Ephesians 2

Division 3. (Ephesians 2:11-22; Ephesians 3:1-21; Ephesians 4:1-16.)The mystery of the Church as the house of God and body of Christ.

Ephesians 2:11-22

Section 1. (Ephesians 2:11-22.)One new man and one habitation of God.

1. Having had thus the individual Christian position which the Spirit of God makes good to the soul, we now come to that which is the fruit of the Spirit, uniting us together and to Christ above. The Church is seen here in the first place as the body of Christ, and then as the house of God. The relation of the bride does not as yet come before us. The apostle goes back now to comment upon what they were to whom he was writing, as “in time past Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision” by that which was, after all, only the “circumcision in the flesh made by hands” but still in the state of privilege, as the people of God on earth. The Gentile state was that of wanderers altogether, who had turned their backs upon God and who were left, as to the mass, in the state which they had chosen. They were “without Christ,” “aliens” too “from the commonwealth of Israel,” “strangers from the covenants of promise;” they had “no hope,” that is no hope that was rightly founded, little in fact of any kind, and were “without God in the world,” an awful position, but which he only refers to here, in order to make the contrast now more wonderful.
2. Now in Christ Jesus, they who were “far off” were “made nigh,” made nigh at infinite cost, by the blood of Christ; that which at once declares the enormity of sin in the sight of God and at the same time the infinite love which could pay the price necessitated. That which has declared the sin of the world in its fullest character is that which has put it away for every one who believes. He Himself is “our peace,” and this in a double character. First of all, as the apostle puts it here, He has made Jew and Gentile “one,” having “broken down the middle wall of partition.” In fact, what was Jew or Gentile, when both were dead in trespasses and sins? All distinctions of necessity vanish in death and when both alike need to have peace made for them, both alike are practically far off from God, whatever the outward nearness.

In fact, the very law which the Jew prided himself upon, the law of commandments in ordinances, was itself the enmity, that is, a cause of distance between God and men. Not only it could not bring nigh, but as long as it was maintained, it actually held men at a distance from God.

It was the accuser of the Jew who boasted in it. It was that which made exceeding sinful the sin which it exposed. Thus it was the enmity which Christ met and abolished in His cross. This has been all worked out for us in previous epistles, but it is now looked at as connecting with the Church as the body of Christ, for which Jew and Gentile had to come together and both had to be brought nigh to God. The enmity was not merely in its effect towards the Jew only, because the condition of the Jew was only the condition of man thoroughly exposed. The enmity, therefore, had to be slain (a strong word used as to it) by that cross which was its penalty, taken and thus removed from those for whom it was taken.

Thus, Jew and Gentile in Christ are brought together in “one new man.” He does not say “one body” simply, now, because Christ, the Head, is also seen here. Thus it is “one new man” and both are reconciled to God also “in one body by the cross.” He could not say the “new man” was reconciled, just because that brings in Christ.

It was, therefore, here simply “in one body.” The full announcement of this must be given as the gospel is given. Christ, therefore, has come and preached peace. We have there contemplated His coming into the world, but now made effective by the work of the cross, so that He preaches peace; whoever may be the instrument used, yet He Himself clearly is the great Proclaimer of it. Coming nigh, as He has done to those afar off, the distance between them and God is ended and over. He found none who did not need peace. It had to be preached to “those afar off and those that were nigh,” and now “through Him” “both have access,” by the one Spirit given to both, to God as Father.

Thus not only is the distance removed on God’s side, but it is removed on our side also. God Himself having, by the work of the Spirit, thus put us into the position practically to which the cross had given title.

Here then is the first declaration really of the body of Christ, as we see directly, the revelation of the mystery in other ages unknown to the sons of men, but now revealed. We have nothing yet, as in Corinthians, of the relation, properly speaking, or at least of the activity in the relation of those brought together in this manner. It is glanced at afterwards, but at present the great point is the relation of the Head to the body which, indeed, be has spoken of before, and with the implication of the blessedness attaching to it for His people. He who is Head to the Church is “Head over all things” and thus all things are made to minister to the people whom His work has brought nigh. 3. Thus we have had, in the first part of the epistle, the relationship to the Father as children. We have had, just now, the relationship to Christ as His body. This is, of course, to Christ as Man therefore; His humanity is needed for it, and now we have the relationship to the Spirit as the house of God, ind welt of Him. The body and the house are only, in this way, different aspects of the Church. The Spirit of God dwells in the body, a truth which has its corresponding presentation in the fact that it is in our bodies also that the Spirit dwells. We remember also that in the Lord personally, His body is spoken of as the temple of God. Thus, the body in this sense also becomes the temple of God, being, in fact, that in which the Spirit displays Himself, by which His mind is made known.

That is the thought of the body. Here we have the thought rather of the glory to God resulting from it. The house indwelt of the Spirit becomes a “holy temple.” The apostle refers, therefore, again to their condition as being once “strangers and. foreigners.” Now they are “fellow-citizens with the saints,” not with Israel, of course, although they might be and are called so in the Old Testament; but yet those brought, in fact, near to God, the remnant of Israel, but now in another and nearer relationship, are those with whom. the Gentile Ephesians are made fellow-citizens. That is on the human side. On the divine side, they are of the household of God. The thought of the temple is to be qualified by this, that it is a living temple now, not a house made with hands, but God dwelling and walking in His people.

This only, of course, gives fuller truth to the temple character which the apostle goes on to; built solidly upon the “foundation of apostles and prophets” (those, as we see by the order here, and as we see more fully presently, of the New Testament alone) “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone,” the One who in Himself unites, as it were, the two sides of the building, -the Jew and the Gentile, -together, while He is the foundation of the whole. The “apostles and prophets” are not the foundation, but they lay the foundation. “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” In Christ, therefore, all the building is fitly framed together.

No one thought can express what Christ is to His people. They are built upon Him, but they grow up in Him also and thus growing, they are to be for eternity a “holy temple in the Lord.” The title given to Him here shows His authority over it. He is, in fact, the Leader of the praises of His people and the One who is, as we may say, their praise note also. But He would not have us consider the temple as being simply a future thing; that would leave us without the present blessing of it. He adds therefore, that we are “builded together for an habitation of God” in Christ. The building is not complete, but it is an actual existence, none the less.

It is a house in which God’s praises are already begun, an “habitation of God,” not such as Israel’s of old, but “in the Spirit.” These things are, as yet, simply delineated, as we may say, and outlined for us. We shall find the practical working elsewhere.

The whole triune God is in relation to us, Father, Son and Spirit, and we have a different character and blessing in relation to each one, Christ Himself being, as we know, the ground of the whole.