Ephesians 5
We continue to discover together the letter of the apostle Paul to the church at Ephesus. This time we continue in chapter 2. Up to now Paul has been describing all the blessings that God makes real in the lives of those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus and open their lives to Him. Now he seems to change his approach a little. Instead of just thinking about what Christ does for the individual believer, he starts speaking about god’s purpose for the whole world. He speaks of God’s plan to make one new society, the church, His body. He has done it by breaking down the barrier which divides Jew and Gentile.
In chapter 3 verse 8 Paul speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ and in this section he also speaks of these riches as a mystery. The word mystery did not mean quite the same to him and his readers as it does to us today. We think of a mystery as something strange, unusual, unexplainable, almost out of this world. Paul did not mean it like that, though. To him mystery was something that could not be known unless it was revealed by God. The church was just this. The Jews knew nothing of it. As far as they were concerned you had to be a Jew to be acceptable by God and worship Him. , The Gentiles, that is all who were not Jews, certainly did not know about it because they did not know the true God. God, though, wanted his church to be a new body of people taken from both Jews and Gentiles. So Jesus came and died on the cross for mankind and provided the only way for all peoples to be reconciled to God. Jews and Gentiles who place their faith in Christ are united to Him and become the church, his body. He tells us more than once in his writings that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female, all are one in Christ Jesus.
Now, with all this in mind we come to chapter 2 and verse 11 of Ephesians. Most of the people Paul was writing to in this letter were Gentiles and he turns to them particularly now. “Remember”, he says, that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth are called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’.” You probably know that every male Jew was circumcised. It was part of God’s covenant with them and you can find the first mention of this in Genesis chapter 17 verse 10. It is repeated many times in the first five books of the Bible. It was this that marked them out as God’s people. Paul reminds these Gentiles that, before they trusted in Christ, they were separated from God, alienated from his people, strangers to the promises God had given. In fact they were without God and without hope in the world. You see, he is saying in a different way what he had said at the beginning of chapter 2. He is describing what they were like before they came to believe in the Lord Jesus. They had no hope, knew nothing of the true God, had no share in his blessings and were treated by the Jews as foreigners and aliens. But now that Christ has come, Paul says, all that has changed. By his death on the cross Christ has broken down what Paul calls “the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile. Out of those who believe in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, God is making one new fellowship, the church. All who trust in Christ as Saviour are reconciled to God and are also reconciled to each other. Whatever they were before they are now one in Christ. There is no barrier between. Paul puts it like this in verses 15 and 16: “Christ’s purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility.”
What does this all mean for us today? It means much more than just the reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, though it certainly does include that. It means that all who trust in Christ are made one in Him. Barriers are gone - barriers between ethnic groups, between rich and poor, between learned and unlearned, even between denominations. As far as God is concerned there is no difference, we are all reconciled to Him and are one in Him. We shall discover more about this later on in this letter to the Ephesians.
Now let us see what more Paul has to tell us about these new relationships. First, he says in verse 18 that we have access in or by one Spirit to the Father. God is now our Father and we can go to Him at any time just as an earthly child would go to its father. He wants us to treat Him like this and go to Him at any time of need and He will be there to help us. We can talk to Him about everything; we can pour out our hearts in thanks and praise to Him and have true fellowship with Him.
Paul gives three illustrations in closing this chapter. First he says we are part of the household of God. That is what was meant just now when we spoke of access to God as our Father. You see we are all part of one great family; we share one life, the life of God, and one love - the love of God. This is the basis of our oneness.
Along the same line of oneness, he says we are part of one great state. We are fellow-citizens of one great country - God’s country. We have one who rules over us who is our Lord and Saviour. We live in that country as our country and all who love Jesus Christ are our fellow-citizens whoever they may be.
The other illustration Paul gives is that of a temple. He says we are a living building and Christ Jesus is the cornerstone. We are built together and growing together into a holy temple in the Lord. We who believe are built up into this temple to form God’s dwelling place on this earth. What a wonderful thought! It is different from what it was in the Old Testament times, and different from what it is when we think of earthly buildings. Buildings made with brick and stone are not God’s dwelling place. God lives in the hearts of men and women redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus and they are formed into a living temple - his church. This is where He lives on earth and through this living temple He desires to show his glory and power. This is why Jesus said, “Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”