Ephesians Part 4

Ephesians 2:11–22 Part1, we study this in two parts. This section stands at the heart of Paul’s vision for the ekklesia. Having just declared that salvation comes by grace through faith and not through human boasting, Paul now addresses one of the greatest questions facing the first-century community of believers:

How can Jews and Gentiles truly become one people in Messiah without erasing the covenantal story of Israel?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast, hosted by Bishop Justin D. Elwell of Restoration Fellowship International and Messiah Congregation, recorded at our congregational home in Washington Mills, New York. In this study through Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, we invite you to rediscover the beauty of God's covenant purposes revealed in Messiah Jesus. Together, we will explore the theological and covenantal foundations of Paul's letter. It's called unity, holiness, redemption, and covenant identity for both Jew and Gentile in Messiah. This is more than a theological study. It is an invitation to see the story of Scripture as one unified testimony of the Lord's faithfulness from Israel to the nations, all brought together in Messiah. Thank you for joining us as we seek to live Messiah in everyday life. And now to Bishop Justin.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

I would underline remember. It serves a very important purpose to this chapter. Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision, that is a theological shorthand. So you have the circumcision and the uncircumcision, way of referring to Jews and Gentiles. By what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ, alienate, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise. I would underline the S, covenant's plural. Having no hope and without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, I would underline far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing what underlined killing as well, the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. So the gospel for both Jew and Gentile. For through him we have access in one spirit to the Father. Verse 18 is extraordinarily important and revolutionary in that context. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. This is God's word. Paul in chapter one, having given us the vision of what the Lord has done, uh chapter one once again is essentially two verses, or two long verses. I know we have uh what 23, but it's two long sentences. And it really is a doxology. It's a it's a glorification of the Lord, what he has done, how he has done it, for what purpose he has done it, and so on. And then Paul explains in the beginning of chapter two that you were dead. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. And you were following the course of this world. And this plays an important part in the latter part of the chapter. You were following the course of this world, the social norms, the conventions, what is acceptable, what is unacceptable, and so on. That's why when I talk about ethics and morality, uh, we use it within the believing world, within the context of what does the Lord command. Ethic is his normative standard, what he has given to us that is pleasing to him. He also gives us what is not pleasing to him. So we're permitted, obviously, to do what is pleasing, to do what is unpleasing is a sin. So when we look at morality, ethics is the standard, morality is the reality. Morality is the reality. I had to make sure I said that right. So we say that ethics is a prescriptive science, where morality is a descriptive science. Morality is describing what is what is happening in the society around us. So if we are following the ways of the world, we are moral in terms of what the world approves of. If we move contrary to what the world approves of, we're considered amoral by their standard because we have no morality that they would recognize. But as according to the Lord, we are walking in his commandments and his will. And because of that, we are moral. We're doing what is right, wholly right and good in his sight. And so Paul is making a distinction. You were once there, but now you are here. And that's what he's amplifying in this part, uh latter part of the chapter. So this is a vision. If you were to look at verses 11 through 22 very carefully, he's describing the ecclesia, the outcalled ones, and how, remember, we are called out individually, but we are called to corporate uh dynamic and corporate relation. We are called, the picture is the the evangelist, the one who is making the um the announcement. So the evangelist is walking through the village, we might say, or the city. He is announcing those who hear are called out, ek, ek being out, Glissia, out called ones, ones who are called out. And we are called to the synagogue. We're called to the place of assembly. So we're not called out to be in isolation, we're not called out to be on our own, we're called into a corporate setting where we join together as one body for whatever the purpose of that body was called. So for the purpose of faith, we're called together for and in Messiah. So this is a really ecclesiological uh uh aspect of this book where he's describing the body. Who is the body? How have they come together? And why is this so important? Why is this so different from every other subject he could be touching on? So he addresses this uh the question facing the first century uh community of believers. How can Jew and Gentile come together without erasing um the covenantal story of Israel? That's one of the major issues of that uh the YouTube theology world is wrestling with. You have the two sides that are going back and forth, one saying Israel is no longer of any sort of um eschatological importance. You have the other side that says, no, Israel is still important. This, and we're you know, going through books uh for the library, and it was a book written in the early 80s, I believe, if I recall correctly, that the the title was something, Does Israel Still Matter to God? So this is a 40-year-old book that is probably just as timely, except for adding social media to the to the uh the thought process. It's it's still and it always has been. You can read books of theology from the 40s, uh the the 19th century, and you will have that question that is laid out there. So it's not an abstract theological issue. Paul is imprisoned. Why? How did Paul get in prison? It was the initial accusation that he had brought Gentiles into the precincts of the temple. Remember, that was the accusation. He has brought them before the altar, the ones that he came and brought into the temple uh and paid for their Nazarite vow. As they were taking the vow, he was accused of bringing Gentiles for that purpose. And of course, we know that's not the case. But Paul was committed, he was committed, absolutely committed to the vision of what the gospel is and he and what the gospel would accomplish. Really a reversal of the dispersion of the Tower of Babel generation that the Lord sent into, he he uh divided and then sent into the world what became the nations. So now through the gospel, he's bringing them, bringing them back, uh bringing the nations back together through Messiah. So how does how are how you know the question today is how are Jews saved? I think I've said this before. The question today is how are Jews saved? So we have all kinds of um positions and uh ideas regarding that. Uh that's the question of today. The question of Paul's age, the first century, was how are Gentiles saved? Because remember, Gentiles were heathens, they were pagans, they were offering uh sacrifice to heathen gods and so on. They're so far, and that's what the language he is using is so specific. It's theological language of the day. Far off. They're so far away from God. How on earth could they be brought near? How could they? So, this is part of what Paul is unpacking here. So um, this is uh, as we talked, I think in the first uh the first study, we talked about the division of the world at the time, how divided it was along social, socioeconomic, socio-religious um lines. That how do you bring together people from so many backgrounds? How do you bring together people from so many different practices uh you know that are caught up in the uh worldly system? So now remembering, again, verse 11, remember, and then he repeats remember in verse 12. Again, I think we talked about it on Shabbat a little bit. Our faith is one of remembrance, it's where remembering where we have come from, where we are, where we're going. All of that brought together. Remember that at one time he's speaking and referencing the past tense because here he's encouraging and giving a doctrine of assurance to the Gentiles who've come to faith. One at one time, you, Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision, by what is called the circumcision, remember, but he's not doing it as a point of shame. It's not a point of shame. It is to magnify the grace of God that is at work. How the Lord brings all of these people together, is by his grace. So it's gracious action that is working here. So he describes them as uncircumcised, separated from Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise without hope, without the Lord and the world. All of this is in the positive, deeply covenantal. He is placing, and he, as he does through the remainder of this chapter, he's placing Gentiles within the language of covenant. He is not assuming a second covenant that is for the nations and one covenant that is from for Israel. He is bringing the body of Messiah into this covenant language, and because of all that the Lord is doing and how he is repairing um creation. And that's part of the restoration and the renewal. Do we genuinely believe that the renewal of all things is starting? That we're in and now but not yet. We're tasting it, we're seeing it, and that the body of Messiah, as we are constituted, are living within that reality of restoration. What is he restoring us to? Just the same old um patterns of society that we've lived with? Is all we doing is putting a Christian veneer over our previous social identity? Are we just, you know, more sophisticated and um uh more faithful, uh, Victorian era people? Or is he speaking to us in a way that is leading us to fully grasp the idea of restoration, of who we are restored in Messiah, and who we are now in the second Adam, in the final Adam? What does that look like? What does that mean? Just as Adam had a bride, right? Messiah has a bride. Who is that bride? How does she, what does she look like? What does she act like? Right? Are we, oh I don't want to get too far off from the weeds in this subject, but we have to genuinely believe that the Lord is moving his people and moving his people in a direction of restoration that does not take us back into paradigms that are contrary to his revealed word. We can't do that. That's unfaithful. So we have to move forward in what he has commanded, what he has given to us. So the phrase commonwealth of Israel isn't just about an ethnicity, it's not just about a nationality, it's participation. Participation, being part of, being caught up in. Alienated. So at one time, Gentiles were alienated uh from the commonwealth of Israel. Strangers, and again, when he uses stranger, there was there were there were categories of people in relation to Israel. You had strangers. You had Ger, Gerim, right? So you had strangers who were not part of the covenant family of Israel, they were tolerated, they were protected, they were expected to live in a particular way. But then you had those who were also God fearers. So they hadn't done a formal um conversion, but they loved the God of Israel, they worshipped in the synagogue, they raised their voices in praise, but they could not participate fully. That like uh uh Cornelius was a God fearer. That's a that was a technical classification at the time. And then you had proselytes, famous proselyte, Nicholas, so far. Uh, but proselyte was a formal legal change of status socially, not just within uh Jerusalem as concerning the temple, but also within the Roman Empire. So that was a formal legal uh process that one would go through. So he's drawing from that language. So Commonwealth, you were strange, you were alienated from the Commonwealth. You were strangers, you had no position, you had you weren't welcome within this. You had no um no means of saying that this is my family, this is my community. To the covenants, now I I have heard people say, you know, they read it as covenant, singular. If we think to Romans uh chapter 9, when Paul talks about the advantages that were given to the Jewish people, he speaks about covenants. So at one time the Gentiles were strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, here is a change of position. But it wasn't because you decided I'm going to commit myself to um this legal process. No, but now in Messiah Yeshua, you who are once far off have been brought near. Far off, obviously, is the language of being outside the precincts of the tabernacle. You are outside of that, you are out in the wilderness. To be brought near is the language of sacrifice. So it's the language of being brought before the temple, uh before the altar at the temple. So there are in the first century the Gentiles generally stood outside. There was no covenant privilege, right? There was no position that Gentiles had at the time, unless they underwent that process of conversion. But again, that's traditional. There's no there is no process of conversion given in scripture, except for one statement. Who made the statement? In the Hebrew Bible, not in the New Testament. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people shall be my people, your God will be my God. Who said that? Ruth. That is understood to be um a proclamation of conversion. She was now joining herself to the Jewish people, joining herself to the God of Israel. So we don't have any, you know, you don't you don't have the process that traditionally developed of the mikveh, Messiah makes reference to that in John chapter 3. You we we know that there were two processes of conversion that were understood and accepted. Um the the least biblical is the one that's still practiced today, the more biblical is the one that what's that? Uh okay, so there's two this might be a little bit longer than usual. I'm sorry. All right, so the there's two processes of of conversion that we understand. Uh the the one that is prominent still practiced today is that is that the um the the male proselyte, the male c convert, is first circumcised. He's circumcised and then brought to the mikveh, and from the mikveh he emerges as a Jew. That process is all wrong. So you're circumcised, you go to the mikveh, you emerge from the mikveh, then you're taught the Torah. That's backwards. Nature says it's backwards. Okay, so the process, the secondary process that that Peter makes reference to, we see that in the House of Cornelius when he says, Is there anyone that's can is there any way I can withhold water? Should I withhold water? The water was where the person, when they came out of the water, where their legal standing changed. Why? Because you were born again. So for the male, he would first be brought to the mikveh, he would be immersed, he would be born again, then eight days later he would be circumcised and taught the Torah. So you're following the natural pattern of birth or rebirth and growing and learning. So the other one, because uh they wanted you can't back out. The first process is they snip, you can't back out. But that doesn't, it doesn't logically flow anyway. That's way off in the weeds. I apologize. Um, I have no idea where I'm in my notes. Anyway, so we'll move along. I know, something about Ruth, but yeah. So it's essential to understand that the Paul, what Paul's purpose in this passage is that Paul, Paul is, if you read this carefully, he is not erasing Israel's identity or Israel's history. He's not he's not at all doing that. He explains, however, how Gentiles are brought near to the God of Israel, brought near to the covenantal promises and blessings through Messiah. And that is the important point. Everyone, it doesn't matter where you are born, you are brought into the covenants of promise with the Lord through the Messiah. But now, but now, two verse uh 13. In Messiah Shua, you were far off or been brought near by the blood of Messiah. So the phrase far off echoes the prophetic language that we find in the scripture, Isaiah's vision of the restoration extended to the nations. So the Gentiles were once distant, they were once far off from covenant participation, from access to the temple, which, of course, if you read Isaiah 56, it It's the vision, it's the grand vision of restoration where Gentiles were first eunuchs. Eunuchs were not permitted. That's why uh the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts is such an important vision for he is really the first convert from the nations. If we want to be absolutely technical, he went to Jerusalem, he went to go to the temple, he's there on business, obviously, but he would have been rejected. Why would he have been rejected? Because he's a eunuch. He's leaving, he's reading Isaiah. Uh Philip is running alongside, which is a fascinating thing. He's running alongside and he's do you understand what you're reading? Well, how can I understand unless somebody explains it to me? And then what happens? He goes in to the water after he accepts the Lord, he goes into the water and he comes out as a what? A born-again man. Why would he be accepted in the temple? Because he's not who he once was. While he might physically yet be a eunuch, spiritually he is born again. Spiritually, he's restored. So, and that was a protection. Why do we have a prohibition against that type of mutilation? It was because of pagan nations and a protection of boys. So the Lord took a very strong posture in that. But they would be given better names better than that of sons and daughters. They would be given a new name. The Gentiles who came to worship the Lord would be better be given a better name. So this is part of what Paul is drawing on here. Um so Messiah has brought Jew and Gentile near. But he doesn't say that Gentiles replace Israel, nor that Israel disappears into some new religious category. So the blood of Messiah accomplishes what the temple system foreshadowed, what we see in the temple, what was given through Moses. We have cleansing, reconciliation, covenant, access, and peace with God. Walk out your salvation in fear and trembling was a reference to the temple, to the altar. So in the Talmud you read that when you brought your offering to the altar, if you brought it with a heart of repentance, you would see on the altar in the fire a lion consuming the sacrifice. And you would walk away in fear and trembling. So work out your salvation with fear and trembling. If you brought it with an unrepentant heart, you saw a dog eating the sacrifice, and you knew it wasn't accepted. So that's the that's the kind of the Talmudic approach to that same concept that Paul is unpacking. 2 verse 14. For he himself is our peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict. Just because you are born again does not mean that everything in and around your life is going to be perfectly at peace. Right? There's going to be difficulties, challenges, there's going to be a great deal of trials. There's pressing. We will not enter the kingdom of heaven without a without great tribulation. It's covenant wholeness. So shalom is not just peace. It's and it's not just hello and goodbye. It's a wholeness of the soul. It's a recognition that I'm at peace before the Lord. It's a restored relationship. If there is shalom between us, it's that even with the fracture, we have been healed. So we are at we are at peace together, reconciled fellowship. You, the body of Messiah, when we all come together, and this is part of the beautiful thing about fellowship in the household of God, is that we have a lot of people who are hurt, a lot of people who are going through hurts, a lot of people who are going through challenges. Sometimes these challenges are the result of our own relationships with each other. But we come together at a table or tables and we're able to share, and we're able to be at peace because of the restoration from the Messiah. But Messiah doesn't just bring peace. It would be wrong to conclude that Jesus just brought peace because he is peace. He is our hope, he is our peace. So he is peace. And he has made both groups one. He has brought uh made both groups one. Let me back in verse 14. For he himself is our peace who made us both one. Who is he speaking of? Of both. Jews and Gentiles. Two two parties who did not mix well. Two parties that did not mix well. Right? You didn't find in Jerusalem, um, you didn't find restaurants where Jew and Gentiles sat down to eat together. Right? So, and the first and this is part of the heart of what Acts 15, the Acts 15 Council is about. How do you bring Jews and Gentiles together at a table of fellowship? When this group of Gentiles has not properly gone through conversion as we traditionally would accept, and now they're bringing the filth of their paganism to the table and they're defiling all of the food on the table. How dare you defile our food? So that was the beauty and the power of what uh the apostles gave to us in the quadrilateral, their decision. So Messiah is what brings us together. Messiah is the one who reconciles us, the messiah is the one who cleanses us, the messiah is the one who makes us all acceptable. And if we are acceptable before the Lord in him, certainly we're acceptable to each other. Yes? I know you're all superior in every way spiritually, and you're just somehow tolerating my presence here. But oh, I got a hallelujah on that one. But he's the one who has broken down the hostility, right? And the mechitza, the the fence, if you go to if you go to any Orthodox synagogue, um my wife hated to go to the Orthodox synagogues in New York because they'd have the mechitza or oh yeah, the mechitza at the uh at one of uh places we went. Um we were there for an off-roof. You know, so a groom is called to the Torah the weekend, the Shabbat before his wedding. And so you sit there and you know, you throw candy as a blessing. You throw candy at the groom. The bride isn't back in back being miserable, she's just back there. So you're throwing, you know, blessings up to up to the groom. Now, the men's section we're just tossing. The women, it's like they're chucking baseballs, they're not happy at all. And of course, the synagogue is about it is about half the size of this room, and we probably had 200 people, literally, and a hot uh New York summer day with no air conditioning. So we were all nice and sticky, and I was happy people were wearing cologne that day. Yes, because it was going to be anyway. Let me move along. But there you had to literally walk through the curtain. So you walked through the women's section in order to get to the men's section. So if you're familiar with that and you've experienced that, and then that was the basement synagogue, but in the upstairs part of the main synagogue, the women had the balcony. They were just remodeling the whole building, but the women would have the balcony. So you didn't have to put up with them chucking stuff from behind you, they were chucking stuff down on top of you. Um so you literally walk through what Paul is referencing here: this wall that separates. So you could not walk past that. And historically, not only could a woman not walk past that dividing wall, men, gentile men couldn't either. And so they would have to stay in the in the back. But this has been torn down. He's made both groups one. But it's it's the image of reconciliation, not um not a homogenous uh blend where we lose our individual and unique identities. Glorify the Lord, right? So you don't, if if you are a Scottish born-again believer who's come close to the Word of God, come close to the Lord, you're celebrating, you know, there's nothing offensive about the kilt, right? All right, I'm not gonna amplify that, but um, but you know, don't lose that identity because it glorifies the Lord that the reconciliation, the peace of Messiah is coming through that culture. Right? And he's bringing the nations together.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Amen. Thank you for studying with us, and until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you all in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.