The apostle first stated the reality of the union of all believers in Christ (vv. 11-13). Then he explained what this involves (vv. 14-18). Finally he described the consequences of this union (vv. 19-22).
2:11 In view of what God has done for us in changing us, we Gentile believers need to remember certain things. Paul used "flesh"here in the literal sense (i.e., the body) rather than in one of its metaphorical sense (i.e., the sinful human nature or all that we are in Adam). Great differences existed between Jewish and Gentile believers before the Cross.
"The one word that best describes the Gentiles is without. They were outside' in several respects."58
2:12 Paul listed five privileges Gentile believers did not enjoy that Jewish believers did enjoy before the Cross. First, Gentile believers were separate from Christ, Messiah. They had no corporate national hope centered in a Messiah as the Jews did. Second, God excluded them as a people from citizenship in Israel. Individual Gentiles could become members of the nation of Israel, but as a whole the Gentiles had no part in what God planned to do in and through Israel. The Gentiles were aliens from Israel in this sense. Third, they had no direct part in the promises of God to Israel contained in the biblical covenants (Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic).59Fourth, as a people they had no corporate future promised by God to which they could look and in which they could hope as Israel did. Fifth, they were separate from God. In contrast God had reached out to Israel and drawn her to Himself.
2:13 "But"points to another great contrast (cf. v. 4). Because of Jesus Christ's death God has brought Gentiles near to Himself and to the Jews in a sense never before true. Sin results in death and separation. However, Christ's obedience resulted in life and reconciliation with other people as well as with God for Gentiles.
There is obvious continuity between the redeemed people of God in the Old Testament and the redeemed people of God in the New Testament. However here Paul stressed the differences between these two groups.60Covenant theology stresses the continuity between the two groups whereas dispensational theology stresses the differences between them. Many covenant theologians deny these differences.
Essentially Jesus Christ's death has resulted in peace between Gentile believers and Jewish believers and peace between Gentile believers and God.
2:14 To understand this verse we must discover what dividing wall Paul had in mind. Perhaps it was the wall in Herod's Temple courtyard that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the Court of the Jews.61This seems improbable since that wall still stood and divided Jews and Gentiles when Paul wrote this epistle. Perhaps he had in mind the veil between the holy and most holy places in that temple. However, that veil--it was not a wall--did not separate Jews from Gentiles but people from God. It seems most probable that Paul had in mind a spiritual rather than a physical barrier that had separated Jews and Gentiles since Abraham's time. This is in harmony with Paul's emphasis on spiritual realities that marks Ephesians.
"This new institution does not dissolve ethnic distinctions, but displays reconciliation, with every believer equally qualified to share in the benefits of salvation and peace that emerge from the uniting of Jews and Gentiles into a new living community."62
This verse is a strong testimony to the fact that with the death of Jesus Christ God began dealing with humankind on a different basis than He had in the past. He now stopped working with and though the Jews and Judaism primarily (though temporarily, cf. Rom. 11). Instead He began dealing with Jews and Gentiles on the same basis, namely their faith in His Son. In others words, He began a new dispensation or administration in His dealings with humanity.
"When verse 14 says Christ is our peace, it means that Jesus is the source of restored relationships, not only between an individual and God but also between individuals. Now people form a new community, the household of God, which itself is compared to a holy temple, a sacred work of God (2:18-22)."63
2:15 The body of Jesus sacrificed on the cross terminated the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. It did so in the sense that when Jesus Christ died He fulfilled all the demands of the Mosaic Law. When He did that, God ended the Mosaic Law as His rule of life for the Jews. The word "abolished"(Gr. kataresas) means "rendered inoperative."The Mosaic Law ceased to be God's standard for regulating the life of His people (Rom. 10:4; et al.). The Mosaic Law had been the cause of the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. Its dietary distinctions and laws requiring separation in particular created hostility between Jews and Gentiles. The NASB translation implies that the law was the barrier. Really it was the cause of the barrier between Jews and Gentiles. Jesus Christ destroyed the barrier and the hostility that resulted from it by terminating the Mosaic Law.
Jesus Christ had two purposes in ending Jewish Gentile hostility. First, He wanted to "create"one new man, the church (v. 6), out of the two former groups, Jews and Gentiles (v. 11). In the church God does not deal with Gentiles as He did with the Jews, nor does He deal with the Jews as He did Gentiles. Jews do not become Gentiles nor do Gentiles become Jews. Rather God has created a whole new (Gr. kainon, fresh) entity, the church. In it believing Jews become Christians, and believing Gentiles become Christians. God deals with both believing Jews and believing Gentiles now equally as Christians.64
2:16 Jesus Christ's second purpose for ending Jewish Gentile hostility was to bring Jewish and Gentile believers to Himself in one body, the church. The Old Testament never spoke of Jewish and Gentile believers as being in one body. Ironically the Cross in one sense terminated Jesus, but Jesus terminated the enmity between Jews and Gentiles with the Cross. Not only have Jews and Gentiles experienced reconciliation with one another (v. 14), but they have also experienced reconciliation with God by the Cross (v. 16).
2:17 Not only is Jesus Christ our peace (v. 14), but He also preached peace. He preached the message of peace, the gospel, through His apostles following His ascension (cf. Acts 1:1-2, 8) to both Gentiles and Jews (vv. 12-13).
2:18 As a result of the Cross both Jewish and Gentile believers have access to God. Formerly access to God was through Judaism, but now it is by the Holy Spirit. As a result of Christ's death, all believers now have direct access to the Father (cf. 3:12; Rom. 5:2). The Holy Spirit gives Jewish and Gentile Christians equal access to God. Note that all three members of the Godhead appear again here.
Controversy over whether Gentile believers had to come to God through Judaism or whether they could come directly to God as Gentiles raged in the early church (Acts 15:1-5; Gal. 1-2). Paul gave the solution to this problem again here (cf. Acts 15:6-21; Gal. 3-4). God has made Jewish and Gentile believers one in the church (v. 14). He created a new entity, the church, out of two others, namely Jews and Gentiles (v. 15). Both kinds of believers experience reconciliation with each other in that body (v. 16), and both have access to God by one Spirit (v. 18).65
2:19 Because of this union Gentile believers are no longer strangers (foreigners) and aliens respecting Israel. They are fellow citizens with Jewish believers in the church, God's new household (1 Tim. 3:15). Christians are also fellow citizens of heaven with all the other saints of other ages.
2:20 Paul compared the church to a temple. It rests on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Evidently New Testament prophets are in view since the word "prophets"follows "apostles"(cf. 3:5; 4:11). These men constituted the foundation of the church since it was through them that God revealed and established the church. Until then He had not revealed or established it (3:5).
When Paul wrote, the cornerstone was the crucial part of the foundation of a building. It was the stone with which the builder squared up every other stone including the other foundation stones.66
"In the East it was considered to be even more important than the foundation."67
2:21 Paul pictured the church as under construction with God adding new believers constantly (cf. 4:15-16; Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:5). The individual stones represent believers, both Jewish and Gentile. Today God does not inhabit a physical temple somewhere on earth as He did in Old Testament times. He indwells His church, which is a spiritual temple spread over all the earth. It began on the day of Pentecost, and it will continue until the Rapture (1 Thess. 4:13-18). As physical temples glorified the gods they represented in ancient times, so the church glorifies God today.
Paul may very well have used the illustration of a temple because the temple of Artemis in Ephesus was the city's most outstanding claim to fame. It was four times as big as the Parthenon that still stands in Athens. One hundred twenty white columns rose 60 feet high and surrounded an image of the goddess Artemis (Diana). Authorities still regard this temple as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (cf. Acts 19:23-41).
2:22 The Holy Spirit indwells the church universal. He, of course, also indwells ever believer individually (John 14:17; Rom. 5:5; 8:9, 11; 1 Cor. 2:12; Gal. 3:2; 4:6; 1 John 3:24; 4:13). Paul also compared the individual believer to a temple of God elsewhere (1 Cor. 6:19). He also referred to the local Christian congregation as a temple (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16). However here he revealed that all Christians are part of one great temple, the church universal.
"Now His presence is dispersed, not localized. Now His presence is incarnated, instead of confined behind a veil."68
"What a fellowship rivets our gaze in the communion of saints! Where shall we find its like? Gathered from east and west, from patriarchs of the prior and laggards of the last times, from the courts of kings and the cabins of beggars, from babes-in-arms and centenarians, right honourables and ragamuffins, from the ranks of the learned and the ignorant, the pharisee and the publican, the sharp-witted and the feeble-minded, the respectable and the criminal classes--what a divine power must be put forth to mould all these incongruous elements into one consentient [united in opinion] whole, stamped with one regenerate likeness for evermore, the radiant image of the Alpha and Omega,' God's Yokefellow and theirs, coequally David's Son and David's Lord!"69
God's plan for believers included the building of a new entity after Jesus Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension (cf. Matt. 16:18). It was to be the church. The church is not just a continuation and modernization of Israel but a new creation (v. 15). In it Jewish and Gentile believers stand with equal rights and privileges before God. Membership in this new body is one of the great blessings of believers in the present age along with our individual blessings (vv. 1-10). Paul glorified God for that blessing in this section of Ephesians.
