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Ephesians 2:11-22
! Introduction
Last week there was a terrible story of war which came out of Afghanistan.
It seems that an American soldier took it upon himself to kill a bunch of civilians in their homes.
What is even worse is that the acrimony between Americans and Afghans is so bad that Americans will be blamed even though it was the act of one man.
Our world provides so many terrible stories of war, like those coming out of Sudan which has seen war for the lifetime of most people under 50 years of age.
Many of these stories of war are so horrible and so intense that we wonder if there will ever be peace in these regions.
But then we remember that there have been other places where we thought war would never end.
For example, remember Northern Ireland?
Today we seldom hear about conflicts there.
It seems they have found peace.
In the last while we have been talking about Jesus and today we will look at Ephesians 2:11-22.
Once again, we will talk about Jesus and wonder at the way in which He is our peace.
There is a common method of writing in the Bible called a chiasm.
Basically a chiasm is a way of structuring material by repeating it.
Sometimes theme A is followed by theme B which is followed by theme B again and then concluding with theme A. In the chiasm in this passage, we have the following structure.
A
B
C
B
A
What happens is that the theme at the center is the most important idea.
It is like an arrow pointing to the most important thing.
Tom Neufeld points out how it happens in this passage.
A –Once you were strangers and aliens without God (2:11–12)
B - Christ has brought near the far (2:13)
C - Christ is our peace (2:14–16)
B’ - Christ proclaimed peace to the far and the near (2:17–18)
A’ – Now you are no longer strangers, but part of God’s home (2:19–22)
So we will look at both ends of theme A first of all and then end by looking at the center, which once again allows us to focus on Jesus and what He has done.
!
I. What You Were 11,12
The history of hatred between Jews and Gentiles goes back all the way to the time when Israel came out of Egypt and God told them to destroy the nations and not to intermarry with the nations.
As they failed to live up to that separation and began to follow the gods of the nations, God exiled them to Babylon and when they returned, they became even more insistent upon holiness and separation.
One feature of conflict is the language of separation.
The technique the Jews used was that of name calling.
Jews referred to the Gentiles as "uncircumcision."
Yet we notice that Paul does an interesting thing as he refers to the name calling indicating that circumcision is done by those who are circumcised, but only in a physical sense.
Wood says, "As a Jew, however, he is quick to point out that the self-styled circumcisionists have nothing to boast about, since an external man-made mark in itself holds no spiritual significance.
The real circumcision is of the heart (Gal 5:6)."
The separation between Jew and Gentile involved separation, hatred and conflict, but the Gentiles also had some serious debits.
The Gentiles were without Christ.
That is not to say that they were without Jesus.
Rather, they were without Messiah, which is what Christ means.
The promises about someone who would come to redeem humanity were promises which were made to the Jewish people and the Gentiles had no knowledge of the coming Messiah.
The people of Israel were God's chosen people.
He had indicated that Israel was chosen as the nation to which God would pay special attention.
Abraham received promises that he would become a great nation and that God would bless him.
Although the promises to Abraham included promises to the nations, those promises were always through Israel and the nations did not know of those promises.
Moses brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and led them to the promised land and on that journey they discovered God's special love for them.
The Gentiles did not have any of this knowledge.
Along the way God promised to lead them, to never forsake them and also made many other great promises to them.
The Gentiles were not only strangers to the people of God, they were strangers to all the promises which God had made to the people of God.
Because they did not know God's promises and because they did not belong to the people of God, the text also says that they were without hope.
Apart from a relationship to the living God, there is no hope and that is where the Gentiles found themselves.
The Greek word which is translated "without God" is the word from which we get our word "atheist."
Interestingly Gentiles referred to Jews as atheists because they had only one God and you could not see that God because there were no images of Him.
Yet the Jews believed that it was the Gentiles who were atheists because although they had many gods and many likenesses of gods, none of those gods were living.
Barth points out that the separation between Jews and Gentiles was ceremonial and external because Jews had circumcision and Gentiles did not.
It was political, legal, sociological and psychological because they did not have Messiah, were excluded from citizenship, were strangers and were bare of hope.
It was also theological in that they were without God.
!
II.
What We Are 18-22
Last week we read in Ephesians 2:1-10 that we were dead, BUT God made us alive.
Once again the word "but" appears in this text indicating the great change that has taken place.
!! A. We Have Access to the Father
In the Old Testament, Jews had access to the God because the temple was in their land.
Although they had access, that access was limited to the temple.
Gentiles, on the other hand, had no access to God.
When the curtain of the temple was torn in two on the day Jesus died, it symbolized that the way was now opened up for everyone into the presence of the Father.
The key idea of verse 18 is that both Jews and Gentiles now have access to God.
There is nothing that separates them.
No longer are Gentiles without God and without promises and without hope because they now have access to God.
That access is through the work of the Spirit who now enters into everyone who comes to Christ and because the Spirit of God indwells those who belong to Christ, we all have the same right to enter into God's presence.
!! B. Fellow Citizens With the Saints
If you have ever lived abroad or if you are an immigrant to Canada, you understand what it means not to be in your own country.
In those settings, you observe cultural differences and may have difficulty understanding things that everyone else assumes.
That is the separation once felt between Jews and Gentiles, but that is no longer the case.
Now, those who were strangers and aliens are fellow citizens with the saints.
They have become full citizens of the country of heaven.
During the last winter Olympics, Canada came together as a nation as never before.
We even had a song and with every win, we were more and more proud of being Canadian.
It was a great feeling of national belonging.
That sense is the reality that is ours because Jews and Gentiles are fellow citizens.
!! C. Members of God's Household
But the bond between Jews and Gentiles is even stronger than that of being fellow citizens.
The other word used here is "members of the household of God."
When we get together for a family gathering everyone knows they belong.
There is a comfort and a sense of belonging that is very deep.
Because God is our Father and every believer is our sister or brother, we are members of God's household and we belong to each other in that very close sense.
Neufeld says, "Gentiles are invited to make the family history of their enemies their own, in effect, to come home (2:19–22).
Thereby the family of God is opened to include those whose exclusion at one time defined the very borders of that family."
!! D. Growing Into A Temple For God
The passage ends not only with this present reality, but also with a becoming reality.
In the Old Testament God lived with His people and made His presence known in the temple.
When the tent of meeting was constructed in the wilderness, on a particular day God came into that tent and everyone knew that God was present in it.
When Solomon built his temple, on a particular day God made his presence known in that temple and everyone knew that was where God was.
On the day of Pentecost a similar event occurred.
The Spirit of God came upon the new temple of God, the church and its people.
The cornerstone of that new temple of God is Jesus Christ.
The foundation of the temple is the apostles and prophets who began the building.
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