Transcription
Turn today to Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 13. He's speaking about how Jesus Christ has brought widely separated groups together. First of all, through his blood. If it were not for the blood of Jesus Christ, we would not be able to come near God. It says here, "we who are far off brought near by the blood of Christ." Brought near to whom? Brought near to God. First of all.
But when we are brought near to God, we're also brought near to one another. You cannot be brought near to God without being brought near to other believers. Just like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. At the rim, right on the outside, at the outer end, they're far apart from each other. But as they come from that outer rim towards the center, they not only come closer to the center, but they also come closer to each other. This is how it is when we draw closer to God. If a man says he's drawing close to God and he's not drawing close to his fellow believers, even if they are none of their denomination, he's not really drawing close to God at all. Just like John says, "If a man says he loves God and he doesn't love his brother, he's a liar."
So here, the Holy Spirit's emphasizing first of all, being brought near to God through the blood of Christ. And then he says, if that's the case, he's going to bring you near to a lot of people who are very different from you. He himself has become our peace. Now, verse 14. "Who made both groups into one." He made us one family, breaking down the wall. The Living Bible says, "the wall of contempt that used to separate us." You know, it's true in every society, wherever there are distinctions between people, one group despises or holds another group in contempt. The upper caste will despise the lower caste, and the Jews would despise the Gentiles, and probably the Gentiles despise the Jews. And this wall of contempt keeps keeps getting built up over the years. Finally, it's so high nobody can see each other on the other side of the wall. And even where some of those layers of bricks have been taken away, the fellowship between people on each side of the wall is only over the wall, a handshake over the wall. The wall is still there.
Unfortunately, even in Christendom, it could be between castes and Christendom. Very often, it's between denominations. A denomination has built a wall, and the believers fellowship over it. But Jesus broke down this dividing wall. He made us into one. The two most extreme groups in the world, the Jews and the Gentiles, Jesus united. How did he do it? When he died, he abolished the enmity, the angry resentment that there is between one group and the other. Do you resent something in another child of God? That's the thing Jesus died to destroy. And what Jesus destroyed, you are nourishing. You are nourishing something Jesus died to destroy. This angry resentment of somebody who doesn't agree with you. Jesus came to abolish it. He abolished in his flesh this enmity between every group and another group in the whole world. No one can say he has come near to God if he is not abolished, if he is not accepted this abolition of the enmity in his flesh towards people who are different.
Unfortunately, in Christendom, we see that people divided by language groups, people going seeking fellowship only with those of their own community and building walls between them and people of another community. Was that Jesus came to destroy? And he destroyed not only this enmity. This this wall is also built, it says here, by the law of commandments. Its laws that build a wall. The Jews had the Ten Commandments and the laws of God, the ceremonial law, and many, many other things. And they despised the Jews, the the Jews despised the Gentiles because those Gentiles did not keep these commandments. And so the Jews felt very special.
Now, there's something of that also in Christendom. One denomination feels we've got certain doctrines which other people don't have. And those doctrines may be right. They may be given by God. After all, the Ten Commandments were given by God. But God never gave the Ten Commandments to separate one group of his creation from another. Far from it. He gave it to the Jews so that they could share it with others and bring others also up to their levels, not to separate them from the others. And if God has given us understanding of scripture, the purpose is not for us to separate ourselves from others of his children who don't see scripture exactly the way we see it. No, he's given us scripture to build fellowship between people, not to destroy fellowship. And unfortunately, a lot of people in Christendom and a lot of groups have used scripture to destroy fellowship rather than build it.
Here it says Jesus came to abolish, to break down that dividing wall, to abolish the enmity caused by commandments, by laws. And it's not just laws and doctrines. A husband and wife can have walls between each other, walls that are created by demands that one can make upon the other person. A husband can have a whole lot of unwritten laws, unwritten laws which he has in his mind that his wife must keep, or vice versa. A wife can have unwritten laws that she feels her husband must keep. For example, a husband may feel that tidiness in the home is very important. The wife may feel, well, tidiness is not the main thing in life. We must spend our time more profitably than just spending the whole time tidying up the house. And there you have tensions because the neither of these things are got anything to do with spirituality. But here is an unwritten law that you must keep the house tidy. And maybe the wife has an unwritten law that the husband must always come home from work on time. And what's the result of these unwritten laws? Tension, difficulties, break of fellowship.
The law of commandments, it's not just the Ten Commandments. It's any unwritten demand you have on a fellow believer with whom God is seeking to make you one, with your partner in marriage, with whom God is seeking to make you one. Jesus died to break down that wall, to destroy that enmity. And the purpose, so that he make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. Verse 15. God's purpose is to make one, make two into one. This is the thing which no human being has ever been able to do. Holiness is not just reforming our character, it's also building fellowship. Like I said the other day in an earlier study, that a holiness without humility is a counterfeit. Let me also say that holiness without fellowship is also a counterfeit. Holiness must produce humility in your life and must produce fellowship with others. In fact, fellowship with others is lacking when there is no humility. Humility is necessary for fellowship. And when there's no fellowship, it's because there's no humility in one or both sides. So here is true holiness. It produces humility and it produces fellowship.
God is seeking to make two into one. It's not just husband and wife that he's seeking to make two into one. Here it says, two believers. Any two believers that he might make the two into one. Did he get that? That he might make the two into one, that he might make the three into one, and the four into one, and the five into one, and the fifteen into one, and the five hundred into one. God wants a church, a local church, to function exactly like a human body. If he's got a hundred members, all hundred working together. It's not a question of numbers. In the Old Testament, it was a congregation. The New Testament, it's a body. And as I told you in Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, there's no exhortation. We're not told what to do. We're only told what God did. And we, if we understand what God did, then like it says in chapter 4 onwards, we will live according to these truths.
So we need to understand what God did on the cross. On the cross, he destroyed this enmity. He broke down this dividing wall. And the purpose of it all was that two might become one, that all believers might become one, establishing peace. How do you know you're one with somebody? Whenever you think of that person, you have peace in your mind. Whenever you think of someone, if there's disturbance in your mind, you're not one with that person. If you think of your wife and you're disturbed about something, you think of your husband, you're disturbed about something, you think of a brother and you have a disturbance, you're not one with that person at all. You're disturbed.
And Jesus died that he might reconcile. It says in verse 16. This is a wonderful New Testament word, reconciliation. That means people who could not get along with each other can now get along with each other. Reconcile both these widely disparate groups into one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. Look at this emphasis again and again. One new man, verse 15. One body through the cross. The whole purpose of Christ's death was to make people one. Not only to forgive our sins, not only that we might have victory over sin, as it says in Romans 6, but it must ultimately lead to the building of one body where Jew and Gentile, and this language and that language, in this community and the other community, can come together and become one body in Christ. And that is, it says here, what Jesus is going to present to the Father. He's not going to present a whole lot of believers. He's going to present one body. So once we see this, the Holy Spirit can help us to cooperate in building that body.