I.
The Disabilities of Aliens.
1. The Gentiles hitherto had been in the position of strangers and sojourners. As aliens they had no rights of citizenship, and all they could look for was temporary hospitality. They had no real standing within the commonwealth. Gentiles and Jews stood apart in their agelong traditions and customs. The Apostle has expressed in strong, emphatic language the ancient separation between the two. He has spoken of the Greeks as "alienated from the commonwealth of Israel," — as those " that once were far off," — of the " middle wall of partition " to be broken down ; and no words could picture too strongly the great gulf that had divided these families of men. The descendant of Abraham — ^ J. D. Jones, Things Most Surely Believed, 178.
EPHESIANS II. 19 55
conscious of the election of his race to stand alone among men, as the people of Jehovah ; exulting in the noble train of lawgivers and prophets who had come forth from the secret place of God to proclaim the final glory of the Jew; trained to believe in one great Invisible, of whom there was no likeness " in the heaven above or in the earth beneath " — had learned to look with hatred or contempt on the outcast, lawless Gentile, with his image of God in every valley and on every hill. And the Greek — living as the free child of nature ; having no law but the darkened light of conscience ; feeling in heaven and earth to find the presence of an Infinite Beauty, whose Image he tried to carve in grace and majesty in snowy stone — had come to look with philosophic pride on the stern land of the Hebrew, and in philosophic scorn on his strange, exclusive loneliness. But not only were they at enmity with each other, they were both at enmity with God, and tried painfully by ceremony and sacrifice to avert His eternal wrath.
2. The chasm that divided the one from the other seemed almost impassable. There were deep and seemingly irreconcilable differences between them. Those differences did not vanish even when Jew and Gentile both turned Christian ; they continued to subsist, as any reader of the New Testament may discover for himself. It is no exaggeration to say that there was, in the early days of Christianity, a Jewish Church and a Gentile Church. And yet " in Christ " the differences were solved, and Jew and Gentile might greet one another as brethren. " So then," cries the Apostle, exulting in the effects of the reconciling work of Christ, "ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow- citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."
^ The alienation of Gentiles from the Divine covenant was represented in the structure of the temple at Jerusalem by a beautifully worked marble balustrade, separating the outer from the inner court, upon which stood columns at regular intervals, bearing inscriptions, some in Greek and some in Latin characters, to warn aliens not to enter the holy place. One of the Greek inscriptions was discovered a few years ago, and is now to be read in the Museum of Constantinople. It runs thus : " No alien to pass within the balustrade round the temple and the enclosure. Whosoever shall be caught so doing must blame himself for the penalty of death which he will incur." ^
^ C. Gore, The Epistle to the Ephcsians, 104,
56 THE COMMONWEALTH OF CHRIST
II.
The Widening of the Commonwealth.
1. Every race had looked forward to some hoped-for letter society. — The Jews had for generations, often with the fiercest impatience, expected the coming of the Messianic kingdom. The Greeks had been encouraged by their teachers and philosophers to aim at creating the perfect city and perfect state. Plato himself had not only written his wonderful book on the ideal Commonwealth, but had for a time acted as Prime Minister to a despot who was willing to make such laws as the Athenian states- man might suggest. The Spartans, the Athenians, and the Mace- donians had each in turn tried to build up the ideal state, and the bloody and treacherous history of the Greeks in general is not without nobility when we watch it as a tragic effort at making a really Godlike state. Far more impressive than the Greek history had been the Koman patriotism and the Eoman imperialism. This forced itself upon the world as something gigantic and irresistible, that bound together nations and religions the most diverse in one mighty whole. Here in the Ptoman empire that Stoic doctrine of the brotherhood of man spread far and wide, and made many hope that better things were in store.
2. Christ came to found an ideal society. — How did He do it ? He selected a few men who had the faculty of believing. They were not men of great imagination, or talent, or culture. They were men who could believe in the unseen. These men He trained, until at last one of them uttered the faith that had been growing in the hearts of all, and said to Jesus, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Immediately Jesus saw that His long and arduous task was on the way to completion. He saw that He had in this little group of men the lever with which He would turn the world upside down. He was filled with exultation and delight. He was beginning already to see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, and He cried out, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah. ... I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." The great word was out now and the