Winning by Dying
The winner of a battle or war is the side with the most soldiers still alive. The army or brigade or company with the most people still alive after a conflict is declared victorious. Death mean defeat. Staying alive is the way to military victory. Nations can’t win wars if their soldiers are dead.
Jesus turns this principle on its head. Jesus gives up his life in order to win the victory for his people. But Jesus’ didn’t die to defeat his enemies. He died to defeat our enemies. Since we’re born dead in our sin (Eph. 2:1), we’re enemies of God. But Jesus’ death satisfies God’s anger toward us and makes us God’s friends. Paul says it this way in Romans 5:10, “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” Jesus’ death means salvation for everyone who puts their trust in him and turns from their sins. He wins victory for us by dying.
But there’s another enemy that Jesus’ death defeats for us. By his death, he defeats the great foe of racism. The ethnic pride that we all have can be defeated through trusting in Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus wins victory for us in the area of race relations by dying on the cross. This is the one ingredient missing in all the talk of racial reconciliation in our society. Our country is looking for an answer to the problem of racial animosity. But Jesus’ death on the cross is usually ignored. Leaving Jesus’ death out of racial reconciliation talks is like trying to make a cake without flour. It can’t be done (unless you’re gluten free of course!).
God sent Jesus to resolve the conflict between him and us and between us and us. Jesus won this peace through fighting, but not in the way the world fights. Jesus fought for peace by dying. He resolved the conflict between us and God by dying. He killed the ethnic hostility among all ethnic groups though his death on the cross. Jesus won peace by dying.
The Vertical Changes the Horizontal
This is the point of Ephesians 2:14-18. These verses are crucial to Paul’s main point in this letter. Scholars almost unanimously agree that Paul’s main concern in Ephesians is the unity of the church. The centerpiece to his argument is 2:11-22. Remember that 2:1-10 is about the salvation of the individual, how we’re made right with God by being raised with Christ through faith. But Paul isn’t content to stop there. In 2:11-22, he says that God has not only reconciled us to himself through Christ, but has also reconciled us to one another. He’s saying that salvation is more than the forgiveness of our sins, or being made right with God vertically. His point is that our being made right vertically changes the way we live horizontally. In other words, we can’t claim to be right with God and live with hatred and animosity and ambivalence toward those who’re different from us ethnically. The grace we’ve received through faith flows down to us from God and out from us to those who’re different than us.
Jesus Is Our Peace
This grace establishes peace between us and God and between us and others. Peace where there used to be conflict is the major theme of this section. The three ideas from this text that I want us to consider are: Jesus is our peace, Jesus makes peace between Jew and Gentile, and Jesus makes peace between God and man.
First, notice that Jesus is our peace. Verse 14, “For he himself is our peace.” This statement is like a title to this whole section. It introduces the theme of peace, a word used four times (vv. 14, 15, and twice in 17). “Hostility,” the antonym of “peace,” is used twice (vv. 14, 16).
“Peace” in both the Old Testament and the New Testament refers to wholeness within personal relationships. The source and giver of this peace is always God alone. God made man to live in relationship with him and with others. Sin has disrupted the peaceful relationships God designed us for. This is one reason why we all experience dysfunction in our relationships with family and friends and even with brothers and sisters in Christ. This is also why relationships without Christ as the center are prone to have more bickering, more anger, and more selfishness. Without Christ, our relationships will be full of strife. With Christ, our relationships can be full of peace.
God sent Jesus to not only bring peace, but to be peace for us. The prophets spoke of this. Isaiah 9:6, “His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Micah says that the one born in Bethlehem will come to shepherd God’s flock and “he shall be their peace” (5:5). God sent Jesus to be the peace of his people, to be our peace with others and our peace with God.
Jesus Makes Peace between Jew and Gentile
The second thing to notice in our text is that Jesus makes peace between Jew and Gentile (vv. 14-15). Paul says that Jesus is “our peace” and has “made us both one” (v. 14). Who is the “our” and the “us”? The Jew and Gentile believers in Jesus. There is peace between them instead of opposition.
How does Jesus make peace between Jew and Gentile? Most importantly he does it through his death on the cross (“in his flesh,” verse 14). We’ll come back to that in a moment. First notice how Jesus’ death brought peace to Jew and Gentile. Verse 14 says that his death “has broken down…the dividing wall of hostility.” What is this “dividing wall” (or “barrier”)? Some think that this is referring to the actual wall that divided the court of the Gentiles from the inner courts in the temple compound in Jerusalem. This seems unlikely since the Gentiles recipients of this letter lived in Asia Minor and wouldn’t have known much about the temple in Jerusalem.
The “dividing wall” most likely refers to the Law of Moses. The “dividing wall” is paralleled by “the law of commandments” in verse 15, so the most natural meaning of the “wall” is the “law.” The Mosaic Law was the fence around the Jews. It separated them from everyone else both religiously and socially. This led the Jews to think of themselves as superior to the Gentiles. The “wall” of the law was thus a “wall of hostility.” The separateness of the Jews created superiority in the Jews, which led to hostility with the Gentiles.
Did Jesus Abolish the Law or Not?
How did Jesus break down this wall? Verse 15, “By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.” The word for “abolish” means “to make ineffective, powerless, or to nullify.” By his death, Jesus made the law of no effect. He rendered it powerless.
You may be thinking, “What about when Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that he didn’t come “to abolish the Law or the Prophets…but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17)? These two texts tell us that there’s a way that Jesus doesn’t abolish the law and a way that he does. He doesn’t abolish it in the sense that he perfectly kept the law and fulfilled it by becoming the spotless sacrifice for sin that the law required. “All the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20).
But according to Ephesians 2:15 there’s a way in which Jesus abolishes the law. Christ has, in some way, made ineffective the Mosaic law. How so? Not by canceling its ethical obligations. The New Testament makes it clear that the moral law of God still stands. Nine of the Ten Commandments are found in the New Testament. The one exception is the Sabbath law, which Hebrews 3-4 suggests is fulfilled in the new age that Christ has inaugurated.
How then has Jesus abolished the law? By removing it as a means by which people relate to God. What Jesus abolished was the law conceived as a covenant. The law-covenant has been replaced by a new covenant. This new covenant is for both Jews and Gentiles, unlike the Mosaic covenant. Therefore, because the law-covenant is gone, so is the great barrier between Jew and Gentile. All people can now approach God in a new way, namely, through Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the great abolitionist who fought for and won our freedom from trying to work our way into God’s favor. His death is meant to kill every impulse in us that tells us that we have to work harder or be better or clean up our life in order to be loved and accepted by God. If that were true, why did Jesus die? If you can be saved by the law, then there’s no need for the gospel. Jesus’ death abolishes the notion that we can make ourselves right with God through rule-keeping. Jesus, the great abolitionist, fought for and purchased our freedom from the slavery of self-righteousness. The gospel frees us from the law because it says we’re accepted by God because of Someone else’s righteousness.
Ethnic Unity in the Church
God’s grace toward us in Christ creates new realities in our lives. One of them is racial reconciliation. The law of Christ, that he shed his blood to enact, is the law of loving our neighbor, no matter what color their skin is. This neighbor love must start in the church.
This is the clearest application of our text and it’s right here in the text. Verse 14 says that Jesus makes Jew and Gentile “both one.” Verse 15 says that Jesus creates “one new man in place of the two.” Paul is referring to Jew and Gentile Christians, not all Jews and Gentiles. Ethnic harmony is established for those in Christ, not all people in general.
Christians from both of these groups make up a new group. Paul says that there’s now a threefold division of the world: Jew, Gentile, and the church. This is why Christians would later refer to themselves as a “third race” or “new race.”
Notice that Christ “created” this oneness (v. 15). The racial rift was so deep, the ethnic division so great, that nothing short of a miracle could fix it. This is what our text says. Christ “created in himself” a new entity that transcends the ethnic hostility between Jew and Gentile. The “new race” that Jesus created isn’t a combination of the best elements of the two groups. It wasn’t achieved by transforming Jews into Gentiles or Gentiles into Jews. Jesus makes a “new person” that transcends both groups. The way that Jesus killed the old hostilities was by bringing a new man to life. His death on the cross was the way he did this. He was killed in order to kill ethnic division and ethnic pride and in order to create a new society. That society is the church.
Sadly, the American church is full of racial division. One commentator explains why this ought not be so: “Christians of other races are part of us, and divisions cannot be allowed to continue. The racial barrier is like a festering wound in the body of Christ…Sunday is often the most segregated day of the week, for Christians worship along racial lines…Racism in any form is prohibited by the equality of all people before God and by his unrestricted love. But the theology of the body of Christ deals with the issue at another level. The point is not merely that all Christians are equal; rather, the point is that all Christians have been joined, which has far more significance and impact.”
Paul describes the church as a single person. There used to be Jew and Gentile, but all those who have faith in Jesus are united to Jesus and so become one “new person.” Jesus is our common identity. This is why Pastor H. B. Charles is right to say, “The fundamental answer to the problem of racial harmony in the church is ‘What do you believe about Jesus Christ?’” All those who’ve put their trust in the Christ of the New Testament have become one in Christ. We aren’t just equal before God, we’re one before God. If you’re unwilling to be joined to people of other races in the local church, you may not be joined to Jesus. Jesus is the foundation for ethnic unity in the church.
Ethnic Unity in the World
The cross of Christ compels racial unity in the church, but it also sends us out into the world as ambassadors for racial reconciliation. The racial divides that we face today are great, but they’re not greater than the divide between Jew and Gentile. The divide between Jew and Gentile was religious. The Jews knew the one true God, the Gentiles did not. The divide was cultural and social. The Jews had ceremonies and practices like circumcision and dietary regulations and rules of cleanliness and holy days that the Gentiles didn’t have. The divide was also racial. The Jewish bloodline went back to Jacob, not Esau, Isaac, not Ishmael, and Abraham, not any other man.
The ethnic divide between Jew and Gentile was bigger than any divide we face today. And we face some big ones. The white/black, black/Hispanic, Chinese/Japanese, North Korean/South Korean, Arab/Anglo, African/African-American, and Israeli/Palestinian ethnic divides are great, but not any greater than the Jew/Gentile divide.
This means that, since the death of Jesus has implications for the one, it also has implications for the other. If Jesus’ death addresses the greater divide, it also addresses the lesser divide. If Jesus is “our peace,” then we should apply his peace to every form of ethnic hostility that exists in the world. This starts in our own lives, around our dinner tables, in our jobs, at our schools, in our city, and in our country. Look for ways to engage with people of other skin colors. Grab coffee with a coworker of another skin color. Invite a neighbor of another skin color over for dinner. Sit next to classmates of other skin colors. We can be gospel lights as we bring gospel peace to our everyday interactions with people.
Jesus Makes Peace between God and Man
The third thing I want us to notice in our text is that Jesus makes peace between God and man (vv. 16-18). Paul moves from our horizontal relationships to our vertical relationship with God. You can’t have one without the other. By his death, Jesus made Jew and Gentile into one new person and reconciled them both “in one body” to God (v. 16).
How did Jesus make peace between God and man? By “reconciling us both to God” (v. 16). Implicit in Paul’s statement is that Israel is also alienated from God because of sin (Rom. 3:9). Israel may’ve had the promises, but they hadn’t in large part believed the promises (Rom. 10:3-4). The law that separated the Gentiles from Israel had also separated Israel from God (Rom. 3:19-20). And sin has separated all of us from the God who made us.
How did he accomplish this reconciliation? Verse 16, “Through the cross.” Jesus’ death is the ground of the reconciliation between us and God (cf. vv. 13, 15). What was the result? Jesus “killed the hostility” (v. 16). Christ killed the enmity between us and God by means of his death. He killed by dying. Sacrifice was the path to victory for Jesus. So it is for all in God’s kingdom.
Jesus’ death doesn’t mean that the whole human race has been reconciled to God. This peace only comes to those who hear it preached (v. 17). The text says that Jesus himself “came and preached” to those who were “far off” and “those who were near.” When did Jesus do this preaching? This is probably referring to Jesus’ speaking to the Jews and Gentiles through his apostles. The exalted Christ proclaimed the message of peace through his messengers the apostles, by the Holy Spirit. Paul understands the role of the apostles as Jesus’ literal spokesmen, so that when they preach, Jesus preaches. It is Jesus himself who is the preacher. Through the apostles, Jesus is the evangelist to the nations. He is the one announcing the good news of his reconciling death on the cross as a royal proclamation that hostilities between Jew and Gentile and hostilities between God and men have been brought to an end.
As we carry the message of the apostles to the nations, it is Jesus himself who is proclaiming peace to them. To the degree that we’re faithful to the apostolic gospel, we’re the literal spokespersons for Jesus Christ. This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the message of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” We’re ambassadors sent to the nations on the King’s behalf. We have the privilege of speaking for Jesus himself.
Those who hear this message of peace and accept it by faith are brought into a new relationship with God (v. 18). Christ’s reconciling work creates a new relationship. Through Christ, we have a new “access” to God. Romans 5:2, “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
The peacemaking work of the Son grants us access to the Father through the Spirit. God the Trinity draws us into his very life by uniting us to the Son, through faith. One of the most visible evidences of this new life that we have in God is how we relate to people of other races.
May We Create What He Created
Jesus, the Peace Maker, has secured peace for us, our peace with God, and our peace with other ethnic groups. Jesus fought for this peace using non-violent means. He won through losing. His sacrifice was the atomic bomb that ended the war of ethnic hostility. The battle still rages on, but victory has been won. God’s Word will triumph among all the nations. God’s plan to create one people from among all the peoples was set in stone and set in motion when Jesus died to “ransom people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).
His death for all the peoples compels us to lay aside our ethnic preferences and devote our lives to the great gospel work of racial reconciliation, starting inside the church and then moving into every area of our lives. By his Spirit, may we work hard to create in our church what he created through his death: “one new man in place of the two” (Eph. 2:15).