and with the same object Jesus effected still more: And (that He) reconcile both in one body to God, having through the Cross killed the enmity in Himself. The word "reconciliation" in this connection does not refer to the removal of the hostile relation between God and man as much as to the abrogation of man’s hostile position and conduct over against God. It was Christ’s intention to bring both Jews and Gentiles before God as a unit people, as a single body, thus establishing perfect communion with God. This plan seemed destined for success from the start because Christ in Himself, by giving Himself into death, killed and removed the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. By sacrificing Himself and becoming obedient even to the death on the cross, He removed the obstacle that stood in the way of peace, the Law, which engendered hostility, thus making way for the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body, thus bringing about the perfect harmony of an evenly balanced and developed organic whole.
How this intention of Christ was realized and is being realized, Paul states: And thus He came and preached peace to you that were afar off and peace to those that were near. Having obtained a perfect redemption for all men, having removed the cause of disharmony and hostility, Jesus now comes in and through the Spirit, Joh 14:18; Act 26:23, in the Gospel. Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is personally present in and with the message of grace as it is preached throughout the world, and through this Word speaks to the hearts of men. It is a good, a joyful news, and its content is peace with God, the salvation earned by Christ on the cross with His suffering and death. This peace is now freely proclaimed to those that formerly were strange and distant, far from the chosen people of God and unacquainted with the evangelical promises, but also to those to whom the preaching of the Kingdom was entrusted of old: to Gentiles and to Jews Christ has proclaimed one and the same peace and thus restored peace between them. All believers in Christ are now united by the bond of this common knowledge and faith. Of them all together it holds true: For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. To this the experience of both Jews and Gentiles will cause them to agree. Christ is the Way; through Him the way to the Father is opened, through Him all have become partakers of the one Spirit. This unity of the Spirit, the unity of the sonship of God, the same right as children toward the Father of Jesus Christ, that is the bond which unites Jews and Gentiles, all the members of the Church of Christ. They all address Him: Abba, Father, with the same certainty of being heard, for all hindrances have been removed.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 19 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul tells the Ephesian believers that present Gentile believers are also now made one with the Jewish apostles and prophets; they are a temple for God in the Spirit.
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proclaimed peace
"announced the gospel of peace" or "declared the gospel of peace"
you who were far away
This refers to the Gentiles or non-Jews.
those who were near
This refers to the Jews.
For through Jesus we both have access
Here "we both" refers to Paul, the believing Jews, and the believing non-Jews. (See: Inclusive "We")
in one Spirit
All believers, both Jewish and Gentile, are given the right to enter into the presence of God the Father by the same Holy Spirit.
translationWords
preach
Holy Spirit
God the Father
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14–21 2:14 Christ himself has brought peace to us: Peace…
2:14 Christ himself has brought peace to us: Peace with God (2:16-17; Rom 5:1, 10-11, 18-21; Col 1:20-22) and between Jews and Gentiles (see Eph 2:15-16; 4:3). • the wall of hostility that separated us: Social and religious practices traditionally divided Jews from Gentiles. A low wall around the Temple in Jerusalem marked the boundary beyond which Gentiles were not allowed to step. It symbolized the distinction Jews drew between themselves and Gentiles.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.