Day 2: Trapped in exclusion

Barry Applewhite, author

Going to Sunday services at Christ Fellowship is one of my favorite things! Just think about the wonderful people you have met there and look forward to seeing.

What if you came to the doors of Christ Fellowship only to find them blocked by a security barrier and large signs saying, “Jews only! Gentiles forbidden!”

If being excluded from Christ Fellowship is unthinkable, being excluded from God is even worse!

Read

Ephesians 2:11-13

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands) —

12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

What has brought the Gentiles near to God?

Reflect

A promise

To  understand today’s passage, we must go back in biblical history to the time of Abraham, when he was 99 years old, still named Abram, and had no male heir (Genesis 17:1). God made a covenant with Abram, promising that he would not only have an heir but would become “the father of many nations” (Genesis

17:4). For that reason, God renamed him Abraham (meaning “father of a multitude”). The required mark of belonging to this covenant with God was circumcision by Abraham and all the males in his household, both at the start and throughout following generations. So, circumcision became the mark of the (male) people belonging to God.

Abraham had no idea how this promise (“the father of many nations”) would be fulfilled. He couldn’t even imagine how God would give a single natural son to man of 99 years and his wife at age 90. Abraham and Sarah both laughed about that possibility. God told them to name their son Isaac (meaning “he laughs”). How God would fulfill his promise was hidden for long ages.

A promise fulfilled, in and by Jesus Christ

Recall that we said in the first days of this study that Ephesians is about identity formation. Nowhere is that more plain than in Ephesians 2:11-13. Paul directs the Ephesian believers to remember that by earthly

descent[1] they were born Gentiles, and the physically circumcised Jews called them the “uncircumcised” (verse 11). This backward look is part of the second major contrast Paul makes between what the Ephesians were apart from Christ and what they have become in Christ.

Paul next spells out the spiritual implications of being born as a Gentile (verse 12). The picture is bleak:

• Separated from Christ (the exact opposite of being in Christ).
• Excluded from the citizen-rights of those who were part of [2]
• Foreigners to the covenants of promise (such as the one with Abraham).
• Not having a hope of their
• God-forsaken[3] in the world (despite having many gods!).

Only one nation had been chosen by God (Deuteronomy 10:15) for protection, nurture, instruction, and hope, and the Gentiles had no part in it!

After reflecting on the past, verse 13 begins with words that pull the perspective sharply into the present. Once again, we see that grace happens “in Christ Jesus” in that the Ephesian assembly, even though they are Gentiles, has been brought near to God. This radical change came about by means of “the blood of Jesus,”a figurative reference to his sacrificial death. Snodgrass considers the plight of humanity when summarizing verse 13 and says, “If the plight was estrangement and distance, the solution is nearness and belonging.”[4]

Witherington asks and answers a crucial question: “But how does shed blood overcome alienation and produce reconciliation? The answer has to do with ancient covenant rites, in which treaties are enacted . . . through blood sacrifices.”[5] We may even have an indirect reference here to the new covenant in Jesus’ blood (Luke 22:20). Tomorrow’s lesson will greatly expand on what it means to be brought near in Christ.

So many people are far from God, and only Jesus can bring them near? How can you help them find the way?

[1] BDAG-3, sarx, earthly descent (meaning 4), q.v.

[2] S. M. Baugh, Ephesians, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, Washington: Lexham Press, 2016), 184.

[3] Markus Barth, Ephesians, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1974), 260.

[4] Snodgrass, Ephesians, 128.

[5] Ben Witherington III, The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 259.