EPHESIANS 2:11-22 - One New Man

Introduction

So a number of years ago we had a bit of a dustup over at my day job—this was probably 2017 or so (during Trump’s first term). The cafeteria staff were publicizing the dish of the day—Mexican food—and thought it would be funny to call it the “Build The Wall Burrito”. Well, one of the students on campus complained, and so in response they changed the sign to “Build the Wall (or Not!) Burrito”, which actually didn’t help matters as much as they probably hoped it would. The employee who wrote the sign was actually fired over it, and a day or so later a previously-scheduled Student Government Association meeting was suddenly replaced (without telling the students) with a mandatory D.E.I. lecture.

That story is an exasperatingly common example of how ridiculously alienated we are as a people. Race, politics, economics, morals, personal grudges and bitterness—you name it. If there is any way that we can alienate each other or divide from each other or isolate each other, we will find it.

As we saw last week, this is the way we live when we walk according to the course of this world, which is inspired by the Chief Accuser, Satan himself (Eph 2:2). This world runs on guilt and accusation that drives division—and this has even bled into the Church, to the point where even honest, genuine believers wonder whether they would be welcome in a church where people don’t look like them—or whether someone who doesn’t look like them would feel comfortable in their church. We are all on edge with each other, expecting to have our toes stepped on or step on someone else’s toes. The divisive spirit of the age has us circling each other like nervous seventh-graders at a junior-high formal...

But it’s easy to think (as some of you might be thinking now), “Well, this is Jefferson County; we really don’t have a lot of racial diversity here in the first place…” And that’s true enough. We certainly ought to consider the impact of ethnic pride and animosity that runs rampant in this present hour.

But let’s be honest with each other—we don’t need varying levels of melanin in our skin to have a reason to divide and separate from each other, do we? We are capable of spinning all sorts of issues up into division and hostility, aren’t we? We have remarked on this before, and in light of our text this morning it bears repeating, that any given church congregation at any given time is no more than six months away from a church split. Including this one.

The spirit of unity and fellowship that God has blessed us with here at Bethel is not automatic. It must be guarded, it must be nurtured. If we lose sight of what Christ has done to reconcile us to Him and to each other, if we allow disagreements and divisions to creep into our fellowship, then we will find ourselves on the other side of divides and splits that will grow to the point where we will duck down a different aisle at Walmart to avoid another former Bethel Baptist Church member. God preserve us.

So we need to hear His Word this morning; we need to grasp what He has revealed through the Apostle Paul by the inspiration of His Spirit. This is what I aim to show you this morning from this passage, that

Christ died to DELIVER us from the DIVISIONS that DISTANCE us

Our text this morning follows the same pattern Paul laid out in the first half of Chapter 2:

He describes our desperate state before we knew Christ (v. 1 - dead in trespasses and sins, v. 12, our separation from Christ and His people),

Then moves on to the work of Christ on our behalf (v. 4 - “But God, being rich in mercy...”, v. 13 - “But now in Christ Jesus...”)

And then concludes with who we are now in Christ (v. 6 - seated in the heavenly places with Christ, v. 22 - a living dwelling of God).

As we noted last week, Paul goes into a great deal of descriptive detail to demonstrate how desperate our condition was in our sin before Christ died for us. Starting here in verses 11-12 he describes the depth of our alienation from God before Christ died for us.

So the first step in recognizing the work of Christ to deliver us from our divisions is to

I. Remember your ALIENATION from Christ (Ephesians 2:11-12)

Look with me at verse 11:

Ephesians 2:11 LSB

Therefore, remember that formerly you—the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands—

The particular divisiveness that Paul is addressing with the Ephesian church (and the other churches that received this letter) is the animosity that existed between Jew and Gentile. Our modern preoccupation with “racism” is in reality only a shadow of the ethnic animosity and hatred that existed between these two groups in Paul’s day. As one commentator writes:

The Jew had an immense contempt for the Gentile. The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell… It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile mother in her hour of sorest need, for that would simply be to bring another Gentile into the world... If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or if a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, their parents would actually carry out a funeral for that Jewish child. (Stott, J. R. W. (1979). God’s new society: the message of Ephesians (p. 91). InterVarsity Press.)

The alienation between Jew and Gentile was most visibly represented in a 4 1/2 foot-high stone wall that had been built around the Temple complex in Jerusalem that separated “The Court of the Gentiles” from the rest of the building. In 1871, archaeologists digging around the site of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem found a white limestone slab with a warning to any Gentile that crossed that barrier. It said, “No foreigner may enter within the barrier and enclosure round the temple. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death” (ibid., p. 92).

Here in verses 11-12, though, Paul goes on to say that the Gentiles’ separation from the Jews wasn’t the worst of their problems—as ugly as their racial animosity and ethnic vainglory was, their spiritual alienation was far worse—look at verse 12:

Ephesians 2:12 LSB

remember that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Consider the terms Paul uses in this verse to describe your isolated and alienated condition:

You were CHRIST-less

“Without Christ”—you were “without the Messiah”. After the magnificent blessings of being in Christ that Paul unfolded in Chapter 1, this comes like a gut-punch: Being raised in Christ, seated with Christ, holy and blameless in Christ, adopted as sons through Christ, chosen and beloved in Christ—there was a time when you had none of those blessings!

You were Christless, and you were “alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise”—

You were HOME-less and FRIEND-less

Israel was a “commonwealth”—a nation under YHWH that had been given the great and precious promises of belonging to Him. As Paul wrote in Romans 9:

Romans 9:4–5 LSB

who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

There was no room in those covenants for Gentiles; none of the promises the Jews could cling to could be counted to them. Paul’s description of your alienation turns even more bleak at the end of verse 12—

You were HOPE-less and GOD-less

“...having no hope and without God in the world.” Even though it was part of God’s plan from the beginning to include them in the great blessings of Abraham’s covenant (“in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” - Gen. 12:3), the Gentile nations had no idea that it was so—they had no hope to cling to.

And even though God had not left Himself without a witness in Creation, they suppressed the truth about Him in their unrighteousness, and instead of calling out to Him they rejected Him and turned to their own imaginations of gods and goddesses of wood, clay and stone that could not help them and could not hear their cries or see their struggles or care about their hopelessness.

Consider for a moment what your condition was like before you knew Christ—consider what these verses tell you about your alienation from Him because of your sin. You were a stranger to Jesus; He was not your Friend, you had no way to call on Him for help. You were separated from His people, wanting nothing to do with them (or they with you)—you had nothing to look forward to but the bleakness of a life in an uncaring and pointless Universe that randomly crushes you for no apparent reason, trying carve out some kind of meaning in your life by the mere force of your will. Nothing mattered, nothing made sense, there was nowhere to turn to find any kind of real hope that it could ever be anything else. You were Christless, homeless, friendless, hopeless and godless.

Paul starts this passage calling you to remember the desperate condition you were in because of your alienation from Christ and His people—and then starting in verse 13 he calls you to

II. Regard your RECONCILIATION in Christ (Ephesians 2:13-18)

In Verse 4, Paul turns from our depravity to God’s mercy by saying “But GOD...” Here in verse 13 he makes the same kind of contrast between our alienation and our reconciliation:

Ephesians 2:13 LSB

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

He goes on to demonstrate three ways that Christ’s work delivered us from the divisions that distanced us—we were “brought near” in Christ Himself—

He brought us peace with GOD (v. 14a)

“He Himself is our peace...” He is the peacemaker between us and the Father, He is “the Prince of Peace” as Isaiah 9:6 puts it. He is the One who completely and utterly satisfied the wrath of God for us (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). It was His blood shed on the Cross that erased our guilt and brought us near. This is the first and greatest reconciliation—the one that matters above everything else—that in Christ you are at peace with God Himself. There is now no condemnation, you are no longer an object of His wrath, you have been given the right and privilege to draw near to Him freely and without the blood of bulls and goats sprinkled around the Holy of Holies—you belong with YHWH because Jesus Christ Himself is your peace.

But though that is the greatest and most precious reconciliation of all, it is not the only way that you have been brought near by the work of Christ. Because Verse 14 also says that

He brought down the WALL (vv. 14b-15)

that separates us from one another! Paul’s original readers (particularly his Jewish readers who would have been more likely to have seen it), would have thought about that great stone wall that separated the Gentiles from God and His covenant promises—by His death, Jesus

Ephesians 2:14–15 LSB

...broke down the dividing wall of the partition by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might create the two into one new man, making peace,

That “wall of separation”—the purity codes, the feasts, the dietary restrictions, the obligations and burdens of the Law of Moses—were all satisfied by the perfect obedience of Christ (cp. Matt. 5:17-18). Now, in Christ, Jewish and Gentile believers can sit at the same table and eat bacon cheeseburgers together!

By His perfect obedience, Christ brought down the wall of the Law—and Verse 17 says

He announced our PEACE with each other (v. 17)

Ephesians 2:17 LSB

And He came and preached the good news of peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near;

It is significant that the first words that Jesus spoke to His gathered disciples in the upper room the day He rose again were “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19). And the very next sentence, Jesus says “As the Father has sent me, I also send you”—as Jesus has been sent to declare our peace with God, so the Apostles were sent to declare that peace—from that upper room in Jerusalem that evening to the Day of Pentecost forty days later when every tribe, tongue and people heard that message of peace in their own tongue (Acts 2:11)—and that proclamation of peace with God and one another continues as God demonstrates the riches of His wisdom in the gathering of His Body, the Church (Eph. 3:10).

It is in the church that Christ’s proclamation of peace is most profound—we have remarked before that one of the most powerful affirmations of the truth of the Gospel is found in the deep fellowship and unity that exists between church members who otherwise have nothing in common! We proclaim the peace we have received through Christ as we are drawn near to God in worship through Him, gathered together in His Name in the peace that He has given us with each other. Paul draws both of those threads together in one beautiful Trinitarian statement in Verse 18:

Ephesians 2:18 LSB

for through Him (God the Son) we both (Jews and Gentiles) have our access in one Spirit (God the Holy Spirit) to (God) the Father.

The gathered worship of the church is the greatest demonstration of how the death of Christ delivers us from the divisions that distance us—He delivered you from your alienation from Him and each other, He brought reconciliation with God and with one another, and so then in Verses 19-22, you are called to

III. Rejoice in your IDENTITY in Christ (Ephesians 2:19-22)

In the next four verses, Paul uses three different images to help us meditate on the identity that Christ has purchased for us by His death. Each one of these images gives us another glimpse of the unity Christ has purchased for us. First, see in Verse 19,

You belong to His KINGDOM (v. 19a)

Ephesians 2:19 LSB

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints...

Remember as Paul described our separation from God earlier in verse 12, that we were “alienated from the citizenship [older translations read “the commonwealth”] of Israel”—here we see that Christ has brought us near to Him and each other in a new citizenship of His new people.

Citizenship has its privileges. For example, Penn State tuition is charged differently for PA residents versus non-residents (the state appropriation from Harrisburg offsets about three thousand dollars of tuition charges for PA residents.) If you are not a resident, you cannot qualify for the in-state rate. That rate is reserved for members of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In order to qualify for the in-state rate, you have to move to PA one year before starting school—otherwise, if you moved to PA just to go to college, you will never qualify for that rate.

Christian, consider the privilege that you have as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Christ—there is no “waiting period” or probationary residence in His kingdom—you have all the rights and privileges of a citizen from the very moment you came to faith! One of the ways I have seen Christians divide themselves—particularly in a local church setting—is over how long they have been a Christian. Sometimes this is an outright sinful attitude—like the older brother in our Lord’s parable of the prodigal son: “I’ve been a faithful member of this church for thirty years, and here comes this guy who was driving a barstool up until last year, and now shows up in church saying he’s a Christian!” That’s clearly a wicked attitude that we can all agree needs to be repented of.

But more often than not, it’s the former barfly that segregates himself from the life of the church: “Who do I think I am?? I love what Christ has done for me on the Cross, and I really want to learn more and grow, but I don’t want to burden all of these people with stupid questions about God and the Bible that they all know the answers to—and I still struggle with so many sins that “they” are all too holy to bother with!” Beloved, we all belong to the same Commonwealth! Whether you have been a believer for five months or five decades, you belong here!

Christ died to destroy the divisions that distanced you from Himself, His Father and His people. he has brought you into His Kingdom. In the rest of Verse 19 we find an even more intimate picture—because Christ has reconciled you,

You belong to His FAMILY (v. 19b)

Ephesians 2:19 LSB

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,

It is one thing to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom—it is another thing entirely to be a member of His family! Paul will have much more to say about what it means for God to be our Father in Chapter 3 of our study; for now, the emphasis is on the fact that two groups that share the same Father are therefore brothers and sisters with one another!

This is another division that can creep into a fellowship, isn’t it? (This is particularly true in smaller congregations.) There are one or two families in a church that basically run everything—no decisions get made that they don’t approve of, no ministries can go forward or members be added to the church unless they make the decision. The pastor has to be careful not to upset them because they have all the money in the church or three quarters of the members are related to them. If you don’t belong to that family, you are a second-class member of that church.

But Christ died to remove those divisions—it doesn’t matter whose family you belong to; because you belong to God the Father through Christ, we all belong in the same way in His church! This church fellowship can never become “the Thompsons’ church” or “the Nulls’ church” or “the Mauthe’s church” or any other single family’s personal kingdom—and if it ever starts looking like that, the only recourse is repentance and confession of the sin of trying to create family divisions in a church that is defined by membership into only one family—the household of God the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ!

There is one more metaphor that Paul uses in verses 20-22 to describe your identity in Christ—you are a citizen of His Kingdom, you are a member of His family, and

You belong to His TEMPLE (vv. 20-22)

Ephesians 2:20–22 LSB

having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

This would have been a powerful image for Paul’s readers—especially the Jewish believers. For nearly one thousand years the Temple in Jerusalem had been THE focal point of the dwelling of YHWH with His people—from Solomon to Zerubbabel to Herod, that magnificent structure had stood for centuries, a visible and imposing reminder of God’s presence with His covenant people.

But here Paul says that there is a new Temple—a “holy sanctuary in YHWH”—made up not of stones and cedar and silver and gold, but made up of His people. The foundation of that new Temple, “the apostles and prophets”, refers not to the men themselves, but to their teaching, preserved for us in the Scriptures. And that foundation is aligned and ordered according to the “Cornerstone”, Jesus Christ Himself—He is the Chief Shepherd, He is the Overseer, He is the One Who has purchased His Church with His blood.

John Calvin famously defined a true church by three measurements” The right preaching of the Word, the right administration of the ordinances, and the right practice of church discipline. All three of those measurements are governed by the Scriptures and ordered according to Christ Himself. And when a church abandons those foundations and decides instead to order its teaching, worship and purity according to their own ideas and preferences, the result is often a congregation torn apart by heresy, unchecked sin and abdication of leadership.

But Christ died to deliver us from the divisions that distance us from each other and from Himself. When we commit together to submit to His Word His way; when we build the life and practice of our fellowship on this foundation of the Word of God as directed by Christ’s authority and direction over us, we have a unity and growth together in Him that cannot be torn apart by who has more seniority in the church, or who belongs to which family in the church, or who has a better testimony or who has the bigger study Bible. Our unity and our direction is governed by the Savior who loves us and has brought us into His Kingdom, His household, and His Temple to grow us in holiness and as the very dwelling place of God’s Spirit!

Ephesians 2:21–22 LSB

in whom the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Here on this Resurrection Sunday, consider how Christ’s defeat of death has brought you near—when you were as hopeless, friendless and godless as you could possibly be, He descended into death and back from the grave to reconcile you to God, making peace with Him by His blood.

And the Good News of His victory over death and sin is the greatest news for a world that has been torn by ethnic pride and racial animosity; Christ suffered the agony of separation from His Father so that you can be brought near to Him and one another.

What does God’s Word reveal about your relationships with one another this morning? Consider the pictures of reconciliation and belonging that fill these verses—fellow citizens in Christ’s Kingdom, fellow members of His household, living stones in His Temple. Do you rejoice in the blood-bought fellowship and belonging that you have with your fellow church members? Or is God’s Spirit revealing in you through these verses that you are losing sight of how far He has brought you when you were alienated from Him? That you can look down on a fellow brother or sister here at Bethel because you have attended here longer than they have, or you have better family connections here than they do? Are you tempted to look for a false unity that downplays the central importance of God’s Word in order to become more palatable to the tastes of the world?

Then the Good News for you this morning is that you serve a risen Savior Who offers you forgiveness for that sin! Lay all of it out before Him, call on Him to remind you again of how far you were from Him before He rescued you. And repent of the ways you have been building walls between you and your fellow believers—walls that He tore down by His death on the Cross, and believers that brought to life from the death of their sin by His resurrection!

And perhaps you are here this morning and you feel like an outsider here in this worship service—you hear these descriptions of belonging to Christ’s Kingdom, His household and His Temple—and realize that you really don’t belong in any of those. Perhaps you feel like an outsider because of the things that you have done, or the things that have been done to you. Perhaps, when it comes right down to it, you feel like you don’t belong anywhere. You know that you have offended God by who you are and what you have done, and you know for sure that if anyone here really knew your past they would get up right in the middle of the service and show you the door.

If that is you this morning, then please listen to what God is telling you through His Word: Jesus Christ is your peace with God and with others. The sin and shame and guilt that separates you from God—everything that you have done, everything that has been done to you, everything that you have ever been—Jesus Christ shed His blood on that Cross to wipe away all of it. All of your guilt, all of your shame, everything that has alienated you from His holiness, Jesus has atoned for by His death. And His resurrection on the third day—the Day that we celebrate today—is the proof that God has accepted His sacrifice for you!

He has brought you here this morning so that you might be brought near to Him in salvation—and brought near to your new family in Him. He will wash you by the same blood, cleanse you from the same sin, pardon you of the same guilt, clothe you in the same righteousness that He has for the rest of His children. You will have the same citizenship, belong to the same household, be a part of the same Temple, be made into the same holy image. And you will finally have the one thing that you have longed for, the one thing that you have wanted more than anything else in this world—you will finally belong. So come out of the isolation and alienation of your sin and shame to the One Who will take you to Himself and to His people for all the days of this life and the next. So come—and welcome!—to your Risen Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Hebrews 13:20–21 LSB

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good thing to do His will, by doing in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

What are some of the ways you see people dividing from one another in hostility or pride or shame? What are the ways the world tries to address these divisions?

How does it affect you to “remember” your situation before you knew Christ (2:11–12)? How are you encouraged by meditating on your new status (vv. 13, 19–22)?

What does this passage teach about the corporate nature of the Christian faith? How do these verses challenge you to think about your Christian life in relationship to other believers in ways you hadn’t thought of before?

Read Ephesians 2:19-22 again. Which of the three illustrations of the church (Christ’s Kingdom, Christ’s household, Christ’s temple) is most relevant to the ways you might be tempted to divide from fellow church members?

What are some practical ways you can help protect the unity and growth of Bethel Baptist Church? Who do you know that needs to hear this Good News of reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ? Pray for an opportunity to share this week!