When a doctor seeks to transplant an organ into a person’s body he is really seeking to minimize the hostility between the two to try to get them to live together. If he can do this successfully then the body will accept the new part as its own. If not then it means death to one or both parties. What God has done in the church is even more astounding. He has taken individuals, not only both hostile against each other but also hostile against Himself and He has united them into one body for His own glory.
As we look into verses 14-18, we will see the second part of Paul’s discussion about the church. We will notice its integration. That is the bringing together of both Jew and Gentile and uniting them as one creation. This is the key idea of the section. Christ created one new body from two hostile groups. We will discuss what exactly He did and how He did it. And we will see three actions
II. The Church: Its Integration
(Jew and Gentile United)
A. He nullified the power of the law (14-15a)
The first action that Jesus accomplished in integrating the church is that He nullified the power of the law. Verses 14&15 say, “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances”
Jesus nullified the power of the law against us. How does the law have power against us? The law, even especially the Ten Commandments, brings to light our sin. And our sin brings spiritual darkness and death to work against us so that we are separated from God and under His wrath.
This is what the law does. It condemns us. The Law is righteous and holy and good but the law itself cannot bring life. And it arouses in us a hatred for God and His holy commandments. It is this holy law of God holds its judgment over us.
Jesus took the enmity, the hatred, that existed between God and us and allowed it to be placed upon Himself. He experienced in His own flesh the power of the Law. But the Scripture says that He abolished the Law in His flesh. He nullified its power against us. We are going to look at how He did this in the last point that we cover but right now we are going to notice the effects of this nullification of the Law.
What is the first effect of Jesus’ nullification of the Law? Jesus fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the Law on our behalf. Therefore we are not obligated to obey the Law any longer.
But lest someone think that this allows a Christian to disregard righteousness this is not what it intends at all.
The Law was meant to bring condemnation for those who could not obey it. It was meant to bring people to come to a realization that they desperately needed to escape from the penalty of the Law. Unfortunately, people usually respond in one of two ways to the Law. They either say, “This is too hard to keep, why bother.” You can read about these people in Romans 1. They went to the extreme in disobeying the Law and helping others to do the same. The others say, “This is hard to keep but I will give it my best shot to appear to others that I keep it (even if only outwardly) and I will keep people so busy trying to keep it themselves with my additional manmade rules that they will be too busy to see that I am not keeping it. You can read about them in Romans 2.
Both of these groups, instead of coming to the place where they cry out for mercy from God to be delivered from his or her just punishment they cop out with one of the two previous methods of dealing with the Law. This is the very thing that the apostles were against in Acts 15 when there were Pharisees who wanted to add circumcision and law observance to faith in Christ. Peter astutely answers this corruption of grace with, “Why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” We need to be free from the Law not under it.
Just because Jesus nullified the requirements of the law does not mean that we can become lawless. Paul answers this objection in Romans 6. “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who have died to sin still live in it?”
When Christ died on our behalf and broke the power of the Law over us. It freed us to live under a higher law. It is a law empowered by the Spirit of God. And it is in reliance upon the Spirit of God living within each believer that allows us to be free from the sin that weighs us down. In Romans 8:2ff the Apostle Paul says, “For 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, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
We are living under the Spirit of God. We are under the law of love. Love does no wrong to His neighbor. This is what this law says. But it is not a law of our self-will it is a law empowered by the Spirit of God. For the fruit of the Spirit is love. And if you are led by the Spirit of God you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. You will not lie, you will not commit adultery you will not dishonor your parents. Yet this gives something more than the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments could never produce love. You could possibly keep all the Ten Commandments with out loving. You could have no other gods and not take the Lord’s name in vain and listen to everything your parents say without Spirit induced love. This is why when Jesus summed up the commandments succinctly he said that real commandment keeping included loving the Lord with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. When we look at them this way who has ever done it? Who has ever kept the commandments? This is why it was necessary for Jesus to nullify the death producing work of the commandments over us.
Could there not be people here today who have sought to keep the law but have no Spirit induced love in their hearts. Their hearts are cold because they have sought to do their duty like the prodigal son’s older brother but do not have the Spirit of God producing love within them.
These are the people whom Paul rebuked in Galatians. There he said, “Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, (That is, if you seek to obey the Jewish law, including the Ten Commandments, as your means of holiness) Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole law. You have been severed from Christ, you are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”
And he finishes that paragraph by saying, “For in Christ Jesus (the only thing that means anything) is faith working in love.” Are you devoid of love for God and for those around you? Are you without the Holy Spirit’s faith pouring out His love in your heart?
Another effect of Jesus’ nullifying of the law is that we now have been freed to live a righteous life. Opposed to those who would declare that being free from the Law would give someone the impetus to do wrong, Paul declares in Galatians 5:13, “For you were called to freedom brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Those who think that God’s grace in saving us is only to be thought of as some self-improvement program for our lives are sadly mistaken as to the purpose to which God has called us in saving us. Jude, in his letter, calls these people, “ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into moral unrestraint and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
If you are not seeking to use your freedom in Christ to serve one another through love then you are not using your freedom in Christ in the right way. How have you shown love to those in the body of Christ?
Christ has received in His flesh the due penalty of the law so that you could be out from under its burden. It is the freeing nature of His action that keeps us from being ensnared again into a list of things you have to do. And it opens us to accomplish that which we want to do through the love that God has now been shed abroad in our hearts through His Holy Spirit. Jesus has nullified the power of the law for you to serve in the newness of the Spirit of life.
B. He made them into one new organism (15b-16)
The second action that Jesus accomplished in integrating the church was that He made Jew and Gentile into one new organism. This is what verses 15&16 describe. By abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God . . .”
This “new man” of which Paul speaks here is the church. The church is the organism that God has created through Christ. He has taken Jew and Gentile, two distinct racial groups, often with hatred toward one another and made them one. The oneness that God has brought about through Jesus Christ is the church. The Law, which separated Jew and Gentile, was abolished through Christ. This allowed individuals to be formed into a completely new association. God would now be carrying out His plan through the church. Jesus made mention of this in Matthew 16. There He said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
The doctrine of the church was never taught in the OT. The fact that Jew and Gentile, male and female would all have the same standing before God apart from the Law was not explained.
But what practical significance does this have? It breaks down the racial hostility between individuals. In God’s new economy of the church He is making known that one particular race or country is not greater than another. Even the Apostle Peter had to have this lesson knocked into him by God Himself. When Peter was directed to go to the house of unclean Gentiles and preach the Gospel to them he told those assembled, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”
There are people who would otherwise hate each other if it wasn’t for the life changing power of Christ bringing people into His church and breaking the power of the law. I can remember from college two Christian men at my church who were the best of friends. They would go out and share the Gospel together. One was an Arab and the other a Jew. Who would have thought that two individuals like this would have such a close relationship?
Social Darwinism says different races are superior or inferior to one another. But God, through Christ, says that we are all the same. One nation does not differ from another in their status before God. Every person must come to God in the same way. They must come through faith in Christ. In the book of Revelation, John says that there will be people from every tribe, language and nation who are before the throne of God.
The church is not a place for prejudice between people. It simply cannot exist in someone who has truly understood what Christ has done for them. John in his first letter declares, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” This is what being a part of the church teaches us. We are of no more value nor any less value than any other person in the church.
This is sometimes hard to accept in a culture that grants status and esteem to those who are good looking or intelligent or strong. But these are merely outward accoutrements. God looks on the heart. And we who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ, each of us, are no different in the sight of God.” This is what Christ has done in bringing the church, His body, into being.
C. He gave them equal access to God (18)
The third action that Jesus accomplished in integrating the church is that He gave them equal access to God. We see this in verse 18. Here Paul says, “For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”
This truth teaches us something about our relationship with God. Namely this. There is no difference in the capacity between individuals to know and love and live for God. Jewish Christians are not closer to God than Gentiles or vice versa. Men are not closer to God than women or vice versa. Pastors or Bible teachers are not closer to God than any one else. There is no division between clergy and laity. Those words do not exist in Scripture. And there is no concept of this in the Bible at all that somehow a pastor is closer to God than anyone else. Positionally, our closeness to God comes on the basis of being in Christ. If I am in Christ and you are in Christ, positionally, we are in the same proximity to God.
Therefore on a practical basis, how close we are to God is a matter of how we live out our position in Christ. In Christ, we all have equal access to the Father but how am I living out this equal access to God? Am I taking advantage of His living Word to me? Am I taking advantage of my ability to speak to God wherever I am? Am I living as if I am present before the Father’s throne?
Our actual closeness to God is based on how much someone appropriates the truth that we are positionally in Christ and at the right hand of the Father. And this is a wonderful truth to appropriate or seize hold of. It says that I have all the access to God that Jesus Christ has. So if I am lagging in my spiritual life it is not God’s fault. It is because I am not living in accordance with all that God has provided for me. Isn’t this what Peter has said in his second letter that, “God has given us all that we need for life and godliness?”
If it was arranged that you were to be seated at a table beside the President of the United States how close you get to him in practice is based on how you use your position. You are right next to him in position. But in practice, either you can acknowledge and speak to the President as if you were the closest one seated to him or you can ignore the President and speak to the person on the other side of you.
When Paul says that through Christ, we (both Jew and Gentile) have the same access to the Father by the Holy Spirit then you have to admit that how close you actually get to God is determined by how you use your position. Don’t think that God can’t help you to overcome sin in your life. Don’t allow Satan’s lies to cloud your mind from believing the truth of what your standing is with God. In Christ, you have equal access to the Father.
So what does this mean? You have all the necessary tools to draw near to God. You have the Word of God to teach you about Him and you have the ear of God to be able to speak to Him and to ask for His strength to live for Him. As you are a believer in Christ you have no acceptable excuse for not drawing near to God on a daily practical level. We all have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
D. He did it all through the cross (Isa. 53) (Gal 3:13; Ro 7:4)
Finally, the fourth action that Jesus accomplished in integrating the church is that He did it all through the cross. This actually is the “how” of His accomplishment. How did Jesus bring this all about? Verse 16 declares the truth of it. That He “might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.”
This reconciliation of both parties to God came about through the cross. It was Jesus’ death on the cross that broke down the wall of the law that was keeping both parties (Jew and Gentile) from coming to God. The law kept the Jew from coming to God and the law kept the Gentile from coming to God. The curse of the law that resulted in our condemnation was placed upon Christ. Paul says in Galatians 3:13 that, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” Jesus was cursed so that we might be cured. He was forsaken so that we might be forgiven. He was reprimanded so that we might be reconciled. Jesus took the punishment that we deserved under the Law so that we might receive His righteousness.
Verse 16 declares that by His work on the cross He put to death the enmity. He endured the enmity caused by the Law as the wrath of the Father was poured out on Him. He cried out on the cross, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.” But before He died, with one last breath He said, “It is finished.” The words, “It is finished” were used by bill collectors to denote the full payment of a debt. The penalty for the sin of the world was paid in full by Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus put to death the enmity that was contained in the Law. This hatred no longer exists because Jesus, once for all, put it to rest at the cross. Now all who will take refuge in Christ have the enmity removed from them and receive a reconciliation with God
Why does this take effect for us? Why was Jesus’ death on the cross effective for us? In Romans 7:4, Paul says, “Therefore my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.”
What Paul describes is that we died with Christ on that cross. We are no longer debtors to the Law because we are no longer alive to it. And we have been given a new nature in the resurrection of Christ. For in the same way that we participated in His death, so we too have participated in His new resurrection life. And Paul goes on to note this in Romans 7:6 where he says, “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter (of the law).”
And by the cross He has brought us to God, for the dividing wall, the barrier that had kept us apart, has been broken down. Christ received the judgment of the Law upon Himself at the cross. This is why there is nothing else to pay. This is why we are free from any kind of burden associated with the Law. This is why Paul is able to say in Romans 8 that, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This is why the weight of guilt can be lifted off us once for all. The song we sang last week, “Free from the law, O happy condition, Jesus has bled and there is remission” speaks of this free redemption that we have received by the death of Christ.
I don’t know any way to say it more clearly. But God wants you who are under this yoke of the Law to be free from it once for all. There are two types of people who need to hear this today.
First, there are those of you who have never had your sins forgiven. You are longing to be completely free of your sin. The good news is that God has done this for you on the cross. He simply wants you to acknowledge that you have nothing to do with your salvation and that Jesus has paid it all.
Second, there are Christians here today that have definitely placed their trust in Christ but they are still living under some kind of false guilt that has them bound. They believe that they are still lacking God’s approval because they still fail to live perfectly now that they have been saved by Christ’s death and resurrection. And they are looking for their approval from God by the way that they live. That my friend is not where your approval lies. It lies in Christ’s perfection alone. And until you realize that and believe that you are going to be racked by unnecessary guilt.
You may ask, “But am I not supposed to live righteously?” Yes you are. “But isn’t God displeased with me if I fail to live the way I should?” Where does God’s pleasure or displeasure come from? God’s displeasure for all your sin was already heaped upon our Savior. God’s pleasure with you never comes because of your track record it comes because of Christ’s track record. And until you learn to cling to Christ’s track record and not your own you will reel from this false guilt.
What does the integration of the church mean for us believers? What does the mingling of Jew and Gentile into one wonderful body produce for us? It is in the word found four times in this short middle section between verses 14-18. Let’s look at this word. Verse 14, “For He Himself is our PEACE.” The end of verse 15, He has made “the two into one new man, thus establishing PEACE.” And look at verse 17, “And He came and preached PEACE to your who were far away, and PEACE to those who were near.”
By what does God want our life characterized in this new body, the church? Peace! Christ Himself is our peace. He has come to restore our lives to live in peace with God and one another. Isaiah 53, that wonderful Old Testament passage about Christ’s crucifixion, says this very thing. There Isaiah says, “But was He pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; [His] chastening for our peace fell upon Him.”
O believer God wants your life to be characterized by this God-given peace. We live in a sin-cursed world. But God has taken the curse from us that though we may fail, the Scripture says, “He remains faithful.” And it is in this faithfulness of God, not in OUR faithlessness, that our peace resides. Will you believe God’s Word and allow His work of reconciling you to Himself through the cross be effective in your life? “For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”