STUDY THEME: ONE SOLITARY LIFE: THE LIFE OF JESUS 8-19-01

UNIT 8: CHIRST AT WORK TODAY: “THE BODY OF CHRIST; GOD’S FAMILY”

EPHESIANS 2:11-12, 13-15a, 15b-18, 19-22.

PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO EPHESIANS 2.

The unit which we begin today represents the final unit in our study of the “ONE SOLITARY LIFE: THE LIFE OF JESUS.” You may remember this eleven month study began with a unit based on O.T. prophecies that pointed Christ. Then units 2-7 have been based on passages from the Gospels. What we know about Paul’s life and teachings is found in the Book of Acts and in the letters he wrote. During this two-session be begin today, we will look at two important passages from two of Paul’s Prison Letters—Ephesians and Philippians—from which we will learn about the body of Christ and the mind of Christ.

Having learned about Jesus’ life and ministry and having recognized that the resurrected Lord is working in the world today, this unit will consider two areas in which Christ should be making a difference in our lives and in our church. By studying today Ephesians 2:11-22 and next Sunday Philippians 2:1-11, we will see that believers are part of the new family in Christ and that their relationships can be transformed by following Jesus’ example of humility. This unit is designed to help us

find our place, fulfill our role, and enjoy our life in the church in today’s lesson and next Sunday * follow Christ’s example and express His humble servant-spirit as we serve Him.

The theme of today’s lesson is that God knocks down the walls that exist between people to bring them together in His Family of Faith.

The life question this lesson seeks to address is, What is the church?

The Biblical truth is that God is building a community of believers, he church, who have been reconciled to God and to one another through God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

The Life Impact is to help us find our place, fulfill our role, and enjoy our life in the church.

The greatest issue facing first-century believers was the alienation between Jews and gentiles and the basis on which Gentiles and Jews could become part of the same church. All of the earliest believers were Jewish. When some pioneer missionaries began to offer salvation to Gentiles on the basis of faith alone, many Jewish believers objected. They believed that Gentiles could follow the Jewish Messiah only first becoming proselytes to Judaism. This made circumcision and keeping the Law necessary for salvation. When the apostles did not take the initiative to take the good news to Gentiles, God raised up men such as Stephen and Philip. Then He called Saul of Tarsus, who had been persecuting the believers. Paul became the strongest and most effective champion of reaching Gentiles and bringing them together with Jewish believers into the church.

The second chapter of Ephesians is often called the Grace Chapter because of Vs. 8-9.

1, PLEASE READ EPHESIANS 2: 8-12.

In this second chapter of Ephesians, we are looking together with the Apostle Paul at mighty truths, fantastic statements, which make us aware of what it means to be a Christian. If we ever really grasp what it means to be a Christian, we will n ever again be envious of anyone who is not a Christian, will never wish we were back in the world,, nor in any way be drawn toward its outlook or its pattern of life.

Of course, we learn to appreciate what has happened to us by looking back to what we were, and really beginning to understand what God called us out of in Christ. The opening words of this chapter two tell us that we once were dead in trespasses and sins, we once walked according to the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the god of darkness, and we behaved according to the lusts of our flesh. We did what we thought was right, but found it was constantly getting us into difficulty and destroying our humanity—and we never knew why. We were victimized by the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature, as Paul says, “children of wrath,” i.e., suffering the degeneration of humanity, “like the rest of mankind.”

And then, out of all this, Christ called us. Those of us who have believed in Jesus Christ have been made alive together with Him. What a fantastic statement that is! A resurrection has occurred; we have become new creatures, a new creation, different than anything we ever were before. And we’ve been given a new power. We’ve been raised up with Him, so that the power upon which we are to operate is not the power of a determined will, but the power of a trusting heart, reckoning upon resurrection life.

And then we’ve been made to sit with Him in heavenly places. We have been given a new attitude, have been delivered from striving, from pressure, and have been allowed to rest, to relax, to be confident that God is working out His purposes in our lives. All of this conveys to us some sense of what it means to be a Christian. In Vs. 11 the apostle takes up another view of our past life. He looks back upon what we were as pagans—“Gentiles” is the word he uses—and reminds us of our previous condition of ignorance. You see, not only were we dead, helpless, but we were also in darkness, in ignorance, apart from Jesus Christ.

There is great spiritual benefit in often recalling what we were before we were saved, for it deepens our humility and incites continued thankfulness for God’s grace. Notice Paul was careful to qualify the Jews as the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, because he elsewhere took pains to point out that this did not automatically make someone a true Jew.

Paul began by reminding the Gentile believers that they had been alienated from Jews and from God, in a godless, Christless, hopeless condition. Christ broke down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles through the shedding of His blood. Christ replaced the old hostility with oneness in Him. Gentiles and Jews together were now part of the church—Christ’s body, the family of God, the temple of God.

If you had traveled to Jerusalem in the days of the Apostle Paul, you would have found a wall. It wasn’t lined with machine-gun turrets or barbed wire. But it was no less divisive. It was a rather low stone wall, only about 3 or 4 feet high. It surrounded the Temple. It divided the outer court of the Temple, known as the Court of the Gentiles, from the inner court. A number of gates were placed into this wall at strategic locations. And by each gate, there was posted a sign. The sign held a warning in three languages: Hebrew, Greek and Latin. It warned that no Gentile was permitted past this point on pain of death.

William Barclay has taken the following attitudes toward the Gentiles from Jewish literature expressing the immense contempt the Jews had for the Gentiles:

Gentiles were created by God to be fuel for the fires of Hell.

It wasn’t lawful to give help to a Gentile woman in childbirth, for that would be to bring another Gentile into the world.

If a Jew married a Gentile, the funeral of the Jew was carried out. Such contact with a Gentile was the equivalent of death.

The Gentiles were excluded from worshipping God in the temple. They could come and worship from afar. But they were excluded from the community of God'’ people. They were outsiders. It was death for them to come closer. Indeed, as Paul writes to the Ephesians from a Roman prison, the reason for his initial arrest in Jerusalem was because of a riot that had taken place when it was thought that he had brought a Gentile past the wall.

Paul had a ministry to the Gentiles. He was noted as the apostle to the Gentiles. There were a number of Gentiles who labored with him in the ministry. Paul had not always been like this. He had started out as a racist. His racism extended back all the way to his father and to his father’s father—back all the way to Abraham. He .had a cultural heritage of racism—of holding himself separate and aloof from all Gentiles. That all changed when he came to Christ.

Paul is writing to believers in the city of Ephesus, in Asia. They are mostly Gentiles. They are known as being the “Uncircumcision.” They do not share in their bodies the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. And there was a time that their situation was even worse. Paul outlines a fivefold indictment against them and then in Romans 9:4-5 he lists the eightfold privileges of the Jews.

The Gentiles were:

Separate from Christ without hope and without God. Given over to the idolatry of false gods. That is paganism.

Shut off from the commonwealth of Israel, without citizenship.

Strangers to the covenant of promise. That is the promise of the Messiah. Being without covenants hey were excluded from spiritual privileges.

In contrast, the Jews had the promise of the Messiah. They were the commonwealth of Israel-God’s holy nation. And they were bound to God through his covenant promises. The Gentiles had none of these. The Gentiles were in a desperate situation. They had no meaning, hope, purpose or direction in life.

As we hear Paul talking about how we used to be, we are reminded of a similar passage earlier in this chapter. The general outline is the same. First Paul speaks of their former condition in sin. Then he describes what God has done in bringing salvation.

In Eph. 2:1 we saw that we were dead in our trespasses and sins (2:1). In Ephesians 2:12 we see that we were at that time separate from Christ, having no Savior and Deliverer and without divine purpose or destiny.

In Eph. 2:3 we saw that we formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh. In Eph.2:12 we se that we were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and so had no nation over which God ruled.

In Eph 2:3 we saw unbelievers indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind. In Eph. 2:12 we see those who are strangers to the covenants of promise not able to partake of God’s divine promises.

In Eph 2:3 we saw those who were by nature children of wrath. In Eph 2:12 we see those having no hope and without God in the world because they have not been given any divine promise.

To summarize, the previous state of the Gentile believers at Ephesus was one of alienation toward the Jews and toward God. But then God changed every thing by placing them in Christ Jesus, whereby they were made near, i.e., they were reconciled to Jewish Christians and reconciled to the true God. And this was accomplished by the blood of Christ or His vicarious death.

The root cause of strife, discord, antagonism, enmity, hate, bitterness, fighting, war, conflict, and every other form of disunity and division is sin…The only solution for divisions among men is the removal of sin, which Jesus Christ accomplished by the shedding of His own blood. Those who trust in His atoning work are freed from sin now in their new nature and will be practically and permanently freed from sin in their new bodies, when they meet the Lord. The cleansing value of the blood of Christ immediately washes away the penalty of sin and ultimately washes away even its presence. Because in Christ the great foundational barrier of sin has been removed, every other barrier has been removed as well.

Summarizing these first two verses: The Ephesian Gentile believers were previously dead because of trespasses and sins; they were also previously alienated from Jews and God. Being separated from God they were under a fivefold indictment; with the Messiah, without the theocratic state, without the covenants of Abraham, without hope and without the true God. Believing Gentiles are not to forget what they were previously to keep them humble and produce lives of thankful praise!

2. PLEASE READ EPHESIANS 2: 13-15a.

Just when things are seen to be as bad as they can get, we are introduced to a conjunction of contrast. Here is how things were…BUT NOW…You were formerly far off, apart from the true God…you have been brought near. Paul made three contrasts between the old and the new life of the Gentile Christians: In Eph. 2:4-5 we saw that God made us alive together with Christ. In Eph. 2:13 we see that you have been brought near by the blood of Christ, which was shed for sinners.

The means of drawing near was not as a result of your own self-effort. It was “not of works”. Rather, it was through the blood of Christ. When we talk of blood, we are talking covenant language. When you made a covenant in the ancient world, you would seal it through a sacrifice. You would seal it in blood. Indeed, one did not sign a covenant. You CUT a covenant. This is the significance of the blood of Christ. The covenant into which we have entered was signed in His blood. He is both the maker of the covenant as well as the substance of the covenant.

The Central Bible Truth in today’s lesson is that we who have new life in Christ constitute a new type of humanity who are united in peaceful and harmonious fellowship. That God saw the need for a new beginning is evident in Christ, who is identified in Rev. 13:8 as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” or in eternity. In Him God created a new, redeemed humanity. We see him abolishing in His flesh the enmity created by the commandments and regulations of the Law. He came to fulfill the law. In Vs. 16 He is said to have PUT TO DEATH the enmity

3. PLEASE READ EPHESIANS 2: 15b-18

There has been no greater enmity than that which existed between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews called the Gentiles “dogs”. (Even Jesus made reference to them in this way in Mark 7.) Though some Gentiles were admitted into Judaism as Proselytes, gentiles as a whole, were excluded or alienated. When a Jew returned to his homeland, he would pause at the border and shake of the Gentile dust from his clothing. The Gentiles thought of the Jews as social barbarians. Neither were Gentiles above persecuting the Jews. In Paul’s day, all of the Jews had been banished from the city of Rome.

But Christ brought peace. This has great application for the church today. It means that the church has a basis for racial reconciliation. Between Jew and Gentile. Between Black and White. Between Anglo and Hispanic. The curse of Babel was visually overturned at Pentecost. The implication of that event is that our racial distinction should not longer divide us. God’s purpose in reconciliation was to create a new humanity in one body, the church.

“This new man”, in Vs. 15b, is also called “This one body” the church in Vs. 16. In the church, Gentiles do not become Jews, Nor do Jews become gentiles. Instead, believing Jews and Gentiles become Christians, a whole new single entity.

Why did Jesus abolish “the law with its commandments and regulations” Paul Stated two purposes. The first was to create in himself one new man out of the two (the Jews and the Gentiles). The dividing wall of hostility had been destroyed. This one new man is the church, the body of Christ.

The second purpose was in this one body to reconcile both of them to God. In 2 Cor. 5: 19 Paul wrote, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Him self.” God always takes the initiative in seeking reconciliation with sinners. The phrase, one body, here refers to the one new man, the church, not to Christ’s physical body. Reconciliation to God, whether for Jews or gentiles, is accomplished only in this one body, the church. This reconciliation was effected through the cross. Through His sacrificial, atoning death, Christ and Christ alone, put to death the hostility between Jews and Gentiles.

In Vs. 17 Paul declared that Christ came and preached peace to you who were far away (the Gentiles” and peace to those who were near (the Jews). The good news preached by Jesus, proclaims the means for peace and reconciliation between humanity and God, as well as between human beings themselves.

A study of Jesus’ life shows that He did not seek to reform the social order from without. He sought to change society by first changing people as individuals. Through a redeemed people He sought to produce a new social order.

If history has taught us anything, it is that we do not create an ideal society by enacting laws. Laws are necessary to curb the lawless. They also enable the lawful to live in harmony with each other. But legalism cannot change human hearts and attitudes. When the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, someone asked one national governmental official what more could be done. He official replied, “We have done all we can do. The rest is up to the people.”

With an explanatory for in Vs. 18, Paul introduced the reason Christ preached peace to both Jews and Gentiles. The only access for both races to God the Father is through Jesus Himself. This access is by one Spirit. We should not miss the Trinitarian implications of Paul’s teaching here: Our access to the Father is through Christ by the Holy Spirit. The resources of the Trinity belong to believers the moment they receive Christ, and the Holy Spirit presents them before the heavenly throne of God the Father, where they are welcome to come with boldness

at any time.

Can diverse people and groups really be brought together. Do you remember the wishful Coca Cola ad with hundreds from different nationalities singing “I’D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING IN PERFECT HARMONY.” They were proving it could be done.

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4. PLEASE READ EPHESIANS 2: 19-22.

Three illustrations are given in Vs. 19-20 to picture the unification of Jews and Gentiles. There is a city (Fellow citizens with the saints), a family (Of God’s household), and a building, (Having been built-the building is actually a Temple).

God is building a house. Its foundation is upon the testimony of the apostles, and the prophets. Christ is the cornerstone. This brings us to a question. Why are the apostles and prophets called the foundation of the house? Why is Christ pictured as the cornerstone? Why isn’t He the foundation? Because He is the stone that sets the foundation and squares the building.

It is the apostles and prophets who presented the truth of the work of Christ to men who believed and became a part of the building. The Ephesians had never met Jesus in the flesh But they did meet Paul and Silas, who laid the foundation of their faith in. Christ is the cornerstone. The cornerstone holds the two adjoining walls together. Christ holds the Jews and the Gentiles together. He is the basis for our security.

If you are in Christ, then you are a part of that building. You have been fitted together with me and with the rest of the church. We are a building. And not just a building, but a Temple. Every new believer is a new stone in Christ’s Temple, the church, Christ’s body of believers. According to the N.T. the church is a loving community of baptized believers who have been reconciled to God and to one another through Jesus Christ.

You know what a Temple is. It is a place where you go to meet God. It is a place where God abides. We are the Temple. This is not speaking of us individually. We are individually Temples of God, but this scripture is not speaking of us as individuals. This is speaking of the collective of the church. All of God’s people make up this single Temple. There are no strangers, foreigners, or second-class citizens there.

Think of it! Those who at one time made it their practice to worship false gods and goddesses in the heathen temples of Ephesus were brought into the commonwealth of God’s covenant community to become a part of the very Temple of God on earth. They not only became heavenly citizens, but also members of God’s own family. God the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in His earthly sanctuary, the church, the vast spiritual body of all the redeemed.

This is a marvelous thing that God has done. He has made a single body of diverse peoples. Not two bodies. Not an Old Testament Israel and a New Testament Church. One body. One temple, to serve as the dwelling place for One Spirit. I have a small piece of the Berlin Wall that I keep as a reminder that the Gospel breaks down walls. And unites people, and builds up a house where God dwells.

Thus those who were once aliens (that is a foreigner living in the midst of a country, who does not have the rights of citizenship) are now fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household. And in the Lord are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. These then are the real church—That for which Christ died.

NEXT SUNDAY FROM PHILIPPIANS 2 WE LOOK AT THE QUESTION “WHAT ATTITUDE DOES JESUS WANT US TO HAVE?”

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