Ephesians 2:14 - Better than Coke

"For He Himself is the peace of us, the [One} having made the both one and the middle wall of the fence having removed, the enemy-hatred in His flesh..."

-Yes, it’s about two groups being brought together and made one.  And the one group only existed as a group because they were the ones excluded from God’s family, whereas now they are no longer excluded.  Collectively those referred to by the Jews as ‘Goyim’ were many peoples, but they had one thing in common - God did not choose any of them.  They had many languages, many customs, many beliefs, but no knowledge of God and no hope.  God initially made the nations at the Tower of Babel, confusing the languages and scattering the peoples throughout the earth from there.  Then as part of the first covenant, God chose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be His people, a new nation, His nation (goy) - one that would bless (with a distinct call to do so in fact) all the other nations/goyim (Genesis 12.2-3, 18.8, 22.18, 26.4), one that would help the world know what God was truly like (Psalm 67.4-7).  What happened instead is that the relationships between Jews and non-Jews went straight downhill.  Things became politicized, militarized, adversarial.  Self-righteousness reared its ugly head, and the Hebrew word for nations - Goyim - came to refer to all non-Jews in a derogatory sense.  Jews looked down upon the Goyim, disrespected them, saw themselves as being better since they were supposedly so in God’s eyes.  Standards of ethical treatment did not always even apply towards Goyim.  Contrary to the edict to bless the nations, the prevailing perspective came to be such that self-respecting Jews were not actually supposed to have any dealings with Goyim - never go to their homes, never eat with them, walk around their region if you can, and never associate with them.  And gentiles returned the favor of mistrust and mistreatment with regularity.  This is one practical reason why Jesus was ultimately rejected by the Jews as Messiah - the Jews wanted a zionist Messiah who would deliver them from subservience to the dirty rotten Goyim, one who would defeat the Gentiles and kick them out of the promised land God had only given to His chosen people.  They wanted Jesus to clean out their country, clean out the Gentile riff raff, not clean out their temple.  They would never embrace a Messiah who would make peace with the Goyim, much less let Himself be killed by them or bring them wholesale into the fold.

-And so into this racially-charged divide plunged Almighty God, the consummate Peace-maker forging an unlikely peace between two parties who had come to hate each other going back hundreds of years.  God sent an emissary, an Ambassador of peace - His only Son, to blow up the barrier and create peace where there was hatred and hostility.  Christ removed the barrier separating the two.  That’s what He does - He removes barriers of separation.  Barriers of personality, of economic disparity, of racial diversity, of familial disharmony.  Remember that peace is not simply absence of war or conflict.  We must harken back to the Jewish concept of shalom.  It is overall well-being and harmony, completeness.  Peace on earth - announced by angels at His birth (Luke 2.14), that is why He came in the first place.  World peace, peace and harmony - an elusive Shangri-La, this.  Many seek it, some promise it (the old Coke jingle would have us believe that Coca Cola could somehow produce it), but only Jesus actually delivers.   In Christ, in the Prince of peace Himself, both groups, all the peoples of the earth will be finally brought together in real and deep abiding shalom towards one another as well as towards their Creator.

Ephesians 2:13 - The price of admission

"But now in Christ Jesus you [all] the [ones] formerly being far came to be near in the blood of Christ.’ 

-But now...  Complete transposition.  We were far, now we are near.  We had no hope.  No God.  We were strangers to the promises of God, excluded, having no place among God’s people whatsoever.  But now...all that has changed.  Now we have hope, we have God, we have His tremendous promises, and now we are members, we belong to His people, no longer excluded.  We are near, and we are in - and it is all because of Jesus Christ.  We are in the club, so to speak, and the price to join, the membership fee if you will, was paid by Him.  The fee was not waived.  He paid it - in blood.  His blood which He shed on the Cross made all the difference.

-Yes, blood.  This was the price of admission.  Blood is the life of all flesh (Genesis 9.4), and it is the only way to atone for sin (Leviticus 17.11, Hebrews 9.22).  Where you have transgression against deity, there must of necessity be some payment for that to make amends - assuming that deity is holy and just and omnipotent.  Which of course in this case He is.  But what we see in Scripture is that from early on, God began showing the world how HE was going to be the One to make this atonement.  HE was the One Who killed one of the animals He created (shedding that blood in effect) in order to make suitable clothes for Adam and Eve after THEY transgressed against HIM (Genesis 3.21).  Then it was the blood of the spotless lamb by which the destroyer passed over (Exodus 12.13), it was the blood of a bull and a goat which would temporarily and imperfectly atone for the sins of the high priest and all Israel (Leviticus 16.11-19).  These rituals, though imperfect (Hebrews 10.4), were to be repeated every year in perpetuity in order to prepare God’s people (and the nations really) to embrace the Messiah HE would eventually send to make the perfect once-and-for-all atonement for the sins of the world (cf 1Peter 1.19, Colossians 1.20, Romans 3.25).  O the blood, the o-so-precious flood, crimson flow, makes me white as snow.  Nothing.  Nothing else, nothing but the blood of Jesus could accomplish and secure my rescue.  However - it turns out that this passage is not as much about me personally - it’s about the integration of two groups of people into one.  Paul continues on this in the next verse...

Ephesians 2:11-12 - The way we were (redux)

"Therefore, you [all] be remembering that formerly you [all], the nations in flesh, the [ones] being called uncircumcision by the [ones] being called circumcision, in flesh [being] hand-made...that you [all] were being at that time without Christ, having been alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and godless in the world.’’

-A command to remember something means we are apt to forget it, when keeping that something in mind will actually help us.  Here Paul tells (us) Gentiles to keep in mind that at one time we were not part of God’s chosen people, not part of His family.  The way we were.  Remembering the way we were helps us to appreciate where we are, as well as what has been accomplished in order to bring us to this different way-better place, helps us to be grateful for and even humbled by the work which was done as well as who did it.  The way we were - the point of that old song is that the hard stuff tends to fade from our memories, we forget the bad and the ugly or gloss over it, but when we do we lose the understanding of how hard or bad off things really were.  And to be sure, we were without Christ, far from the life of God, no access to Him whatsoever.  In fact we had no real god and had no real hope.  We perhaps lived under a delusion of hope, possibly devoted ourselves to some false idol, but it was emptiness.  We were aliens, strangers, completely shut off and shut out from the blessings and promises which God gave to His people.

-It’s interesting to note how Paul here shines a light on the historical distinction between Gentiles and Jews.  For hundreds of years, only one group of people enjoyed any kind of a real relationship with the one true God, and it was marked by the rite of circumcision, the physical cutting off of the foreskin of every male 8 days after their birth.  Only the Jewish nation did this as part of demonstrating that they were God’s people, a part of His family.  At the time Paul wrote this, some of the distinction still remained in that circumcised Jews were still calling the other nations ‘uncircumcised’, but the distiinction had been rendered surface only.  Physical circumcision was now something which man did with his own hands, relevant only to the ones who prided themselves on having been circumcised.

-One might ask if a delusion of hope, a false hope, might actually be a better or more preferrable state than having no hope.  Being hopeless.  Paul says we had no hope.  For many people, up to their necks in brokenness, life is indeed hopeless.  They feel hopeless.  But I think false hope is a far worse state, because you are apt to be less (or totally) unaware of your neediness.  You may have no clue as to the desperate nature of your situation.  When I am hopeless I am far more likely to reach out for help, driven out of desperation to find a remedy.  Which is exactly what Christ did...

Ephesians 2:10 - Greetings, Good Work-lings!

"For we are what He made, created in Christ Jesus upon good works which God prepared before, in order that in them we should walk.’

-Those who thus trust in Christ and follow Him are created FOR good works, not BY good works.  God Himself prepared these good works before we ever heard of Christ, and He intends for His people to be living a life characterized by these good deeds, yet they are not means of grace but rather by-products of it.  But wait,  there’s more...

-The Greek word here for ‘workmanship’ is the noun form of the verb ‘to make/do’ (poieo).  There multiple nouns in the Greek actually.  There is the one who is doing the making - that english word is ‘maker’ (poietes).  And then there is the thing they are making (poiema) - but we have no English noun for this, at least not one which derives directly from the verb.  We have ‘to do/doer/deed’, but not a noun for what is made (so, a doer does a deed, but a maker makes a ____?).  But in this case, those who believe are clearly having been made by God Himself - we are "what He made" - twice, in fact!  Those who believe are His creation (where incidentally English does have all three words - create/creator/creation-creature).  They are what they are because of what God did - again, not because of anything they did.

-Note also that while most English translations use the phrase "created UNTO good works" or "FOR good works", that is not what it says in the Greek.  One would expect a different preposition (the Greek word eis) for that.  But the word Paul uses is epi - meaning "above" or "upon".  When refering to creation, it means the place where the Creator creates His creation, where He intends it to live.  God created man upon the earth (Isaiah 45.12) - as His creatures we were meant to live on, to inhabit the earth. (the very first command God ever gave to man speaks to this - Genesis 1.28).  But now in this instance, God has (re)created those who believe in Christ UPON good works, intending for His people to live ON good works, to inhabit them, to live into them and fill them up, which is exactly what Paul says in the next phrase - "in order that we should walk in them".  The meaning is essentially the same, but the word picture is certainly more nuanced than what we get in the English.  It is not just what we do, it is who we are.  It is our life.  It is as if God pre-formed this planet named Good Works, and He breathed the breath of spiritual life (His Spirit) into so much spiritual dust and formed those who believe in Christ Jesus to live on planet Good Works.  We are now Good Work-lings.  Good works are our life, they are where we live, we live into them, inhabit them, and fill them up.  It is as much about identity as it is about function, if not moreso.  And again, good works are not any kind of rocket ship that takes us to the planet - they are the skin in which we live having now been born upon that world.  They are not the means to the destination - they ARE the destination.  Or part of it, at least...

Ephesians 2:9 - The way back

"...[it is] not out of works, in order that not anyone should boast."

-Man’s default posture in relation to deity is one of works, trying to curry favor with whatever god we believe we have to do by whatever means we believe to be necessary.  Atheists and skeptics generally excepted, of course.  But the native instinct of fallen man is to try to work his way back to paradise.  For all his hiding and hurling, he wants to get back to the garden, and he assumes it is on him.  Generally be a nice person, throw in some good deeds for favor, and (hopefully) you’re good to go.  For those who are convinced that there is some greater being who has at least some level of authority over the things that concern them, the way to relate to said being is by trying to do whatever good works are perceived to be required in order to cultivate right standing in their eyes or otherwise appease them.  Whatever it takes to make them happy.  Or at least to not make them angry.  But it's all on me.

-One inevitable byproduct of such a system is the tendency for man to ‘broaden his phylacteries.’  In other words, to show off to my fellow man how successfully I am performing the prescribed good works within whatever religious system I happen to be operating.  Fallen man in his insecurity desperately wants to feel better about himself in relation to deity as well as compared to his fellow man.  No doubt there is no end to the ways we might invent to cast ourselves in a better light, to show off our progress and relative superiority to those around us.

-None of this in true Christianity, however.  It’s all out the window (or is supposed to be).  Turns out there is not one good deed we can do, not a single thing we could ever do to help effect any rescue from the eternal consequences of our sins or otherwise do anything to improve our standing in the eyes of our Creator.  He is the One True God, and He is holy beyond compare or comprehension.  Totally perfect in every sense, and His standard is perfection.  You are perfect, or you fall short - there is no middle ground, no degrees of separation or some sliding scale of spiritual progress.  A level playing field, this.  And it is readily apparent that there is not one work (or any combined amount of works) that anyone could ever do to attain the moral perfection required to get back to paradise.  The way back is through the foolish-looking narrow door, simply to believe - in Jesus.  He is the Way, the only Way.  For those who do make it - based solely on the gracious gift of God through Christ - once there, there will be no boasting, no bragging about what he did or she did to get there.  No, all who make it back to paradise will be fully aware that they had nothing to do with it.  All they did was believe, and theirs is a completely unrepayable debt of gratitude.  Unending celebration, yes, but boasting - no way.

Ephesians 2:8 - Hold out your hand...

"For by the grace you[all] are having been saved through faith.  And this not out of you, [it is] the gift of God, not out of works, in order that someone should not boast."

-I was dead.  I was a child of wrath, stuck in my sins, separated from the life of God and disobeying Him at every turn, unable to do what He wanted or please Him in any way whatsoever.  AND I was hurtling towards destruction as a result, lost for all eternity apart from my Creator, forever separated from all glory and goodness and beauty and light.  But God (that blessed but!) - He stepped in and saved me.  He rescued me... from me.  He made me alive with Christ and raised me up and seated me with Christ in glory, one day soon to be there forever.  No more dying or death, and no more living a life unable to bring God pleasure.  Just the opposite in fact!  And all this, every last bit, is by His grace.  Undeserved favor.  I have done not one thing, absolutely nothing to deserve to be saved, not in the least.  But I have done one thing, the one thing which is actually the key that unlocks the whole heavenly treasury and opens the floodgates of glory, the one thing which Scripture tells us is absolutely necessary in order to bring God pleasure - faith (Hebrews 11.6).  Belief.  Trust in the Lord, trusting that He is and that what He says is true, trusting that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him, and specifically trusting and believing in the One He sent to pay the penalty for my many many sins, to be the Savior of the world.  By this faith in Jesus death on the cross I have been saved and rescued from eternal death!

-This salvation, this divine rescue from death and destruction - it’s a gift, a free gift straight from the hand of almighty God.  It’s the ultimate Christmas present from the original Author of Christmas Himself.  And as is true with all real gifts, it is totally free.  It is not out of us, and it is not out of works.  There is not a single thing we have to do or even can do to buy it or earn it (much less deserve it) in any way.  No need to pay it back ever, nor could we - spiritual beggers we, spiritually bankrupt in every way.  We bring absolutely nothing to the table.  Unlovable even, and yet He loved us and provided us with the one thing we needed more than anything else.  Ours is simply to receive it, to hold out our hands of faith, and let God pour out and drench us with life, His life, eternal life, all over us, over our past, our present, our future, completely and constantly covered over with boundless grace and mercy and love and acceptance and forgiveness and blessing and glory.  From the glorious One Who is breathtakingly good and Who makes all things VERY good - we get not a good gift, no, way better than good, the best gift.  Ever.  And it’s free.  Will you believe?  Will you hold out your hand and receive it?  Will you trust in Jesus?

Ephesians 2:7 - The deluge of grace...

"...in order that He should show in the coming ages the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness upon us in Christ Jesus."

-Grace.  Kindness.  God wants to prove and demonstrate how much He loves us, and He intends to do this by showering His grace and kindness on us, on His people.  In fact, this is the very reason why He made us alive and raised us up and seated us in the heavenlies with Christ in the first place.  We will be completely submerged and inundated with His unfathomable kindness for all eternity, unimaginable favor and blessing and goodness which we will have done absolutely nothing to deserve.  In fact, add up all the wealth and riches and all the buried treasure and all the untapped resources on planet earth, and God's grace which He is ready to pour out on His people is exceedingly richer still.  He’s been waiting to do this since before the beginning of time, and of course He has faithfully rained down droplets of grace on all creation from the very beginning (on both the faithful and the wicked), and then He ramped it up big time at the Cross, but really He’s just getting started... The deluge of grace awaits!

-Once again, this all takes place in Jesus Christ.  He is the way.  Yes, everyone gets bits and pieces, tiny sips of God’s bottomless grace in this life, but the flood is coming, and the only way to experience the mighty torrent of kindness to be poured out in the next life is to be found in Christ in this life.