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Reconciled in One Body Through the Cross |
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By Frosty Hansen, President of Grace Gospel Fellowship
Coming to Terms with Our Spiritual Poverty
During our years as missionaries in Bolivia, we often took youth mission teams visiting us to small countryside villages. For middle-class American teens, entering a Bolivian home was their first encounter with true poverty. Some were moved to tears. Some returned home with a different set of priorities and a new perspective, because they understood what life would be like without their physical blessings and it gave them a greater appreciation for what they had.
The same is true spiritually for those of us who have come to Christ in this Dispensation of Grace. We know that we are saved by grace, accepted by God and forgiven of our sins. Together with all Christians, we have been united into one Body regardless of nationality, race, gender, or social status. Yet after two thousand years of Church history, we who have collectively known nothing but the riches of God’s grace can begin to take those blessings for granted, never grasping what is true spiritual poverty.
Aware of that tendency to forget, the Apostle Paul addresses the problem in Ephesians 2, where he encourages believing Gentiles, us, to sharpen our appreciation for the blessings we have in Christ. Not being Jewish, our condition would have been pretty bleak before the reconciling work of Christ on the Cross. Though even Jews were “dead in trespasses and sins” and “by nature the children of wrath” prior to knowing the riches of God’s grace, much worse was our abject spiritual poverty as Gentiles.
Spiritual life in the old economy was drastically different than it is today. Contrary to popular belief, the Jews did not claim a closeness to God because of a national pride. God Himself decreed a unique standing to be theirs. It was God who called out Abraham, promising a special relationship and blessings for him and his family (Gen. 12). It was God who instituted the covenant of circumcision with a warning that those who rejected this ritual would be cut off from His blessings (Gen. 17). It was God who separated Israel from all other nations to be His treasured possession (Ex. 19).
Five Strikes Against Us
Where did that leave us, the Gentiles? Clearly on the outside looking in, with five strikes against us, as Paul reminds the Ephesians:
Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh… that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
(Eph. 2:11-12 NKJV)
Strike One: Without Christ. Paul was not using the phrase in the manner we might today to suggest that the Ephesians previously were without Christ as Savior. That would also have been true of unregenerate Jews in that local church, therefore making it meaningless to list it as a particular disadvantage for Gentiles. Instead, Paul used the Greek word “christos” as a translation of the Hebrew word for Messiah, or Anointed One.
Israel had the expectation of a Savior, the Gentiles did not. Referring to the Jew’s advantages, Paul wrote in Rom. 9:5, “…of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.” The Messiah was prophesied for Israel and He came to the Jews (cf. Matt. 15:24; Jn. 1:11). Gentiles, locked in their pagan religions and outside Israel’s unique relationship with God, were cut off from this advantage.
Strike Two: Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. When God at Sinai set Israel apart from the other nations to be His “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5-6), He established their citizenship in a theocracy. No other nation had the right to claim God as their King. And no other nation could draw near to the King apart from Israel. The words of Jesus make this clear when He responded to the Samaritan woman’s question about worship, saying, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews” (Jn. 4:22). It was a fact of salvation history that a person had to become a Jew, a member of the commonwealth of Israel, in order to be saved.
Strike Three: Strangers from the covenants of promise. God established covenants specifically with the people of Israel from the calling of Abraham onward. Gentiles had no such covenant relationship with God. It is true that God, in His grace, made Gentiles of our dispensation partakers of the spiritual blessings promised to Israel in their New Covenant (Rom. 15:27). But this was not in any way a covenant promise established with Gentiles, and Paul’s point in Ephesians 2 was that Gentiles had no share or claim in God’s covenants made with Israel (it is purely grace).
Strike Four: Without hope. Dealing with his troubled heart, the Psalmist wrote, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Ps. 42:11). The people of Israel had a relationship with the Living God, giving them reason to hope for deliverance in this life and for the life to come. The Gentiles had none of that. They lived in a world devoid of hope and faced a horrific eternity.
Strike Five: Without God in this world. This sums up the Gentiles’ poverty in the old economy. While Israel could claim access to God through temple worship and sacrifices, Gentiles were held captive in their paganism: “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods” (Gal. 4:8). Ignorant of God, they were without Him and unable to draw near to Him.
From Alienation to Reconciliation
Paul draws a dismal picture of Gentile twofold alienation in Ephesians 2:11-12. On a vertical plane, we were born outside of the sphere of salvation and the grace that God bestowed upon His covenant people. We were “far off” from God and unable to approach Him apart from coming through Israel. The added problem was that the Gentile world was also at enmity with Israel, thus the horizontal alienation. Partly through Israel’s failure to be a light to the nations and partly because of the mutual hatred and contempt between the two peoples, the breach between Jew and Gentile created a wall assuring that the Gentiles would remain “far off.”
But God intervened! After reminding us of the spiritual poverty that was ours, Paul helps us celebrate the tremendous contrast between then and now by proclaiming Christ’s work on the Cross: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). Through the miracle of God’s grace and power, our twofold alienation has given way to a twofold reconciliation as Christ’s atoning blood brings us near to God and brings Jews and Gentiles together in a new unity, the Body of Christ (2:16).
That is Paul’s message for the remainder of Ephesians 2. Jesus Christ has provided reconciliation on both planes, horizontally and vertically. He has not only brought us peace with God and with one another, we are told that Christ Himself is our peace, the one who joins together those who are separated (2:14). As both peace and peacemaker, Christ’s death on the Cross spanned the breach that separated Jew and Gentile to reconcile them to one another at the same time that He was reconciling us all to God.
In light of our previous state this is an awesome truth. It would have been unfathomable that a divided humanity could ever be joined together, not only because of the hostility between them but also because of God’s covenant relationship with Israel. Yet Christ accomplished that by breaking down the barrier that separated them, and “has made both one” (2:14). He rendered inoperative the Mosaic Law which divided them, “so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace” (2:15).
This complete equality of Jew and Gentile in the Body of Christ is what Paul refers to as the “mystery,” God’s secret plan that had previously been kept hidden but was now revealed through Paul (Eph. 3:1-6). It snatched us from a position of spiritual poverty and brought us to previously unknown spiritual wealth. Once without Christ, God has “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (2:6). Once aliens of the commonwealth of Israel, we are “no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (2:19). Once strangers from the covenants of promise, we are “heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (3:6). Once without hope, we may “know the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe” (1:18-19). Once without God in this world, we are “members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself the chief cornerstone” (2:19-20).
“Remember…” Paul admonished the Ephesians. He then reminded them of the abject spiritual poverty from which they as Gentiles had come, and celebrated with them the riches of God’s grace through the Cross of Christ. They had been reconciled together with Jews into one body, and together they were reconciled to God.
In Summary
It is still important today, almost 2000 years later, for us to remember. We need to remember where we have come from and what we have become, or else we might grow complacent in our spiritual lives. Our salvation has been purchased at a great price. We who were dead in sins and by nature children of wrath are now alive, forgiven of all our sins and complete in Christ. What a great salvation! Let’s live for His glory, proclaiming the message of reconciliation.
Relationally, we need to remember where we have come from and what we have become, or else the Body of Christ will be fractured by division. Christ gave His life so that we might be one in spirit and in purpose. We who were alienated from each other have been placed into one Body by the Holy Spirit, and are now commanded to keep the unity of the Spirit. Let’s work together for His glory, forgiving one another and building each other up in love.
Theologically, we need to remember where we have come from and what we have become, or else we may lose sight of these great biblical truths. The revelation of the one new Body, the mystery as revealed to the Apostle Paul, is a precious message that is distinct from God’s previous programs. An understanding of this message gives clarity to the Scriptures. Let’s study and teach it, helping all people realize the riches of God’s grace found in the dispensation of the mystery (Eph. 3:9).
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