Where God is At Home

Ephesians 2:11-22
“Where God is At Home”

Why can’t we all just get along? We’ve all heard that question asked in many different contexts, important and unimportant, haven’t we? And whatever is happening that caused the question to be asked is usually perceived by the asker to be either trivial or for some reason indefensible. Some opinion brokers have asked it regarding the Iraq war, for instance, because they can’t seem to support the reasons it started. And teachers have asked it of their fourth-grade boys following a playground scuffle—or so I’ve heard. Whether the context is trivial or important, though, that question does get at a desire that is deeply rooted in all our hearts—a desire for unity, harmony, and peace. It’s not at all hard to see where that has come from for Christians. We are yearning for the coming of the day when all government and authority will finally be unified under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in true righteousness and peace. In fact, all things in heaven and on earth will be under that authority and Scripture tells us that such harmony will even permeate the animal kingdom. “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,” wrote the prophet Isaiah (11:6) We’ll all get along. But that longing is present more broadly in society than just among Christians; it is pervasive. People want peace! They want unity and harmony as far as it is possible. Traditionally, though, throughout history that has only come on a grand scale through conquering armies under some megalomaniac leader—which no one wants. So people are left to create for themselves some inner sense of peace and harmony with the universe that is necessarily rooted varying levels of self-deception. The more appealing forms of this deception can actually extend even beyond individual selves, though, and begin to capture the collective imagination of entire societies. 

We see that in our society today. Many believe that tolerance accomplishes such peace and harmony. We can all get along, we just need to ignore all those areas where we disagree. And when it comes to our deeply rooted national and ethnic identities, which are very hard to ignore, we’ll introduce the hyphen and pretend we found unity. Now our great melting pot of a nation is more like a vegetable stew with every ingredient retaining its individuality even though it is part of the whole. We have African-Americans and Asian-Americans, and Hispanic-Americans. In fact, with the introduction of the hyphen we have a system that can expand indefinitely in its imitation of unity and harmony and peace, except that we’re fooling ourselves, and not one of those qualities is actually present. Granted, Christians need to accommodate themselves to the culture in the use of the language, but we can’t fool ourselves into believe that the hyphen represents actual peace. So is grand scale peace and harmony actually attainable? Yes, it is, but only under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. 

Eph.2:11-22 speaks of that unity and harmony and peace as Paul addressed the Gentiles about all that Jesus accomplished on their behalf; it unfolds in three stages.

Hopeless Separation – 2:11-12

Paul opened this section by reminding the Gentiles that the Jews used to magnify the differences between them for reasons that were rooted in their covenant with God. Deu.7, among many other places, established the uniqueness of Israel. When they entered the land God told them regarding the people who were living there: “You shall make no covenant with them. You shall not intermarry with them,… for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. … For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (2b-6). 

It isn’t hard to see why the Jews thought themselves special! One commentator put it this way: “A voluntary policy of apartheid was practiced by the Jews to keep themselves unpolluted by Gentile filth, as they saw it. They wouldn’t shake hands with a Gentile. They wouldn’t eat with a Gentile. The rabbis even forbade a Jewish mid-wife to assist a Gentile mother at childbirth, for to do so, they said, would simply be to bring another Gentile into the world. And if some Jewish Romeo decided he wanted to marry some Gentile Juliet, his family conducted a ritual funeral on his behalf in which he was formally pronounced not just temporarily ostracized from them but permanently dead.” The Jews took this separation seriously and spoke derisively of the Gentiles. They were called “the uncircumcised,” Paul wrote (11), by those who were known as “the circumcision.” This was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham established back in Gen.17, and even though it was practiced by other people groups at that stage of history, it was particularly associated with the Jews. And for them it was a practice that captured their intimacy with God and suitably distinguished them from the utterly repulsive Gentiles.

Paul also reminded the Gentiles (12) in no uncertain terms, of the fact that they were distanced from God. They were separated from the Messiah. They were alienated from his people. They were strangers to his covenant promises. They were thus devoid of his hope. They were entirely apart from God, with all that entails—no fellowship, no forgiveness, no future. The Gentiles were hopelessly separated.

Costly Reconciliation – 2:13-18

But now … remember, “But God,” (4) … “But now (13) in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” The gap has been bridged. And the bridge has been crossed. The lost have been rescued. The aliens have been brought near—by the blood of Christ. In the very body of Christ they received peace. He didn’t deliver the package of peace to their doorstep, like some sort of first century UPS worker. He didn’t drop them off at the destination of peace on his way to some other location. He transformed them into a state of peace in which they were reconciled to one another (14-15) by virtue of the fact that both groups were reconciled to God (16) through the work of the cross. He erased the points of division between them. He broke down the dividing wall of hostility (14)—likely conjuring up an image of the wall that separated the court of the Gentiles from the inner courts of the temple—that wall on which many notices were posted that Gentiles could enter no further. He abolished the law of commandments and ordinances (15) that kept them separate.

Now that is a bit of a troubling thought, isn’t it? Don’t we learn from Scripture that the law is good, revealing the character and standard of God? How could it have been abolished? Well, first, the word abolish can mean to make ineffective, or powerless, to nullify (O’Brien, 196). And with that understanding Bruce (298-9) wrote an excellent summary answer to our question: “It is not the law as a revelation of the character and will of God that has been done away with in Christ. In that sense of the term the question and answer of Rom.3:31 remain valid: ‘Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.’ … But the law as a written code, threatening death instead of imparting life, is done away with in Christ,” as Paul argues elsewhere. “And when the law in that sense is done away with, the barrier between Jews and Gentiles is removed; Jewish particularism and Gentile exclusion are things of the past.” It is the law covenant which has been nullified—the law as the binding stipulations governing relationship with God. That system has now been replaced by the new covenant which the prophets had foretold. In Christ it had now come! O’Brien (199) wrote, “Because the old Torah as such, that is, the law-covenant, has gone, it can no longer serve as the great barrier between Jew and Gentile. Specifically, Paul seems to be referring to things like dietary laws or the feasts, even the sacrificial system, in addition to circumcision which he has already mentioned. These don’t need to separate Jew and Gentile any longer now that Christ has come and fulfilled the law (Mat.5:17). But even the Jews had lost touch with much of the spiritual dimension of the law covenant. Jesus confronted that routinely during his earthly ministry, and right here in vs.11 Paul pointed out that the circumcision of which they were so proud was only being done in the flesh by hands. It wasn’t even honoring the old covenant, not to mention the new. Listen to how Paul used this old covenant sign of circumcision, tying it together with several other themes mentioned here in Eph., as he illustrates differences between the old and new covenants in his letter to the Colossians (2:9-17): “In (Christ) the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 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, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demand. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

So Christ reconciled Jew and Gentile to God through his death on the cross, and as an unavoidable entailment he also reconciled them to one another both 1) because he surpassed the significance of the commandments and ordinances that divided them—having fulfilled the law—but also 2) because he created in himself (15) one new man in place of the two. In his death he killed the hostility, (16). He brought good news of peace to both groups, (17). In his Spirit he grants them access to God, (18). Think about that—access to God, the privilege of intimate relationship. My wife, my children have access to my study in a way that is not as available to others. Dr. Lutzer tells of an occasion when he went to the White House with a friend who works for the Secret Service. They were able visit the Oval Office, which was empty at the time, passing checkpoint after checkpoint without even slowing down. They had access—not to the President, but at least to his office. Access to God should be the epitome of an example of an oxymoron, shouldn’t it? What is the normal concept of God in the average American mind? For many God is by definition a distant, mysterious force that never really shows itself fully nor reveals itself clearly; its expectations are all be indiscernible but we’re somehow held accountable to them anyway. Having access to God is virtually inconceivable. But both Jew and Gentile gained it in Christ, and enjoy it in one and the same Holy Spirit. Early Christians often referred to themselves as a third race, and with good reason. They were neither Jew nor Gentile. They were beyond that in Christ. They were Christians, and all other distinctions were incidental.

Living Habitation – 2:19-22

That moves us on to vss.19-22. The Gentiles were no longer strangers and aliens (19) but were fellow citizens with the saints—not the Jews, the saints—and members of God’s household, not just guests within it. They had a place at the table. They were children in the family. Ch.1 has already addressed the idea of adoption into full family rights. There shouldn’t be any of those odd feelings like the first day at a new school; they belonged! The metaphor changes in vs.20 to an architectural one. The two groups are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone. When Paul used a similar metaphor for the body of Christ in 1Co.3 he called Christ the foundation (11). These are not contradictory ideas; they’re simply metaphors serving a bit of a different purpose. But even there in 1Co., Paul said he laid the foundation in Corinth (9). He, as an apostle, is the one who preached Christ to them. And that is the idea here: the apostles and prophets are mentioned as the foundation. The message of Christ that they preached is the foundation of the church. And Christ is the cornerstone—the stone of reckoning. The prophet Isaiah drew these ideas together showing the close relation between them. Judah had degenerated into a culture of death hiding in a shelter of lies when God said through the prophet (28:16): “I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’” In this sense the cornerstone is a foundation stone forming the reference point with which all of the measurements and specifications of the building design are squared up. 

That is precisely what happens here. Jew and Gentile together are fitted together into a living, breathing, growing habitation for God, a temple (21), a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (22). In the upper room Jesus had taught the disciples regarding the Spirit, “You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (Joh.14:17). Here in Eph.2 that has happened. And the Gentiles were a part of the very structure of this temple with the Jews—they were bricks within the wall, not just posters stuck to it surface. The one new man, made up of those who were near to God and those who were far away, is now the place where God is at home. This is the mystery Paul mentioned first back in ch.1, vss.9-10—God’s purpose set forth in Christ to unite all things in him. This remains a central theme as ch.3 opens so we’ll be considering it again next week.

Conclusion

But for this morning, what can we really learn from this lesson about Jews and Gentiles? Even though most of us actually still fit squarely into the latter category, it often just isn’t immediately obvious to us how the issues involved are relevant to us today. We don’t wrestle much with circumcision or dietary laws. But do you think we wrestle much with cultural divisions in the church? Absolutely we do. Do you think we harbor expectations of what a true Christian should be or what a true Christian should do or what true Christians should look like that we’d have a hard time supporting with Scripture?

There is a church north of Chicago that was burdened to reach out to the hippie community back in the late sixties, and they experienced some measure of success as they did. But not every member clearly understood this issue of Christianity over culture. One well-meaning woman was privileged to pray with a teenaged girl to receive Christ and, after they said amen, the tearful young woman asked, “Well, what do I do next?” And the older woman replied, “Well, the first thing you need to do is take off those jeans!”

We may no longer be inclined to expect Gentiles to become Jews in order to truly walk with God, to be a member of his household, but do we have any expectations that, say: Asians should become more western, or Africans should become more European? If not, why do you suppose our churches are so undeniably segregated? Is our identity in Christ really the most evident thing about us as Christians, or does the state of the church in our nation, which we can clearly observe, suggest that there is a difference between white Christians and black Christians in America? Do we have unexamined expectations that the poor should perhaps become more middle class in order to truly fit in as a member in God’s household? I know that’s a sensitive one, but I ask it for a reason. I once heard an anthropology lecture in which the professor suggested that the economic divide in the American church is even deeper than the racial divide. I was immediately doubtful, but then he offered a compelling hypothetical example. He said, “The average middle-class, white church-goer in America would rather sit next to a middle-class black person in church than to a homeless white person.” I couldn’t disagree that he was quite likely right.

The questions could go on and on, couldn’t they? We could venture into the political realm, for instance, and ask if members of God household shouldn’t endorse one particular party over another; but that may well be a bridge too far this morning. Bruce observed, “The new community, God’s fellowship of reconciliation, transcends all distinctions of race, status, and sex. Properly oriented to the one cornerstone, based on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Gentile Christians, along with their fellow-believers of Jewish birth, belonged equally to God’s holy house. As the God of Israel had once taken up residence in the wilderness tabernacle and later in the Jerusalem temple by his name and his glory, so now by his Spirit he makes the fellowship of believers, Jewish and Gentile alike, his chosen dwelling-place.” And we might add, not only Jewish and Gentile alike, but young and old, rich and poor, black and white, republican and democrat, eastern and western, with all our cultural uniquenesses. Jesus saves us all and unites us into one new man in Christ so that our identity as Christians transcends all these categories and unifies us. 

I’d like to challenge you with one thought as we depart from this place this morning. And I willingly grant that it may be difficult to implement. I’d like you to ask yourself one question, and then look for opportunities to answer it throughout the week ahead. Pick any one of the categories of just mentioned—race, ethnicity, politics, economics, any category in which you recognize that you have strong feelings—and ask yourself whether you have more meaningful relationships with non-Christians who agree with you in that area than with Christians who disagree with you? If you’re a Christian businessperson, for instance, and have strong feelings about, say, welfare; do you have closer fellowship with a non-Christian who works in your office than with a Christian on welfare? If you’re a homemaker living in a homogeneous neighborhood, do you have closer fellowship with a non-Christian neighbor than you do with a Christian who might not fit in very well with the demographic of your neighborhood? If you’re a Christian musician, do you have closer fellowship with non-Christians who gravitate to your preferred style of music, or to Christians who have very different musical tastes that you do? Let’s ask ourselves that question this week, and even if a clear answer is somewhat elusive; and let’s not look away from it.

If there is any point at which we are attached—more to our culture that to Christ, more to our lifestyle that our risen Lord, more to our preferences than to his people—then we very well may be hyphenating our Christianity and living out a false sense of unity as compared to the one Paul described here in Eph.2. We may have identified an area of our lives that is not in proper alignment with the cornerstone. And we should never be satisfied with the possibility that anything is as important to us as the good news of the gospel, and the peace it has facilitated with God and with his people.