-Paul here pinpoints the actual cause of the enemy-hatred which existed between the Jews and the Gentiles: The Law. It was the Law. God gave the Jews the Law, more than 600 commands in fact, and that made them better - in their eyes. Special. Cleaner. Cleaner in God’s eyes than the other nations (providing they actually kept the Law). The word ‘clean’ is used 198 times in Leviticus alone. And as if being chosen by God didn’t already make them more special, the fact that He entrusted His Law to the Jews only made it moreso (cf Romans 3.1-2). They were doubly chosen by God, called out to be His people and the sole recipients of His Law. Ultimately they proved completely incapable of fully following it in its entirety (as was to be expected) - but two out of three is still pretty good. Thus we have a fertile seedbed not only for extreme ethnocentricity but also for religious bigotry which naturally devolved into the kind of enmity which was never a part of God’s original plan. Unfortunately the more the Jews tried to pursue a relationship with God through the Law, the more they kept themselves aloof from Goyim and related to them as religious inferiors, the more they were subjegated and persecuted by the nations, the greater the enemy-hatred grew. But at the heart of this divide was the Law. Even in the hardest times, knowing they had God’s Law, knowing they had the only known way to try to be clean in God’s eyes still reinforced everything. But in truth what they were suffering from was a bad case of spiritual pride and blindness...
(Some commands in the Law were far easier to keep than others as a matter of habit. So for example, God said to the Jews, don’t eat pork - it’s dirty, and it makes you dirty. So we can just eat beef or chicken, no big deal. Everyone who eats pork is dirty. Oh how dirty are the Goyim who eat pork. We never eat pork - we’re not as dirty as they are. We’re cleaner. We’re better. And so on and so forth ad nauseum. But the sad truth is that no one is able to keep the whole law and all are hopelessly dirty, filthy rags at best (Isaiah 64.6). How about the greatest command in the whole Law - love the Lord with all your heart (Deuteronomy 6.4-5, repeated 9 more times in Deuteronomy, restated throughout the OT, and finally reiterated by Jesus Christ Himself, cf Matthew 22.36-38)? Throw in the second one to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22.39-40) and the case is close-ed. Each and every person on planet Earth falls so far short on just those two that we wind up only talking about degrees of moral filth and culpability. One single command is all it takes (James 2.10). No, the law doesn’t remove dirt. It highlights dirt - or at least is intended to - and the need for a Savior, the Ultimate Dirt-remover! Thus the need for a new covenant, a new arrangement between God and man... THE New Deal!)
-Imagine then how Paul's next words might feel to a self-respecting Jew: in Christ, through His blood, God ABOLISHED the law. Really, He nullified it, this thing which was both the spark and the fuel on the fire of the enemy-hatred to begin with, the Law which made the Jews think they were even more special, cleaner than the all the rest. Technically He fulfilled the Law in Christ, but in nullifying the enemy-hatred, God has made the two groups - Jews and Gentiles - into one new people. He has created a new ‘man’ if you will, a spiritual body, an entirely new group of people where there is no difference between Jew and Goy, none whatsoever at least in so far as it relates to relating to God. Not all good news to the Jews, this? Definitely a hard pill for many of them to swallow, at least on a religious and social level. But to the nations? Cause for celebration! And it really should be that for the Jews as well. Because we are talking about a way for all the nations to finally glorify the God of Abraham. That, and peace, peace on earth (Luke 2.14), Shalom, the peace in which all men aspire to rest, a real and enduring peace and place of total well-being, both between God and man (all people) as well as between people, individuals, tribes, nations - beginning right here. Peace between Jews and Gentiles. No more reason to hate each other, look down on each other, distrust each other. Now Paul does an excellent job elsewhere in Scripture of unpacking how God has not entirely nullified His special relationship with Israel, but that is for another day. For now, we’re focusing on peace...
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