Study Focus: Eph. 2:11–22, Rom. 3:31, Rom. 7:12, Isa. 52:7, Isa. 57:19, John 14:27, 1 Cor. 3:9–17.
Introduction: In Ephesians 2:1–10, Paul paints an incredibly beautiful and uplifting picture of how God operates in the salvation of an individual person. Being saved means being called by the Messiah, being resurrected with the Messiah, ascending with the Messiah, and being exalted with the Messiah. But this description was usually applied to the Jews who were eagerly waiting for their Messiah-Savior. In the Jewish interpretation, when the Messiah would come He was expected to save and exalt the Jews and destroy and humiliate the Gentiles. However, Paul takes the exalting language used for describing the salvation of the Jews and applies it . . . to the Gentiles, too!
At the same time, we do need to carefully note that Paul does not proclaim that now the Gentiles are saved because they are Gentiles or that the Jews are saved because they are Jews. The Jews, who were “nigh” to God (Eph. 2:13), could live the same type of life “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12) as the Gentiles (Eph. 2:1–10, Rom. 2:17–26). The Gentiles, for their part, must not forget what manner of life they lived before encountering and accepting Christ. Thus, both groups were equally saved by the grace of God, manifested in Christ Jesus on the cross. It is only when both the Jews and the Gentiles are in Christ that they are saved. On the other hand, Paul does emphasize that salvation comes from the Jews (Eph. 2:12; see also Rom. 9:4, 5; John 4:22). After all, “God had chosen the Hebrew people to be His representatives on earth, . . . entrusted to them the divine oracles, and . . . the Messiah was . . . a Jew (Rom. 9:4, 5).”—The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 940.
Lesson Themes: This week’s study covers three major themes:
Christ Jesus saves both the Jews and Gentiles equally, although God first called the Jews to the mission of proclaiming His salvation to the world.
The salvation offered to all by the Lord Jesus is universal because He died on the cross thus making provision of salvation for everyone who believes in Him (John 3:16), and thus the partitioning wall between the Jews and the Gentiles became irrelevant.
Jesus Christ not only destroyed the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles, but He also builds a new reality, a new temple of God, the church, wherein both the Jews and the Gentiles equally and together constitute the church.
Part II: Commentary
Tearing Down That Wall
Some Christians mistakenly understand that, in Ephesians 2:16, Paul envisions peace between the Jews and the Gentiles by abolishing the Mosaic law. Consequently, these Christians see the Old Testament and the law as irrelevant to Christianity. However, this view is not only a misunderstanding of Paul’s theology but also a conclusion contrary to what Paul wrote.
Two major observations are crucial to underline here. First, the immediate context of Ephesians 2:16 does indeed point to the idea that the Gentiles who wanted to join God’s people were met with a wall that prevented them from doing so. This wall of separation was a tragedy because God had called Israel to His grace and given them the mission to proclaim His grace to the world. However, the Israelites confused their call to experience holiness, conferred by grace, with isolationism and elitism. Thus, they failed to deliver on God’s mission for them.
Some tend to identify the problem of the enmity described here as generated solely by the Jews to keep the Gentiles from accessing God. The major implication of this view is that the problem would be solved by Jesus’ simply abolishing the Jewish law and establishing a new religion. No doubt there was a lot of enmity displayed by the Jews against the Gentiles. However, the Old Testament also witnesses to the enmity of the peoples of the ancient world manifested against Israel and Judah.
Paul, however, does not engage here in a project of a traditional international reconciliation of two people groups, based on the identification of common ground, on compromises on both sides, and on the political decision of mutual toleration. Yes, Paul does say that both the Jews and the Gentiles are at fault, but he does not say that the main problem of these two people groups consists simply in their mutual animosity or in the lack of finding a way of cohabitation in the world. In the very context of Ephesians 2:14, Paul tells the Gentile Christians in Ephesus that they had been “dead in . . . sins,” not because of the Jews but because of succumbing to their own sinful nature and to Satan and because they were arrogant and thought they knew better how to save themselves (Eph. 2:1–3; see also Rom. 1:21–32).
The problem of the Jews, on the other hand, did not consist of the pressure and the attacks suffered at the hands of the Gentiles; God had promised them His protection if they fully trusted Him. Nor did the problem lie in the fact that the promises, the covenants, and the laws and the ordinances of God were given to the Jews and not to the Gentiles. Also, the Jews did not become the enemies of the Gentiles because God instructed them to become so. The problem of the animosity between Jew and Gentile consisted of something else.
Paul insists that the main problem of their mutual animosity was that both groups equally sinned and rebelled against God (Rom. 3:9–19). While the Gentile path to salvation was always by works (or so they thought), the Jews received the revelation of God’s salvation by grace. However, by the time of Jesus, the difference between the Jews and the Gentiles was no longer grace (Jews) versus works (Gentiles); rather, now they were quarreling over whose works would attain salvation. While the Gentiles thought their heroic initiative, acts, and lifestyle placed them on the way to the salvation of humanity, the Jews thought that it was they who were on the path to salvation—their salvation—because, by their strict adherence to precept, they fulfilled the law that God had given them (Rom. 9:31, 32; Rom. 10:3).
The animosity, then, was superficial and artificial. Underneath the verbiage, both the Jews and the Gentiles were one and the same: sinful rebels against the grace of God (Rom. 1:21; Rom. 2:4, 5), each group claiming they would be saved by their works. The Jews and the Gentiles were fighting over a religion of works. In essence, the Jewish religion had become Gentile in nature; it was for this reason that Jesus, after a long scolding of the Jews for falling into legalism and misinterpretation of Scripture (Matthew 23), had to announce to the leaders that “Your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:38).
God had called Israel to be the custodian and proclaimer of the religion of grace to the world. This call of, and to, grace was the very identity and mission of Israel. It was for this reason that Paul fought fiercely for maintaining grace at the very foundation of the Christian religion. His epistles to the Galatians (Gentiles) and to the Hebrews (Jews) are a passionate call to Christianity to avoid following Israel in its gravest error.
Second, and consequently, Paul’s solution for this crucial problem was not social or political negotiations, wherein the Old Testament law was to be partially or totally compromised in order to make room for the Gentiles to be reconciled to the Jews. Rather, Paul called both groups to abandon their entrenched positions in their reliance on works and accept God’s grace in Jesus Christ. When each of these groups would accept God’s grace to be reconciled to God, they would find themselves in the same unified sphere of God’s kingdom. They would find themselves to be part of the same people of God, citizens of the same country and members of the same family (Eph. 2:19), the church.
Thus, the horizontal reconciliation of the Jews and Gentiles lies in, first, their experiencing vertical atonement. This atonement is achieved through Christ, who was incarnated to “reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross” (Eph. 2:16, NASB). Thus, the church—that space where peace is made between the Jew and the Gentile—is not built upon the abolition of God’s law, because that is the law of God’s love and grace (John 14:15, Rom. 13:8–10).
If God were to reconcile humanity to Himself by abrogating His own law, the blood of Jesus and the cross would not have been necessary. The entire plan of salvation would not have been necessary. Rather, God reconciled both the Jews and the Gentiles to Him by calling them all back to Him and saving them all through the same Christ and the same Spirit (Eph. 2:16, 18).
Part III: Life Application
After thousands of years of history, the relationship between the Jews and Gentiles has become irrelevant for many Christian churches. Most likely, your class’s local or regional church is mostly comprised of Gentiles, and they are not even thinking about the Jews. However, just like the Jews, we, as Christians, may have erected our own walls of separation between us, the people of God, and other people groups—walls that keep people away from the gospel. Ask your students to examine whether such walls exist in their own lives and in the life of their church. How might the church allow for such walls to be torn down by, and in, Christ?
Some people may interpret the tearing down of the wall between the Jews and Gentiles to mean that now there should be no difference between the church and the world and that the church could now live by the standards of the world. Why is this attitude unbiblical? Ask class members to consider how such an attitude is a detriment to sharing the gospel with all people. Why is the call to uphold God’s holiness, and to keep sin and a sinful lifestyle out of the church, a legitimate calling? Discuss.
Some Christians may note that the partitioning wall between the Jews and the Gentiles was erected by God Himself in the first place, especially when He directed the Israelites to separate themselves from the Gentiles. After all, Jesus Himself presented God as having installed “a fence around” Israel (Matt. 21:33, NASB). In addition, God strictly prohibited the Israelites to marry people from other nations (see, e.g., Deut. 7:1–6). Even Paul warns against marrying nonbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14). The majority of contemporary society seems to project a more inclusivist, nondiscriminatory outlook on religious intermarriage. Considering these observations, how would class members explain Paul’s affirmation that Jesus tore down the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles when the Bible seems clear that it was God who built the wall around Israel?
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Key Text: Ephesians 2:13, 14
Study Focus: Eph. 2:11–22, Rom. 3:31, Rom. 7:12, Isa. 52:7, Isa. 57:19, John 14:27, 1 Cor. 3:9–17.
Introduction: In Ephesians 2:1–10, Paul paints an incredibly beautiful and uplifting picture of how God operates in the salvation of an individual person. Being saved means being called by the Messiah, being resurrected with the Messiah, ascending with the Messiah, and being exalted with the Messiah. But this description was usually applied to the Jews who were eagerly waiting for their Messiah-Savior. In the Jewish interpretation, when the Messiah would come He was expected to save and exalt the Jews and destroy and humiliate the Gentiles. However, Paul takes the exalting language used for describing the salvation of the Jews and applies it . . . to the Gentiles, too!
At the same time, we do need to carefully note that Paul does not proclaim that now the Gentiles are saved because they are Gentiles or that the Jews are saved because they are Jews. The Jews, who were “nigh” to God (Eph. 2:13), could live the same type of life “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12) as the Gentiles (Eph. 2:1–10, Rom. 2:17–26). The Gentiles, for their part, must not forget what manner of life they lived before encountering and accepting Christ. Thus, both groups were equally saved by the grace of God, manifested in Christ Jesus on the cross. It is only when both the Jews and the Gentiles are in Christ that they are saved. On the other hand, Paul does emphasize that salvation comes from the Jews (Eph. 2:12; see also Rom. 9:4, 5; John 4:22). After all, “God had chosen the Hebrew people to be His representatives on earth, . . . entrusted to them the divine oracles, and . . . the Messiah was . . . a Jew (Rom. 9:4, 5).”—The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 940.
Lesson Themes: This week’s study covers three major themes:
Christ Jesus saves both the Jews and Gentiles equally, although God first called the Jews to the mission of proclaiming His salvation to the world.
The salvation offered to all by the Lord Jesus is universal because He died on the cross thus making provision of salvation for everyone who believes in Him (John 3:16), and thus the partitioning wall between the Jews and the Gentiles became irrelevant.
Jesus Christ not only destroyed the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles, but He also builds a new reality, a new temple of God, the church, wherein both the Jews and the Gentiles equally and together constitute the church.
Part II: Commentary
Tearing Down That Wall
Some Christians mistakenly understand that, in Ephesians 2:16, Paul envisions peace between the Jews and the Gentiles by abolishing the Mosaic law. Consequently, these Christians see the Old Testament and the law as irrelevant to Christianity. However, this view is not only a misunderstanding of Paul’s theology but also a conclusion contrary to what Paul wrote.
Two major observations are crucial to underline here. First, the immediate context of Ephesians 2:16 does indeed point to the idea that the Gentiles who wanted to join God’s people were met with a wall that prevented them from doing so. This wall of separation was a tragedy because God had called Israel to His grace and given them the mission to proclaim His grace to the world. However, the Israelites confused their call to experience holiness, conferred by grace, with isolationism and elitism. Thus, they failed to deliver on God’s mission for them.
Some tend to identify the problem of the enmity described here as generated solely by the Jews to keep the Gentiles from accessing God. The major implication of this view is that the problem would be solved by Jesus’ simply abolishing the Jewish law and establishing a new religion. No doubt there was a lot of enmity displayed by the Jews against the Gentiles. However, the Old Testament also witnesses to the enmity of the peoples of the ancient world manifested against Israel and Judah.
Paul, however, does not engage here in a project of a traditional international reconciliation of two people groups, based on the identification of common ground, on compromises on both sides, and on the political decision of mutual toleration. Yes, Paul does say that both the Jews and the Gentiles are at fault, but he does not say that the main problem of these two people groups consists simply in their mutual animosity or in the lack of finding a way of cohabitation in the world. In the very context of Ephesians 2:14, Paul tells the Gentile Christians in Ephesus that they had been “dead in . . . sins,” not because of the Jews but because of succumbing to their own sinful nature and to Satan and because they were arrogant and thought they knew better how to save themselves (Eph. 2:1–3; see also Rom. 1:21–32).
The problem of the Jews, on the other hand, did not consist of the pressure and the attacks suffered at the hands of the Gentiles; God had promised them His protection if they fully trusted Him. Nor did the problem lie in the fact that the promises, the covenants, and the laws and the ordinances of God were given to the Jews and not to the Gentiles. Also, the Jews did not become the enemies of the Gentiles because God instructed them to become so. The problem of the animosity between Jew and Gentile consisted of something else.
Paul insists that the main problem of their mutual animosity was that both groups equally sinned and rebelled against God (Rom. 3:9–19). While the Gentile path to salvation was always by works (or so they thought), the Jews received the revelation of God’s salvation by grace. However, by the time of Jesus, the difference between the Jews and the Gentiles was no longer grace (Jews) versus works (Gentiles); rather, now they were quarreling over whose works would attain salvation. While the Gentiles thought their heroic initiative, acts, and lifestyle placed them on the way to the salvation of humanity, the Jews thought that it was they who were on the path to salvation—their salvation—because, by their strict adherence to precept, they fulfilled the law that God had given them (Rom. 9:31, 32; Rom. 10:3).
The animosity, then, was superficial and artificial. Underneath the verbiage, both the Jews and the Gentiles were one and the same: sinful rebels against the grace of God (Rom. 1:21; Rom. 2:4, 5), each group claiming they would be saved by their works. The Jews and the Gentiles were fighting over a religion of works. In essence, the Jewish religion had become Gentile in nature; it was for this reason that Jesus, after a long scolding of the Jews for falling into legalism and misinterpretation of Scripture (Matthew 23), had to announce to the leaders that “Your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:38).
God had called Israel to be the custodian and proclaimer of the religion of grace to the world. This call of, and to, grace was the very identity and mission of Israel. It was for this reason that Paul fought fiercely for maintaining grace at the very foundation of the Christian religion. His epistles to the Galatians (Gentiles) and to the Hebrews (Jews) are a passionate call to Christianity to avoid following Israel in its gravest error.
Second, and consequently, Paul’s solution for this crucial problem was not social or political negotiations, wherein the Old Testament law was to be partially or totally compromised in order to make room for the Gentiles to be reconciled to the Jews. Rather, Paul called both groups to abandon their entrenched positions in their reliance on works and accept God’s grace in Jesus Christ. When each of these groups would accept God’s grace to be reconciled to God, they would find themselves in the same unified sphere of God’s kingdom. They would find themselves to be part of the same people of God, citizens of the same country and members of the same family (Eph. 2:19), the church.
Thus, the horizontal reconciliation of the Jews and Gentiles lies in, first, their experiencing vertical atonement. This atonement is achieved through Christ, who was incarnated to “reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross” (Eph. 2:16, NASB). Thus, the church—that space where peace is made between the Jew and the Gentile—is not built upon the abolition of God’s law, because that is the law of God’s love and grace (John 14:15, Rom. 13:8–10).
If God were to reconcile humanity to Himself by abrogating His own law, the blood of Jesus and the cross would not have been necessary. The entire plan of salvation would not have been necessary. Rather, God reconciled both the Jews and the Gentiles to Him by calling them all back to Him and saving them all through the same Christ and the same Spirit (Eph. 2:16, 18).
Part III: Life Application
After thousands of years of history, the relationship between the Jews and Gentiles has become irrelevant for many Christian churches. Most likely, your class’s local or regional church is mostly comprised of Gentiles, and they are not even thinking about the Jews. However, just like the Jews, we, as Christians, may have erected our own walls of separation between us, the people of God, and other people groups—walls that keep people away from the gospel. Ask your students to examine whether such walls exist in their own lives and in the life of their church. How might the church allow for such walls to be torn down by, and in, Christ?
Some people may interpret the tearing down of the wall between the Jews and Gentiles to mean that now there should be no difference between the church and the world and that the church could now live by the standards of the world. Why is this attitude unbiblical? Ask class members to consider how such an attitude is a detriment to sharing the gospel with all people. Why is the call to uphold God’s holiness, and to keep sin and a sinful lifestyle out of the church, a legitimate calling? Discuss.
Some Christians may note that the partitioning wall between the Jews and the Gentiles was erected by God Himself in the first place, especially when He directed the Israelites to separate themselves from the Gentiles. After all, Jesus Himself presented God as having installed “a fence around” Israel (Matt. 21:33, NASB). In addition, God strictly prohibited the Israelites to marry people from other nations (see, e.g., Deut. 7:1–6). Even Paul warns against marrying nonbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14). The majority of contemporary society seems to project a more inclusivist, nondiscriminatory outlook on religious intermarriage. Considering these observations, how would class members explain Paul’s affirmation that Jesus tore down the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles when the Bible seems clear that it was God who built the wall around Israel?