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He is our peace: that is,
1. He is the Mediator of our peace, the great peace-maker betwixt God and men.
2.He is our peace: that is, the purchaser of our peace.
3. He is our peace; that is, the establisher of our peace. All which is to be understood, not only of peace betwixt God and man, but also betwixt man and man. Who hath made both one; that is, both Jews and Gentiles one church.
Here note, That there was a very great and deep-rooted enmity betwixt Jews and Gentiles, until Christ purchased their peace and reconciliation.
The Jews derided, scorned, and hated the Gentiles as unclean, compared them to dogs and swine.
The Gentiles, they reproached the Jews for circumcising their flesh, esteemed them, of all nations, the worst; and would hold their nose at the Jews when they met them, and cry, O faetentes Judaei! O ye stinking Jews! and turn away their eyes from them.
Learn from hence then, That the uniting of both Jew and Gentile into one church, was one blessed effect and sweet fruit of the purchase of Christ's blood; Christ's offering of himself was intended as a sacrifice for enmities between man and man, as well as for enmities between God and man: He is our peace, who hath made both one.
Observe next, What Christ hath done in order to his making peace between Jew and Gentile;
1. He has abolished the ceremonial law, called here a partition- wall, betwixt the Jews and the Gentiles; in allusion, no doubt, to that wall to Solomon's temple which separated the court of the Jews from that of the Gentiles, that they could neither come at, nor look at one another. So that this partition-wall being said to be broken down, intimates to us, that Jew and Gentile, who before had two manner of religions, the one in and under a covenant with God, the other afar off, and without God; yet now by Christ are both adopted into the same church, partakers of the same covenants, incorporated into the same faith, entitled to the same glory.
2. Christ has abolished the enmity and perpetual strife which was occasioned between Jew and Gentile, upon the account of the observation of the ceremonial law, and the ordinances thereunto belonging: He hath abolished the enmity; that is, the ceremonial law, which made the enmity between them. The ceremonial law was the cause and the continuer of that enmity which was betwixt Jew and Gentile: this is called the law of commandments contained in ordinances: because Almighty God did actually separate the Jews from all the world, by giving them ordinances and commandments, judicial and ceremonial laws, containing many visible and external observances, which forbade them to communicate with the Gentile world.
Now Christ being come in the flesh, all those observances ceased, and those legal ordinances vanished away; all nations become blessed in Christ, and Jews and Gentiles become one church, both alike the people of God, both admitted equally into covenant, and both alike blessed.
Here note, That the moral law, summarily comprised and comprehended in the Ten Commandments, was no part of the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile. Nor did the death of Christ abrogate this law, nor is it at all abolished: but it was the law of ceremonies only, which the sufferings and death of Christ put an end unto; for when he died, they all vanished; as the shadow disappears when the substance is come.