From Foreigners to Fellowcitizens – Ephesians 2:11-12
We are living in an increasingly
fragmented society, a nation in which people of differing political views eye
each other with growing suspicion and hostility. We don’t just argue with each other, we
attack each other. We put up roadblocks
instead of building bridges. The tragedy
of Charlottesville and the alt-right and the thuggery of the alt-left and the
so-called “Antifa” are just symptoms of a wider problem here in our country and
the West in general. You see it in
safe-spaces on the left and you see it in the retreat of conservatives and the
religious into their own little enclaves.
Many are no longer interested in understanding the other side, they just
want their own views to receive validation and they are ready to attack anyone
who questions them. We allow differences
to become barriers.
I don’t know all the reasons for
the growing alienation in our culture.
Part of it is no doubt due to the fact that our society has become more
diverse but there is no cultural glue to hold everyone together. The idea of belonging to a common culture is
shattering before our eyes as people join groups each competing for political
power over the others. But I have no
doubt that the ultimate reasons lie in our sinfulness and the pride and
selfishness and lack of love that sin spawns in our individual hearts which
then spreads out to society as a whole.
The question is, how do we
respond to this? And what can the church
do to shine the light of Christ in an increasingly alienated society? There may be some who don’t think there is a
solution to the problem. It has been
said that a problem without a solution is not a problem but a fact. Is that what we are faced with – a fact? Is this not something than can be fixed?
The text we are considering this
morning actually has a lot to say to such a problem. It tells us how Jews and Gentiles, very
different both racially and religiously and culturally, were reconciled and
learned to embrace each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. However, the solution it presents is a gospel
solution and it tells us that there really is no way that such a thing can
happen apart from the embrace of the Christ and his word by faith.
Let’s see how and why the gospel
is so important to this process of reconciliation.
In the first 10 verses of this
chapter, the apostle has recounted a seismic shift in the lives of the Ephesian
Christians, namely, that they had been relocated from the realm of spiritual
death to life in Christ. Now, in the
second half of the chapter, he reminds them of another equally seismic shift in
their relationship to the people of God.
Simply put, once they were not part of the people of God and now they
are part of the people of God.
But the change they experienced
is actually far more significant than it sounds at first. For almost two thousand years, the locus of
the people of God centered in the Jewish people. They were privileged in ways that no other
nation was privileged. They had the
advantage in that “unto them were committed the oracles of God” (Rom.
3:1-2). God revealed “his word unto
Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as
for his judgments, they have not known them” (Ps. 147:19-20). In this way, as our Lord reminded the woman
at the well in Samaria, “salvation is of the Jews” (Jn. 4:22).
It is not that the Gentiles had
no access to the precious treasure of the word of God, but they had to go to
Israel to hear it. In fact, the people
of Israel were meant to be a light to the nations, so that they would come to
seek the God of Israel. Solomon, in his
dedication prayer for the temple, expected strangers to come from far countries
for the sake of God’s great name (1 Kings 8:41-42).
However, that’s not to say that
participation with the people of God was easy for the Gentiles. There were two great barriers against them. One was the law of Moses itself, which Paul
calls “the law of commandments contained in ordinances” in verse 15, which
describes the “middle wall of partition” in verse 14. The Law was a middle wall that separated the
Gentiles and the Jews. It accomplished
this primarily by the rite of circumcision.
There were a lot of Gentiles in Paul’s day (called God-fearers) that
would go to the synagogue but would never take the step of becoming a
full-blown proselyte to Judaism because they didn’t want to be
circumcised. And no doubt the burden of many
of the other ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic Law prohibited many from uniting
themselves with the people of God.
The other
barrier was the unfortunate attitudes that developed between Jew and
Gentile. No doubt the apostle was
thinking about this when he wrote of the “enmity” that existed between them
(15). William Barkley describes the
situation that existed in Paul’s day:
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 the Jewish boy or girl was
carried out. Such contact with a Gentile
was the equivalent of death.[1]
Nowhere was
this double barrier illustrated with greater force than by the Jewish temple
then standing in Jerusalem. A
one-and-a-half-meter wall separated the temple precincts proper from the Court
of the Gentiles. You might remember how
much trouble Paul got into when some Jews imagined that he had brought some
Gentiles past the wall into the temple.
There were actually signs mounted on this wall at periodic points which
warned not, as Stott puts it, “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” but
“Trespassers will be executed.”[2] Gentiles could behold the temple from afar,
but they could not enter it, and they certainly could not participate in its
rituals. They were decisively separated
from the people of Israel and their religion.
What the
apostle does in this part of the epistle is to remind the Ephesians how this
double chasm was bridged. He does this
by first reminding them where they were before they were part of the people of
God (11-12), how they were incorporated into the people of God (13-18), and the
where they are now as a result (19-22).
This morning, I want to focus on their previous position when they were
estranged from the people of God. I do so
because the negatives Paul mentions here tell us something very important about
the great defining characteristic of God’s people.
How does
the apostle describe them? He begins by
describing them as they were called by the Jews: “the Uncircumcision”
(11). This was an umbrella term for the
descriptions in the following verse (12).
They were: (1) without Christ, (2) aliens from the commonwealth of
Israel, (3) strangers from the covenants of promise, (4) having no hope, and
(5) without God in the world.
It’s
interesting to consider these characteristics in light of the solution that
Paul gives in the following verses.
Christ died in order to bring them out of the state outlined in verses
11-12 and into the state outlined in verses 19-22. The bridge verse is 13: “But now [as opposed
to “at that time” in verse 12] in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
It is the redemptive death of Jesus that healed the rift described
above. And the result is that they are
now the members of God’s people and family.
So the condition described in verses 11-12 was something that required
the death of Jesus Christ and which issued in participation in the family of
God.
Why then
does Paul place “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel” in this description? In particular, why would Paul list
non-citizenship in the nation of Israel as something that necessitated the
death of Christ so that the Gentiles might be saved and included in the people
of God? It’s not as if citizenship in
Israel was ever necessary to be saved or even part of the people of God. What did this have to do with being without
Christ, God, and hope?
I think the
key is the very next phrase: “strangers from the covenants of promise.” This is not a reference to the Mosaic
covenant, but to the Abrahamic covenant, which Paul consistently calls the
covenant of promise in contrast to the Law of Moses. For example, in Galatians 4, Paul talks about
two covenants, one of promise represented by Isaac, and the other of law
represented by Ishmael (4:21-31). Some
question whether it could only be the Abrahamic covenant, since Paul uses the
plural covenants. But we must recall that God repeated this
covenant multiple times to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I think it is in this
sense that Paul speaks of covenants plural.
What
exactly was this covenant? The apostle
Paul focused on the promise that in the seed of Abraham all the world would be
blessed and saw this promise as the gospel in miniature: “Abraham believed God,
and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the
children of Abraham. And the Scripture,
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed” (Gal. 3:6-8). The apostle’s
argument was that Abraham was justified exactly as Gentiles are today: by
trusting in the God of the gospel.
This
covenant was given to Abraham, and through him to the nation of Israel. This is why belonging to the nation of Israel
was so important. To be an alien to the
nation of Israel was to be a stranger from the covenants of promise, and
therefore to be ignorant of the gospel, even if it was only in its infant form
during the OT era. This explains why
Paul says they were “without Christ.”
Unlike their Jewish counterparts, they were not looking forward to the
coming of the Messiah who would save his people. They had no such expectation because they had
no such gospel.
Without the
gospel they were without Christ, and being without Christ they were without
hope and without God in the world. That
doesn’t mean they didn’t have hope at all; it means that they hope they had was
unfounded and ill-placed. Over and over
the Bible reminds us that hope in Christ is unique because it alone is that
which will not make those ashamed who place their hopes in Christ: “Hope maketh
not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us. For when
we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom.
5:5-6). “For the Scripture saith,
Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Rom. 10:11). To be without Christ is to be without
hope.
But you
don’t have Christ apart from the gospel: “How then shall they call on him in
whom they have not believed? And how
shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach
except they be sent? As it is written,
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, that bring
glad tidings of good things! . . . So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God” (Rom. 10:14-15, 17).
The
unifying element to all these negatives, then, is the lack of the gospel. They were without Christ because they were
ignorant of the gospel. And they were
ignorant of the gospel because they were not part of Israel, the place in which
God uniquely revealed the gospel through the promises made to Abraham and his
seed. And, therefore, they were without
hope and without God.
A very
important implication of Paul’s teaching in this text is the fact that the word
of God creates the people of God; in particular, the gospel does this. To be without the gospel is to be without
Christ and without hope and without God.
It is to be lost. There are a
number of important truths that follow from this.
First of
all, there is no salvation apart from Christ and the embrace of the good news
about him in the gospel. “Neither is
there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The idea that there are multitudes of people
living without any knowledge of the gospel who will then be saved is simply a
foreign idea to Scripture. It is the
reason why it is imperative for this church to support missionaries who are
bringing the gospel to the unreached in the world. For the awful reality is that without the gospel
they are in exactly the position that the apostle Paul is describing for us in
verses 11-12. They are without hope and
without God in this world. Moreover, it
is not enough simply to bring water and food to the unreached. That is not missions in the Biblical
sense. Though we ought to do such
things, we ought to see such outreach as a means of opportunity for the
gospel. Jesus not only healed people’s
physical bodies, he also preached the gospel of the kingdom. Neither is being nice to lost people
evangelism. We must give them the
gospel.
We must
avoid the lie that you can be saved and not know Christ. What Paul is saying here is that being
religious is no guarantee that you know God.
In fact, the word Paul uses for “without God” is the Greek word atheos, from which we get the word
“atheist.” Of course, the apostle is not
saying that they literally didn’t believe in God; in fact, they had almost
certainly been polytheistic before their conversion – they believed in many
gods! Rather, the apostle is saying what
he said to the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill: they were very religious but
the true God was yet unknown to them (Acts 17:22-23). Christ did not come to make men
religious. He came and died so that we
might know the true God (Jn. 17:3). We
know the true God through Christ and Christ alone.
But the
word of God in the gospel not only saves us, it also becomes the very thing
that brings us into participation with the people of God. This was true in the OT era and it is true
today as well. Before, the Gentiles had
been “strangers and foreigners” but now in Christ we are “fellowcitizens with
the saints and of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). Before, they had been separated from the
people of God because they were separated from the nation of Israel and its
rich store of God’s word and promises and covenants. But now they “are built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone”
(20). The church, which is the visible
expression of the people of God upon the earth, is founded upon the word of
God. And this is not just any religious
word: it is the word of the apostles and prophets. In other words, the Scriptures.
I cannot
stress enough the importance of God’s word for the formation and sanctification
of the church. The apostolic church
understood this. When Luke gives us a
progress report on the state of the church in its early years, he does so in
these words: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and
fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42; see also
6:4).
Recently,
in reading early church history, I came across a description of church worship
in the 2nd century by Irenaeus, bishop in Lyon. According to him, the worship of the typical
second century church consisted of four things: Scripture reading, preaching,
corporate prayer, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. This is interesting because this list is
almost identical to the one given in Acts 2.
The church was still putting emphasis upon God’s word. Unfortunately, over the years this emphasis
waned until it became non-existent. The
Bible was taken from the masses and even when it was read it was in Latin, in a
language the common people did not understand.
We should thank God, especially in this year the 500th
anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, that the reformers like Luther and
Calvin were so insistent upon putting God’s word front and center again for the
benefit of the church and the glory of God.
Of course, that
doesn’t mean that the health of the church is solely dependent upon right
doctrine and a right understanding of the gospel. There are a lot of other things that figure
into the health of both the individual Christian and the church as a
whole. But we should beware of ever
leaving aside the central place that God’s word ought to play in our lives and
in the life of the church. It would be
like saying, “I don’t like the way you emphasize eating because there are other
things just as important to good health.”
Yes, but if you don’t eat you will most certainly die. And the church without the word is like a
body without food. In fact, as our Lord
put it, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of
the mouth of God. “More to be desired
are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb” (Ps. 19:10). “Thy words were
found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing
of mine heart” (Jer. 15:16).
Just as the
word of God formed the nation of Israel, even so the word of God forms the
church. Any church which is not rooted
in and upholding the word of God is not faithful to God’s purpose for the
church. As the apostle Paul reminded
Timothy, the church is “the house of God, which is the church of the living
God, pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). The church relates to the truth as a pillar
to a building: it holds it up for all to see.
It relates to the truth as a foundation to a building: it establishes
the truth and holds it with unshakable confidence.
God’s word
also gives us hope. “For whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). The purpose of God’s word is not only to fill
our heads with the knowledge of the truth, but to brace our hearts with the joy
and peace that comes through hope (cf. Rom. 15:13). The Gentiles were without true hope because
they were without the word that supplies that hope.
Again, I
think the connection to the covenants of promise is important here. The chief way the Scriptures operate to give
us hope is through the promises of God in his word to us. But the promises do not operate alone; they
are inextricably tied to God’s acting in history. The future that is promised to us is not
grounded in mere words but in past salvation history. This is why being part of the commonwealth of
Israel was so important. Israelites
could look back on their history; it interpreted the promises and gave
confidence that God would fulfill his future gracious promises to them. God through the prophets promised them that
he would deliver them from captivity; they looked back on the Exodus and this
made sense to them. God promised that he
would send them a Messiah who would take the throne of David forever; King
David himself became a paradigm for such a promise.
The
ultimate Divine intervention into history was not the Exodus or exaltation of
David to the throne of Israel; it was the coming of Jesus the Son of God into
the world to rescue his people by taking the guilt of their sins upon himself
and suffering the punishment they deserved upon the cross so that they might be
forgiven and freely accepted before God.
He not only died but rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. This is not some fairy tale but history that
radically changed the lives of the apostles and the first-generation
Christians. So, when we are faced with
trials that threaten the foundation of our faith and hope, we need to look back
to what God has already done for us.
When we wonder if God could love us because of some loss, let us
remember what God had to lose that we might gain eternal life. As Michael Card puts it in one of his songs,
“What more could God have given, tell me, what more did God have to give?” “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye
through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Though we have not yet reached the Promised
Land, we can look back to that to which the Exodus pointed and have confidence
that that deliverance will issue in the other.
You could
summarize verses 1-3 of this chapter by saying that the Gentiles before Christ were
without life. Verses 11-12 could in turn
be summarized by saying that the Gentiles before Christ were without the
truth. As a result, they were separated
from God and the people of God. But we
must not miss the significance that God gave them life and light. He quickened them and gave them the gospel:
“And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were
nigh” (17). These pagans who were once
without Christ and God and hope, who were strangers to the culture and conduct
of God’s people, were by grace brought into the bonds of peace.
And God did
this through the truth of the gospel. He
took these pagans who had long been at odds with the church of God and hostile
to the God of the church were reconciled to both God and his people. They heard the gospel and they were
saved. Through the truth of the
Scriptures they grew in grace and lived out the unity to which God had called
them. This was monumental.
And in our
day, as we see our culture fragmenting into safe spaces and identity politics
where people – both secular and religious – are hunkering down into their own
little enclaves, we need to remember what God did in the first century between
Jew and Gentile and what he continues to do to the present day. God is bringing very different people into
the church through the truth. The unity that
we are called to seek in the church is not to be found in our race, or in our
cultural heritage, or life experiences.
It is found in Christ and in the good news that he brings. As Paul reminds us, “For ye are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are
all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26-28).
It is a unity that desires for as many as possible to participate. It is expressed in the prayer of the
apostle: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is, that they might
be saved” (Rom. 10:1).
The gospel
can do this because the gospel empties us of both personal and cultural
pride. It teaches us that we are
bankrupt sinners whose salvation does not come from belonging to a certain race
or culture but to Jesus who died for the sins of people from every people and
tribe and nation and language (Rev. 5:9).
There is no room for pride in people who are redeemed and saved by
grace. There is a reason why Eph. 2:1-10
comes before 2:11-22. Jew and Gentile
could never have been reconciled on any other basis than grace.
The gospel
brings about reconciliation because the gospel tells us to find our identity in
Christ, not in the color of our skin or in the flag that we salute. That’s not to say that we should not be
thankful for our heritage. But the
gospel transcends all such distinctions and we learn to receive each other as
Christ received us to the glory of God (Rom. 15:7).
The gospel
brings about reconciliation because the gospel causes us to find hope in a
Savior who is not dependent upon or loyal to our own particular culture. He is the one redeeming our culture, a
culture which is sinful since it is the product of human designs and desires. He is the one who will bring a New Heaven and
New Earth which is infinitely more desirable and valuable than the one we now inhabit. Our hopes are therefore not pinned upon one
particular expression of human achievement which is inherently bound by time to
expire, but on the living Christ who will usher in an everlasting kingdom.
The Lord is
thus using his word to bring together his people from every people and tongue
and nation and tribe. Let us therefore
be faithful to his word and to his desire to bring about true unity – the unity
that is found by belonging to the people of God through Christ. And if you are yet a stranger to Christ and
the gospel promises, the invitation is open to you: Come, put your trust in
Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you will light and life in him.
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