Neighbors and Nations | Week 4, Day 3

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Day 3: The undiscovered Christ

Barry Applewhite, author

Two of the groups most honored by many in our society are the military and the police, including their veterans. That is as it should be; I am a Navy veteran myself.

Yet the stature of these groups brings forward a question for our society: what do we know about peace?

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Ephesians 2:14-18

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

How do we get access to the Father?

Reflect

I hope that my readers pay attention to the titles and introductions to these commentaries. They represent my attempt to point at central issues: biblical, cultural, and personal. If you have been a Christian for a long time, then you may wonder what “the undiscovered Christ” could possibly be. He can be found at the beginning of verse 14: “He himself is our peace.” This is a Jesus I need to know better!

The place to begin is with a better understanding of what the Bible means by peace. Snodgrass describes peace as a comprehensive term for salvation and life with God. He adds that “it refers to the way life should be and is the gift of God that is received only in his presence.”[1]

The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. J. I. Durham says that shalom “[describes] a comprehensive kind of fulfillment or completion, indeed of a perfection in life and spirit which quite transcends any success which man alone, even under the best of circumstances, is able to attain.”[2]

Verse 14 is tightly bound to verse 13, whose last word in Greek was Christos (“Christ”), so there is no mystery about the identity of “he himself” in verse 14. Today’s biblical passage explains verse 13 in greater detail to show how God has granted to the Gentiles access to himself through Christ without breaking his covenant with Abraham and his descendants (the Jews).

The Messiah and peace

Paul has drawn these remarkable words (“He himself is our peace”) from Micah 5:5a, which commentator Bruce K. Waltke translates from the Hebrew text as: “This one will be our peace.”[3] The phrase “this one” in Micah has royal overtones and refers to the coming Messiah, who will be born in Bethlehem. By the time Paul writes to the Ephesians, the Messiah (Jesus) has indeed come to fulfill the prophecy.

But the expectation of a Messiah who would bring peace goes back to the prophet Isaiah (8th century B.C.), who called him “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Isaiah later described this Messianic peacemaker bringing good news, an announcement of deliverance, and the reign of God (Isaiah 52:7). The prophet Zechariah informs us that, when the Messiah returns, he will announce peace to the nations (Zechariah 9:10). So, there was a robust expectation among the Jews that their Messiah would bring shalom in its fullness, even to the point of blessing many nations filled with Gentiles.

To make matters clear from the start, Jesus is our peace in a very specific way: peace with God and peace with all others who share faith in Christ. Snodgrass rules out two other popular forms of peace when he talks about the sense in which Christ is our peace: “This peace cannot be reduced to a feeling of peace within or to peace of mind.”[4] So, when someone says, “God gave me peace about [some decision or course of action],” it has nothing to do with Ephesians 2:14.

How can we be sure of this? Because verses 14 and 15 explain what he means. Paul is speaking only to those Jews who have given their allegiance to Jesus as their Messiah and those Gentiles who have embraced the good news that God has offered them salvation in his Son. The result is that both Jews and Gentiles are in Christ. That could be an explosive combination because of centuries of hostility between the two. The law had set up numerous requirements that prevented Jews from mixing with Gentiles, and the Gentiles resented their rejection. But Jesus dealt with this broken relationship in the same way he did our sins: he took them to the cross.

In your own experience, what examples of anti-Semitism (hatred or rejection expressed toward Jews) have you learned about? Have you personally disavowed any such feelings or actions? Explain.

First, Paul tells the outcome by saying that Jesus “has made the two groups one” (verse 14)! He did so by destroying the barrier that the law given through Moses had established to keep the two groups apart (verse 14). Verse 15 uses the verb katargeo, meaning “set aside” (NIV) or “abolish” (ESV)[5] to describe the effect on the law of what Jesus did. Jesus accepts the believing Gentiles without any obligation to keep the law, and he expects believing Jews to do the same. All people have been released from the Mosaic law, as Romans 7:6 teaches.

A powerful new creation

Though Paul has not finished talking about peace, what he reveals in verse 15b deserves a fresh heading. Jesus did not destroy the wall separating Jews and Gentiles so that they could continue their conflict. “His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace” (NIV, verse 15b). You see that I have italicized one word, representing the Greek noun anthropos, which means here “man,”[6] a translation used by NET, ESV, and NASB. The NIV was trying to be gender-inclusive in its translation “humanity” — a cause that we favor — but that choice overcomplicates an already-complicated metaphor.[7]

When the Bible uses the verb “create,” such as Paul does in verse 12b concerning Christ creating “one new man,” then it is time to sit up and take notice! Before I explain this creation further, allow me to explain when and where this creation happened:

  • “in his flesh” (verse 15a) — the destruction of the law separating Jew and Gentile
  • “in himself” (verse 15b) — the creation of the one new man (reconciling believing Jews and Gentiles)
  • “in one body . . . through the cross” (verse 16a) — the unity of believing Jews and Gentiles with Jesus
  • “by which” [literally “in him” ] (verse 16b) — Jesus abolishes the enmity in himself

So, here is the deal: enmity was destroyed within Jesus and the one new man was created in him on the cross!

Snodgrass explains this process by saying, “Not only does Christ take the hostility into himself and destroy it, but also in himself he creates a new being.” You will recall that we have said that believers died with Christ and were resurrected with Christ. Snodgrass says, “When he is raised to new life, a new being comes into existence, one in which people are one with Christ and one with each other in him.”[8] The one new man is Christ himself, and believing Jews and Gentiles are incorporated as his body.

The result of peace

Verse 17 pictures Jesus announcing good news of peace to Gentiles (“you who were far away”) and Jews (“those who were near”). When Paul says “we both” in verse 18, he is speaking as a Jew-in-Christ to Gentiles- in-Christ. What they both have, as a result of Christ’s amazing act of creation, is “access to the Father by one Spirit” (verse 18).

So, the assembly of all believers is a multiethnic people, united in Christ in one body. No local assembly of believers should ever try to recreate the divisions that Jesus destroyed.

In light of American cultural individualism, how does being united to others in Jesus change the way you see them and see yourself?

[1] Snodgrass, Ephesians, 130.

[2] J. I. Durham, “Shalom and the Presence of God,” in Proclamation and Presence, ed. J. I. Durham and J. R. Porter (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox, 1970) 280.

[3]Bruce K. Waltke, A Commentary on Micah (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007) 286.

[4] Snodgrass, Ephesians, 146.

[5] BDAG-3, katargeo, set aside, q.v

[6] BDAG-3, anthropos, man, q.v.

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 309, gives strong reasons for preferring “man” over “humanity” here.

[8] Snodgrass, Ephesians, 134.