Oneness

Kim Hjelmgaard in Business Insider says, “At the end of World War II, there were seven border walls or fences in the world. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there were 15, according to Elisabeth Vallet, a geography professor at the University of Quebec-Montreal.

Today, ... there are at least 77 walls or fences around the world — many erected after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon.”

From the Great Wall of China, built over 2,000 years ago to keep foreign nations out, or the Berlin wall that kept people in, to the “Peace Walls” of Belfast, Northern Ireland separating Catholics from Protestants, to the wall in Lima, Peru separating the rich from the poor, we are really good at building walls to separate people. What we’re not good at is creating true peace.

True peace would mean that all the walls can come down. And that requires that all the brokenness causing the wall to be there in the first place needs to be addressed. We believe someone has already addressed the root cause of all the brokenness? How should we live and act in this world knowing that Jesus has already created peace? What part does the church play in a world that apparently has not yet realized the peace Jesus established?

It’s easier to lob bombs over the walls that we’ve built. Who is willing to do the harder work of ministering peace to those far from God? But if Jesus is on that path, who is willing to join Him? The church’s role in this world is to model and minister the peace Jesus has established.

We model peace through our unity and we minister peace by living lives of worship in the power of the Holy Spirit.

For the people reading this letter, it was worship that had been the biggest dividing wall. Most of these churches were made up of Jews and Gentiles of many nations. These groups had all worshipped in different temples before coming to believe that Jesus the Messiah of Israel was the Savior of the world.

The Jewish temple had actual walls that divided areas of varying degrees of access to God. The temple itself consisted of the Holy of Holies behind a tall wall with a thick curtain, through which only the High Priest could enter once a year. Outside the curtain was the Holy Place and outside that wall was the Court of Priests, which could be entered only by priests performing sacrifice and other duties. Outside that area was the court of Israel, which could only be entered by Israelite men. Beyond another wall was the Court of Women. And outside one final wall was the Court of Gentiles.

That wall was the most dramatic. It wasn’t the tallest or the strongest. But it has signs posted that read, “No foreigner/stranger/alien is to enter within the balustrade around the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will himself be responsible for his ensuing death.” It was clear to everyone. Some people can draw near to God: the circumcised Israelite. The fact is some people were kept far off by the commandments and ordinances in Torah. There were ceremonial laws about ritual purity that meant God’s holy presence could not be accessed by anyone outside the covenant promises God had given Abraham and Moses.

So, the Jews and Gentiles who became believers in Jesus the Messiah might have seen their new brothers and sisters from the perspective of the visible barriers that divide them from one another - the circumcised Jews divided from the aliens and strangers, the uncircumcised atheists in the world (the words Paul uses in verse 12).

What Paul is saying in Ephesians 2:11-22 is that the dividing wall separating Jews from Gentiles, the circumcised from the uncircumcised, is only a physical representation of the true dividing wall that separates all of us from God. In verses 14 and 15, he calls it the dividing wall of hostility. That hostility was not between Jews and Gentiles. The hostility came from our sinful rebellion against God’s law of commandments expressed in ordinances (verse 15). That sinful rebellion was not just a problem among the Gentiles. Everyone stands guilty in their sin.

Psalm 138:6 says,

Psalm 138:6 ESV

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty/proud he knows from afar.

These proud people could be both Jews and Gentiles. In fact, this is implied in verse 11. Jews would call the Gentiles “uncircumcised”. But Paul says, that is only from a fleshly perspective. Circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant with Israel was always supposed to be circumcision of the heart.

Deuteronomy 10:16 ESV

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

If they would do that, they would obey God’s commandments like,

Deuteronomy 10:19 ESV

Love the sojourner/stranger/foreigner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

If anyone is drawing distinctions based on physical or ethnic differences in the church, they have hostility toward God’s law of commandments. Those who take pride in being able to draw near to God in the Temple might in reality be far off from God. Everyone stands guilty of breaking God’s law of commandments expressed in ordinances, and so that law stands against all of us.

Paul says in verse 15 that Jesus has abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinance. That means He has made it useless. It was useful as a measure of holiness, and none of us measured up. Now that Jesus has fulfilled the law in Himself, and offered His body as a perfect sacrifice in perfect obedience to God the Father, He is the new measure of holiness. We need no longer conform to the ordinances to attain perfection. Now we need to be united to Jesus Christ.

When we draw near to Jesus in faith, we find that He has broken down the dividing wall for all of us. He killed the hostility (verse 16) . We no longer have to keep our distance on the other side of the wall. We who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (verse 13).

Paul says Jesus has brought new creation. In verses 14-16, Paul describes Jesus as the new gathering place for all nations to draw near to God. He is the new temple. He himself is our peace (14). He broke down the dividing wall (14), He abolished the ordinances that separate us from God (15), He reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to God in His body through the cross (16). And he says in verse 15 that He did that that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,” which should start within the body of Christ and radiate outward. The Church models new creation reality to the world through our oneness.

Our oneness comes not through the ways the world seeks unity, through the erasing of differences. It comes through gathering together at the new Temple, the person of Jesus. In verses 17-22, Paul depicts our new creation reality in temple imagery. The priest in this temple is our Messiah. He preaches peace to those far away from the temple grounds and peace to those within the temple grounds who were ignorantly unworthy. The gospels tell us that when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the old Temple was torn from top to bottom. The message is clear: through the death of Jesus, we all have access to God the Father. In this new temple, one Spirit unites us in worship. Our united life of worship in the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrates peace to the world.

In this temple, there are no strangers and aliens, only fellow citizens, saints, members of the household of God. The foundation of this temple has already been laid by the apostles and prophets who wrote God’s words to us and passed the faith down to us (verse 20). Christ Jesus is the cornerstone (20). We are all measured according to Him and not to one another.

And this is where it gets really amazing. Our cornerstone is the living Christ. So, verse 21 tells us that in Him, the whole structure of this temple grows. It is a living temple. It is a living organism. We should never make the mistake of referring to the church as an organization, an institution, or a building. We are the body of Christ. His body is made up of people from every background but growing together, being built into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Our oneness doesn’t come from human effort, erasing or ignoring differences. Our oneness comes by focusing all our attention, our faith, our worship on our one Messiah Jesus, who brings us near our one Father by the one Holy Spirit.

The brokenness that causes us to build walls is healed only in Christ. It is not hostility between nations or religions or economic groups that causes our divisions. It is hostility toward God. When Jesus makes peace for us with God, we learn that our human differences are simply diverse reflections of the peace God extends to all kinds of people.

Some observations leading to some application:

We think of building being constructed one piece at a time. This building grows as all its parts grow together. Growth takes time. And we don’t grow together unless all the parts are growing. We need to be patient with each other. We can only go as fast as our slowest member. One of the most unique features of the Church headed by Jesus Christ since the first century is the uniting of people from every tribe, language, social class, age and gender. When you have churches that are divided along any of those lines, those churches have not fully grasped the gospel of Jesus. They have not made Jesus their head.

2. We may not be living fully in this reality, but we can grow. In verse 21, we are being joined together in Christ, and the verb “grow” is a present active continuous tense verb. It is happening. It has not fully happened yet. In what ways is God helping us to grow right now, and how can we work with Him? Maybe unity between the older members and the newer members is a good starting place. Is there someone here you don’t know yet? Can you extend a hand of hospitality and invite them to lunch?

3. We have a message of peace. The gospel we preach is divisive because it calls everyone to repent of their current orientation in life and reorient their life to God’s authority over them through faith in Jesus Christ. But the divisiveness should never be us versus them. We are for them. We seek their peace. Jesus preached peace to those who were far off. In Jesus’ name, we offer for everyone to join us in the peace we have found with God through Jesus.

4. We are the dwelling place of God by His Spirit. When people observe our church, does anyone say, “God is in this place?” What is one step we could take toward this reality? Do we worship only with our lips, or also with our lives? Is my work and study and play and neighborhood life marked by worship?

We can seek peace for our world as we model the oneness Jesus has given us and as our lives reflect our identity in Christ, a dwelling place for God by His Spirit. Through us, Jesus continues to preach peace to those who are far and those who are near.

Communion

Questions for Discussion

In what ways have you experienced peace this week? What has disrupted your peace this week?

What are some ways we seek peace that are only temporary fixes? What are some problems in our world that cannot be solved with human effort like walls and wars?

Maybe our church doesn’t divide over circumcised and uncircumcised, but what are some potential causes for division in our church? How does our passage help us to deal with those?

What do we learn about God in our passage - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

How would you explain how the body and blood of Jesus kills the hostility between us and God? How does He break down walls between us in the church?

What do we learn about ourselves in this passage?

When you read Ephesians 2:17-22, what are some ways you would describe the church that lives according to the reality Paul teaches?

What does it mean to be the dwelling place for God by the Spirit? How should we respond to that definition of the church?

How will you respond to this passage this week?

Who is someone with whom you can share this passage this week?