Sermon Cloud

The New Humanity. Eph 2:11-22. Intro “War No More.” We have in us a desire for peaceful diversity. It does not exists throughout our world. There are still places where there are radical divisions because of ethnicity, caste (like the Dalits), religion. We want to see an end to these things. But we also have some deep prejudice in our hearts. Our City’s diversity: Melting pot first coined to describe the densely populated immigrant neighborhoods of the LES. 47.6% households speak a different language at home. Just a couple miles apart, Manhattan has the biggest disparity of income in the world. There are radical differences among the people of our city and those differences often create deep prejudices (racial/ ethnic; socio-economic; political; orientation; customs or habits). This text addresses our desire for reconciliation and our deep prejudice that produces the need for the reconciliation. Historical setting, the flow of the text, and then build a bridge to our time and give us some challenges as to what we are do with this.

The Flow of Ephesians 2: Contrasting their former life with what God has done to bring about a new identity. 2:1, 4 you were, but God. Personal idea; God has reconciled you to himself. You were alienated from him, a child of wrath, but he has reconciled you to himself. 2:11, 13 at that time you were, but now. Corporate idea; God has reconciled you to one another. Sin alienates us from God but also from others, but Christ has reconciled you to one another. We have to see this in the context of the first century world and cultural situation into which Paul is writing. This alienation between people is seen most vividly in the division and enmity that existed between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were God’s chosen people. In their hearts their election was to privilege and not to responsibility - but they were chosen by God to be a light to the nations, to bring joy to other nations by introducing them to the true God.) But their privilege turned to self-righteousness and they condemned non-Jewish people.

William Barclay: The Jew had an immense contempt for the Gentile. The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell. God, they said, loves only Israel of all the nations that he had made … It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile mother in her hour of sorest need, for that would simply be to bring another Gentile into the world. Until Christ came, the Gentiles were an object of contempt to the Jews. The barrier between them was absolute. If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or if a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, the funeral of that Jewish boy or girl was carried out. Such contact with a Gentile was the equivalent of death.

There were standing symbols of this alienation, which stood as dividing walls of hostility (v14), namely the Temple and Torah, or the law. The law, intended to give clarity to God’s people as to how to live, became a fence that separated them from others and created a sense of superiority and self-righteousness.  Literally in the temple there was a wall that separated the Jews from the Gentiles. Josephus writes about this: The temple was ‘encompassed by a stone wall for a partition, with an inscription which forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death’. In his Wars of the Jews he is a little more explicit. There was, he writes, ‘a partition made of stone all round, whose height was three cubits. Its construction was very elegant; upon it stood pillars at equal distance from one another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek and some in Roman letters, that “no foreigner should go within that sanctuary”.’ (Quoted in John Stott’s Commentary in The Bible Speaks Today). Paul knew this by experience. Acts 21:27-31.

We have to see the hostility and division and deep prejudice and hatred that existed if we are going to feel the weight of verse 14. He himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility. The overarching point: Christ is our peace. He has taken people alienated from and hostile toward one another and reconciled them, making them One, unifying them. How does he do this:

Stated Negatively: he removes this division by abolishing the law. Abolishing the law of commandments. What does this mean? How is this law the source of hostility? It is a source of hostility between us and God. The law put us at odds with God because we could not keep it. It only condemned us. It was given so that our sin might be seen as sin. Christ came to abolish the law in that he came to undo the laws condemnation of us by being condemned for us. He freed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. The law was against us; we had an entire list of offenses stacked up against us, (Col 2.13-14 ESV “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14) by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”). Jesus by his cross abolished the laws charges against us, he set our list of law breaking offenses aside. This removed the dividing wall between us and God. This killed the hostility between us and God and God and us (v16).

Abolishing the law’s charges against us by bearing them himself also removes hostility between Jew and Gentile, between people in general, because it clearly shows that the law is not God’s way of making us right with him. IF we are not made right with God by keeping the law (because none of us can keep it perfectly) then we cannot despise those who do not have the law and do not naturally keep it.  The law gave the Jews a sense of superiority. We have received the revelation of God. We are superior. What Paul is saying is that you recieved the law, but you could not keep the law and the law only condemns you just like it condemns everything else. you need something to save you from the curse of the law. As a Jew you are in the same place of need as the Gentile. So you can’t claim superiority over the Gentile for having the law only condemns you just like it condemns the Gentile. Your only hope is Jesus who bore the curse of the law in your place just like he bore the curse of the law in the Gentile’s place. To the Jew, Paul is saying, your only hope is the same thing the Gentile has to put his hope in: Christ crucified. This levels all humanity. Notice v17 far off/near. Whether you are religious or irreligious Jesus is your only hope for peace with God and when you realize that all pride and prejudice fades.

POINT: The Gospel slays our sense of superiority and inferiority. In Gal 2:11-14 this gets worked out. Peter fell under influence of Judaizers. Paul confronts Peter: you are not accepted by God and declared right and significant because of your Jewishness, so don’t despise those who lack your Jewishness. Principle: Whatever you are trusting in for your righteousness, you will tend to look down on others who lack it. That which you look to to establish your significance, worth, adequacy and rightness you will be inclined to reject those who lack it. If morality you will have contempt for those who do not share your moral standards; money/contempt for poor; success/contempt for unsuccessful; manners and orderliness/contempt for the loud and riotous; fashion and beauty/contempt for plain; ethnicity/contempt for other cultures and races. Question: Is there a kind of person/type of person you find yourself having critical, negative feelings about? What makes us right and gives us worth and significance is that we are loved by God and in Christ He will have us. The Gospel is the answer to prejudice. Now, the church has often propagated prejudice to its shame. But it was not because it was in step with the Gospel; it was out of step with the Gospel and God had to raise up people like Martin Luther King who understood the answer was not less Christianity but deeper Christianity. The Gospel is our answer to all prejudice. You need that in our city. Our city is diverse. Stats on our city. It also slays any sense of inferiority. In spite of all your failures or insecurities about your uniquenesses, if you are in Christ you are fully loved and accepted by God who is at work in you to make you all he desires you to be. “More sinful/more loved.” This is why the NT Church was so diverse. Jew/Gentile; Rich/Poor; members of the social elite/those who were slaves; those from a pious background/those from an irreligious background. Saw each other as one for whom Christ died. Whatever label you would wear with pride is stripped by the Gospel; Whatever label you would wear with shame is stripped by the Gospel.

Positively, he has created One New Man; one new humanity. No longer identified by your ethnicity or anything else but have your identity in Christ and as His people.  Jesus is creating a new people for himself, a new humanity who leave behind all other identifiers and who have as their primary sense of self and identity, those whom Jesus loves and has saved and have included among his people. Before I am anything else, I am a follower of Jesus saved by his grace and included in his Church.

POINT: The Gospel Calls us into Radical Community. Not me and my God, but us and our God. Three metaphors for this community. 1. Citizens in God’s City. City of God vs City of Man. Learning how to live out our citizenship by walking in the way of Jesus under the power of the holy spirit. 2. Members of God’s household. Intimate family language. The church is not a hotel but a household. We belong to one another as members, participants, contributors. Caring for one another as brothers and sisters. Ch 4 will unfold this for us more. The teachings of the NT make no sense outside the context of you being immersed in a community that you consider your family in Christ. The way of Jesus is to be lived out in community and can scarcely be lived out in isolation from others or in sporadic involvement with others. It requires you be immersed/engaged in a community of faith that is on mission. Responsibility but also security, belonging, acceptance. Sometimes you want to go…3. Stones in God’s new Temple. We collectively are God’s temple. Christ is the cornerstone of this temple. Laying the cornerstone marked the beginning of the foundation and was used to determine the placement of every stone. The temple is being built upon and around Jesus. He is what unites us. We are the living stones that are being built into this temple. Notice the temple is growing: depth (holiness); breadth (size, more and more stones being added). And this temple is where God makes his presence known. Your experience of the Spirit of God is contingent upon a radical commitment to community (corporate worship and spiritual friendships).  Make the move from going to church to being the church.