Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Church Issues in this address from The Gospel Coalition Sermon Library
“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’ (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
Now in the great passage that precedes ours, that is in chapter 2, verses 1–10, Paul reminds his readers of the shudderingly dramatic change that has taken place in their lives, especially with respect to their relationship to God. The emphasis is on the vertical. In that passage, we are told that we deserved wrath. “We were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. By grace we are saved.”
The great change that has taken place in their lives, especially with respect to their relationship to God.… All of this is cast in a “once it was this, but now it’s that” sort of pattern. Hence, verses 1–3: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh …”
Then, verse 4: “But …” Now something is different. “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.” Now in our passage, Paul reminds his readers of the shudderingly dramatic change that has taken place in their lives with respect to their relationships with one another.… Gentiles, especially, with Jews. Once again there is the same pattern: “Once it was this, but now it’s that.”
Verse 11: “Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ …” Verse 12: “… remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now …” Verse 13. Now you get the dramatic change that has been effected by Christ Jesus.
In other words, in our passage, Paul reminds his readers of the change that has taken place with respect to their relationships to Jews, to Israel. All of this follows the great prayer of chapter 1, verses 15–23, before the beginning of chapter 2. Among the petitions is the prayer Paul’s readers might better be able to grasp God’s unimaginably great power in the gospel. Verses 18 and following:
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, of power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
Now what all of this suggests is Paul desperately wants true believers in Jesus Christ to appreciate more and more how transcendentally wonderful the gospel really is. It circles on the death and resurrection of Christ and has utterly transformed their vertical relationship with the living God (“Once you were this, but now that”) and has utterly transformed their horizontal relationships (“Once you were this, but now that”).
Indeed, their ability to live the life of faith with maturity, stability, and faithfulness and in genuine community.… This horizontal relationship turns on deepening this appreciation of God in the gospel. Paul’s argument in chapter 2, verses 11–22, focuses on three main themes:
1. Our pre-Christian past.
Paul begins with a, “Therefore, remember …” and picks up the remember further in verse 12. “Therefore, remember that formerly you were such-and-such.” Verse 12: “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ …” In the light of the glory of what has happened to you in the gospel, it is imperative you remember what you have been saved from.
That point is made in the earlier section, chapter 2, verse 3. “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” Now verse 12: “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ …” There are different ways of remembering things. Scripture actually has quite a bit about what we’re supposed to forget and what we’re supposed to remember.
If we’re really perverse, we’ll forget every time we’ve failed, every time we’ve done something stupid, every time we’ve been miserable, self-focused, or cruel, and we’ll remember all of our victories. And they’re our victories, and all we do is feed our arrogance. But there is quite a lot of emphasis in Scripture about remembering what we were in order that we may better appreciate what we have become. And this, for Christ’s sake.
There is a sense in which we should forget the past. Paul says in Philippians chapter 3 that he forgets those things that are behind. What he means is the steps of progress he has made as he presses forward to the future. There is a kind of remembering that is merely nostalgic, sentimental. I don’t know if the name Carl F.H. Henry means anything to you. He was one of the two sort-of grandfather figures of twentieth-century evangelicalism in North America.
He wrote about 40 books in his life, was the founding editor of Christianity Today when Christianity Today really talked about Christianity today. As he grew older, he and his wife moved to a retirement center about two hours from us. My wife and I used to drive up to see him, oh, about every six weeks and spend two or three hours with him. One of the things I really appreciated about Carl and his wife Helga, as they were in their late 80s, was the constant forward-lookingness of their stance.
Every time I went up there, it was not whining about the rheumatism and the osteoarthritis, though there was plenty of rheumatism and osteoarthritis. Nor was it endless nostalgia about the past. He’d want to know where I had been recently, what I was preaching on. Then he would talk about when he had been in similar places. Any country I had been to, he had been there first. You know? “When I was in Thailand, let me tell you what happened. Did you ever meet so-and-so?”
He was trying to fill me in on the past, give me a little history. Then he would say, “And what’s the status of the church now? What should I be praying for them now? What are your plans for the future?” He was a man who was remembering the past and God’s grace and looking to the future, dreaming dreams, still passing things on to a new generation. Paul sees that kind of stance that is realistic about what we have been saved from as part of what is necessary in order to be mature Christians.
Now more specifically, “Remember that you were Gentiles by birth, and therefore shut out from ‘the circumcision.’ ” That is, the race and covenant of Israel. Now of course, circumcision has highly-varied connotations in the Bible depending on the context. In Philippians 3, verse 5, Paul was proud at one time of having been circumcised the eighth day, exactly in accordance with the law.
This made him a child of the old covenant, and he was grateful for that heritage and proud of it. Now, of course, as a Christian, he no longer thinks this marker of the old covenant is critically important. So he can say two or three really shocking things in 1 Corinthians 7:19 and in Galatians 5:6. He says, in effect, “Circumcision is neither here nor there, just keeping the commandments of God.”
You look at the text, and you think, “Wait a minute. I thought circumcision was one of the commandment of God.” But in case we’ve missed it, he says it twice. He says it in 1 Corinthians 7, and he says it again in Galatians, which only shows his view of the commandments of God under which he operates as a child of the new covenant are not lined up exactly with the commandments of God in the old covenant. We’ll come back to this one.
Indeed, he perceives what the Old Testament Scriptures themselves begin to insist upon: that circumcision of the heart is far more important than circumcision of the flesh. Deuteronomy 10 makes that point, Deuteronomy 30, Jeremiah 4:4. Paul makes the same point himself in Romans, chapter 2, verses 28 and 29. The real circumcised are those who have been circumcised of heart. Not merely who have the covenantal sign.
But the point of the use of circumcision in this context, in verse 11, is simply that it marked out who belonged to the Old Testament covenant community. Namely, families in which the male members were circumcised. That marked out the locus of the members of the old covenant. That old covenant, which received its promises through Abraham and Moses and, later, David and others, to this group, the Gentile Christians in Ephesus, never belonged. In particular (verse 12), this signaled five severe deficiencies or massive disadvantages. They were …
A. Separate from Christ.
Separate from the Messiah, the promised, anointed King. Messiah, Christ: these are Jewish categories. The first apostles were Jews. The first believers were Jews. Jesus was a Jew. Coming in fulfillment of promises initially given to Jews! The Gentiles were excluded from that. Jesus’ first sphere of ministry was amongst the Jews. So much so he has a rather surprising conversation, if you recall, with a Syrophoenician woman, if you recall.
“I was not sent for the Gentiles. I was sent to the children of Israel.” “Yes, Lord. But, you know. Even the dogs get the scraps from the master’s table.” We have become so familiar with the fact the gospel goes to men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation (which is a glorious thing; we’re coming to that) that we forget how in the sovereign purposes of God, God’s locus of a new humanity was bound up, initially, with those who descended from Abraham.
Not all of those who descended from Abraham: those who descended from Abraham through Isaac. Not all of those who descended from Isaac, but even a remnant among them. And Gentiles.… Oh, I know there are some astonishing exceptions in the Old Testament: Jonah preaching in Nineveh. Nevertheless, the pattern is Gentiles are excluded.
I don’t know if there are any genetic Jews in this congregation, but for all the rest of us, we ought to remember, every once in a while, that we can’t even claim the citizenship of the kingdom by some sort of birthright. Aliens.
B. Excluded from citizenship in Israel.
And, therefore …
C. Foreigners to the covenants of the promise.
We did not belong under the covenant with Moses. The kingship covenant with David was first and foremost over the tribes. Moreover, it’s not just a question of self-identity. So excluded from salvation itself that we were …
D. Without hope.
This is not a psychological category. It’s more than that. It’s without a ground for anticipating eternal life to come in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. Without ground for being reconciled to God Then, to make it more explicit …
E. Without God in the world.
A damned breed.
There are three features of this list we dare not ignore:
First, all five have to do with being outside Israel and, therefore, outside God’s saving power in the sweeping drama of the Old Testament redemptive purposes of God.
Secondly, this, in turn, suggests there is no support here for the view countless millions of people who are outside God’s covenant or God’s people are really saved anyway. Moreover, this is entirely in line with what was said about the vertical dynamic in chapter 2, verses 1–10. “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh, following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath …” In other words, the assumption is God is dealing with a lost race of rebels.
Thirdly, the fundamental features of this salvation, both in chapter 2, verses 1–10, and here in chapter 2, verses 11–22, are described in reference to sin, self-focus, the wrath of God, without eschatological hope, without knowledge of God. They’re not described in sociological categories. They’re described in essentially God-relational categories.
At the end of the day, that is ultimately the Old Testament stance and the New Testament stance. The transformation of the gospel does not focus, first and foremost, on the social dynamics of change but on being reconciled to God and the way that works out in the social dynamics of change in this new humanity.
In other words, we are called again and again to remember what lies at the heart of our salvation. We have been saved from sin, its consequences in death and hell. We have been reconciled to God. As we are reconciled to God, so we find others all around us also reconciled to God. All those horizontal relationships are thereby transformed as well in this new humanity. So, first and foremost, then, our pre-Christian past.
2. Our transforming Savior.
Verses 13–18. “But now …” This is the logic that was followed in chapter 2, verses 1–10. This was the lostness, but now it’s different. So also here. Verses 11 and 12. This was the exclusion that operated in redemptive history in the near past. Verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
First and foremost, however, is not salvation-historical. Oh, in one sense it is. It’s focusing on Christ, as we’ll see. He has made all the difference. He has brought the change in the covenantal relationship, but the focus here is especially with respect to conversion. Not simply, “But now Christ has come,” although that is worked on as well. But the focus here is on their change. Verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
Oh, it’s by Christ. It’s by his death, but the change now is on their conversion. After all, Christ came and died on the cross, but there are many Gentiles who did not believe and were not brought near. They were brought near through the blood of Christ. In the New Testament, that which is said to have been achieved by the blood of Christ is elsewhere said, in every case, to have been achieved by the death of Christ or the cross of Christ.
The blood has no mystical component to it. It is another way of referring to Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf, bearing the wrath of God we deserve, bearing our sin in his own body on the tree. We have been brought near by that blood, by that death. Which presupposes, therefore, what fundamentally alienated us, what separated us, what kept us away was that which deserved wrath and which only the blood of Christ could then take away.
Which is exactly in line with what was said in 2:3: “Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” There is a line of thought running through verses 14–18 that you need to see: what Christ has done (verses 14 and 15a), what Christ has purposed (verses 15b and 16), and what Christ has preached (verse 17).
A. What Christ has done.
He has made two one. Of course, every culture has its own way of thinking of us versus them, of identifying human beings. Every culture does, so in every culture there are men and women. In many cultures, there are whites and blacks. There are yellows and browns. Or there are other ethnicities and ways of identifying them. Then there are the educated and the uneducated. There are the skilled laborers and the unskilled laborers. There are the intellectuals and there are those who work with their hands.
We have different ways of identifying different social groupings. But for the Jews, the most fundamental way of thinking about the human race was Jews, the covenant people of God, and everybody else. But Paul sees three groups, not two: Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God. That’s his breakdown, for example, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 32. It’s also his breakdown in a remarkable passage in 1 Corinthians 9, to which I invite you to turn. First Corinthians 9, especially beginning at verse 19. Paul writes,
“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.”
You say, “Wait a minute now. Unpack that.” That thing to see is that Paul does not understand himself to be a Christian Jew who has to flex in order to win Gentiles. Now there are some passages where he identifies himself as a Christian Jew. So in Romans 9, for example, he could wish himself accursed for his kinsmen according to the flesh. So he speaks as a Christian Jew and wishes he could win non-Christian Jews.
But in this passage, he does not speak, essentially, as a Christian Jew. Rather, he sees himself in what theologians across the centuries have called the tertium quid, the third place. It’s not as if he’s a Christian Jew who has to flex to win Gentiles. He sees himself, rather, as a Christian who has to flex to win Gentiles and has to flex to win Jews. So he says, “To the Jew I became a Jew. Though that’s not really where my identity is.” He says. “I had to become a Jew to win the Jews. And then to the Gentiles I had to become like them, though that’s not really where my identity is.”
He sees three groupings in humanity: Christians, Jews, and Gentiles. That gives him a different view of the law. Look again at what this text says. It’s remarkable! “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.” Now what does that mean? How do you become like a Jew? Well, he explains. “To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) …” He submits to all kinds of Jewish prescriptions. Perhaps that means eating kosher, showing appropriate respect in the synagogues when he goes to preach there, and so on.
He becomes like a Jew, though, he says, parenthetically, “I myself am not under the law.” He no longer sees himself under the law covenant. He willingly puts himself under the law covenant, as it were, in order to win those under the law covenant, but he himself is not under the law covenant. It’s a form of self-sacrifice. It’s a form of adaptation! “And I do this so as to win those under the law.” Then he says, “To those not having the law I became like one not having the law …” That is, Gentiles, everybody else. “… I became like one not having the law …”
So he has to adapt for them! But does that mean he becomes completely antinomian? “Though,” he says, “I am not free from God’s law …” You say, “Whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You just said you are free from God’s law. So why is he now saying he’s not free from God’s law?” Well, he explains. “I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law …” In other words, the covenant under which he sees himself bound is no longer the Mosaic covenant, the law covenant. The covenant under which he sees himself bound is Christ’s covenant, Christ’s law, Christ’s demands.
Now that immediately raises a plethora of questions about how their lines of continuity flow from the Mosaic covenant to Christ’s law, of course. I would love to explore that with you, but that would take me just a bit too far afield right now. Nevertheless, Paul sees himself as not being under the law covenant. He has to put himself under that law covenant voluntarily in order to win the Jews.
He sees himself as being free to act in some measure like those who have no law at all, but on the other hand he is limited by how far he can go in that respect. If they’re sleeping around, if they’re going off and offering sacrifices to the pagan cults and so on, there are things he really can’t do because he is under Christ’s law. But so far as he can, he flexes, to win those who do not have the law. He’s in this tertium quid, this third position.
All of this he then extends to the broader context of who are weak and strong in the matter of eating meat offered to idols that I cannot probe here. He says, “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
So also here. Paul sees in Ephesians, chapter 2, three groups: Jews, Gentiles, and the church of God, drawing the language from 1 Corinthians 10. By making the two one, Paul doesn’t mean all Jews and all Christians are now one, whether they like it or not. He is saying something different. There were these two: Jews and Gentiles. Now Christ has made the two one in the sense there is now a new humanity.
A new humanity that can’t be identified just with Jews or that can’t be identified just with Gentiles. It’s a new humanity: a tertium quid. A new group, as it were. In this center, Christ is our peace. So we read, “He himself is our peace who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.”
Now peace, the word peace, has many different connotations depending on the context. Sometimes it can refer to harmony among people. That’s presupposed, for example, in chapter 4, verse 3: “Make every effort to keep unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Where peace is seen as something that ties people together in mutual amity. Sometimes it refers to messianic salvation, peace with God. That’s very clear in Luke 1 and 2.
The gospel of peace is specifically mentioned in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 15. It has to do with wholeness before God and others, not mere psychological peacefulness. Reconciled to God. Christ himself is the one who brings this peace. We read, for example in Romans, chapter 5, verse 1, after the great atonement passage in verse 3 and the explication of what justification by faith alone looks like in chapter 4: “Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Similarly in Colossians 1 and elsewhere.
Now we’re told Christ has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, verse 14. What is this? If I understand it aright, this is saying the Mosaic law, not least the detailed prescriptions of the holiness code, was in one sense, profoundly divisive. In other words, the law not only called people to God, it also marked out people of God by a whole lot of social markers, how different they were. Jews dressed a little differently. They wore their hair a little differently.
They observed a seven-day week when the Roman Empire worked on a 10-day week. They had a different religion. They had different eating customs. A devout Jew and a devout Gentile couldn’t eat together, because you’re going to break the kosher food laws. Thus, the entire law covenant, whatever else its strengths, however much it was predicting the future, however much it was anticipating the Passover Lamb, however much it looked to the ultimate Day of Atonement, it was also a law that kept the people of God separate by social markers.
That meant there was a boundary, a wall of hostility between two groups. We don’t like people to be too much different from us. And that’s been destroyed. It’s part of saying we’re no longer under the law covenant. Which doesn’t mean we’re antinomians. We’re under Christ’s law, as we’ve seen. There are many, many things you can say about lines of continuity between the old covenant and the new.
For example, in Romans 14, Paul can say, “One man raises one day above another. Another says all days are the same. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind.” But you cannot imagine the apostle saying, “One man views adultery as an abomination. Another man views adultery as okay. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind.” You can’t imagine Paul saying something like that!
There are lines of continuity, and it’s worth thinking about how we find them. Nevertheless the external markers that made the Jews stand out as so very different and which contributed to a wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles have gone. The law covenant for the new humanity has gone. This does not mean (let me say it again) there are no points of continuity.
The new people of God are marked off in all kinds of moral and God-centered ways, cross-shaped ways of difference from the rest of the world. Yet, that old-covenant structure which erected all kinds of hostilities, that barrier, is now gone. That is what Christ has done. He has made the two one.
B. What Christ has purposed.
Verses 15b and 16. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace. Now in this context, peace with each other. The peace with God is presupposed from chapter 2, verses 1–10, the vertical dimension. Here it’s the hostility between the peoples that has been overcome, thus making the two one.
“… in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” Now it feels as if its their hostility to God and their hostility to each other. It’s all shattered in one sweeping act as God in the person of his Son sheds the blood of his Son in order that this hostility might be forever destroyed.
That’s one of the reasons why descriptions of the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament have different dimensions. The Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, Holy Communion, has different dimensions. For example, it looks back. “Do this in remembrance of me.” It looks forward. “You do this until he comes,” Paul says. It’s a time for self-examination and repentance, according to 1 Corinthians 11. It has several other dimensions, but the one I want to mention is chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, which is tied to 1 Corinthians 10 where the one loaf reminds us we are one body.
If one of the old-covenant markers was circumcision, the new covenant marker is baptism. If one of the old covenant markers was Passover, to be observed by Jews, the new-covenant corresponding marker is the Lord’s Table, to be observed by new-covenant Christians, with its set of associations that remind us of the oneness of the genuine body of Christ.
C. What Christ has preached.
Verse 17. “He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.” When did Christ preach this message? Well, in one sense, at a merely superficial level, you could say he does so explicitly, based on biblical texts, after the resurrection. According to John, chapter 20, when he first appears to the Twelve, what he says to them is, “Peace be to you.” Then the next week when Thomas is with them he says, “Peace be to you.”
Now if he were speaking in Aramaic or Hebrew, then it would just be shalom which has a range of meanings all the way from peace to hi there. But there is no doubt from his repetition of it, he means this peace to be elevated to have theological weight. “I have died, risen again, and now God’s peace be upon you in the wake of what I have achieved on your behalf.”
But in principle, his preaching continues through the apostles and others. Thus, you’ll recall how Acts begins. “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until he was taken up to heaven …” In other words, we’re to read the book of Acts as what Jesus is continuing to do, now that he has been taken up to heaven. He does it through his Spirit, through the human witnesses he has left behind.
The wording of our text here, verse 17, is, in fact, deeply grounded in two great Old Testament texts. The first is Isaiah 52 verse 7,: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, [gospel] who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation …” You know as well as I do, in the first instance, that envisages a messenger coming with good news of a conflict or the end of war or something of that order.
Yet, it is extrapolated in principle to a much loftier theme: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation …” Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing in the ministry? “You people with beautiful feet.”
But the second text is Isaiah 57:19. God says he will create praise on the lips of the mourners of Israel. “ ‘Peace, peace, to those far and near,’ says the Lord.” We read here, “He came and preached peace to you who were far and peace to those who were near.” That great promise is extended to Jew and Gentile alike. For Paul knows as well as we do the promise given to Abraham, though it focused, preeminently, on his genetic seed, yet it also included this promise, that in him and in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
He knows full well according to Hosea, chapter 1, in some deep sense the people of God, the covenant people of God are dismissed by God as not my people. If they’re not his people, then he has to restore them in Hosea, chapter 2, to make them his people once again. If he can these people who have been dismissed as “not his people” his people again, then he take the people who are Gentiles and in that sense not his people and make them his people again.
Then you recall great visions like that of Isaiah 19, where on that day, God will say, “ ‘Israel my third and Assyria my third and Egypt my third.’ ” And men and women are being drawn even from amongst the enemies of God of the Gentile world to constitute one new humanity. In short, through Jesus Christ, we have access to the Father by one Spirit. Did you hear that in verse 18?
“For through him [Jesus] we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access to the Father by one Spirit.” Do you hear the Trinitarian thrust? There is a huge amount of Trinitarian theology in Paul, and nowhere more so than in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This is true of Jews and Gentiles alike. This Trinity-shaped salvation creates a new humanity operating under a new covenant. Here is our transforming Savior.
3. Our Christian present.
Verses 19–22. “Consequently …” There are huge social consequences of this great salvation; huge consequences in our understanding of who we are. We read, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but …” (Something else.) Once again you’ve gone back to the, “Once you were this, but now that.” This contrast between the past and the present. “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”
A new humanity, a new citizenship, all built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Probably not the apostles who were prophets, but on the apostles and New Testament prophets. That is, there was a dependence on revelation to establish this new covenant. This core of revelation was Jesus Christ himself, the ultimate foundation, an argument that is picked up in 1 Peter 2 and elsewhere.
Let us make this personal. Verse 22: “In him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Do you see how wonderful this is in comparison with the description of who we are in chapter 2, verses 1–10? Children of wrath. Deserving of condemnation. Excluded from the covenants with Israel. Without hope. Without God.
Now, together, a temple in which God lives by his Spirit. Then there are huge practical implications worked out in what follows in Ephesians 3:14. “For this reason …” Because of the argument in chapters 1 and 2. “For this reason I bow my knee and I pray in a certain way …” We’ll come to that one tomorrow. Then chapter 4: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient …”
In other words, all the consequences flow out of this gospel that has reconciled us to God and constituted us a new humanity. For understandable reasons, all of this passage is cast, of course, in terms of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. It doesn’t mention Canadians; it doesn’t mention any Chinese; it doesn’t mention any Hutus or Tutsis; it doesn’t mention other language groups, but I would be remiss if I did not spell out two further implications.
Our world is perennially threatened by massive divisions of self-identity. We even fight over what those self-identities are, but they’re there. We all acknowledge them. Sometimes we try to gloss over them. So Fukuyama can write a book, for example, about how war is now essentially over with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the great contest between East and West. It’s basically all over. There will be skirmishes for the next 300 years or so, he thinks, and then we’ll all live happily in a worldwide democracy.
Well, the first thing I’d say is either Fukuyama is right or Jesus is right, but not both. Because Jesus says there will be wars and rumors of wars. “Don’t be alarmed. The end is not yet.” Then, Fukuyama wrote that book in the early 90s. Since then, there is a perception of much more danger coming out of Islamist supremacism, so Huntington can write a book talking about the cultural threat, the cultural divide between Islam and the West, for the next decades that will lead, inevitably, to various form of conflict, he says.
Then, of course, there are various division based on racism and ethnicity, rising nations, falling nations. No nation remains on the top forever. It’s quaint now to read Rudyard Kipling about the British Empire:
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Britain has long since forgotten. The British Empire is no more, and one day the American Empire will be no more either. Who will reign then, in terms of political power? China? Could be. Or it may be China will be so converted by then that it will become the greatest missionary-sending country the world has ever seen. Who knows? Who knows?
But until the Master comes, let me tell you what’s going to happen. Christians have largely divided between those who have an essentially pessimistic view of the future and those who have an essentially optimistic view. I want to say, with deep respect, “A plague on both your houses.” Because Jesus tells the parable of wheat and the weeds and says, “Let both grow until the end.”
There have been more Christian conversions in the last 150 years than in the previous 1800! There have been more Christian martyrs in the last 150 years than in the previous 1800! That’s the truth. So until Jesus comes back, there’ll be various cycles and ups and downs, no doubt. But I anticipate lots and lots and lots of conversions! Lots and lots and lots of church planting, some of it pushed by Geneva Push. I also anticipate people going to jail, beaten up, lives lost, cultures rising and falling. In it all, the gospel remains and the church of God remains.
I had an e-mail this morning from a friend in North America. Newsweek magazine, which has been in print for quite a long time, is going out of paper print. It’s part of the digital revolution. It’ll only be in the digital world, and my guess is it’s going to die in a few years. It’s always been a pretty far left-of-center publication, and in one of its last issues, which has just appeared on the stands, there is a long interaction with Bart Ehrman.
Now some of you may know that name. He went to Moody and Wheaton and then went to Princeton, turned left in his theology and has become one of the most destructive New Testament critics in the world. Page after page in one of these last issues of Newsweek is devoted to how Bart Ehrman is effectively destroying confidence in the New Testament and Christianity is passÈ and on and on and on. All the usual sort of stuff.
Except if Bart Ehrman, it’s pretty sophisticated. He’s a pretty capable man. Mercifully, they asked Al Mohler to write something of a rejoinder, and he answers Bart as much as he can within the limited space allotted to him. But he ends up by saying, “I would point out that Newsweek is using its final stages of print publication to destroy the New Testament, but it’s Newsweek that is going out of print. Not the New Testament.”
So it will be until the end comes. Christ has made one new humanity. We have been transformed. We’re built on the foundation of Christ Jesus himself, the apostles and the prophets being the ones who have mediated this revelation to him. In him this whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord! This temple will not be destroyed. This temple will not be overthrown.
“… in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Oh, I know we go through ups and downs. We are still a sinful people. Some wag has said, “For our grandparents, Christianity was an experience. For our parents, Christianity was an inheritance. For us, Christianity is a formality. For our children, Christianity is an inconvenience.”
It’s true. You can go through those cycles. Does that mean we should wring our hands in despair and say, “The church is done”? No, no, no, no. God raises up new generations again, new converts who are preaching the gospel and eager to serve. I’ve been a seminary teacher now for a lot of decades, and I have observed that students come through in waves. For a while you get a whole lot of students who are coming in talking about the Toronto Blessing.
Then you get a whole lot of students who are talking about emerging. The emerging types are busy saying, “Shove over, you guys. We’ll show you how it’s done.” The wave coming through now is one of the happiest waves I’ve seen. Oh, it has its problems. We’re all sinners. I know that. But this is a wave that’s coming through with a whole lot of Calebs. “Give me this mountain.”
They want to be mentored. They want to be taught. They want to learn how to teach the whole counsel of God. They want to plant churches. They want to do it in our inner cities! They want to go to the Muslim world! And I say, “Press on! Press on! This is terrific!” Christ says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So let persecution or trouble or disjointedness from the culture come or isolation or loneliness …
Christ is building this new humanity, this church of the living God, and you are members of this church, rising as a holy temple, the very dwelling of God. “… in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Therefore, verses 12 and 13: “… remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Let us pray.
In the hurly-burly of daily and weekly ministry, Lord God, we beg of you, keep our eyes wide open to the sweeping purposes of your sovereign grace through redemptive history and in our lives through conversion based, ultimately, on Christ’s shed blood and his resurrection, with that resurrection power so transforming us and building the church in our day. Grant us, we beg of you, this sweeping vision so we do not lose heart as we cast ourselves upon you again and again. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
