Part 4 of Ephesians: Brought Near to God

Ephesians 2:11-22 (CSB)

11 So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands. 12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, 15 he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. 16 He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. 17 He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.

These twelve verses we are looking at today are a continuation of what Paul has been saying. As a reminder, he was explaining how, before we are born again, we are dead in our sin. But God has prepared a way for us to be brought to life. He said in Ephesians 2:8-10, “for you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” I wanted to remind us of what Paul previously said, so we keep that in mind as we resume his letter. But first, I also want to let you know that I will be quoting a lot from Paul’s other letters. I have found that if we want to understand what Paul is saying, we simply need to read the other things he wrote, for he explains himself quite thoroughly if we read his other writings.

Starting again with Ephesians 2:11-12, it says, “So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called ‘the uncircumcised’ by those called ‘the circumcised,’ which is done in the flesh by human hands. At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.”

Remember, Paul says, that you used to be, not only dead to sin, but you used to be, “the uncircumcised.” There used to be yet another distinction between you and the “citizens of Israel.” You used to be outsiders. You were not included. You didn’t have hope. You didn’t have God! You were not circumcised by human hands. You hadn’t taken the necessary steps to be included. You were foreigners; you didn’t belong. All those distinctions meant that there were two groups of people in the world: the citizens of Israel and the Gentiles.

But all that has changed. Verses 13-15 say, “But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.”

These laws and regulations are what Paul was talking about when he said, “for you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— not from works, so that no one can boast.” These are the kinds of “works” that do not save us. That is why there is no reason to boast in being a part of the circumcised or in keeping the commands expressed in regulations.

Paul understands about the desire for boasting about works like these, though. In Philippians 3:4-6 he says, “If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.”

But as he said right after that, in verse 7, “But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.” Why? Because God, out of His immeasurable grace has made a better way for people to be included in the family of God.

Instead of a system of laws and regulations, sacrifices and priests, God made a better way for people to have a relationship with Him. This old way worked for the Israelites, but it made it very difficult for people outside that people group to assimilate into it. It essentially kept people in two groups. God had a plan all along, though, to change this. Remember what Ephesians 1:9-10 stated: “he purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time — to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.” Now, Paul explains in verse 15 of our Ephesians’ text, that part of that plan was that God, “he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.”

God didn’t want there to be two groups of people: the Jews and the Gentiles. He wants all people to become one people in Christ. This makes me think of what Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28, which says, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

To bring about that goal of creating peace and unity, God made the law to be of “no effect.” Those former works that the Jews did in order to be in right relationship with God, those works all got upended by the ultimate work that Jesus did for us on the cross. In the NASB translation it says, “by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace.” Keeping those laws and regulations caused separation between Jews and all other people, and so God put an end to those ordinances.

It’s important to note, though, that even though the law was “made of no effect,” we can’t forget what Paul says in Romans 3:31, which is this: “Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” Does that mean that Paul is contradicting himself? No, those laws that were made of no effect are the laws like circumcision or avoiding certain foods: all the old ceremonial laws.

In Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, it says that when Paul explains that the law is of no effect now, “This does not refer to the “moral” law, which was not the cause of the alienation, and which was not abolished by the death of Christ, but to the laws commanding sacrifices, festivals, fasts, etc., which constituted the uniqueness of the Jewish system. These were the occasion of the enmity between the Jews and the Gentiles, and these were abolished by the great sacrifice which the Redeemer made; and of course when that was made, the purpose for which these laws were instituted was accomplished, and they ceased to be of value and to be binding.”

The key thing to note about what Barnes said is that the purpose of the law was accomplished. The law showed us our sin. As Paul says in Romans 3:20, “For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.”

The law’s purpose was to teach people how to live. It showed God’s standard and revealed sin. Through the law, people became conscious of sin. In my study on Galatians, I wrote that the purpose of God’s Law was to show people the right way to live before the promised descendant of Abraham arrived. When Jesus arrived, He was the fulfillment of that promise and of the Law. As Galatians 3:23-24 says, “But before God showed us the way of faith, the Law had authority over us. God’s Law kept us safe, until God showed us that we must believe in Christ. In that way, God’s Law was like our guide” (EasyEnglish Bible).

Now, the promised Messiah has come, and He died on the cross and rose from the grave. And just as the temple curtain was torn in two and taken down when He died, so has that barrier of that Jewish system been torn down. What had separated people has been dismantled. And the reason for this is found in the next verse, Ephesians 2:16, which says: “He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.”

This hostility that was put to death is not just hostility between Jews and Gentiles, but hostility between God and humankind. In Christ’s bodily death and resurrection, all the sin that was a barrier between God and man was destroyed. The law, which showed us our sin, was “made of no effect” on us anymore, for Christ redeemed us from sin and from the law. As Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

Christ did this so “He might reconcile” all people to God. As our next verses, Ephesians 2:17-18 say, “He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Those who were “far away” are the Gentiles. Those who “were near” are the Jews. Now, in Christ, we all have access to the Father; all are brought near. The division that separated us is gone. For it is not our observance of ceremonial laws, but God’s grace given to us by faith in Jesus which saves us and brings us into right relationship with God. That is why we shouldn’t boast about keeping those old laws like circumcision.

In Romans 3:27-30, Paul says even more about boasting. He says, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.”

That then leads us back to verse 31, which I quoted earlier, when Paul rhetorically asks, “Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” This is worth looking at again, so we are certain to remember and understand. Otherwise, we might believe in something called antinomianism, which is the belief that because of God’s grace, we don’t have to follow any laws of God- including moral laws.

That idea is not biblical and must be countered with the truth. The best way to do that is to look at what Jesus had to say about it. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”

In the Benson Commentary it says about this verse in Matthew, that Jesus, “fulfilled in Himself all those predictions of the prophets which had been uttered concerning the Messiah, and He explained, illustrated, and established the moral law, in its highest meaning, both by His life and doctrine; and by His merits and Spirit He provided, and still provides, for its being effectually fulfilled in and by His followers.”

Jesus explained this more. Matthew 22:34-40 says, “When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: ‘Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?’

He said to him, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.’”

This word, translated as “depend,” is the Greek word kremannumi and it means, “To hang, suspend,” according to Strong’s Concordance, and the meaning is, “all the Law and the Prophets (i.e. the teaching of the O. T. on morality) is summed up in these two precepts.”

Rather than nullifying all the laws of God, Jesus summed up all the laws. He fulfilled all the laws. He made the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and demonstrated to us the great love of God the Father to all people, so that we could be brought near, be forgiven, be cleansed and do the good works that He has prepared for us to do. In so doing these good works, we, too, end up fulfilling the law of Christ.

Paul explains this further in Romans 13:8, which says, “Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” And, in Galatians 5:14, which says, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.”  

Back to our text for today, let’s pick back up at Ephesians 2:19-22, which says, “So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.”

I think these verses are elaborating on what Paul said earlier in this chapter, in Ephesians 2:10, when he said, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”

We are God’s workmanship. We, all of us believers together, all of us members of God’s household, we are like a building. As a building, Christ Jesus is the cornerstone. In Christ, all of us together, we “grow into a holy temple in the Lord.” Just like God’s presence used to dwell in the temple in the Old Testament times, we believers are now “being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.” This is true collectively as members of God’s household, and individually as God’s Spirit dwells in each of us who trust in Him.

Paul also addresses this, and expands on this idea more in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, which says, “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.”

Because the Holy Spirit dwells in our body, He is growing us and building us up. We are to be led by the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and is leading us to do good works to glorify Him. Again, I think it’s worth pointing out that in order to really understand what Paul is saying, we have to keep reading the other things he wrote. Paul addresses this more, but in another letter. Back to Romans again, Romans 8:1-4 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

The fulfillment of the law in us mirrors Jesus’ fulfillment of the law, not by eliminating it, but by completing it. When we live according to the fulfillment of the law, meaning we love God with all our hearts, bodies, soul and strength, and when we love our neighbors as ourselves, then we are fulfilling the law of Christ. Again, it is not what saves us, but it testifies that we are saved.

Paul is carefully and methodically explaining all this to these Ephesian believers. He wants them to have this clear in their minds, because he is just getting started. He’s laying a foundation so he can build from here. In the next chapter, he will explain a bit more, and then he will jump into the real purpose of his letter.

For now, what is our takeaway? How does this relate to us? Just like the Ephesian believers, we have to understand these foundational truths before we can move on. We must have clear in our minds this truth: we are saved by grace through faith, not from works. But God has given us good works to do, and all of us who have been brought near to Christ will fulfill the law of Christ as we do the good works He has prepared for us to do.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we pray You would help us understand Your Holy Scripture. Help us to fully comprehend the truth that You spoke through Paul so long ago. Help us apply it to our lives. By Your Holy Spirit, please help the truth come alive in us so we can rightfully discern Your message. Thank You for giving us the gracious gift of salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice. Help us trust wholeheartedly in Your plan of salvation so we can do good works and testify to Your greatness. We love You, and in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.