The way Paul refers to his Ephesian friends doesn't look very complementary. (v.11) "Paul, you're slipping up here... making a big thing of the difference between Jew and non Jew. We need to understand how huge was the separation that existed. Think of the divisions that exist today: race, language, customs and habits, behaviour, cultural identity, sexuality, food, religion. The sense of division couldn't be much worse than that Paul refers to between Jew and Gentile. It was racial, national; it was about the identity of a group of people; it was about language, customs, habits. It was about religion, expressed particularly in ideas of religious purity. It was about conviction: the certain belief for Jews that everyone else was separated from God. Born in the wrong place, to the wrong family, and the Jewish outlook was "We cannot accept you, because God doesn't accept you."And Paul knows he's on difficult territory. He is distinctly unhappy with that divided way of looking at things - and people. He admits it when he says "you were called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcised" and when he says that circumcision is just something done to a man's body. It doesn't mean anything of spiritual significance.
But he still goes on...(v. 12)
Whatever you want to say about circumcision just being a bit of surgery done to the body, Paul still goes on to force the point. See verse 12. The gentiles were genuinely lost and genuinely far away from Christ. For special place of Jews see Rom 9. 4f. They had covenants, law, and promises from God. He spoke to their patriarchs. Humanly speaking, Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the Christ. So the Gentiles, people like the Ephesians, were really and truly lost. The Jews at least had some hope, because they had the promise of the Messiah coming. That gave them the responsibility for how they would respond to the Messiah. But without that promise, the Gentiles were completely hopeless and Godless. This division, then was a very real thing.
But now...(v. 13)
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| ... and After |
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| Before... |
Jesus is our peace!
Jesus is our peace. He shows us what peace is like. He gives us it. He embodies it. Jesus the "Prince of Peace" (Isa 9. 6) is peace in person. To know Jesus is to know peace itself. The Old Testament word, "Shalom" means every kind of peace. It means the end of fighting. It means relationships are sorted out. It means harmony and wholeness and healing. Paul is particularly interested in reconciliation. Great news for the Ephesians who were once on the wrong side of the fence. But they have not just been brought inside the fence, through Jesus' blood. The fence no longer exists. The fence means the law, the rulebook. Paul is thinking about the fence between us and God. And he is thinking about the fence between Jew and non-Jew. He isn't just talking about their salvation. He is talking about the miracle of reconciliation. Humanity was divided, by this wall, this fence, between the race who were God's people and everyone else. But now that divide has been broken down. Jesus has made two things into one thing. He has made one new person, a new humanity. That's the direct, unmistakable outcome of being a new person in Christ, of being raised to new life and seated in the heavenly places in Christ. Each person who knows Jesus, is part of God's new humanity, a new, fresh, united, redeemed version of the human race where all the old dividing walls, of race, language, culture, food, customs, gender, are all done away with. We are a new rainbow humanity that is black, brown and white, male and female, old and young, able-bodied and disabled. We are one new humanity. When Jesus died, the hostility, the divisions, the disunity died too, on the cross. Isn't that amazing? That peace is something for those who were near, like the Jews. It is something for those who were far away, like the Gentiles. We all have access in one Spirit to the Father.
No longer strangers...
Paul summarises his big point. The Ephesians are no longer foreigners, people who are not at home. They are fully integrated, fully counted in to the new humanity, into the Church of God. Paul is getting excited about the kind of life that should be seen in this new humanity, the Church.
We the Church - all together - are
* Fellow citizens in a new kingdom. Every believer belongs. No Christian is an outsider, a foreigner, a person away from home. No Christian is a partial citizen, a second-class citizen in the new community. Every Christian is a full member of the new nation.
* Members of a household. Every believer is a full member of the family. Nobody stands and watches while the family has a meal together. Nobody's sleeping on the couch. Everyone is a member of the household.
* Built into a house/temple. Every believer is part of the structure of the church. (v. 20a). Every time someone comes to Jesus, the temple grows, a new brick or plank is put in place. We are "fitted together", (v 21: the word can apply either to a building or a body!) Every Christian is part of it.
* Founded on the same heritage. We are all built onto the same foundations of truth revealed through
o Apostles: those sent out by Jesus himself, and given responsibility for making sure that the Good News continued to travel outwards in mission.
o Prophets: those inspired by the Spirit to speak from god.
o Jesus: the "highest-corner", the most important stone.
The Church must always be founded on truth; it must always be moving outwards with the Good News; it must always be inspired by the Spirit and fully focussed on Jesus.
* A dwelling place for God. Just as God really inhabited the temple, in Christ God really inhabits the Church by the Spirit.
What is the Church?
It consists of people who "once were lost but now are found" all of us. It holds together despite differences through the reconciliation that Jesus has achieved. It is the New Humanity. It is this body/household/house, where God dwells. Amen?
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