The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 84

li.ing: Gro." The Gentiles were far from Christ, from the Churoh, from the covenant, fn~m hope, ff'l'lll Goo. There is no divider like sin. II. THE GE~""TILES HADE NIGH IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST. Just as Israel at Sinai was by the sprinkl_ing of blood made to be the pe~ple of God, brought near to him, kept year by year m covenant, so the blood of Chnst was the element or sphere in which the new covenant took its shape with its all-inclusive relations both to Jew and to Gt>ntile. It was the blood that obliterated. the interval between the Gentiles and God. They have Dow communion with God, and are established in their nearness to him. It is not merely in Christ Jesus, but in the blood of Christ, the.t our nearness is established. It was not the incarnation but the death of the Son of God-the desianed corn plement and issue of the incarnation-that has secured our privilege of acce~s to God. It often happens in the history of grace that those very far from God in character and hope are made nigh by the blood of the cross. '!'here is a marvellous power in the blood of the lifted-up Redeemer: "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me" (John xii. 32), irrespective of national distinctions.-T. C. Vers.14--16.-Christ =r Peace. He is so by effecting two reconciliations, and thus obliterating two deep and long-standing alienations. He "bath made both one"- J ew and Gentile-and "he bath reconciled both unto God in one body by the cross.'' Christ is our Peace, not simply as our Peacemaker, but as our Peace objectively con- sidered and with regard to our relation to God; for the apostle represents our nearness to Goo as grounded in Christ as our Peace. He is therefore our Peace, as he is called our Righteousness and our Redemption (1 Cor. L 30), and while thus he is our Peace toward God, he is the ground of peace in every other relation, and especially between man and man. Thus he abides our continual Peace, for he did not make peace and end his relation toward us, but is the Source of our abiding reconciliation with God as well as of the continuous enjoyment of peace. Thus the Old Testament prophecies which connect peace with the Messiah find their just fulfilment (Isa. ix. 5, 6; lvii. 2, 7). Peace was the legacy which he left to his disciples (John xiv. 27). It is" the peace to "\\"hich we are called in one body" (CoL iii. 15). It is the.t which" keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Phil. iv. 7). Consider- !. How HE HAS MADE PEACE BETWEEN JEW AND GENTILE. 1. He did so by levelling in the dust the middle wall of partition that separated them widely for ages, in a word, by abolishing the '11,(1,rrow particularism of Judaism. 'l'he wall in question was the ceremonial law-" the law of commandments contained in ordinances "-given to Israel as a separate people and of positive appointment. The moral law was no part of the partition wall, and contains in itself nothing either to excite enmity or to establish separation between man and man. 'l'he death of Christ did not abolish it; it was the law of ceremonies only that was abolished in the cross, for when he died, it disappeared like a shadow when the 61lbstance was come. The moral law, as embodied in the Decalogue, was older than the Mosaic institute, and therefore survived its fall The partition wall that kept Jew and Gentile apart was (1) an ancient barrier of separation. It !ast.ed sixteen hundred or two thousand years, according as we date its origin from Abraham or Moses. A Puritan Father says, "The foundation of the wall of separation was laid in Abraham's time when circumcision was first given, for that began the quarrel; reared up higher by Moses' rites; farther lengthened and stretched out in all times of the prophets, throughout all ages, till Christ, who came to abolish it and break it down." (2) It was a high barrier. It kept the Jew effectively apart for more than a millennium and a half, that he might be trained for the universe.list dispensation that was to be established in the fulness of times. (3) It engendered a deep hostility on both sides. It was this "enmity " that made the barrier so serious an element of separation. The Jew regarded the Gentile with a proud and supercilious superiority, and the Gentile regarded the Jew as an enemy of the human race. Literature is full of the evidences of this continuous hostility. The Gentiles were called in contempt "the uncircumclsed" and "sinners of the Gentiles." Juvenal, 'l'acitus, Martial, Horace, repay the debt in the language of bitter and contemptuous sarcasm. 2. Oon- •id,er the grand instrument of rewnciliation between Jew and Gentile. "In his flesh." The language refers expressly to the condition of penal curse-bearing to which the atoning Saviour spontaneously subjected himself. As the apostle once represents sin OH, n. 1-22.] THE EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS. 81