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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 2:14

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For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [between us];

14. he is our peace ] “ He: ” the glorious living Person gives its essence to the sacrificial Work.

“ Our peace: ” i.e., as the connexion indicates, the “peace” between the Tribes of the New Israel, the Gentile and Jewish believers; such peace that now, within the covenant, “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:28; Col 3:11). The special aspect of this truth here is the admission of the non-Jewish believer to the inmost fulness of spiritual privilege; but this is so stated as to imply the tender companion truth that he comes in not as a conquering intruder but as a brother, side by side with the Jewish believer, in equal and harmonious peace with God.

who hath made both one ] Lit., Who made both things one thing. “Both” and “one” are neuters in the Gr. The idea is rather of positions and relations than of persons (Monod). “ One: ” “one thing,” one community, or rather, one organism. (By the same word is expressed the Unity of the Father and the Son, Joh 10:30.) In Gal 3:28 (“ye are all one”) the Gr. has the masculine, “one [person],” “one [ man ],” as expressly in the next verse here.

hath broken down partition ] Lit., did undo the mid-wall of the fence, or hedge. The next verse makes it clear that this means the Law. In Divine intention the Law was a “hedge” (Isa 5:2) round the Old Israel, so long as their chief function was to maintain a position of seclusion. And it thus formed a “partition” between the Old Israel and the outer world, not only hindering but, for the time, forbidding such fusion as the new order brought in.

It is possible that the phrase was immediately suggested by the demarcation between the Court of the Gentiles and the inner area of the Temple.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For he is our peace – There is evident allusion here to Isa 57:19. See the notes at that verse. The peace here referred to is that by which a union in worship and in feeling has been produced between the Jews and the Gentiles Formerly they were alienated and separate. They had different objects of worship; different religious rites; different views and feelings. The Jews regarded the Gentiles with hatred, and the Gentiles the Jews with scorn. Now, says the apostle, they are at peace. They worship the same God. They have the same Saviour. They depend on the same atonement. They have the same hope. They look forward to the same heaven. They belong to the same redeemed family. Reconciliation has not only taken place with God, but with each other. The best way to produce peace between alienated minds is to bring them to the same Saviour. That will do more to silence contentions, and to heal alienations, than any or all other means. Bring people around the same cross; fill them with love to the same Redeemer, and give them the same hope of heaven, and you put a period to alienation and strife. The love at Christ is so absorbing, and the dependence in his blood so entire, that they will lay aside these alienations, and cease their contentions. The work of the atonement is thus designed not only to produce peace with God, but peace between alienated and contending minds. The feeling that we are redeemed by the same blood, and that we have the same Saviour, will unite the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the high and the low, in the ties of brotherhood, and make them feel that they are one. This great work of the atonement is thus designed to produce peace in alienated minds every where, and to diffuse abroad the feeling of universal brotherhood.

Who hath made both one – Both Gentiles and Jews. He has united them in one society.

And hath broken down the middle wall – There is an allusion here undoubtedly to the wall of partition in the temple by which the court of the Gentiles was separated from that of the Jews; see the notes and the plan of the temple, in Mat 21:12. The idea here is, that that was now broken down, and that the Gentiles had the same access to the temple as the Jews. The sense is, that in virtue of the sacrifice of the Redeemer they were admitted to the same privileges and hopes.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Eph 2:14

For He is our Peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition.

Christ our Peace

1. Christ Jesus is the author of all our peace.

(1) In restoring the amity and friendship which we had in creation, but lost by the Fall.

(2) In vanquishing those enemies which had taken us captive, and wrongfully detained us.

2. There was a separation between Jew and Gentile, before they came to be in Christ.

3. The way to obtain peace is to take away that which bars it. To make two rooms into one, you must beat down the wall which forms the partition. (Paul Bayne.)

Peace from Christ alone

Christ is the author of all our peace; but He applies it successively by degrees. Like Master, like man; like Prince, like people. Christ for a while endured great troubles, and so must His members.

1. In all terror of conscience we must look to Christ. We keep the fire from our faces and eyes with screens; but they are wise who put between their souls and Gods wrath the screen of Christs reconciliation, lest this fire burn to the pit of destruction. This stills the conscience, and fills it with good hope.

2. This must make us cleave unto Christ, even to let our tenderest bowels love Him who has done this for us.

3. Seeing Christ alone is the author of all true peace, this should cause us to seek to be under His kingdom, yea, to give our eyelids no rest till we have enlisted in the army of Christ. Look how you would do, if the enemy had entered your gates, taken your wives and children, spoiled you of your goods. If there were a town near you, where you might prevent such danger, and find safe protection, and live peaceably and securely, who would not with all expedition betake himself thither?

4. Seek to be, like Christ, a peace maker.

5. How miserable the condition of all out of Christ. (Paul Bayne.)

Christ the Peace of His people

I. The substitution.

1. This substitution of Christ in behalf of His mystical body is primary, original. It runs as far back as the council of peace. He became our Peace then, when He entered into the covenant of peace, met the stipulation for peace, undertook to satisfy all the demands of law and justice for peace, and pledged Himself to be that peace.

2. It is permanent–it runs through every dispensation of the Church of the living God. There was not one sort of gospel to preach to Abraham, and another to preach to the present race of sinners. The doctrine of substitution runs through the whole of the Mosaic economy, and hence it is permanent, and comes down to the present moment of the existence of the Church upon earth.

II. The union. The smallest finger in my hand can move, can grasp, can unite with the other, in any effort that is put forth, because it is one with the hand, one with the body, and derives its life and strength and blood from thence; but sever my little finger from my hand, and it has no more strength–it is utterly useless. Apart from Me, says Christ, ye can do nothing. But in vital union with Jesus, the strength which is His flows to the feeblest and weakest member, and is put forth in the mighty actings of faith, and the holy energies of the new man. Moreover, this union is so experimental as always to produce communion. It is close, it is grasping, it is uniting, it is abiding, it is mutual in interest. Moreover, it is evident and manifest, because the world must see that the union which grace has effected between our souls and Christ, has cut asunder the tie which once existed between us and them, has cut asunder the union which made us once very fond of their fooleries.

III. The participation. His justice is perfectly satisfied on my behalf, that I may look upon the bleeding Christ, the rising Christ, the exalted Christ, and the interceding Christ, and say with Paul, He loved me, and gave Himself for me. What serenity! A satisfactory, solid, sacred, holy, serenity of soul; a heavenly calm, a believing acquiescence in the love, and power, and grace, and goodness, of my God, not only in matters relating to Providence around me, but in matters relating to my souls everlasting salvation. (J. Irons.)

The Prince of Peace

I. He is our Peace, in that He makes peace. Peace between God and man–reconciling both (Jew and Gentile) unto God–by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby (Eph 2:16).

II. He is our Peace, in that He gives peace. My peace I give unto you–let not your heart be troubled (Joh 14:27). Or, as it is put here, came and preached peace to you who were afar off (Eph 2:17).

III. He is our Peace, in that He promotes peace. Who hath made both (Jews and Gentiles) one (Eph 2:14). This is ever the practical outcome of the rule of The Prince of Peace. He promotes peace.

1. In the family, subduing the elements of strife and discord.

2. In the neighbourhood, as every successful missionary at home and abroad can testify.

3. In the Church.

4. Among nations.

Note: These senses in which Christ is our Peace are progressive. He has made peace for us, for all men, by His atoning work. He may be our peace, speaking peace within, quieting the tumult of doubt and fear (Mat 11:28-30). And, if we are His, He will promote peace through, and by means of us in every circle in which we move and in every place in which we have influence. (Joseph Ogle.)

Peace already made

When a poor bricklayer who had fallen from a great height was lying fatally injured he was visited by a minister in the neighbourhood. On entering the cottage he said, My dear man, I am afraid you are dying. I exhort you to make your peace with God. Make my peace with God, sir! Why, that was made eighteen hundred years ago, when my great and glorious Lord paid all my debt upon the cruel tree. Christ is my Peace, and I am saved.

Peace and comfort through the Atonement

There is no chance whatever of our finding a pillow for a head which the Holy Ghost has made to ache save in the atonement and the finished work of Christ. When Mr. Robert Hall first went to Cambridge to preach, the Cambridge folks were nearly Unitarians. So he preached upon the doctrine of the finished work of Christ, and some of them came to him in the vestry and said, Mr. Hall, this will never do. Why not? said he. Why, your sermon was only fit for old women. And why only fit for old women? said Mr. Hall. Because, said they, they are tottering on the borders of the grave, and they want comfort, and, therefore, it will suit them, but it will not do for us. Very well, said Mr. Hall, you have unconsciously paid me all the compliment that I can ask for; if this is good for old women on the, borders of the grave, it must be good for you if you are in your right senses, for the borders of the grave is where we all stand. Here, indeed, is a choice feature of the Atonement, it is comforting to us in the thought of death. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Peace in Jesus only

As the needle in a compass trembles till it settles in the north point, so the heart of a sinner can get no rest but in Christ.

Peace through Christ

In the Pitti Palace, at Florence, there are two pictures which hang side by side. One represents a stormy sea with its wild waves, and black clouds and fierce lightnings flashing across the sky. In the waters a human face is seen, wearing an expression of the utmost agony and despair. The other picture also represents a sea, tossed by as fierce a storm, with as dark clouds; but out of the midst of the waves a rock rises, against which the waters dash in vain. In a cleft of a rock are some tufts of grass and green herbage, with sweet flowers, and amid these a dove is seen sitting on her nest, quiet and undisturbed by the wild fury of the storm. The first picture fitly represents the sorrow of the world when all is helpless and despairing; and the other, the sorrow of the Christian, no less severe,. but in which he is kept in perfect peace, because he nestles in the bosom of Gods unchanging love. (American.)

The partition wall removed

1. Every man by nature, in himself, and without Christ, is at war and enmity with God, with His Church, and chiefly those in the Church who are truly regenerate.

2. This enmity could only be removed by Christs bloodshed and death.

3. The uniting of both Jew and Gentile in one Church is a branch of the peace which Christ has purchased.

4. From the apostles designing the ceremonial law by a metaphor taken from houses divided by a mid-wall, or from an orchard, garden, or inclosure, separated from the outfield by a dyke or wall of rough stones, we learn several things relating to the nature, use, and duration of the ceremonial law, which are the grounds of the similitude. And first, as a wall is built by the owner of the enclosure, so the ceremonial law was by Gods own appointment (Deu 32:8; Exo 25:40). Secondly, as a rough wall is made up of so many hard, unpolished stones, not covered over with lime or plaster; so the ceremonial law consisted of many ordinances (Heb 9:10), and those very difficult to be obeyed, and an intolerable yoke (Act 15:10). Thirdly, as a wall or hedge encloseth a piece of ground for the owners special use (which therefore is more painfully manured), and separateth that enclosure from the outfield which lieth about it; so the ceremonial law did serve to enclose the people of Israel, as the Lords own garden and vineyard, for bringing forth fruit unto Himself (Isa 5:7), and to separate them from all the world besides (Deu 4:7-8), as being a worship wholly different from and contrary unto the superstitious rites and worship used among the Gentiles (Deu 12:2), and containing strict injunctions unto the Jews to avoid all conformity with the Gentiles in their garments (Num 15:38), cutting of their hair (Lev 19:27), and such like. Fourthly, as a rough wall is but weak and ruinous, as not being built with cement or mortar to make it strong, and therefore but to endure for a season, until the owner think fit to enlarge his enclosure and take in more of the open field; so the ceremonial law was not to last forever, but only for a time, until Christ should come in the flesh, and take in the Gentiles within the enclosure of His Church, who were before an open field, not possessed nor manured by Him; after which there was no further use of the mid-wall.

5. So long as the ceremonial law did stand in force and vigour, the Jews and Gentiles could not be united into one Church: for seeing by that law the chief parts of Gods worship were restricted to the Temple at Jerusalem; therefore, though scattered proselytes of the neighbouring nations did join themselves to the Church of the Jews, and in some measure observed the way of worship then enjoined (Act 8:27), yet there was a physical impossibility for the generality of many nations far remote from Jerusalem to have served God according to the prescript of worship which then was: besides, there was such an habituate and as it were a natural antipathy transmitted from one generation unto another among the Gentiles against the ceremonial worship, that there was little less than a moral impossibility of bringing up the body of the Gentiles unto a cordial joining with the Jews in it: for the apostle showeth the ceremonial law behoved to be abrogated, in order to a union betwixt these two, while he saith, Who hath made both one, and broken down the middle wall of partition between us.

6. Whoever would make peace betwixt God and himself, or betwixt himself and others, he ought seriously to think upon those things which stand in the way of peace, and set about the removal of them, if it be in his power, and chiefly those evils in himself, of pride, vain-glory, self-seeking, and a contentious disposition, which are great obstructions in the way of peace (Php 2:3-4); else, whatever, be his pretenses for peace, he is no real follower of it: for, Christ intending to make peace betwixt Jew and Gentile, did take away whatever might have impeded it; He even broke down the middle wall of partition between them. (James Fergusson.)

Reconciliation through Christ

Themistocles having offended King Philip, and not knowing how to regain his favour, took his young son, Alexander, in his arms, and so presented himself before the king; and when he saw the boy smile on him, it very soon appeased the wrath within him. So the sinner should approach God with His Son Jesus Christ within him.

The need of reconciliation

Certainly a soul, sensible as to what the loss of communion with God is, counts it hath not fulfilled all its errand, when it hath bare peace given it. Should God say, Soul, I am friends with thee, I have ordered that thou shalt never go to hell, here is a discharge under My hand that thou shalt never be arrested for any debt more: but as for any fellowship with Me, thou canst expect none: I have done with thee forever, never to be acquainted with thee more. Certainly the soul would find little joy with such peace. Were the fire out as to positive torments, yet a hell would be left in the dismal darkness which the soul would sit under for want of Gods presence. A wicked heart seeks reconciliation without any longing after fellowship with God. Like the traitor, if the king will but pardon and save him from the gallows, he is ready to promise him never to trouble him at Court; tis his own life, not the kings favour, he desires. (W. Gurnall.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 14. For he is our peace] Jesus Christ has died for both Jews and Gentiles, and has become a peace-offering, shalom, to reconcile both to God and to each other.

Who hath made both one] Formed one Church out of the believers of both people.

The middle wall of partition] By abolishing the law of Jewish ordinances, he has removed that which kept the two parties, not only in a state of separation, but also at variance.

This expression, the middle wall, can refer only to that most marked distinction which the Jewish laws and customs made between them and all other nations whatsoever.

Some think it refers to their ancient manner of living among the Gentiles, as they always endeavoured to live in some place by themselves, and to have a river or a wall between them and their heathen neighbours. Indeed, wherever they went, their own rites, ordinances, and customs were a sufficient separation between them and others; and as Jesus Christ abolished those customs, admitting all into his Church, both Jews and Gentiles, by repentance and faith, he may be said to have broken down the middle wall of partition. When, at the death of Christ, the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom, it was an emblem that the way to the holiest was laid open, and that the people at large, both Jews and Gentiles, were to have access to the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

Some think there is an allusion here to the wall called chel, which separated the court of Israel from the court of the Gentiles; but this was not broken down till the temple itself was destroyed: and to this transaction the apostle cannot be supposed to allude, as it did not take place till long after the writing of this epistle.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

For he is our peace; i.e. Peace-maker, or Mediator of peace, both between God and man, and between Jew and Gentile. He is called

our peace, as elsewhere our righteousness, redemption, salvation. God is said to reconcile us, 2Co 5:19, but Christ only to be our peace.

Who hath made both one; i.e. one body, or one people, or one new man, Eph 3:15.

And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having taken away the ceremonial law, which was as a wall of separation between Jew and Gentile, as appears in the next verse. It seems to be an allusion to that wall of the temple which parted between the court of the people into which the Jews came, and the outmost court, that of the Gentiles, who, when they came to worship, might not come into the other court, and were excluded by this wall.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

14. heGreek, “Himself”alone, pre-eminently, and none else. Emphatical.

our peacenot merely”Peacemaker,” but “Himself” the price of our(Jews’ and Gentiles’ alike) peace with God, and so the bond of unionbetween “both” in God. He took both into Himself, andreconciled them, united, to God, by His assuming our nature and ourpenal and legal liabilities (Eph 2:15;Isa 9:5; Isa 9:6;Isa 53:5; Mic 5:5;Col 1:20). His title, “Shiloh,”means the same (Ge 49:10).

the middle wall ofpartitionGreek, “. . . of the partition”or “fence”; the middle wall which parted Jewand Gentile. There was a balustrade of stone which separated thecourt of the Gentiles from the holy place, which it was death for aGentile to pass. But this, though incidentally alluded to, was but asymbol of the partition itself, namely, “the enmity”between “both” and God (Eph2:15), the real cause of separation from God, and so the mediatecause of their separation from one another. Hence there was a twofoldwall of partition, one the inner wall, severing the Jewish peoplefrom entrance to the holy part of the temple where the priestsofficiated, the other the outer wall, separating the Gentileproselytes from access to the court of the Jews (compare Eze 44:7;Act 21:28). Thus this twofoldwall represented the Sinaitic law, which both severed all men,even the Jews, from access to God (through sin, which is theviolation of the law), and also separated the Gentiles from the Jews.As the term “wall” implies the strength of thepartition, so “fence” implies that it was easily removed byGod when the due time came.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For he is our peace,…. The author of peace between Jew and Gentile: there was a great enmity of the Jew against the Gentile, and of the Gentile against the Jew; and chiefly on account of circumcision, the one being without it, and the other insisting on it, and branding one another with nicknames on account of it; but Christ has made peace between them by abrogating the ceremonial law, which was the occasion of the difference, and by sending the Gospel of peace to them both, by converting some of each, and by granting the like privileges to them all, as may be observed in the following verses: and Christ is the author of peace between God and his people; there is naturally in man an enmity to God; sin has separated chief friends; nor can man make his peace with God; what he does, or can do, will not do it; and what will, he cannot do; Christ is the only fit and proper person for this work, being a middle person between both, and is only able to effect it, being God as well as man; and so could draw nigh to God, and treat with him about terms of peace, and agree to them, and perform them; and which he has brought about by his blood, his sufferings and death; and which is made on honourable terms, by a full satisfaction to the law and justice of God; and so is a lasting one, and attended with a train of blessings: moreover, Christ is the donor of peace, of external peace in his churches, and of internal peace of conscience, and of eternal peace in heaven: this is one of the names of the Messiah with the Jews b;

“says R. Jose the Galilean, even the name of the Messiah is called , “peace”; as it is said, Isa 9:6 “the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace”;”

see Mic 5:5 where it is said, “and this man shall be the peace”; which the Jewish c writers understand of the Messiah:

who hath made both one; Jews and Gentiles, one people, one body, one church; he united them together, and caused them to agree in one, and made them to be of one mind and judgment by the above methods; as well as he gathered them together in one, in one head, himself, who represented them all:

and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; the ceremonial law, which was made up of many hard and intolerable commands, and distinguished, and divided, and kept up a division between Jews and Gentiles: so the Jews call the law a wall, “if she be a wall”, So 8:9 , “this is the law”, say they d: and hence we read of , “the wall of the law” e; and sometimes the phrase, a “partition wall”, is used for a division or disagreement; so R. Benjamin says f, that between the Karaites and Rabbanites, who were the disciples of the wise men, there was , “a middle wall of partition”; a great difference and distance; and such there was between the Jew and Gentile, by reason of the ceremonial law; but Christ removed it, and made up the difference: the allusion seems to be to the wall which divided the court of Israel from the court of the Gentiles, in the temple, and which kept them at a distance in worship.

b Perek Shalom, fol. 20. 1. Baal Hatturim in Numb. xxv. 12. c Vid. Kimchi in loc. d T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 87. 1. e Caphtor, fol. 95. 1. & 101. 1. f Itinerar. p. 28.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Union of Jews and Gentiles.

A. D. 61.

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord: 22 In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

We have now come to the last part of the chapter, which contains an account of the great and mighty privileges that converted Jews and Gentiles both receive from Christ. The apostle here shows that those who were in a state of enmity are reconciled. Between the Jews and the Gentiles there had been a great enmity; so there is between God and every unregenerate man. Now Jesus Christ is our peace, v. 14. He made peace by the sacrifice of himself; and came to reconcile, 1. Jews and Gentiles to each other. He made both one, by reconciling these two divisions of men, who were wont to malign, to hate, and to reproach each other before. He broke down the middle wall of partition, the ceremonial law, that made the great feud, and was the badge of the Jews’ peculiarity, called the partition-wall by way of allusion to the partition in the temple, which separated the court of the Gentiles from that into which the Jews only had liberty to enter. Thus he abolished in his flesh the enmity, v. 15. By his sufferings in the flesh, to took away the binding power of the ceremonial law (so removing that cause of enmity and distance between them), which is here called the law of commandments contained in ordinances, because it enjoined a multitude of external rites and ceremonies, and consisted of many institutions and appointments about the outward parts of divine worship. The legal ceremonies were abrogated by Christ, having their accomplishment in him. By taking these out of the way, he formed one church of believers, whether they had been Jews or Gentiles. Thus he made in himself of twain one new man. He framed both these parties into one new society, or body of God’s people, uniting them to himself as their common head, they being renewed by the Holy Ghost, and now concurring in a new way of gospel worship, so making peace between these two parties, who were so much at variance before. 2. There is an enmity between God and sinners, whether Jews and Gentiles; and Christ came to slay that enmity, and to reconcile them both to God, v. 16. Sin breeds a quarrel between God and men. Christ came to take up the quarrel, and to bring it to an end, by reconciling both Jew and Gentile, now collected and gathered into one body, to a provoked and an offended God: and this by the cross, or by the sacrifice of himself upon the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. He, being slain or sacrificed, slew the enmity that there was between God and poor sinners. The apostle proceeds to illustrate the great advantages which both parties gain by the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ, v. 17. Christ, who purchased peace on the cross, came, partly in his own person, as to the Jews, who are here said to have been nigh, and partly in his apostles, whom he commissioned to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, who are said to have been afar off, in the sense that has been given before. And preached peace, or published the terms of reconciliation with God and of eternal life. Note here, When the messengers of Christ deliver his truths, it is in effect the same as if he did it immediately himself. He is said to preach by them, insomuch that he who receiveth them receiveth him, and he who despiseth them (acting by virtue of his commission, and delivering his message) despiseth and rejecteth Christ himself. Now the effect of this peace is the free access which both Jews and Gentiles have unto God (v. 18): For through him, in his name and by virtue of his mediation, we both have access or admission into the presence of God, who has become the common reconciled Father of both: the throne of grace is erected for us to come to, and liberty of approach to that throne is allowed us. Our access is by the Holy Spirit. Christ purchased for us leave to come to God, and the Spirit gives us a heart to come and strength to come, even grace to serve God acceptably. Observe, We draw nigh to God, through Jesus Christ, by the help of the Spirit. The Ephesians, upon their conversion, having such an access to God, as well as the Jews, and by the same Spirit, the apostle tells them, Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, v. 19. This he mentions by way of opposition to what he had observed of them in their heathenism: they were now no longer aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and no longer what the Jews were wont to account all the nations of the earth besides themselves (namely, strangers to God), but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, that is, members of the church of Christ, and having a right to all the privileges of it. Observe here, The church is compared to a city, and every converted sinner is free of it. It is also compared to a house, and every converted sinner is one of the domestics, one of the family, a servant and a child in God’s house. In v. 20 the church is compared to a building. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of that building. They may be so called in a secondary sense, Christ himself being the primary foundation; but we are rather to understand it of the doctrine delivered by the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New. It follows, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. In him both Jews and Gentiles meet, and constitute one church; and Christ supports the building by his strength: In whom all the building, fitly framed together, c., &lti>v. 21. All believers, of whom it consists, being united to Christ by faith, and among themselves by Christian charity, grow unto a holy temple, become a sacred society, in which there is much communion between God and his people, as in the temple, they worshipping and serving him, he manifesting himself unto them, they offering up spiritual sacrifices to God and he dispensing his blessings and favours to them. Thus the building, for the nature of it, is a temple, a holy temple; for the church is the place which God hath chosen to put his name there, and it becomes such a temple by grace and strength derived from himself–in the Lord. The universal church being built upon Christ as the foundation-stone, and united in Christ as the corner-stone, comes at length to be glorified in him as the top-stone: In whom you also are built together, c., &lti>v. 22. Observe, Not only the universal church is called the temple of God, but particular churches; and even every true believer is a living temple, is a habitation of God through the Spirit. God dwells in all believers now, they having become the temple of God through the operations of the blessed Spirit, and his dwelling with them now is an earnest of their dwelling together with him to eternity.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

For he is our peace ( ). He himself, not just what he did (necessary as that was and is). He is our peace with God and so with each other (Jews and Gentiles).

Both one ( ). “The both” (Jew and Gentile). Jesus had said “other sheep I have which are not of this fold” (Joh 10:16).

One () is neuter singular (oneness, unity, identity) as in Ga 3:28. Race and national distinctions vanish in Christ. If all men were really in Christ, war would disappear.

Brake down the middle wall of partition ( ). “Having loosened (first aorist active participle of , see Joh 2:19) the middle-wall (late word, only here in N.T., and very rare anywhere, one in papyri, and one inscription) of partition (, old word, fence, from , to fence or hedge, as in Mt 21:33).” In the temple courts a partition wall divided the court of the Gentiles from the court of Israel with an inscription forbidding a Gentile from going further (Josephus, Ant. VIII. 3, 2). See the uproar when Paul was accused of taking Trophimus beyond this wall (Ac 21:28).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Our peace [ ] . Christ is similarly described in abstract terms in 1Co 1:30; wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. So Col 1:27, hope of glory. Christ is thus not merely our peace – maker, but our very peace itself.

Both [ ] . Lit., the both. The neuter gender shows that Jews and Gentiles are conceived by the writer merely as two facts. The masculine is used in vers. 15, 16.

Hath broken down [] . Lit, loosened or dissolved. Rev., giving the force of the aorist tense, brake down. The participle has an explanatory force, in that He brake down.

The middle – wall of partition [ ] . Lit., the middle wall of the fence or hedge. The wall which pertained to the fence; the fact of separation being emphasized in wall, and the instrument of separation in fence. The hedge was the whole Mosaic economy which separated Jew from Gentile. Some suppose a reference to the stone screen which bounded the court of the Gentiles in the temple.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “For he is our peace” (autos gar estin e eirene hemon) “For He is the peace of us,” Jesus Christ He is our source of peace with God, having become a peace offering to God for us, through the sacrifice of Himself to satisfy the broken law, Rom 5:1; 1Co 14:33; Joh 14:27; Joh 16:33; Isa 53:10-11.

2) “Who hath made both one” (ho poiesas ta amphotera en) “The one having made both one or as one.” Jesus Christ not only died to redeem Jews and Gentiles alike, but also to remove the Jewish barrier to equal worship and service for both Jews and Gentiles, In Christ’s death on the cross He resolved all grounds of distinction between their opportunities of salvation and privilege of worship in church worship and service.

3) “And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (kai to mesotoichon phragmou lusas) “And the middle wall of barrier, separation, or obstruction having broken down or removed (between us),” Jews and Gentiles. Our Lord’s death on the cross, for the whole world, Joh 3:16, in general, and the church He had established as a new body (new kind of body) of worship and service for Jews and Gentiles, in particular, removed the obstruction that once separated them. There is no “outer court” worship required of any person or race today, 2Co 3:6-18. The New Testament church, empowered by the Spirit of God, is to preach the gospel to very creature, Jew and Gentile, Joh 20:21; Mat 28:18-20; Mar 16:15; Luk 24:49-53; Act 1:8; Act 2:1-4. It is the church “ye,” composed of baptized believers made up of all races in covenant worship and work, that constitutes that “better covenant” and “better promises” than those of the Jewish program of worship.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

14. For he is our peace. He now includes Jews in the privilege of reconciliation, and shows that, through one Messiah, all are united to God. This consideration was fitted to repress the false confidence of the Jews, who, despising the grace of Christ, boasted that they were the holy people, and chosen inheritance, of God. If Christ is our peace, all who are out of him must be at variance with God. What a beautiful title is this which Christ possesses, — the peace between God and men! Let no one who dwells in Christ entertain a doubt that he is reconciled to God.

Who hath made both one. This distinction was necessary. (126) All intercourse with the Gentiles was held to be inconsistent with their own superior claims. (127) To subdue this pride, he tells them that they and the Gentiles have been united into one body. Put all these things together, and you will frame the following syllogism: If the Jews wish to enjoy peace with God, they must have Christ as their Mediator. But Christ will not be their peace in any other way than by making them one body with the Gentiles. Therefore, unless the Jews admit the Gentiles to fellowship with them, they have no friendship with God.

And breaking down the middle wall of partition. To understand this passage, two things must be observed. The Jews were separated, for a certain time, from the Gentiles, by the appointment of God; and ceremonial observances were the open and avowed symbols of that separation. Passing by the Gentiles, God had chosen the Jews to be a peculiar people to himself. A wide distinction was thus made, when the one class were “fellow-citizens and of the household” (Eph 2:19) of the Church, and the other were foreigners. This is stated in the Song of Moses:

“

When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel: for the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” (Deu 32:8)

Bounds were thus fixed by God to separate one people from the rest; and hence arose the enmity which is here mentioned. A separation is thus made. The Gentiles are set aside. God is pleased to choose and sanctify the Jewish people, by freeing them from the ordinary pollution of mankind. Ceremonial observances were afterwards added, which, like walls, enclosed the inheritance of God, prevented it from being open to all or mixed with other possessions, and thus excluded the Gentiles from the kingdom of God.

But now, the apostle, says, the enmity is removed, and the wall is broken down. By extending the privilege of adoption beyond the limits of Judea, Christ has now made us all to be brethren. And so is fulfilled the prophecy,

“

God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” (Gen 9:27)

(126) “ Il estoit necessaire que l’Apostre distinguast ainsi les hommes en deux bandes.” “It was necessary that the apostle should separate men into two classes.”

(127) “ Les Juifs estans enflez du privilege que Dieu leur avoit fait, tenoyent les Gentils pour indignes de communiquer avec eux en sorte quelconque.” “The Jews, puffed up with the privilege which God had conferred upon them, reckoned the Gentiles to be unworthy of being admitted to any intercourse whatever.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(14) He (Himself) is our peace.There is clearly allusion, as to the many promises in the Old Testament of the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:5-6, et al.), so still more to the Peace of Earth of the angelic song of Bethlehem, and to the repeated declarations of our Lord, such as, Peace I leave with you: My peace I give unto you. Here, however, only is our Lord called not the giver of peace, but the peace itselfHis own nature being the actual tie of unity between God and mankind, and between man and man. Through the whole passage thus introduced there runs a double meaning, a declaration of peace in Christ between Jew and Gentile, and between both and God; though it is not always easy to tell of any particular expression, whether it belongs to this or that branch of the meaning, or to both. It is well to compare it with the obvious parallel in Col. 2:13-14, where (in accordance with the whole genius of that Epistle) there is found only the latter branch of the meaning, the union of all with the Head, not the unity of the various members of the Body.

Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.In this verse the former subject is begun. The reunion of Jew and Gentile is described in close connection with the breaking down of the middle wall of the partition (or, hedge). The words between us are not in the original, and Chrysostom interprets the partition as being, not between Jew and Gentile, but between both and God. But the former idea seems at any rate to predominate in this clause. Whether the middle wall of the hedge refers to the wall separating the court of the Gentiles from the Temple proper (Jos. Ant. xv. 5), and by an inscription denouncing death to any alien who passed it (see Lewins St. Paul, vol. ii., p. 133), or to the hedge set about the vineyard of the Lord (Isa. 5:2; comp. Mat. 22:33)to which probably the Jewish doctors alluded when they called their ceremonial and legal subtleties the hedge of the Lawhas been disputed. It may, however, be noted that the charge of bringing Trophimus, an Ephesian, beyond that Temple wall had been the cause of St. Pauls apprehension at Jerusalem (Act. 21:29), and nearly of his death. Hence the Asiatic churches might well be familiar with its existence. It is also notable that this Temple-partition suits perfectly the double sense of this passage: for, while it was primarily a separation between Jew and Gentile, it was also the first of many partitionsof which the veil of the Temple was the lastcutting all men off from the immediate presence of God. At our Lords death the last of these partitions was rent in twain; how much more may that death be described as breaking down the first!

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(2 b.) Eph. 2:14-18 pass on from the description of the call of the heathen to personal union with God in Christ, to dwell on the perfect unity and equality of Jew and Gentile with each other in Him, and the access of both to the Father.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

14. Our peace A triangular peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both and God. One of the Hebrew names for the Messiah was Shalom, Peace.

Made both one Not by abolishing race distinctions in the physiological man, but by abolishing old antagonisms, and creating a new unity in Christian brotherhood.

The middle wall The words, if not an allusion to the wall described in our notes on Joh 2:14, and Act 21:28, are well illustrated by it.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he may create in himself one new man, so making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.’

Indeed God has united both Jews and Gentiles who come to Christ Jesus into one body. Peace is made between them and they are one. And through the cross He has reconciled both as one body in His own body, to God, by means of His sacrifice on the cross.

‘He Himself.’ The pronoun is emphatic and should be in italics for emphasis. ‘Is our peace.’ This means ‘has brought about and maintains peace’, making both one. They are made one with each other and at one with God.

‘Broke down the middle wall of partition.’ He has, as it were, torn down the wall in the Temple that separates the believing uncircumcised Gentiles from the Jews and their holy place. Copies of the actual inscription forbidding any foreigner on pain of death to ‘enter within the barrier which surrounds the Temple and enclosure’ have been found in the neighbourhood of the one time Temple. It was thus a serious barrier to oneness. But that barrier has now been torn down (even before the Temple was torn down). For all are now His in Christ on equal terms.

‘Having abolished in His flesh (that is, His flesh offered on the cross, compare ‘in the blood of Christ’ – Eph 2:13, and Col 1:21) the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances.’ The major hindrance to their being one, and a cause of enmity between them, was the ceremonial and ritual requirements which were found in ‘the Law of Moses’. This was why there had to be a wall in the Temple so that the Gentiles could not enter and make the inner part of the Temple ‘unclean’. But through the offering of the flesh of Christ, and the shedding of His blood, the sacrifices and rituals of the Temple are no longer necessary. In Christ and through His sacrifice that Law has been done away as far as it deals with ordinances. Its requirements are no longer binding because Christ’s offering of Himself is all sufficient (Heb 10:11-14). All can now enter fully into the presence of God. Paul does not otherwise explain here how this is achieved, so it would seem that it was seen as a settled issue by this time. We can find part of the answer in Galatians 3.

In Galatians 3 Paul tells us that no man can be reckoned as righteous by the Law, for no man can fully observe it, and that through His death Christ has removed the curse of the Law by being made a curse for us, taking our curse on Himself (Gal 3:10-13). Thus the Law no longer has power over us to condemn us. He also tells us that the promises to Abraham, which include blessing to the Gentiles, are superior to the Law, being applied through the Spirit by faith (Gal 3:1-9; Gal 3:14) and that the Law, which was short term, has now been replaced, as its function is now over (Gal 3:15-29).

‘Having abolished.’ The Greek word is difficult to translate. It can mean ‘to make of no effect’, ‘to do away with’ or ‘to take away the power of’, thus to abolish, invalidate. But its main meaning is clear. All the Jewish rites and ordinances have been done away as far as approach to God is concerned. They are no longer necessary. They have been replaced by something greater.

Thus the enmity and cause of division being removed, Jews and Gentiles who come to Christ become one new man in Christ. United with Him and in Him they are seen as a corporate unity along with Him, ‘in Him’. The idea of the ‘new man’ may be to suggest a new Adam composed of believing Jews and believing Gentiles, a new ‘mankind’. Jesus Christ is ‘the last Adam’ (1Co 15:45).

‘And might reconcile them both in one body.’ This is an interesting use of body which combines two ideas. The prime emphasis is on the fact that His one human body was offered on the cross, thus He offered Himself in one body. But this is then seen as a unifying factor so that they too are seen as ‘one body’ in His body which is why they are ‘one new man’. It thus illuminates the meaning of ‘His body’ in Eph 1:23. There is no suggestion here of the one body as a body in contrast with Him as the head. It represents Christ fully and signifies the one corporate entity represented by the one new man, which is both head and body, united with Him as the body. The later emphasis (Eph 1:20-22) is indeed on one Temple as cementing the unity. The main point is that the two are united as one man, one body, united with His body, so that as one they can be reconciled to God through the cross, the enmity between them having been slain.

This is symbolised for us by the bread at the Lord’s Table. The bread represents the body of Christ offered up for us but it also represents us as the one bread, the one body, incorporated in Christ, ‘seeing that we who are many are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ which is ‘a communion, a continual relationship, with the body of Christ’ (1Co 10:16-17).

‘And might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross having slain the enmity thereby.’ Through their response to the shed blood of Christ both Jew and Gentile, the ordinances of the Law being abolished, are united and made one. And simultaneously, as they are being united in one corporate entity, ‘one body’, they are reconciled to God through the cross, through the one body of Christ with which they are united. So oneness, reconciliation, is achieved with both man and God.

‘Reconcile.’ Apokatallasso. An intensification of katallasso (Rom 5:10; 2Co 5:18-20), which also means ‘reconcile’. It is only found elsewhere in Col 1:20-21. It is possibly a Paulinism. To ‘reconcile’ is to ‘bring back into relationship’, to ‘remove enmity and antipathy’. We had no relationship with God because of sin, but sin having been dealt with we can now come to know Him truly. We are reconciled with God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The reconciliation effected by Christ:

v. 14. For he is our Peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us,

v. 15. having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

v. 16. and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross, having slain the enmity there by;

v. 17. and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

v. 18. For through Him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.

The thought of the passage is that God, by the redemption of Christ, has gathered His Church out of Jews and Gentiles. So far as the present relation between Jews and Gentiles in the congregation is concerned, Paul writes: For He Himself is our Peace, who made both one and broke own the dividing wall of separation, the enmity, in His flesh. Jesus Christ is our Peace, He established peace between the two parties that seemed irreconcilable, between Jews and Gentiles. This great object of His life he brought about by uniting the two contending parties in one perfect unit. This He did by removing completely the wall, or partition, which separated Jews and Gentiles and caused constant enmity. The Mosaic Law, with all its precepts, institutions, and ceremonies, was a fence, or wall, which shut off the people of Israel from the Gentiles, which shut out the heathen from the privileges of the Jews. Christ abolished the Ceremonial Law and fulfilled the Moral Law.

This the apostle explains: (He removed the wall) by abolishing the enmity in His flesh, the law of commandments in ordinances. In His flesh, by the sufferings of His body, by going into death for the sins of the world, Christ has put the Law out of commission, He Bas abrogated the divine Law as a master of men. The curse, the guilt, the punishment lay upon Him, and so the Law has expended its might and power in His case. See Rom 7:6. Incidentally, Christ removed the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. The separation between the two could not exist without hostility, especially since the Ceremonial Law was a law of precepts in ordinances, and as such challenged opposition and enmity. The Gentiles were deterred from joining the people of God by the prospect of being kept in bondage by the countless and detailed instructions of the Law which governed the minutest acts of daily life, even as today people are not brought into church by the preaching of the Law. So Christ’s purpose in abrogating the Law was: That He might create the two in Himself to one new man, making peace. By making peace between the two estranged parties in the manner described, Christ brought about a union of the Jews and Gentiles to a unit, a gathering of the Christian Church from the Israel according to the flesh as well as from the Gentile nations. The holy Christian Church thus formed is the one body of Christ, and Christ’s work in bringing about this union is an evidence of His creative power.

In the same way and with the same object Jesus effected still more: And (that He) reconcile both in one body to God, having through the Cross killed the enmity in Himself. The word “reconciliation” in this connection does not refer to the removal of the hostile relation between God and man as much as to the abrogation of man’s hostile position and conduct over against God. It was Christ’s intention to bring both Jews and Gentiles before God as a unit people, as a single body, thus establishing perfect communion with God. This plan seemed destined for success from the start because Christ in Himself, by giving Himself into death, killed and removed the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. By sacrificing Himself and becoming obedient even to the death on the cross, He removed the obstacle that stood in the way of peace, the Law, which engendered hostility, thus making way for the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body, thus bringing about the perfect harmony of an evenly balanced and developed organic whole.

How this intention of Christ was realized and is being realized, Paul states: And thus He came and preached peace to you that were afar off and peace to those that were near. Having obtained a perfect redemption for all men, having removed the cause of disharmony and hostility, Jesus now comes in and through the Spirit, Joh 14:18; Act 26:23, in the Gospel. Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is personally present in and with the message of grace as it is preached throughout the world, and through this Word speaks to the hearts of men. It is a good, a joyful news, and its content is peace with God, the salvation earned by Christ on the cross with His suffering and death. This peace is now freely proclaimed to those that formerly were strange and distant, far from the chosen people of God and unacquainted with the evangelical promises, but also to those to whom the preaching of the Kingdom was entrusted of old: to Gentiles and to Jews Christ has proclaimed one and the same peace and thus restored peace between them. All believers in Christ are now united by the bond of this common knowledge and faith. Of them all together it holds true: For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. To this the experience of both Jews and Gentiles will cause them to agree. Christ is the Way; through Him the way to the Father is opened, through Him all have become partakers of the one Spirit. This unity of the Spirit, the unity of the sonship of God, the same right as children toward the Father of Jesus Christ, that is the bond which unites Jews and Gentiles, all the members of the Church of Christ. They all address Him: Abba, Father, with the same certainty of being heard, for all hindrances have been removed.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Eph 2:14. He is our peace, Mr. Locke would have this to be the same with your peace, and to be meant of the Gentile converts of whom the Apostle had been speaking just before; but it is evident that the reconciliation as well as the enmity was mutual; and the Jews were at least as strongly prejudiced against the Gentiles as the Gentiles against the Jews. The Apostle therefore, with consummate propriety, makes use of terms which were intended to include all true believers, whether originally belonging to the one or the other. The middle wall of partition, or separation, is mentioned in reference to that wall in the temple which was called the Chel, and separated the court of the Gentiles from that into which the Jews only were allowed to enter, and of which we have the most authentic account in Josephus. See Act 21:28.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eph 2:14 . [148] Confirmatory elucidation to Eph 2:13 , especially as to the element implied in the , and more precisely in the . .

] ipse; as regards His own person , is not put in opposition to the thought of ourselves having made the peace (Hofmann), which is in fact quite foreign to the passage; but and what a triumph of the certainty and completeness of the blessing obtained is therein implied! “non modo pacificator , nam sui impensa pacem peperit et ipse vinculum est utrorumque,” Bengel. See what follows. Observe also the presence of the article in , denoting the peace (Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 109 [E. T. 125]); He is for us the peace absolutely, the absolute contrast to the , Eph 2:15 . The Rabbinical passages, however, in which the Messiah (comp. Isa 9:6 ) is called (Wetstein in loc. ; Schttgen, Horae , II. p. 18), do not bear on this passage, since in them the point spoken of is not, as here, [149] the peace between Jews and Gentiles .

. . .] quippe qui fecit , etc., now begins the more precise information, how Christ has become Himself our peace.

] the two [Germ. das Beides ], i.e. the two existing parts, the Jews and Gentiles. The neuter expression corresponds to the following . Nothing is to be supplied (Grotius: ).

] not so, that one part assumed the nature of the other, but so that the separation of the two was done away with, and both were raised to a new unity. That was the union of the divine . See the sequel. Comp. Col 3:11 ; Gal 3:28 ; Rom 10:12 ; 1Co 12:13 ; Joh 10:16 .

. ] is related to the foregoing as explicative of it ( , see Winer, p. 388 [E. T. 546]; Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc . p. 9 f.). is genitive of apposition : the partition-wall, which consisted in the (well-known) fence . What is meant by this, we are then told by means of the epexegetic ; hence Paul has not by the figurative . merely wished to express the (negative) conception that Christ has done away with the isolation of the O. T. commonwealth, as Hofmann, Schriftbew . II. 1, p. 375, holds, refining on . . ., and connecting with . De Wette censures the “extreme tameness ” of the explanation, according to which . . . . is taken not as a designation of the law , but as a preliminary designation of the . But the twofold designation of the matter, describing it first figuratively and then properly, is in keeping with the importance of the idea, the direct expression of which produces after the previous figure an effect the more striking .

To take the genitive in an adjectival sense, as equivalent to (Vorstius, Grotius, Morus, Koppe, Rosenmller, Meier, and others), is wrong, because the characteristic adjective notion is implied in ( paries intergerinus , found elsewhere only in Eratosthenes quoted by Athen. vii. p. 281 D, in Hesychius under , and in the Fathers [150] ), which has been felt also by Castalio and Beza, inasmuch as they erroneously translated it as though were used. A reference, we may add, to a definite , which underlies the figurative expression, is not to be assumed, since the words furnish nothing of the sort, and any kind of fence serving as a partition-wall illustrates the . Some have thought of the stone screen which in the temple-enclosure marked off the court of the Gentiles, and the inscription of which forbade every Gentile from farther advance (Josephus, Bell . v. 5. 2, vi. 2. 4; Antt. viii. 3. 2 f., xv. 11. 5, al. ; Middoth , ii. 3). So Anselm, Ludov. Cappellus, Hammond, Bengel, Wetstein, Krebs, Bretschneider, Holzhausen, and others. But at most this could only be assumed, without arbitrariness, if that screen had statedly borne the name of . Other references, still more foreign to the matter, which have been introduced, such as to the Jewish districts in large towns, which were marked off by a wall or otherwise (Schttgen and others), may be seen in Wolf. Among the Rabbins, too, the figure of a fence is in very frequent use. See Buxtorf, s.v. .

] in the sense of throwing down (Wetstein, ad Joh. ii. 19), belongs to the figure , and is not chosen on account of the which does not come in till afterwards, although it would be chosen suitably thereto (see Wetstein in loc. ).

It has been wrongly designated as an un-Pauline idea, that Christ through His death should have united the Jews and Gentiles by means of the abolition of the law (see Schwegler, l.c. p. 389 f.). This union has in fact taken place as a raising of both into a higher unity, Eph 2:16 ; Eph 2:18 ; Eph 2:21 f.; hence that doctrinal principle is sufficiently explained from the destination of Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles and his personal experience, and from his own elsewhere attested universalism, and need not have as a presupposition the post-apostolic process of development on the part of the church gradually gathering itself out of heterogeneous elements into a unity, so as to betray a later “catholicizing tendency” (Baur).

[148] “Ver. 14 18 ipso verborum Lenore et quasi rhythmo canticum imitatur,” Bengel.

[149] In opposition to Hofmann, Schriftbew . II. 1, p. 374, who, at variance with the context, understands primarily in relation to God; similarly Calovius and others.

[150] In Athen. l.c. it is masculine : .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us ;

Ver. 14. For he is our peace ] That is, our peace maker and peace matter. a When he was born, there was among all nations a general aut pax, aut pactio, either peace or an agreement for peace, as Florus observeth. When he took his name, he would not have it either entirely Hebrew, as Jesus, or entirely Greek, as Christ, but both Jesus and Christ, to show (saith one) that he is our peace that hath reconciled two into one, &c.

a .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

14 .] For He (there certainly is an emphasis on , as Rck., Harl., Mey., Ellic., Eadie, ‘He and none other.’ This can hardly be denied by any one who will read through the whole from Eph 2:11 , and mark the repetitions, , which this takes up) is our peace (not by metonymy for , but in the widest and most literal sense, our peace. He did not make our peace and then retire, leaving us to enjoy that peace, but is Himself its medium and its substance; His making both one was no external reconciliation, but the taking both, their common nature, on and into Himself, see Eph 2:15 . Bear in mind the multitude of prophetic passages which connect peace with Him, Isa 9:5-6 ; Isa 52:7 ; Isa 53:5 ; Isa 57:19 ; Mic 5:5 ; Hag 2:9 ; Zec 9:10 : also Luk 2:14 ; Joh 14:27 ; Joh 20:19 ; Joh 20:21 ; Joh 20:26 . And notice that already the complex idea of the whole verse, that of uniting both Jews and Gentiles in one reconciliation to God, begins to appear: for He is our Peace, not only as reconciling Jew to Gentile, not as bringing the far-off Gentile near to the Jew, but as reconciling both, united, to God; as bringing the far-off Gentile, and the near Jew, both into peace with God. For want of observing this the sense has been much obscured: see below) who made (specification, how He is our peace. Better ‘made,’ than ‘ hath made :’ the latter is true, but it is the historic fact which is here brought out) both (Jews and Gentiles; not ‘ man and God,’ as Stier: cf. Eph 2:15-16 . Neuter, as abstract, both things, both elements) one, and (epexegetic ‘namely, in that he’) threw down the middle wall of the fence (i.e. the middle wall which belonged to was a necessary part of the carrying out of the . The primary allusion seems to be to the rending of the veil at the crucifixion: not that that veil separated Jew and Gentile, but that it, the chief symbol of separation from God, included in its removal the admission to Him of that one body into which Christ made Jew and Gentile. This complex idea is before the Apostle throughout the sentence: and necessarily; for the reconciliation which Christ effected between Jew and Gentile was in fact only a subordinate step of the great reconciliation of both to God, which He effected by His sacrifice in the flesh, and in speaking of one he speaks of the other also. The , from what has been said above, is more general in sense than the ; is in fact the whole arrangement, of which that was but an instrument the separation itself, consequent on a system of separation: it = therefore the whole legal system, ceremonial and moral, which made the whole separation, of Jew from Gentile, and in the background, of both from God), the enmity (not, of Jew and Gentile: so strong a term is not justified as applying to their separation, nor does such a reference satisfy Eph 2:16 , see there; but, the enmity in which both were involved against. God, see Rom 8:7 . . is in apposition with . This enmity was the real cause of separation from God, and in being so, was the inclusive, mediate cause of the separation between Jew and Gentile. Christ, by abolishing the first, abolished the other also: see below) in His flesh (to be joined not with , as most Commentators, which is very harsh, breaking the parallelism, and making the instrumental predication precede the verb, which is not the character of this passage; but with . Christ destroyed the ., i.e. the , in, or by, His flesh; see on Eph 2:16 , where the same idea is nearly repeated. It was in His crucified flesh, which was , that He slew this enmity. The rendering, ‘the enmity which was in His flesh,’ would certainly in this case require the specifying article , besides being very questionable in sense), having done away the law of decretory commandments (this law was the , the great exponent of the . Its specific nature was that it consisted in commandments, decretorily or dogmatically expressed; in – – . So that we do not require . or . This law, moral and ceremonial, its decalogue, its ordinances, its rites, was entirely done away in and by the death of Christ. See Col 2:13-15 , notes. And the end of that was) that He might create the two (Jew and Gentile) in Him (it is somewhat difficult to decide between and . On the one hand, is the harder reading: on the other, we have the constant confusion of ., ., and ., complicating the question. Whichever be read, the reference clearly must be to Christ, which, with , is, to say the least, a harsh recurrence to the of Eph 2:14 ) into one new man (observe, not that He might reconcile the two to each other only, nor is the Apostle speaking merely of any such reconciliation: but that He might incorporate the two, reconciled in Him to God, into one new man, the old man to which both belonged, the enemy of God, having been slain in His flesh on the Cross. Observe, too, ONE new man: we are all in God’s sight but one in Christ, as we are but one in Adam), making peace (not, between Jew and Gentile: He is , of us all: see below on Eph 2:17 ), and (parallel with the former purpose: not ‘ second purpose’ (Ellic., De W.), which yet must thus be the first . The is in fact just as in Eph 2:14 ) might reconcile again (most likely this is implied in the . We have it only in Col 1:20-21 , where the same sense, of reinstating in the divine favour, seems to be intended) both of us in one body (not His own human body, as Chrys. (who however seems to waver, cf. , between this and His mystical body) al. but the Church, cf. the same expression Col 3:15 ) to God (if this had not been here expressed, the whole reference of the sentence would have been thought to be to the uniting Jews and Gentiles. That it is expressed, now shews that throughout, that union has been thought of only as a subordinate step in a greater reconciliation) by means of the cross (the cross regarded as the symbol of that which was done on and by it), having slain the enmity ( has been taken here to mean the enmity between Jew and Gentile. But see on Eph 2:15 : and let us ask here, was this the enmity which Christ slew at His death? Was this the , the slaying of which brought in the , as this verse implies? Does such a meaning of at all satisfy the solemnity of the sentence, or of the next two verses? I cannot think so: and must maintain here (and if here, then in Eph 2:15 also) to be that between man and God, which Christ did slay on the cross, and which being brought to an end, the separation between Jew and Gentile, which was a result of it, was done away. Ellicott, who maintained the above opinion in his 1st edn., now agrees with that here insisted on) on it (on the cross: compare Col 2:15 , notes: not in His body: see above): and having come, He preached (how? when? Obviously after his death, because by that death the peace was wrought. We seek in vain for any such announcement made by Him in person after his resurrection. But we find a key to the expression in Joh 14:18 , : see also Joh 14:28 . And this coming was, by his Spirit poured out on the Church. There is an expression of St. Paul’s, singularly parallel with this, and of itself strongly corroborative of the genuineness of our Epistle, in Act 26:23 , , . . This coming therefore is by His Spirit (see on Eph 2:18 ), and ministers, and ordinances in the Church) peace to you who were far off, and peace to those (not “ to us ,” for fear of still upholding the distinction where he wishes to merge it altogether) that were nigh (this is plainly then not mere mutual reconciliation, but that far greater peace which was effected by Christ’s death, peace with God, which necessitated the union of the far off and the near in one body in Him. This is shewn especially by the repetition of . See Isa 57:19 .

Then follows the empowering reason, why He should preach peace to us both: and it is this Eph 2:18 especially which I maintain cannot be satisfied on the ordinary hypothesis of mere reconciliation between Jew and Gentile being the subject in the former verses. Here clearly the union (not reconciliation, nor is enmity predicated of them) of Jew and Gentile is subordinated to the blessed fact of an access TO GOD having been provided for both through Christ by the Spirit); for (not epexegetic of , ‘viz. that ,’ as Baumg.-Crus.) through Him we have our access (I prefer this intransitive meaning to that maintained by Ellic., al., ‘ introduction ,’ some (Mey.) say, by Christ ( 1Pe 3:18 ) as our ( admissionalis , a word of Oriental courts), not as differing much from it in meaning, but as better representing, both here and in Rom 5:2 , and ch. Eph 3:12 , the repetition , the present liberty of approach, which implies, but which ‘ introduction ’ does not give), both of us, in (united in, 1Co 12:13 ) one Spirit (not ‘ one frame of mind ’ (Anselm, Koppe, al.): the whole structure of the sentence, as compared with any similar one, such as 2Co 13:13 , will shew what spirit is meant, viz. the Holy Spirit of God, already alluded to in Eph 2:17 ; see above. As a parallel, cf. 1Co 12:13 ) to the Father .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Eph 2:14 . : for He is our Peace . As most commentators notice, the emphasis is on the “He and no other”. But there is probably more in it than that. The selection of the abstract , instead of the simple , suggests that the point of the is not only “He alone ,” but “He in His own person ”. It is not only that the peace was made by Christ and ranks as His achievement, but that it is so identified with Him that were He away it would also fail, so dependent on Him that apart from Him we cannot have it. And He is thus for us “ the Peace” ( ), Peace in the absolute sense to the exclusion of all other. Peace , the peace of the Messianic age, the peace that is to come by Messiah, is a frequent note in OT prophecy (Isa 9:5-6 ; Isa 52:7 ; Isa 53:5 ; Isa 57:19 ; Mic 5:5 ; Hag 2:9 ; Zec 9:10 ). Here, as the next sentence shows, the peace especially in view is that between Jew and Gentile, : who made both one . Not “hath made,” but “made,” with reference to the definite act of His death, as suggested by the . The is the abstract neuter the two parties or classes. The sing. neut. (= one thing , one organism ) expresses the idea of the unity , the new unity which the two long separate and antagonistic parties became; cf. the used even of the relation between Christ and God in Joh 10:16 , and for the unity here in view, cf. Rom 10:12 ; 1Co 12:13 ; Gal 3:28 ; Col 3:11 . : and broke down the middle wall of the partition . The former clause began the explanation of how Christ became our Peace. That explanation is continued in this clause and in the following. The , therefore, is epexegetic = to wit , or in that ( cf. Win.-Moult., p. 545). The gen. is not a mere equivalent to an adject. or a partic., as if = (Grot., Rosenm., etc.), nor is it the gen. of quality , = “the middle wall whose character it is to divide”; but either ( a ) the appos. gen. or gen. of identity , = “the middle wall that is (or, consists in) the partition,” or ( b ) the posses . gen., = “the wall pertaining to the partition”. On the latter view of the gen. the (a word found only this once in the NT and of rare occurrence elsewhere) becomes the more definite and specific term, the the more general, the former being, indeed, a part of the latter. That is to say, the is the whole system of things that kept Jew and Gentile apart, and the is the thing in the system that most conspicuously divided them, and that constituted the “enmity,” viz. , the Law. It is best, however, to take the terms and in the simple, literal sense of division and separation , which are not explained to be the Law till the is actually introduced in the subsequent clause; and, therefore, the former view of the gen. appears to be preferable. It is suggested that what Paul really expresses then is the fact that the legal system, which was meant primarily to protect the Jewish people against the corruption of heathen idolatry, became the bitter root of Jewish exclusiveness in relation to the Gentiles. This is to give the here the sense of something that fences in or encloses , which it occasionally has (Soph., d. Tyr. , 1387). But that is a rare sense, and the idea seems to be simpler. It is doubtful, too, whether Paul had in view here any material partition with which he was familiar. It could scarcely be the veil of the Temple that was rent at the Crucifixion; for that veil did not serve to separate the Gentile from the Jew. It might rather be (as Anselm, Bengel, and many more have thought) the wall or screen that divided the court of the Gentiles from the sanctuary proper, and of which Josephus tells us that it bore an inscription forbidding any Gentile from penetrating further ( Jew. Wars , v., 5, 2; vi., 2, 4; Antiq. , viii., 3, 2; xv., 11, 5). But even this is questionable, and all the more so as the wall was still standing at the time when this was written. For the use of cf. Joh 2:19 .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

peace. Peace itself, objectively, and its Author (1Th 5:23. 2Th 3:16), to us and in us. Compare Isa 9:6; Isa 52:7; Isa 53:5; Isa 57:19. Mic 5:5. Hag 2:9. Zec 9:10. Luk 2:14. Joh 14:27; Joh 20:19, Joh 20:21, Joh 20:26.

hath = having.

both. Jews and Gentiles.

hath broken down = having destroyed. See 1Jn 3:8.

middle wall. Greek. mesotoichon. Only here. The type is seen in the stone palisade, about three cubits high, which separated the Court of the Gentiles from that of the Jews, to pass which was death to any Gentile. A notice, of which Josephus speaks, was found in 1871.

partition = the partition. Only here; Mat 21:33. Mar 12:1. Luk 14:23 (hedge).

between us. Omit.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

14.] For He (there certainly is an emphasis on , as Rck., Harl., Mey., Ellic., Eadie, He and none other. This can hardly be denied by any one who will read through the whole from Eph 2:11, and mark the repetitions, – – , which this takes up) is our peace (not by metonymy for , but in the widest and most literal sense, our peace. He did not make our peace and then retire, leaving us to enjoy that peace,-but is Himself its medium and its substance; His making both one was no external reconciliation, but the taking both, their common nature, on and into Himself,-see Eph 2:15. Bear in mind the multitude of prophetic passages which connect peace with Him, Isa 9:5-6; Isa 52:7; Isa 53:5; Isa 57:19; Mic 5:5; Hag 2:9; Zec 9:10 : also Luk 2:14; Joh 14:27; Joh 20:19; Joh 20:21; Joh 20:26. And notice that already the complex idea of the whole verse, that of uniting both Jews and Gentiles in one reconciliation to God, begins to appear: for He is our Peace, not only as reconciling Jew to Gentile, not as bringing the far-off Gentile near to the Jew, but as reconciling both, united, to God; as bringing the far-off Gentile, and the near Jew, both into peace with God. For want of observing this the sense has been much obscured: see below) who made (specification, how He is our peace. Better made, than hath made: the latter is true, but it is the historic fact which is here brought out) both (Jews and Gentiles; not man and God, as Stier: cf. Eph 2:15-16. Neuter, as abstract,-both things, both elements) one, and (epexegetic-namely, in that he) threw down the middle wall of the fence (i.e. the middle wall which belonged to-was a necessary part of the carrying out of-the . The primary allusion seems to be to the rending of the veil at the crucifixion: not that that veil separated Jew and Gentile, but that it, the chief symbol of separation from God, included in its removal the admission to Him of that one body into which Christ made Jew and Gentile. This complex idea is before the Apostle throughout the sentence: and necessarily; for the reconciliation which Christ effected between Jew and Gentile was in fact only a subordinate step of the great reconciliation of both to God, which He effected by His sacrifice in the flesh,-and in speaking of one he speaks of the other also. The , from what has been said above, is more general in sense than the ; is in fact the whole arrangement, of which that was but an instrument-the separation itself, consequent on a system of separation: it = therefore the whole legal system, ceremonial and moral, which made the whole separation,-of Jew from Gentile,-and in the background, of both from God), the enmity (not, of Jew and Gentile: so strong a term is not justified as applying to their separation, nor does such a reference satisfy Eph 2:16,-see there;-but, the enmity in which both were involved against. God, see Rom 8:7. . is in apposition with . This enmity was the real cause of separation from God, and in being so, was the inclusive, mediate cause of the separation between Jew and Gentile. Christ, by abolishing the first, abolished the other also: see below) in His flesh (to be joined not with , as most Commentators, which is very harsh, breaking the parallelism, and making the instrumental predication precede the verb, which is not the character of this passage;-but with . Christ destroyed the ., i.e. the , in, or by, His flesh; see on Eph 2:16, where the same idea is nearly repeated. It was in His crucified flesh, which was , that He slew this enmity. The rendering, the enmity which was in His flesh, would certainly in this case require the specifying article , besides being very questionable in sense),-having done away the law of decretory commandments (this law was the ,-the great exponent of the . Its specific nature was that it consisted in commandments, decretorily or dogmatically expressed;-in –. So that we do not require . or . This law, moral and ceremonial, its decalogue, its ordinances, its rites, was entirely done away in and by the death of Christ. See Col 2:13-15, notes. And the end of that was) that He might create the two (Jew and Gentile) in Him (it is somewhat difficult to decide between and . On the one hand, is the harder reading: on the other, we have the constant confusion of ., ., and ., complicating the question. Whichever be read, the reference clearly must be to Christ, which, with , is, to say the least, a harsh recurrence to the of Eph 2:14) into one new man (observe, not that He might reconcile the two to each other only, nor is the Apostle speaking merely of any such reconciliation: but that He might incorporate the two, reconciled in Him to God, into one new man,-the old man to which both belonged, the enemy of God, having been slain in His flesh on the Cross. Observe, too, ONE new man: we are all in Gods sight but one in Christ, as we are but one in Adam), making peace (not, between Jew and Gentile: He is , of us all: see below on Eph 2:17), and (parallel with the former purpose: not second purpose (Ellic., De W.), which yet must thus be the first. The is in fact just as in Eph 2:14) might reconcile again (most likely this is implied in the . We have it only in Col 1:20-21, where the same sense, of reinstating in the divine favour, seems to be intended) both of us in one body (not His own human body, as Chrys. (who however seems to waver,-cf. ,-between this and His mystical body) al.-but the Church, cf. the same expression Col 3:15) to God (if this had not been here expressed, the whole reference of the sentence would have been thought to be to the uniting Jews and Gentiles. That it is expressed, now shews that throughout, that union has been thought of only as a subordinate step in a greater reconciliation) by means of the cross (the cross regarded as the symbol of that which was done on and by it), having slain the enmity ( has been taken here to mean the enmity between Jew and Gentile. But see on Eph 2:15 : and let us ask here, was this the enmity which Christ slew at His death? Was this the , the slaying of which brought in the , as this verse implies? Does such a meaning of at all satisfy the solemnity of the sentence, or of the next two verses? I cannot think so: and must maintain here (and if here, then in Eph 2:15 also) to be that between man and God, which Christ did slay on the cross, and which being brought to an end, the separation between Jew and Gentile, which was a result of it, was done away. Ellicott, who maintained the above opinion in his 1st edn., now agrees with that here insisted on) on it (on the cross: compare Col 2:15, notes: not in His body: see above): and having come, He preached (how? when? Obviously after his death, because by that death the peace was wrought. We seek in vain for any such announcement made by Him in person after his resurrection. But we find a key to the expression in Joh 14:18, : see also Joh 14:28. And this coming was, by his Spirit poured out on the Church. There is an expression of St. Pauls, singularly parallel with this, and of itself strongly corroborative of the genuineness of our Epistle, in Act 26:23, , . . This coming therefore is by His Spirit (see on Eph 2:18), and ministers, and ordinances in the Church) peace to you who were far off, and peace to those (not to us, for fear of still upholding the distinction where he wishes to merge it altogether) that were nigh (this is plainly then not mere mutual reconciliation, but that far greater peace which was effected by Christs death, peace with God, which necessitated the union of the far off and the near in one body in Him. This is shewn especially by the repetition of . See Isa 57:19.

Then follows the empowering reason, why He should preach peace to us both: and it is this Eph 2:18 especially which I maintain cannot be satisfied on the ordinary hypothesis of mere reconciliation between Jew and Gentile being the subject in the former verses. Here clearly the union (not reconciliation, nor is enmity predicated of them) of Jew and Gentile is subordinated to the blessed fact of an access TO GOD having been provided for both through Christ by the Spirit); for (not epexegetic of , viz. that , as Baumg.-Crus.) through Him we have our access (I prefer this intransitive meaning to that maintained by Ellic., al., introduction,-some (Mey.) say, by Christ (1Pe 3:18) as our (admissionalis, a word of Oriental courts),-not as differing much from it in meaning, but as better representing, both here and in Rom 5:2, and ch. Eph 3:12, the repetition, the present liberty of approach, which implies, but which introduction does not give), both of us, in (united in, 1Co 12:13) one Spirit (not one frame of mind (Anselm, Koppe, al.): the whole structure of the sentence, as compared with any similar one, such as 2Co 13:13, will shew what spirit is meant, viz. the Holy Spirit of God, already alluded to in Eph 2:17; see above. As a parallel, cf. 1Co 12:13) to the Father.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Eph 2:14. ) He.[28] We have here Emphasis.[29]- ) peace, not merely, the peace-maker; for at the cost of Himself He procured peace, and He Himself is the bond of both (Israel and the Gentiles).-) Apposition: Peace; He who hath made, etc. A remarkable saying, Eph 2:14-18. He imitates poetry [canticum, a song of joy] by the very tenor of the words, and almost by the rhythm.-We have a description-(.) the union of the Gentiles with Israel, Eph 2:14-15; and then (.) the union of the Gentiles and Israel, as now one man, with God, Eph 2:15, middle of verse-Eph 2:18. The description of each is subdivided into two parts, so that the first may correspond to the first, concerning the enmity that has been taken away; the second to the second, concerning the ordinances of the Gospel.- , both) The neuter for the masculine, Eph 2:18 [ ], properly, because , one [neuter], follows.- , the partition wall of the fence [the middle wall of partition]) It is called , a wall, because the separating space between [Jews and Gentiles] was very strongly fortified; , a fence, because it is easily removed at the proper time. The partition wall separates houses; the fence separates tracks of land; comp. Eph 2:19.[30] Therefore the distinction between circumcision and uncircumcision is hinted at. The very structure of the temple of Jerusalem was in conformity with it. The wall and the fence prevent an entrance; and the Gentiles were prevented from entering, inasmuch as they were not permitted to approach so near as the Israelites, even as those who were in the humblest rank.-, who hath broken down) Who hath broken down-who hath abolished, and not being repeated, very closely cohere. This short clause, and hath broken down, is explained in Eph 2:15, in the first half of the verse; He hath abolished the enmity in His flesh; comp. Eph 2:16, at the end. The law of commandments, which was properly adapted to the Israelites, He hath abolished, in the universal ordinances of grace;[31] comp. Eph 2:17, at the beginning of the verse.

[28] He alone and pre-eminently.-ED.

[29] See App. An addition to the ordinary meaning of a word, with the power of increasing its force on either side.

[30] Where refers to the separation of countries by the fence, : to the separation of houses by the , or partition wall; to which are opposed respectively and .-ED.

[31] But Engl. Vers. takes with , the law of commandments contained in ordinances.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Eph 2:14

For he is our peace,-The personal Christ, whose blood was shed is our Peace, not simply our peacemaker; for in his person as God-man, the reconciliation took place. His own nature being the only tie of unity between God and mankind, and between Jews and Gentiles. Through the whole passage thus introduced there runs a double meaning, a declaration of peace between Jew and Gentile, and between both and God. The latter is based upon the former, and the apostle gives prominence now to the one, and again to the other, but here necessarily includes both in the phrase, our peace.

who made both one,-[So there is no ground for separating between a Jewish element and a Gentile; in Christ they are unified. If all were really in Christ, war would disappear.]

and brake down the middle wall of partition,-The wall of partition was circumcision and the ordinances and observances of the Jewish law on the one side; on the other side were the worship of idols, the fleshly sins, and pollutions that accompany idolatry, and the lack of faith in God. Jesus removed these separating causes.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

our: Isa 9:6, Isa 9:7, Eze 34:24, Eze 34:25, Mic 5:5, Zec 6:13, Luk 1:79, Luk 2:14, Joh 16:33, Act 10:36, Rom 5:1, Col 1:20, Heb 7:2, Heb 13:20

both: Eph 2:15, Eph 3:15, Eph 4:16, Isa 19:24, Isa 19:25, Eze 37:19, Eze 37:20, Joh 10:16, Joh 11:52, 1Co 12:12, Gal 3:28, Col 3:11

the middle: Est 3:8, Act 10:28, Col 2:10-14, Col 2:20

Reciprocal: Gen 9:27 – dwell Exo 26:31 – a veil of Lev 9:18 – a sacrifice Lev 19:5 – a sacrifice Lev 23:20 – wave them Num 6:26 – give thee Job 22:21 – be at peace Psa 72:7 – abundance Psa 119:150 – draw nigh Psa 120:7 – for peace Son 2:9 – he standeth Son 6:13 – As Isa 26:3 – wilt Isa 56:8 – Yet Isa 57:19 – Peace Hag 2:9 – give Luk 19:38 – peace Luk 23:45 – and the veil Joh 14:27 – Peace I leave Joh 20:19 – Peace Act 15:9 – put 2Co 3:13 – to the Eph 2:17 – that Col 2:14 – the handwriting 2Th 3:16 – the Lord of

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

(Eph 2:14.) -For He is our peace. introduces the reason of the previous statement. There is peculiar force in the . It is not simply He, but He Himself-He truly, or He and none other. Winer, 22, 4, b. The cannot, as Locke supposes, refer to converted Gentiles, but to Jew and Gentile alike. In its widest sense, as this paragraph teaches, Christ is the peace, and not merely the peacemaker; the Author of it, for He makes both one, and reconciles them to God; the Basis of it, for He has abolished the enmity in His flesh, and by His cross; the Medium of it, for through Him we both have access to the Father; and the Proclaimer of it, for He came and preached peace. For such reasons Paul may have used the abstract personified form-. He Himself, says Olshausen, followed by Stier, in His essence is peace. Yet we question if this be the apostolic idea, for the apostle illustrates in the following verses, not the essence, but the operations of Christ. This peace is now stated by the inspired writer to be peace between Jew and Gentile viewed as antagonist races, and peace between them both united and God. The first receives fullest illustration, as it fell more immediately within the scope of the apostle’s design. Gentiles are no longer formally excluded from religious privilege and blessing, and Jewish monopoly is for ever overthrown. And it is Christ-

-who made both one. The participle is modal in sense, and are clearly the two races, Jew and Gentile, and not, as Stier and others maintain, man and God also. The words are the abstract neuter (Winer, 27, 5), and in keeping also is the following adjective . Jew and Gentile are not changed in race, nor amalgamated in blood, but they are one in point of privilege and position toward God. The figure employed by Chrysostom is very striking:-He does not mean that He has elevated us to that high dignity of theirs, but He has raised both us and them to one still higher. . . . I will give you an illustration. Let us imagine that there are two statues, one of silver and the other of lead, and then that both shall be melted down, and the two shall come out gold. So thus He has made the two one. And this harmony is effected in the following way-

-and broke down the middle wall of partition-paries intergerinus. is explanatory of the foregoing clause, and precedes a description of the mode in which both were made one. Winer, 53, 3, obs.We see no reason to take the genitive- -as that of apposition; nor could we, with Piscator, change the clause into . It is, as de Wette calls it, the genitive of subject or possession-the middle wall which belonged to the fence or was an essential part of it. Donaldson, 454, aa. does not, however, signify partition; it rather denotes inclosure. The Mosaic law was often named by the Rabbins a hedge-. Buxtorf, Lex. Talmud. sub voce. What allusion the apostle had in has been much disputed. Dismissing the opinion of Wagenseil, that it refers to the vail hung up before a royal or a bridal chamber; and that of Gronovius, that it signifies such partitions as in a large city, inhabited by persons of different nations, divide their respective boundaries, very much as the Jewish Ghetto is walled off in European capitals-we may mention the popular view of many interpreters, that the allusion is to the wall or parapet which in Herod’s temple severed the court of the Jews from that of the Gentiles. The Jewish historian records that on this wall was inscribed the prohibition- . Joseph. Antiq. 15.11; Bellum Jud. 5.2. Such is the idea of Anselm, Wetstein, Holzhausen, Bengel, and Olshausen. Tyndale translates-The wall that was a stop bitwene vs. The notion is quite plausible, but nothing more; for, 1. There is no proof that such a wall ever received this appellation. 2. That wall described by Josephus was an unauthorized fence or separation. There was another wall that separated even the Jewish worshippers from the court of the priests. 3. Nor could the heathen party in the Ephesian church be supposed to be conversant with the plan of the sacred fane in Jerusalem. 4. And the allusion must have been very inapposite, because at the time the epistle was written, that wall was still standing, and was not broken down till eight years afterwards. So that, with many expositors, we are inclined to think that the apostle used a graphic and intelligible figure, without special allusion to any part of the architecture of the temple, unless perhaps to the vail. But such a primary allusion to the vail as Alford supposes is not in harmony at all with the course of thought, for it was not a bar between Jew and Gentile, but equally one between them both and God, and could not be identified with the enmity of race which sprang from the ceremonial law, as described in the next verse. Any social usage, national peculiarity, or religious exclusiveness, which hedges round one race and shuts out all others from its fellowship, may be called a middle wall of partition; and such was the Mosaic law. -Having pulled down, is a term quite in unison with the figure. Joh 2:19. Having pulled down-

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Eph 2:14. He is our peace. The first word is a pronoun that stands for Christ, and the third is one that means the Jews and Gentiles. These two groups had been separated religiously by the partition wall of the Mosaic law which was given for the Jews only. This wall was removed by cancelling the religious function of the Jewish system, and giving a new one through Christ, adapted to the needs of Jews and Gentiles.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Eph 2:14. For. This introduces a confirmatory explanation of the preceding verse.

He is our peace. The subject is emphatic: He and none other; the personal Christ, whose blood was shed, is Himself our peace, not simply our peacemaker; for in His person, as God man, the reconciliation took place. Peace is here to be taken in its widest sense, as the complex idea of peace between God and man, and between Jews and Gentiles. The latter is based upon the former, and the Apostle gives prominence now to the one, and again to the other, but here necessarily includes both in the phrase, our peace. How He is our peace is specified in what follows (down to the close of Eph 2:17).

Who made both one. Both Jews and Gentiles, as the context shows.

And broke down the middle wall of the partition. This explains how he made both one, namely, in that He broke down, etc. The figure is a natural one. Between the Jews and the Gentiles there had existed a middle wall, which belonged to the partition, the well-known hedge or fence between the two classes. Others explain: the middle wall which was the partition; but the former view is preferable, since it gives a wider meaning to the latter term, better suited to the complex idea of peace running through the passage. The hedge was the whole Mosaic economy which separated between Jews and Gentiles, but which, as Eph 2:15-16 indicate, also separated both from God, by convincing of guilt and sin. How the middle wall, which resulted from and belonged to this economy, was broken down once for all, is explained in what follows. The figures may have been suggested by the Jewish temple. There was there a court of the Gentiles (Act 21:28), though only in later times, in the last temple; a vail which separated like a wall, rent first at the death of the Redeemer (Braune).

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

He is our peace: that is,

1. He is the Mediator of our peace, the great peace-maker betwixt God and men.

2.He is our peace: that is, the purchaser of our peace.

3. He is our peace; that is, the establisher of our peace. All which is to be understood, not only of peace betwixt God and man, but also betwixt man and man. Who hath made both one; that is, both Jews and Gentiles one church.

Here note, That there was a very great and deep-rooted enmity betwixt Jews and Gentiles, until Christ purchased their peace and reconciliation.

The Jews derided, scorned, and hated the Gentiles as unclean, compared them to dogs and swine.

The Gentiles, they reproached the Jews for circumcising their flesh, esteemed them, of all nations, the worst; and would hold their nose at the Jews when they met them, and cry, O faetentes Judaei! O ye stinking Jews! and turn away their eyes from them.

Learn from hence then, That the uniting of both Jew and Gentile into one church, was one blessed effect and sweet fruit of the purchase of Christ’s blood; Christ’s offering of himself was intended as a sacrifice for enmities between man and man, as well as for enmities between God and man: He is our peace, who hath made both one.

Observe next, What Christ hath done in order to his making peace between Jew and Gentile;

1. He has abolished the ceremonial law, called here a partition- wall, betwixt the Jews and the Gentiles; in allusion, no doubt, to that wall to Solomon’s temple which separated the court of the Jews from that of the Gentiles, that they could neither come at, nor look at one another. So that this partition-wall being said to be broken down, intimates to us, that Jew and Gentile, who before had two manner of religions, the one in and under a covenant with God, the other afar off, and without God; yet now by Christ are both adopted into the same church, partakers of the same covenants, incorporated into the same faith, entitled to the same glory.

2. Christ has abolished the enmity and perpetual strife which was occasioned between Jew and Gentile, upon the account of the observation of the ceremonial law, and the ordinances thereunto belonging: He hath abolished the enmity; that is, the ceremonial law, which made the enmity between them. The ceremonial law was the cause and the continuer of that enmity which was betwixt Jew and Gentile: this is called the law of commandments contained in ordinances: because Almighty God did actually separate the Jews from all the world, by giving them ordinances and commandments, judicial and ceremonial laws, containing many visible and external observances, which forbade them to communicate with the Gentile world.

Now Christ being come in the flesh, all those observances ceased, and those legal ordinances vanished away; all nations become blessed in Christ, and Jews and Gentiles become one church, both alike the people of God, both admitted equally into covenant, and both alike blessed.

Here note, That the moral law, summarily comprised and comprehended in the Ten Commandments, was no part of the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile. Nor did the death of Christ abrogate this law, nor is it at all abolished: but it was the law of ceremonies only, which the sufferings and death of Christ put an end unto; for when he died, they all vanished; as the shadow disappears when the substance is come.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Verse 14

Both one; both Jew and Gentile one in him.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [between us];

More theology coming at cha. “Who hath made both one” speaks to the unification of Spiritual Israel and the church. Not, that it is speaking of unification of all promises, rules and regulations however as some would teach. We, the church are not under the law, nor are we under the promise; we are under the cross as is all Israel. Israel was in a special state until the cross; there was a barrier between them and God, which only the cross could deal with. The work of Christ allows all peoples equal entrance into the presence of God without need of works or keeping of the law.

Just what is this “middle wall of partition?” A couple things might come to mind. There is the division of the temple, the outer area from the Holy of Holies where God dwelled. There is also the thought of the wall between Jew and Gentile. And there is also the wall between God and lost man. The question is this – which is it?

The answer is quite obvious if you read the context of verses twelve to sixteen. It is all that divided Jew from Gentile, or maybe a little more correctly we should view this as the division that kept Gentiles away from the Jewish relationship with God. There is a little thought, in my mind of that which keeps the lost from God, and that would be valid here, but specifically Paul is talking about the wall that kept the Gentiles from the Jewish relationship to God. This is a general statement of what has happened at the cross.

There were laws in the Old Testament to allow seekers to come into a relationship with God by becoming a Jew in lifestyle and commitment; however this wall that came down was the general wall that blocked Gentiles from direct access to God without coming to Him through the law and all it involves.

The Gentiles come directly, and the wall being removed, so do the Jews. There seems to be several aspects to this wall. The fact that it kept Gentiles from a relationship to Israel and God, the fact that it kept Jews from having direct access to God without the law and the fact that it kept Gentiles from direct access to God without the law.

Christ was our peace – He brought peace between all parties. One must wonder why the Jews do not see this. Well, not really, as they are still following the law, having rejected their Messiah and having their eyes darkened by God. A few have found that peace with God through the cross, but most Jews still await His coming and yet serve the law in some manner or another.

So, how does this apply to the movements today that want to mix the Old Testament with the New? Those in America and Israel that are trying to rebuild the temple by their own efforts. Those that take upon themselves Jewish names to find favor with God, those that take on the Jewish trappings in an attempt to put Jewish flavor to the Church.

Nowhere in the Word are we told to pattern the church after Israel, nowhere in the Word are we told to pattern our lives after Judaism, and nowhere in the Word are we told to stir the Old and New into one big pot of slime called Messianic Christianity. Messiah was Christ; Christ is Christianity so the two terms become redundant. Instead of pointing out their uniqueness in life and belief, it points out their error in life and belief.

When my brother died, I found that he had become involved in this movement to some extent or another. His girl friend was shocked to the quick when I told her I was not going to go to the expense of flying his remains to be scattered over the Jordan River. He had declared this a wish, but I rather doubt it was much more than a passing statement of hope in that he was planning to move to Israel to work assisting immigrants. He had told me only a year or two earlier that there was to be no expense in getting him into the ground. We both saw the futility of the modern mortician practices that dwell on the sorrow of bereaved people.

There is nothing in the Word to indicate that there is any significance to the human body after it ceases to live. It returns to dust, so why prolong the process with all the tactics of modern mummification and preparations for the departed. They are going to rot, no matter how nice you make the process begin so why not move on with the process at the earliest possible opportunity?

When I see mummies of the distant past I am interested due to history, but I also am humored at the ploys of man to make the old pile of dust last longer than the manufacturer designed it to last. We are dust; we will never be anything else, so why struggle and squirm as we do to keep this body from its intended future.

Personal opinion here, but I really cannot understand the expense Christians go to in giving their loved ones a big send off. They aren’t there to send, they are long gone folks – read the Bible. We aren’t in that shell, we are with the Lord ignoring what’s going on around the body we once knew. The cheapest method to dispose of the body is the good steward’s duty, not the terribly expensive funerals and caskets and flowers that are dying themselves by the way. They are just not quite as far along in the process.

To return to the point, if you have anyone trying to pull you back into compliance with the Old Testament laws of life and living, you have someone that does not understand that we don’t need that, someone that does not understand God’s ongoing program and someone that does not understand grace and all its benefits. Do not allow anyone to draw you back or away from God with such attempts – refuse them – follow what grace teaches – freedom from the law and all its requirements, the most significant one of which is, that if you try to obey one point of the law to gain with God, you are required to keep the entirety of the law perfectly and you will not succeed.

There is also the thought that there was a solid wall between the court of the Gentiles (in the temple) and the rest of the temple – to separate the Jews and the Gentiles. This pictures that partition being removed from between the two peoples.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

2:14 {12} For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [between us];

(12) As by the ceremonies and worship appointed by the Law, the Jews were divided from the Gentiles, so now Christ, having broken down the partition wall, joins them both together, both in himself, and between themselves, and to God. From which it follows, that whoever permanently establishes the ceremonies of the Law, makes the grace of Christ void and of no effect.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The significance of Gentile believers’ union with Jewish believers 2:14-18

Essentially Jesus Christ’s death has resulted in peace between Gentile believers and Jewish believers and peace between Gentile believers and God.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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. [Note: Morris, p. 65. Cf. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15:11:5; ibid., The Wars of the Jews, 5:5:2.] This 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 all 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 [the church] 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." [Note: Bock, p. 314.]

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. Romans 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 Eph 2:14 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 (Eph 2:18-22)." [Note: Idem, "’The New Man’ as Community in Colossians and Ephesians," in Integrity of Heart, Skillfulness of Hands, p. 161.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 10

THE DOUBLE RECONCILIATION

Eph 2:14-18

“PEACE, peace-to the far off, and to the near!” Such was Gods promise to His scattered people in the times of the exile. {Isa 57:19} St. Paul sees that peace of God extending over a yet wider field, and terminating a longer and sadder banishment than the prophet had foreseen. Christ is “our peace”-not for the divided members of Israel alone, but for all the tribes of men. He brings about a universal pacification.

There were two distinct, but kindred enmities to be overcome by Christ, in preaching to the world His good tidings of peace (Eph 2:17). There was the hostility of Jew and Gentile, which was removed in its cause and principle when Christ “in His flesh” (by His incarnate life and death) “abolished the law of commandments in decrees”-i.e., the law of Moses as it constituted a body of external precepts determining the way of righteousness and life. This abolition of the law by the evangelical principle “dissolved the middle wall of partition.” The occasion of quarrel between Israel and the world was destroyed; the barrier disappeared that had for so long fenced off the privileged ground of the sons of Abraham (Eph 2:14-15). But behind this human enmity, underneath the feud and rancour existing between the Jews and the nations, there lay the deeper quarrel of mankind with God. Both enmities centred in the law: both were slain by one stroke, in the reconciliation of the cross (Eph 2:16).

The Jewish and Gentile peoples formed two distinct types of humanity. Politically, the Jews were insignificant and had scarcely counted amongst the great powers of the world. Their religion alone gave them influence and importance. Bearing his inspired Scriptures and his Messianic hope, the wandering Israelite confronted the vast masses of heathenism and the splendid and fascinating classical civilisation with the proudest sense of his superiority. To his God he knew well that one day every knee would bow and every tongue confess. The circumstances of the time deepened his isolation and aggravated to internecine hate his spite against his fellowmen, the adversus omnes alios hostile odium stigmatised by the incisive pen of Tacitus. Within three years of the writing of this letter the Jewish war against Rome broke out, when the enmity culminated in the most appalling and fateful overthrow recorded in the pages of history. Now, it is this enmity at its height-the most inveterate and desperate one can conceive-that the apostle proposes to reconcile; nay, that he sees already slain by the sacrifice of the cross, and within the brotherhood of the Christian Church. It was slain in the heart of Saul of Tarsus, the proudest that beat in Jewish breast.

In his earlier writings the apostle has been concerned chiefly to guard the position and rights of the two parties within the Church. He has abundantly maintained, especially in the epistle to the Galatians, the claims of Gentile believers in Christ against Judaic assumptions and impositions. He has defended the just prerogative of the Jew and his hereditary sentiments from the contempt to which they were sometimes exposed on the part of the Gentile majority. But now that this has been done, and that Gentile liberties and Jewish dignity have been vindicated and safeguarded on both sides, St. Paul advances a step further: he seeks to amalgamate the Jewish and Gentile section of the Church, and to “make of the twain one new man, so making peace.” This, he declares, was the end of Christs mission; this a chief purpose of His atoning death. Only by such union, only through the burying of the old enmity slain on the cross, could His Church be built up to its completeness. St. Paul would have Gentile and Jewish believers everywhere forget their differences, efface their party lines, and merge their independence in the oneness of the all-embracing and all-perfecting Church of. Jesus Christ, Gods habitation in the Spirit. Instead of saying that a catholic ideal like this belongs to a later and post-apostolic age, we maintain, on the contrary, that a catholic mind like St. Pauls, under the conditions of his time, could riot fail to arrive at this conception.

It was his confidence in the victory of the cross over all strife and sin that sustained St. Paul through these years of captivity. As he looks out from his Roman prison, under the shadow of Neros palace, the future is invested with a radiance of hope that makes the heart of the chained apostle exult within him. The world is lost, to all outward seeming: he knows it is saved! Jew and Gentile are about to close in mortal conflict: he proclaims peace between them, assured of their reconcilement, and knowing that in their reunion the salvation of human society is assured. The enmity of Jew and Gentile was representative of all that divides mankind. In it were concentrated most of the causes by which society is rent asunder. Along with religion, race, habits, taste and culture, moral tendencies, political aspirations, interests of trade, all helped to widen the breach. The cleavage ran deep into the foundations of life; the enmity was the growth of two thousand years. It was not a case of local friction, nor a quarrel arising from temporary causes. The Jew was ubiquitous, and everywhere was an alien and an irritant to Gentile society. No antipathy was so hard to subdue. The grace that conquers it can and will conquer all enmities. St. Pauls view embraced, in fact, a world-wide reconcilement. He contemplates, as the Hebrew prophets themselves did, the fraternisation of mankind under the rule of the Christ. After this scale he laid down the foundation of the Church, “wise master-builder” that he was. It was destined to bear the weight of an edifice in which all the races of men should dwell together, and every order of human faculty should find its place. His thoughts were not confined within the Judaic antithesis. “There is no Jew and Greek,” he says in another place; yes, and “no barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, male or female. Ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Birth, rank, office in the Church, culture, even sex are minor and subordinate distinctions, merged in the unity of redeemed souls in Christ. That which He “creates in Himself of the twain” is one new man- one incorporate humanity, neither Jew nor Gentile, Englishman nor Hindu, priest nor layman, male nor female; but simply man, and Christian.

At the present time we are better able to enter into these views of the apostle than at any intervening period of history. In his day almost the whole visible world, lying around the Mediterranean shores, was brought under the government and laws of Rome. This fact made the establishment of one religious polity a thing quite conceivable. The Roman empire did not, as it proved, allow Christianity to conquer it soon enough and to leaven it sufficiently to save it. That huge construction, the mightiest fabric of human polity, fell and covered the earth with its ruins. In its fall it reacted disastrously upon the Church, and has bequeathed to it the corrupt and despotic unity of Papal Rome. Now, in these last days, the whole world is opened to the Church, a world stretching far beyond the horizon of the first century. Science and Commerce, those two strong-winged angels and giant ministers of God, are swiftly binding the continents together in material ties. The peoples are beginning to realise their brotherhood, and are feeling their way in many directions towards international union; while in the Churches a new, federal catholicity is taking shape, that must displace the false Catholicism of external uniformity and the disastrous absolutism inherited from Rome. The spread of European empire and the marvellous expansion of our English race are carrying forward the worlds unification with enormous strides, -towards some end or other. What end is this to be? Is the kingdom of the world about to become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ? and are the nations preparing to be “reconciled in one body unto God”?

If Christendom were worthy of her Master and her name, this answer would be answered with no doubtful affirmative. The Church is well able, if she were prepared, to go up and possess the whole earth for her Lord. The way is open; the means are in her hand. Nor is she ignorant, nor wholly negligent of her opportunity and of the claims that the times impose upon her. She is putting forth new strength and striving to overtake her work, notwithstanding the weight of ignorance and sloth that burdens her. Soon the reconciling cross will be planted on every shore, and the praises of the Crucified be sung in every human language.

But there are dark as well as bright auguries for the future. The advance of commerce and emigration has been a curse and not a blessing to many heathen peoples. Who can read without shame and horror the story of European conquest in America? And it is a chapter not yet closed. Greed and injustice still mark the dealings of the powerful and civilised with the weaker races. England set a noble example in the abolition of negro slavery; but she has since inflicted, for purposes of gain, the opium curse on China, putting poison to the lips of its vast population. Under our Christian flags firearms are imported, and alcohol, amongst tribes of men less able than children to resist their evils. Is this “preaching peace to those far off”? It is likely that the commercial profits made in the destruction of savage races as yet exceed all that our missionary societies have spent in saving them. One of these days Almighty God may have a stern reckoning with modern Europe about these things. “When He maketh inquisition for blood, He will remember.”

And what shall we say of ourselves at home, in our relation to this great principle of the apostle? The old “middle wall of partition,” the temple-barrier that sundered Jew and Gentile, is “broken down,”-visibly levelled by the hand of God when Jerusalem fell, as it had been virtually and in its principle destroyed by the work of Christ. But are there no other middle walls, no barriers raised within the fold of Christ? The rich mans purse, and the poor mans penury; aristocratic pride, democratic bitterness and jealousy; knowledge and refinement on the one hand, ignorance and rudeness on the other-how thick the veil of estrangement which these influences weave, how high the party walls which they build in our various Church communions!

It is the duty of the Church, as she values her existence, with gentle but firm hands to pull down and to keep down all such partitions. She cannot abolish the natural distinctions of life. She cannot turn the Jew into a Gentile, nor the Gentile into a Jew. She will never make the poor man rich in this world, nor the rich man altogether poor. Like her Master, she declines to be “judge or divider” of our secular inheritance. But she can see to it that these outward distinctions make no difference in her treatment of the men as men. She can combine in her fellowship all grades and orders, and teach them to understand and respect each other. She can soften the asperities and relieve many of the hardships which social differences create. She can diffuse a healing and purifying influence upon the contentions of society around her.

Let us labour unweariedly for this, and let our meeting at the Lords table be a symbol of the unreserved communion of men of all classes and conditions in the brotherhood of the redeemed sons of God. “He is our peace”; and if He is in our hearts, we must needs be sons of peace. “Behold the secret of all true union! It is not by others coming to us, nor by our going over to them; but it is by both them and ourselves coming to Christ” that peace is made (Monod). Thus within and without the Church the work of atonement will advance, with Christ ever for its preacher (Eph 2:17). He speaks through the words and the lives of His ten thousand messengers, men of every order, in every age and country of the earth. The leaven of Christs peace will spread till the lump is leavened. God will accomplish His purpose of the ages, whether in our time, or in another worthier of His calling. His Church is destined to be the home of the human family, the universal liberator and instructor and reconciler of the nations. And Christ shall sit enthroned in the loyal worship of the federated peoples of the earth.

But the question remains: What is the foundation, what the warrant of this grand idealism of the apostle Paul? Many a great thinker, many an ardent reformer before and since has dreamed of some such millennium as this. And their enthusiastic plans have ended too often in conflict and destruction. What surer ground of confidence have we in Pauls undertaking than in those of so many gifted visionaries and philosophers? The difference lies here: his expectation rests on the word and character of God; his instrument of reform is the cross of Jesus Christ.

God is the centre of His own universe. Any reconciliation that is to stand must include Him first of all. Christ reconciled Jew and Gentile “both in one body to God.” There is the meeting point, the true focus of the orbit of human life, that can alone control its movements and correct its wild aberrations. Under the shadow of His throne of justice, in the arms of His fatherly love, the kindreds of the earth will at last find reconciliation and peace. Humanitarian and secularist systems make the simple mistake of ignoring the supreme Factor in the scheme of things; they leave out the All in all.

“Be ye reconciled to God, ” cries the apostle. For Almighty God has had a great quarrel with this world of ours. The hatred of men towards each other is rooted in the “carnal mind which is enmity against God.” The “law of commandments contained in ordinances,” in whose possession the Jew boasted over the lawless and profane Gentile, in reality branded both as culprits. The secret disquiet and dread lurking in mans conscience, the pangs endured in his body of humiliation, the groaning frame of nature declare the world unhinged and out of course. Things have gone amiss, somehow, between man and his Creator. The face of the earth and the field of human history are scarred with the thunderbolts of His displeasure. God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the King of the ages, is not the amiable, almighty Sentimentalist that some pious people would make Him out to be. The men of the Bible felt and realised, if we do not, the grave and tremendous import of the Lords controversy with all flesh. He is unceasingly at war with the sins of men. “God is love”-oh, yes! but then He is also “a consuming fire”! There is no anger so crushing as the anger of love, for there is none so just; no wrath to be feared like “the wrath of the Lamb.” God is not a man, weak and passionate whom a spark of anger might set all on fire, burning out His justice and compassion. “In His wrath He remembers mercy.” Within that infinite nature there is room for an absolute loathing and resentment towards sin, in consistence with an immeasurable pity and yearning towards His sinful children. Hence the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Look at it from what side you will (and it has many sides), propound it in what terms you may (and it translates itself anew into the dialect of every age), you must not explain the cross of Christ away nor cause its offence to cease. “The atonement has always been a scandal and a folly to those who did not receive it; it has always contained something which to formal logic is false and to individualistic ethics immoral; yet in that very element which has been branded as immoral and false, has always lain the seal of its power and the secret of its truth.” The Holy One of God, the Lamb without spot and blemish, He died by His own consent a sinners death. That sacrifice, undergone by the Son of God and Son of man dying as man for men, in love to His race and in obedience to the Divine will and law, gave an infinite satisfaction to God in His relation to the world, and there went up to the Divine throne from the anguish of Calvary a “savour of sweet smell.” The moral glory of the act of Jesus Christ in dying for His guilty brethren outshone its horror and disgrace; and it redeemed mans lost condition, and clothed human nature with a new character and aspect in the eyes of God Himself. “Now therefore there is no more condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” The mercy of God, if we may so say, is set free to act in forgiveness and restoration, without any compromise of justice and inflexible law. No peace without this: no peace that did not satisfy God, and satisfy that law, deep as the deepest in God, that binds suffering to wrongdoing and death to sin.

Perhaps you say: This is immoral, surely, that the just should suffer for the unjust; that one commits the offence, and another bears the penalty.-Stay a moment: that is only half the truth. We are more than individuals; we are members of a race; and vicarious suffering runs through life. Our sufferings and wrong-doings bind the human family together in an inextricable web. We are communists in sin and death. It is the law and lot of our existence. And Christ, the Lord and centre of the race, has come within its scope. He bound Himself to our sinking fortunes. He became copartner in our lost estate, and has redeemed it to God by His blood. If He was true and perfect man, if He was the creative Head and Mediator of the race, the eternal Firstborn of many brethren, He could do no other. He who alone had the right and the power, -“One died for all.” He took upon His Divine heart the sin and curse of the world, He fastened it to His shoulders with the cross; and He bore it away from Caiaphas hall and Pilates judgment-seat, away from guilty Jerusalem; He took away the sin of the world, and expiated it once for all. He quenched in His blood the fires of wrath and hate it kindled. He slew the enmity thereby.

Still, we are individuals, as you said, not lost after all in the worlds solidarity. Here your personal right and will must come in. What Christ has done for you is yours, so far as you accept it. He has died your death beforehand, trusting that you would not repudiate His act, that you would not let His blood be spilt in vain. But He will never force His mediation upon you. He respects your freedom and your manhood. Do you now endorse what Jesus Christ did on your behalf? Do you renounce the sin, and accept the sacrifice? Then it is yours, from this moment, before the tribunal of God and of conscience. By the witness of His Spirit you are proclaimed a forgiven and reconciled man. Christ crucified is yours-if you will have Him, if you will identify your sinful self with the sinless Mediator, if as you see Him lifted up on the cross you will let your heart cry out, “Oh my God, He dies for me!”

Coming “in one Spirit to the Father,” the reconciled children join hands again with each other. Social barriers, caste feelings, family feuds, personal quarrels, national antipathies, alike go down before the virtue of the blood of Jesus.

“Neither passion nor pride

His cross can abide,

But melt in the fountain that streams from His side!”

“Beloved,” you will say to the man that hates or has wronged you most, -“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” In these simple words of the apostle John lies the secret of universal peace, the hope of the fraternisation of mankind. Nations will have to say this one day, as well as men.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

Disfruta de miles de canciones cristianas en exclusiva sólo en Bibles