Ephesians 2:11-22
11 So then, remember that at one time
you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the
circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— 12
remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no
hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus
19 So then you are no longer strangers and
aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household
of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus
The
theme of Ephesians 2:11-22 is that Jew and Gentile have peace through the
Cross. This segment is the key and high point of the whole epistle. We can see
an abiding link between the church and the Jewish people. We find here that by
the death of Jesus Christ peace has come between Jew and Gentile, a peace
within the church of Christ.[1]
Ephesians 2: 11-12
describe the division of humanity. He calls them to remember. 11 So then, remember that at one
time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those whom we
know as "the circumcision”—a
physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands. Paul does not
belittle circumcision, but only a wrong attitude toward it. The circumcision
would refer to both baptized Jews and other Jews. They are to 12 remember that you were at that
time without Christ. He will identify what this means. First, they were aliens (describing alienation from God
and therefore human misery[2])
from the commonwealth of Israel (Israel
was not a self-sustaining political identity). Second, they were strangers
to the covenants (plural!) of promise
(Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34). They
had no hope. It would be better to
say that whatever hope the Gentiles had, they now have clarity to its content.
In a broader theological perspective, we would not want to suggest that
Gentiles were devoid of all hope. They were without
God (aqeoi, only occurrence of this
word in New Testament) in the
world. He wants to stress the difference between Jew and Gentile before
Christ. Christ has disclosed to them as Gentiles the care that God of Israel
has had for the nations but that the people of God obscured by their teaching
and way of life.
Ephesians 2:13-18 are a
praise of Christ's work of reconciliation. What holds these verses together is
the theme of the cost of peace between Jew and Gentile, people and God. The passage speaks of the union of Christ and
peace. 13 However, now in
Christ Jesus the blood of Christ has brought you who once were far off near. 14
For he is our peace. The passage alludes to Isaiah 57:19, where the
Lord declares peace to those far away (exiled Jews) and to those who are near,
bringing healing to them. Proselytes may already have used the phrase. In
Ephesians, of course, those far off are Gentiles. The account of Pentecost in
Acts 2 paints a graphic way in which this near and distant neighbor have peace.[3] Christ is “our peace,” that
is, peace with God for both Jew and Gentile and between both Jew and Gentile.
The cleavage between Jew and Gentile in antiquity was deep. Our time has had an
iron curtain, color barriers, and national boundaries. Such distinctions present
real barriers. Yet, the author is making it clear that regardless of the depth
of division and hostility human beings develop, Christ has come to bring peace.[4] This peace is not just
pietistic but is from God and with God and is social in between people. In that
sense, while the hope of life with God in eternity is real, the mission and
vision of the people of God is not simply to get there! Rather, we are to begin
the work of transforming the life of the people of God so that it genuinely
anticipates the peace and harmony eternity will bring.[5] The emphasis on peace
occurs in v. 13, 17 and receives an extended comment in v. 14-16, 18-19. As the
hymn writer reminds us, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with
me.” A hymn like “In Christ there is no east or west” is in line with the
sentiments here. “For the healing of the nations,” which have so much
hostility, Christ desires to bring peace.
In fact, verses 14-16 may be
a hymn, and if so, we can assume it had great significance to the community. There
may also be a relationship between these verses and Colossians 1:19-22, a
passage that also
discusses themes of peace and reconciliation in Christ. The hymn focuses on the
death of Christ and its effects. Christ makes peace through his death. To clarify
further the type of healing the blood of Christ has brought, in his flesh he has made both groups into
one and has broken down the dividing wall of the Torah, that is, the hostility between us. On this basis, Roman Catholic
theology wants to say that the church is the content of the divine mystery of
salvation. It at least seems as if the mystery of salvation has to do in some
way with the unity of the church in Christ. It seems that the new Christian
people draws from every nationality and overcomes every barrier, but especially
the barrier between Jew and Gentile.[6] 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and
ordinances, as a way to separate Jew and Gentile. In light of the resurrection of the crucified, the law has lost
its binding authority. The death of Christ has broken down the wall of enmity,
depriving the Law of its force. He views the enmity between Jew and Gentile
symbolized by Torah in light of the peace won through Christ.[7] The point was not to treat
Israel's privileges with contempt.
Rather, the cross annuls only the formerly divisive element of the
law. A) A new humanity: 1) it is an act
of creation, 2) should be a new person, 3) the two are Jew and Gentile. The "one new person" is a social
being. B) Worship in v. 13, 18. The making of peace is an act of
worship. The prelude to each of us who
worship is reconciliation with one who was hostile, note Matthew 5:23-24, 6:5,
8, 12, 14, 25:31-46, as well as the prodigal son. One might think of this as overly optimistic
or even an expression of eschatological enthusiasm. Awareness of this reality
of the future, however, impels Christian mission to the nations.[8] The reason Christ has done
this is that he might create in himself
one new humanity (Paul nowhere else writes like this) in place of the two, thus making peace. Further, Christ has done
this so that he 16 might
reconcile both groups to God in one body (referring to Christ[9] and praising the political
result of the work of Christ) through the
cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. The fruit of peace
is a new humanity. Precisely by the event of the passion, Christ became a
figure that transcends the national and religious differences of Jew and
non-Jew.[10] Matthew and Mark describe
Jesus' death as God-forsaken, while Paul describes it as what it means to be
"made sin," bearing its weight and consequences, being
"cursed". Out of himself,
Christ brings a partner, the church, making the church dependent upon Christ.
Paul would normally write that God has done things in Christ, rather than
affirming that Christ has done these things in himself. He is describing the
essential condition of newness or oneness. The new humanity depends upon
Christ.[11] 17 Therefore, he
came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were
near. This proclamation may remind us of the high priest giving the
blessing that the Lord bless and keep you, and give you peace (Numbers
6:24-26). Jesus of Nazareth did this in the course of his life, in word and
deed. He proclaimed that peace in his death for us. 18 For, as another fruit of peace, through him both of us have access in one (Holy) Spirit (or one spirit of the people) to the Father. Thus, the author may well
use the hymn to combat an anti-Jewish tendency.
Circumcision had many meanings but the concern here is with that of a
covenant. Circumcision has now become the property of the church through
Christ. Christ has overcome the
divisiveness of circumcision. In
Colossians 2:11, in Christ, Gentiles received spiritual circumcision by
receiving the circumcision Christ has brought them. Christ's death is a
sacrificial circumcision. The blood of Christ is the means of coming near, not
circumcision, and those far off are all Gentiles, not just God-fearers. The opposite of the Gentile's exclusion from
Israel is their inclusion in the Messiah.
Jews did not win this peace by the dispersion or by Gentiles becoming
proselytes, though these things were happening.
In Eph. 2, it is the Messiah's death which is the focus, while relevant
OT texts would focus on the coming, enthronement, or victory of God's anointed,
see Psalm 7:8-9, Ezekiel 37:22, 24-25, Isaiah 11:12-13, Zechariah 9:9-10.
The hymn raises the question
of when and how the Messiah came to them preaching peace.[12] The focus is a theology of
the cross. We can see this death as a fulfillment of the sealing of the
covenant with blood in the Old Testament. In another sense, his death for us
and in our place speaks loudly of the love of God in Christ. This death is the
means of reconciliation of forgiveness. In a sense, Christ makes the offering,
is thus priest, but the offering is his life, and is thus victim. How can a
sacrifice make peace? Isaiah 53:12 refers to the servant of the Lord pouring
out his life to the point of death, bearing the sin of others, and in this
means making intercession for those who sin. In this way, a sacrifice is
intercession. The death of Christ is the mode and effect of the intercession of
Christ for Jew and Gentile. His prayer embraces diverse hostile persons,
groups, causes, and conditions. His prayer embraces their common plight,
lapses, sins, hostility to God, and brings them before God. The focus is the
cross, being itself the very moment, means, and cost of peace.
For a brief moment,
reconciliation became a possibility in an unexpected place. The story of Jesse
Owens, African-American track and field star who -- to the dismay of Adolf
Hitler -- won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is well known. What
is not so well known is the friendship Owens developed with Luz Long, one of
the German athletes competing against him in the long jump. Long, touted by the
Nazi regime as a prime example of the new Aryan man, was favored to win the
event, and had in fact already broken the Olympic record in one of the
qualifying rounds. In a gesture of fair play, he had advised Owens to be
careful not to get too close to the foul line when beginning his jump. As it
turned out, Owens defeated him in the final round, edging him out for the gold
medal. The two took off, arm in arm, to run a lap of honor around the stadium,
under the very eyes of the disgruntled Nazi officials. Hitler's confidant,
Albert Speer, described years later how der Fuhrer displayed his annoyance at
Owens' success: "People whose antecedents came from the jungle were
primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those
of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games" [13] Owens
himself returned to face prejudice in his own country. Attending a reception at
New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, following the ticker-tape parade welcoming
him and his fellow athletes back home, he was required to ride the freight
elevator. Of Luz Long, Owens later remarked, "It took a lot of courage for
him to express his friendship to me in front of Hitler.... You can win all the
medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-carat
friendship I felt for Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching
us embrace victoriously."[14] Long served as an officer in the German Army
during World War II and died in a British military hospital from wounds he
received during the Allied invasion of Sicily.
Ephesians 2: 19-22 refer to
the house of God. We are to think of it as a completed building, and therefore
as a reference to the future.[15] 19 So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you
are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God. Jew
and Gentile cooperated in the death of Jesus; yet, the death of Jesus has made
them members of the household of God.[16] He sums up the hymn that we
find in verses 14-18. The coming of Christ did not just mean proselytism. It meant the most lawless Gentiles were
included among God's people. Note that
he first mentions people's relation to one another and then their relation to
God. 20
God has built the household
upon (not alongside[17]) the foundation of something as recent as that of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the
cornerstone or keystone at the top of the arch). While usually Paul refers to Christ as the foundation, here the
point is that witness to Christ serves the function of laying the foundation.
He presents Christ as the keystone that holds the whole structure together.[18] If so, this would give
weight to the eschatological interpretation, dependent upon the future work of
Christ rather than speaking through the past as foundation. This letter assumes
the apostles are still alive (4:17-18). 21
In him, God joined together (integrates[19]) the whole structure and grows it by size, number, power, maturity,
and age into a holy temple in the Lord. As
he concludes, he refers to another fruit of peace. He refers to Christ, 22 in whom God has also built you together spiritually, signifying
the mutual coordination and support of Jew and Gentile that the presence of God
will bring, into a dwelling place for
God. The saints themselves are the dwelling. This is a visible house, as visible as any
church building. The point is that
people make up the church. We can see that the growth of the community is
decisive rather than individuals, the earth is the place of this building, the
community receives life for growth, and it reaches toward perfection. These
verses have a strong ecclesiology, but they do not promote a triumphalist one.
These verses are the tangible result of peace is the growing church. The house
is unfinished, still awaiting God to grace it with divine presence.
This passage raises the
question of walls that human beings erect that divide us. Christ has come to
bring peace by removing such walls. Yet, we in the church must admit that we
are not good witnesses of the truth of this passage. The dividing wall between
denominations is strong. Church fights are notorious. If Christ is our peace,
if he constitutes one new humanity, if he reconciles formerly divided groups,
then we can only speak of it as an eschatological truth. Such truth is our
destiny, of which we shall receive only anticipatory glimpses in our history.
We can see the divisions
among people today as well. They are deep. They cut across our society in
troubling ways. Can the people of God be a bridge between the chasms that
divide? I want be in a church
without walls.
The Methodist Church arose
out of a merger in 1939 between the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist
Protestant Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The only way the
merger could occur was if the church created the Central Conference, an Annual
Conference consisting of black churches from throughout the country. The reason
was that the churches in the south said they would not meet in Annual
Conference session with black churches. Now, I like unity as much as anyone
does. However, the price was too high. The racial divide has harmed this nation
profoundly. The church has helped erect that wall, and the church needs to
become a place where that wall does not exist.
The old Indiana Conference
of the Methodist Church did not ordain its first woman until the mid-1950’s.
Today, the Annual Conference has female pastors, female District Superintendents,
and the denomination has female bishops. The church has participated in
erecting the wall, and the church needs to be out front in taking it down.
Our nation increasingly
polarizes itself because of ideology. The United Methodist Church has
participated in that division by adopting positions on complex political
issues, and then claiming that Jesus would say or do the same thing. The reason
issues are complex is that reasonable people can differ. I do not want Jesus
demoted to one who baptizes any political or economic position, whether of the
political Left or political Right. I think people claim Jesus would agree with
their politics is that their arguments for their position is weak. It is a
version of the old story of where the preacher wrote in the margin of his text:
“Argument weak here; yell louder.” If our argument is weak, claiming Jesus
would say or do the same thing at least makes us feel morally superior to the
opposition. The church has participated in the problem. The church needs to be
a place where genuine conversation over complex issues can take place, rather
than lobbing ideological grenades at each other.
The church has polarized
itself in theology, approaching theological discussions as another brand of
ideology. We need to have places where we can face each other and discuss
theological differences.
The church has trouble with
sexual matters. We have debated whether we will accept people who have
experienced divorce. We hold up the ideal of preserving sexual expression for
marriage, even though we know we fall short of that ideal. We hold up the ideal
of sexuality only between a man and a woman. I want to be quite clear. I think
Jesus had high ideals as well, and taught his disciples to share those ideals.
I also notice that the New Testament makes it clear that Jesus broke down walls
all over the place because had had compassion upon them. Think of how often we
have judged the crowds: they live in sin, in drunkenness, in violence, in drug
abuse, in hatred, in war. Maybe one of
the greatest proofs of the divinity of Jesus is that he looked upon the
multitudes and had compassion.
Our faith asserts that the
hope is Christ, the one who brings together those who are "far off,"
and makes us sisters and brothers. Christ's major means of healing our
divisions, of making those who were strangers into beloved siblings, is the
church. He is our cornerstone, the basis of any unity we hope to achieve. On
him, the promises of God have their origin and their basis. The failure of the
church to be the place where walls can come down is a matter of daily
repentance within the church.
Yet, I also want to be in a
church with walls. I need some care here, for I do not mean the kind of
self-righteous walls the Pharisee might build.
To be in the church is to be
a member of an alternative community, a new people with values, views, and
virtues different from the world in order that God in Christ would save the
world from itself. Unfortunately, the church has too often failed to provide an
alternative model of human community. The church tends to duplicate the sins of
society within itself. Pastors struggle constantly with problems of unity
within the congregation, with barriers between people, with the never-ending
project to unify people within the church. Paul probably addresses this letter
to a bitterly divided church. Preachers do not keep telling the congregation to
act like Christians and get along with each other if they are already doing
that.
If you thought that being a
Christian is something that comes naturally, the natural, normal American thing
to do, think again. Nobody comes in here by natural generation - birth. God
must adopt you, transfer you into, and build you into this household. Being
Christian is no longer the normal, natural, American thing to do. Our children
watch an average of 15 hours of television every week. They are in church a
maximum of a couple of hours per week. The content of our values and notions of
the good life come from many places other than the church.
There may well be such a
person as “anonymous Christians,” a group of people who are sincere in their
faith and life, but who have not yet embraced the Christian faith. They are on
the way toward Christ without knowing it.[20] Yet, we must understand
that to be a Christian is to be someone who self-consciously follows, or
attempts to follow, the way of Christ. Such persons wants to let the story of
Christ and guide their lives.
When individuals do not know
proper boundaries in relationships, we call them sick. A church without
boundaries, with no borders, without distinctive marks, is hardly a church. It
has a sickness. Our text uses architectural images of the church as a building,
a house, a place. Perhaps there was a time when it was enough, in our culture,
to be merely sincere, to have a warm feeling in your heart at the mention of
the word religion, to try to do the best that you could in life, in a wholesome
sort of way. Now, things have changed. Many Christians feel like aliens in a
nation that previous generations of Christians helped create. Times have
changed. We feel the spoiling of the
moral and spiritual environment of America, even if we might name and identify
it in differing ways.
In such a time, a text like
this begins to make sense again. The church is an identifiable new family. This
family consists of all those diverse people whom Jesus has called to follow
him. The house has Christ as its cornerstone, that stone, upon which God has
built the whole house, that foundation upon which everything else rests. We
have a new reality forming, a household, and a place with boundaries between
itself in the world.
There is a medieval legend
about a great war in heaven. Satan had
mounted a rebellion for overthrowing God.
Satan had gotten enough angels for an army to lead against God. All of heaven was dividing into two
camps. Some followed Satan, while the
others followed God. Nevertheless, there
was a third group of angels. They could
not make up their minds which way to go.
They were the ones who would be made into men and women, and they have
been faced with the problem of loyalty ever since.
Will we be the ones who
anticipate our destiny and live in a way that preaches in our word and deed:
Christ is our peace?
[1] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Volume 3, 472.
[2] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Volume 2, 179.
[3] (Barth 2004, 1932-67), III.4 [54.3]
323.
[4] F.F. Bruce said, "No iron curtain, no color bar, no national
distinction or frontier of today is more absolute than the cleavage between the
Jew and Gentile was in antiquity."
[5]
The Kingdom of God is not a matter of getting
individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony
of heaven. --Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis
(Macmillan, 1913), 65.
[6] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Systematic
Theology, Volume 3, 40, 368, 480.
[7] Verses 14-15, the dividing wall, has several possible meanings. 1) A wall
in the precincts of Jerusalem, if written after 70 AD, the destruction of the
temple itself, 2) the curtain that separated the holiest of holies from the
Holy inside the temple. 3) The fence
around the law. 4) Sin or enmity against
God. 5) A fusion of the Torah, cosmic
order, fate. Nevertheless, note
context. What does the passage mean by
law? 1) The law given by God. 2) Only the commandments. 3) The oral tradition. 4) The specific role in bringing knowledge of
sin with its curse and death upon humanity.
5) The law as a separation between Jew and Gentile. As their barrier, it is no longer valid in
Christ. Barth prefers #5. Paul views the enmity in light of the peace
won through Christ.
[8] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Systematic
Theology, Volume 3, 494-5.
[9] The phrase "one single body" may also aid in interpretation: 1)
The body of Jesus, 2) the church, 3) the mystical body, as I Cor.
12:12-13. It could also refer to the
sacrament. Markus Barth prefers #1.
[10] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Systematic
Theology, Volume 2, 312.
[11] In verses 15-16, Christ is said to have created in himself and killed in
himself, whereas Paul would normally write that God did these things in
Christ. 1) Christ creates himself to be
the new humanity, but nowhere does Paul speak like this. 2) Out of himself, Christ brings a partner,
thus making the church dependent upon Christ.
3) Could be neuter and refer only to death of Christ, and this would
solve all of the problems. 4) Rather
than describing where or how the "one new humanity" was created, it
describes the essential condition of newness or oneness. The new humanity depends upon Christ. The phrase: "killing the enmity in his
person" has the same problems as above.
One can view the psalm of verses 14-18 as focused on Christ's death and
its effects. Christ has made peace by
this means. Nevertheless, some would not
agree. They would make references of
body and blood, etc., refer to the physical body of Christ or to the
Eucharist. At stake is whether the text
is a theology of the cross, the incarnation, or of the sacrament. The blood is able to bring peace because: 1)
spilled blood speaks louder than a voice, 2) blood is poured out in the making
of a covenant, 3) blood of circumcision and of the Passover lamb is credited
with the power to ward off destruction, 4) blood is the means of reconciliation
and forgiveness. The passage views
Christ as both priest and victim! How
can a sacrifice make peace? In the Old
Testament, some passages view sacrifice as intercession. Note Isaiah 53. If one views the sacrifice of Christ as the
mode and effect of Christ's intercession before God on behalf of Jews and
Gentiles, then his prayer is embracing diverse hostile persons, groups, causes,
and conditions, their common plight, lapses, sins, hostility to God, and
bringing them before God. Markus Barth
rejects the incarnational views of the text.
The focus is the cross, being itself the very moment, means, and cost of
peace. Barth also rejects association
with the Gnostic parallels.
[12] 1) During Jesus' ministry, 2) John's Gospel has the risen Lord saying a
word of peace; 3) the risen Lord continues to speak in the congregation, 4) the
whole of the word and deed and death of Jesus is the proclamation. All of this
may well be what the author intends.
[13] [Albert Speer, Inside
the Third Reich (Macmillan, 1970),73].
[14] [Larry Schwartz, "Owens pierced a myth,"
http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/
features/00016393.html.
Retrieved February 8, 2012].
[15] (Barth 2004, 1932-67), Church Dogmatics
IV.2 [67.1] 629.
[16] (Barth 2004, 1932-67), Church Dogmatics
IV.4, 84.
[17] (Barth 2004, 1932-67), Church Dogmatics
I.2 [20.1] 580.
[18] (Pannenberg 1998, 1991), Systematic
Theology Volume 3, 108-9.
[19] (Barth 2004, 1932-67), Church Dogmatics
IV.2 [67.1] 636.
[20] Karl Rahner
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