Office and Duties of the Christian Pastor by Patrick Fairbairn: 29. Ephesians 2:11-17.

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Office and Duties of the Christian Pastor by Patrick Fairbairn: 29. Ephesians 2:11-17.


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Eph_2:11-17.

‘Wherefore remember, that once ye, Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh wrought by hands; 12. That ye were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and estranged from the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. 13. But now in Christ Jesus, ye who once were far off were brought nigh in the blood of Christ, 14. For He is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of the partition—(15) the enmity—in His flesh, having done away the law of commandments in ordinances, that he might make the two in Himself into one new man, making peace; 16. and that He might reconcile both of us in one body to God through the cross, having slain on it the enmity. 17. And having come, He preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to them that were nigh; 18. For through Him we have our access, both of us, in one Spirit to the Father.’

This passage has obviously a monitory aim, and is chiefly designed to awaken a sense of gratitude in the minds of the Ephesians on account of the wonderful change which, through the mercy of God in Christ, had been made to pass over their condition. Their elevated state, as participants in the benefits of Christ’s death and the glory of His risen life, had been described in the preceding verses; and now the apostle calls upon them to remember how far otherwise it was with them in their original heathenism, and how entirely they were indebted for the change to the work of reconciliation accomplished by Christ. The first two verses delineate in dark colours their position prior to their interest in Christ. Remember that once ye (ποτὲ ὑμεῖς, the ποτὲ before ὑμεῖς with the best MSS. א A B D), Gentiles in the flesh (a compound expression denoting the category or class to which they belonged—Gentiles, or heathen, as contradistinguished from Jews, and this ἐν σαρκί—without the article, because forming one idea with the τὰ ἔθνη, Winer, Gr. 20, sec. 2—in their corporeal frame without the mark of covenant relationship to God, hence visibly in an unsanctified condition), who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh wrought by hands. This points to the hereditary antipathy cherished, or the sacred recoil felt toward them on the part of the covenant people, so long as they were in their heathenish state; for to be called Uncircumcision by them was all one with being accounted reprobate or profane. But when the apostle speaks of the Circumcision, who so called them being the Circumcision in the flesh wrought by hands, he insinuates that those who applied the reproachful epithet to the heathen, and cherished the feelings it expressed, might not themselves possess the reality which the rite of circumcision symbolized; it might be, after all, in their case but an out ward distinction. The apostle does not venture to say it was more, knowing well how commonly the rite had lost to his countrymen its spiritual significancy, and with how many circumcision was no more than a mere conventional sign or fleshly distinction. But even so, it drew a line of demarcation between them and the Gentile world, and bespoke their external nearness to the God of the covenant: it constituted them, as to position and privilege, the chosen people, on whom God’s name was called, while the others wanted even the formal badge of consecration. In so far as the circumcision was only in the flesh, these who possessed it had of course little reason to boast it over the uncircumcised Gentiles, for in that case both alike needed the real sanctification which is required for true access to God; and while this thought could not but appear to aggravate the former degradation of these believing Gentiles, as having been counted profane by those who were themselves but nominally otherwise, it at the same time implied that, as regarded effectual rectification, both parties were substantially on a footing—what was needed for the one was needed also for the other.

Ver. 12. The apostle here resumes his interrupted sentence, commences afresh: that ye were at that time (corresponding to the ὅτι ποτὲ ὑμεῖς in Eph_2:11) without Christ; that is, not only destitute of the actual knowledge of Him, but away from any real connection with Him—or friendly relation to Him so that the hope of a Saviour (which the Jews had) was as much wanting as the personal enjoyment of His salvation. What this separation implied, and how far it reached, is stated in what follows, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and estranged from the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. By the πολιτεία, or commonwealth of Israel, is evidently meant the theocratic constitution and people of the old covenant, as those alone which had associated with them the elements of life and blessing—the one state and community in which fellowship with God was to be found. From this they were in their heathen condition alienated— ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι—at the opposite pole, as it were, from the rights of citizenship, but without implying any thing as to a prior state of connection; for such an idea, which some would find in the description, would be out of place here; it is the actual state alone which the apostle characterizes. Further, they were estranged from (lit., strangers of, ξένοι τῶν, the ξένοι being put as a sort of antithesis to κληρόνομοι, heirs or possessors of) the covenants of promise. Under covenants of promise, the apostle could scarcely mean to include the covenant of law along with the covenant of Abraham, for the former is not of promise; so that we must either understand by the expression the successive and somewhat varied forms given to the Abrahamic covenant, or perhaps that covenant itself in conjunction with the new covenant of Jer_31:31, which was also justly entitled to be called a covenant of promise. As heathen, the Ephesians, in their unconverted state, were entirely out of the region of these covenants—strangers to the field they embraced with their blessed prospects of better things to come. And, as the necessary consequence of this unhappy isolation, they had not hope—that is, were devoid of this in any such sense as might properly meet the wants of their condition; hope, as the well-grounded and blessed expectation of a recovery from the evils of sin, was unknown to them; and they were without God in the world, unconscious of, and incapable of finding where they were, any spiritual link of connection with Him. ‘They had not God, but only thoughts about Him; Israel, however, had God and the living word of His mouth. Hence there belonged to the covenant people what did not come from themselves, but from that which is greater than man’s heart, the hope of the coming salvation. Heathenism, however, had but the product of its own state, hopes which had no better security than the uncertain [utterly inadequate] ground of personal piety.’ (Harless.)

Ver. 13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off were brought nigh in the blood of Christ—the contrast to the former state, and strikingly exhibited as a change that was once for all effected (potentially) in the atoning work of Christ—though actually experienced, of course, only when they came to a personal interest in His salvation. So, too, St Peter speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as having begotten believers to a lively hope (1Pe_1:3)—as if the accomplishment of the one carried the other also in its bosom. The blood of Jesus Christ, by making provision for the pardon of sin, lays open the way for all to the bosom of God’s household, and of any individual who enters into the fellow ship of this blood, or who takes up his standing in the faith of Jesus as the crucified for sin, it may be said he was brought nigh in the blood of Christ; in the shedding of that blood, he sees for ever removed the alienation caused by sin. And to mark very distinctly the efficacious ground or living source of the boon, the apostle designates the recipients as first ‘in Christ Jesus,’ and again as finding all ‘in the blood of Christ.’

Vers. 14, 15. A further grounding and explanation of the statement follows: for He is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of the partition. The language here also is very forcible and pregnant. The work of incorporation into God’s blessed household is represented as done once for all in Christ—ideally, the reunion has attained to realization in Him. Hence, he is called ‘Our Peace’—not simply as Bengel notes, our Pacificator, peacemaker, but the one who, by the sacrifice of Himself, has procured peace, and is Himself the bond of union to both (ipse vinculum utrorumque). lie is such as regards Jew and Gentile, having made the twain (the divided parts, τὰ ἀμφότερα) one, riot by acting directly upon their mutual antagonism, and applying Himself to heal the breach it occasioned, but by elevating both to a higher unity—effecting for them alike reconciliation with God through the blood of His cross. Brought through this one medium of reconciliation into a common relation to God, and recognising themselves as alike children of the one Father of a redeemed and blessed family, the cause of enmity and alienation as a matter of course fell away—both parties being lifted into a position where it no longer had room to operate. This is the apostle’s solution of the difficulty, as to the existing separation between Jew and Gentile: he regards it as the offshoot of a higher and graver quarrel—the sinful departure and alienation of both from God; and the healing of the grand breach carries in its train the healing of the smaller one, by taking out of the way the circum stances that incidentally ministered to it. The apostle expresses the mode of accomplishing the result by saying that Christ broke down the middle wall of the partition, or the fence; figurative language, proceeding on the assumption, that the two parties—the one of whom had been outwardly near, the other far off from, the region of life and blessing were both in a manner fenced off from that region—the one more palpably so, indeed, than the other; separated and fenced off even from those who were comparatively near, because wanting the very appearance and formal badge of a consecrated condition. But the apostle sees in this only the outer line, as it were, or lower half of that partition-boundary which lay between men and the proper fellowship of love in God; for those who were called near, were still, while the old state of things existed, at some distance; they had not free access to the presence of God (as the veil in the temple, and the manifold restrictions of its appointed ritual, too clearly indicated), and were rather, for the time, tolerated in a measure of nearness, than frankly, and as of right, admitted into the joyous liberty of Divine communion and blessedness of life. For both parties, therefore, something had to be broken down, in order to have the way laid open into the holiest, and through this into the full brotherhood of love with each other. What it was, the apostle more distinctly expresses in the next term, the enmity (‘broke down the middle wall of the partition—the enmity—in His flesh’—so the passage should be pointed and read). The enmity stands in apposition to the middle wall of partition in the preceding clause, and more exactly defines it. That this enmity has a certain respect to the hostile feeling and attitude subsisting between Jew and Gentile, seems clear from the reference going before to that antagonistic relationship and its abolition in Christ (‘made both one,’ Eph_2:14, though previously one stood aloof from the other as profane and out cast, Eph_2:11). But it seems equally clear, that no explanation can be satisfactory which would limit the expression to this lower sphere; for the enmity, which Christ destroyed in His flesh, or, as again said, which He slew through His cross, naturally carries our thoughts up to the great breach in man’s condition, and the great work done by Christ to heal it. In other expressions, also, the apostle plainly identifies the removing of this enmity with the reunion of sinners to God; for it is in reconciling the parties spoken of to God that he describes the enmity as being slain; and, by the act of gracious mediation which effects this, Christ is represented as becoming the peace of those who were near, as well as those who were far off—implying that the one, as well as the other, notwithstanding their relative advantages, had in their condition an obstructive barrier to be thrown down, an enmity to be overcome. Both alike also are represented as partaking of the same regenerating process—raised together, so as to become not one man merely, but one new man, as contradistinguished from the old state of each. Throughout the passage, Christ is plainly described as doing substantially one and the same work for both, and that a work which bore directly on their relation to God, while it carried along with it also conciliatory and peaceful results in respect to their mutual relationship to each other. There is no way of understanding this but by supposing that the apostle saw, in the one class of relations, the fruit and reflex of the other. The mutual enmity which, like a partition-wall, shut off Jew from Gentile, had in his view no independent existence; it was merely the shadow and incidental effect of that common alienation which sin had produced between man and God; and it was, he would have his readers to understand, by striking an effectual blow at that tap-root of the evil (as it might be called) that Christ had become the medium of a proper reconciliation in regard to the other and merely consequential form of alienation.

That the destruction of the enmity, through the introduction and establishment of a state of blessed nearness to God, is said to have been done in the flesh of Christ, can only be regarded as a brief expression for His great work in the flesh—virtually synonymous with the words ‘in His blood’ in Eph_2:13, and ‘through His cross’ in Eph_2:16. The expression itself might be coupled either with what precedes, or with what follows: we might either say [having destroyed] ‘the enmity in His flesh,’ or, ‘in His flesh having abolished (made void) the law of commandments,’ etc. The latter is the connection adopted in the authorized version, ‘having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments,’ etc., including also in the sentence the τὴν ἔχθραν, and taking the enmity as parallel with the law of commandments. But this, though supported by many commentators, proceeds on a somewhat unnatural mode of construing the words; and it better accords with the proper parallelism of the passage, and also with the general usage of the two verbs (as one can readily-enough speak of dissolving or breaking down an enmity, but not so well of making it void, and so abolishing it). But the general sense still remains much the same; and certainly with the breaking down of the partition-wall, or dislodging the enmity, the apostle couples the annulling or doing away of the law of commandments in ordinances as either coincident with the other, or somehow essential to it. How then was it so? What precisely is meant by the law of commandments in ordinances? And in what sense was the doing away of this in Christ necessary to the bringing about of the reconciliation and enmity? The law of commandments in ordinances is but another name for the Sinaitic legislation, or the old covenant. This was, by way of eminence, the law, and as such composed of specific enactments; these formed its contents; and when further said to be ἐν δόγμασιν (the latter without the article, because expressive of one notion with τῶν ἐντολῶν, commandments in individual ordinances (Winer, sees. 31, 10, obs. 1.)), it points to the form of the contents as being of an imperative or decretory character, so that the expression may be fitly enough rendered, with Alford, ‘the law of decretory commandments,’ or of ‘decretory ordinances,’ with Ellicott. It comprised the whole system of precepts, moral and religious, which were introduced by Moses, and peremptorily enjoined on the covenant people: the law, in its economical character, as a scheme of enactments or form of administration, which was intended, indeed, to mediate the intercourse between God and man, but was perceived, even while it stood, to be imperfect, and declared as such to be transitory, destined one day to be supplanted by another and better. (Jer_31:31.) The apostle had already, in various passages, given forth a similar judgment; had affirmed it to be incapable of providing an effectual remedy for the evils adhering to human nature, fitted rather to make known and multiply transgression than deliver from its guilt and doom, hence done away in Christ who brings in the real deliverance. (2Co_3:11; 2Co_3:14; Gal_3:19; Rom_5:20; Rom_7:5-8.) So, here again, when setting forth Christ as the only true Peace of the world, the apostle represents the system of law, with its commands and ordinances, as done away, in order that humanity might, through faith in the incarnation and atoning death of Christ, be lifted out of its condemned and alienated condition, might be formed into a kind of corporate body with Himself, and participate in that fellowship of peace and blessing which He ever enjoys with the Father. But this, obviously, is a kind of doing away, or making void, which at the same time confirms. It loosens men’s relation to the law in one respect, but establishes it in another; releases them from it as a provisional arrangement for coming at the righteousness and life which are essential to an interest in God, but only that they might find the end it aimed at in this respect through faith in Christ (Rom_10:4.)—find it as a gift brought to their hand through the infinite grace and prevailing mediation of Christ. Thus, there is nothing arbitrary in the change here indicated by the apostle: it is a change of form, but not of substance, for the same great principles of truth and duty characterize both economies, only brought now to their proper establishment in Christ, and associated with results which, till then, had been but faintly apprehended or partially experienced. (The rendering of the two verses (vers. 14, 15), in the authorized version, is in several respects unfortunate—first, inserting between us, namely, Jew and Gentile, after the words, ‘broken down the middle wall of partition,’ thereby confining this to the earthly sphere; second, separating between the middle wall and the enmity, by throwing the latter into the next clause, and joining it to καταργήσας, instead of to the preceding λύσας; third, identifying the enmity with the law of commandments, ‘the enmity, even the law of commandments.’ In the general structure and connection of the passage, I follow Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, who, especially the two former, have clearly shewn the advantage in naturalness and grammatical accuracy of the mode preferred by them over others, also the inadmissibility of joining ἐν δόγμασιν with καταργήσας; (with the Vulgate, Chrysostom, Theodore, also Grotius, Bengel, Fritzsche, Harless), as if the meaning were, having abolished, by means of Christian doctrines, the law of commandments, or, as Harless, abolished the law on the side of, or in respect to, the commanding form of its precepts. The New Testament usage will not admit of either mode of exposition. But the Greek commentators (Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Œcunienius) were substantially right in their general view of the passage, understanding the separation and enmity on the one side, and the reconciliation and peace on the other, to have respect, not merely to Jew and Gentile, but primarily and mainly to men’s relation to God, and only subordinately to the other. Meyer, with many more, take the other view of the partition-wall and the enmity; the expositions of Calvin, and many of the earlier Protestant commentators, were by no means satisfactory in the treatment of the passage.)

There is, it is proper to add, a certain difference in the doctrinal statements here made respecting the law, and those elsewhere given; but it is merely a formal one, and such as naturally arose from the nature of the subject. The point more immediately handled here has to do, not with justification before God, but with reconciliation and peace toward Him, and between one portion of the human family and another. These, however, are but diverse aspects of the same question; and the necessity of doing away with the decretory ordinances and precepts of the old covenant, in order to meet the wants of man’s condition, and placing in its stead the atoning work of Christ, holds alike in both aspects of the matter. But in none of the passages can the doing away be understood in an absolute sense; it must be taken relatively. And here, in particular, the apostle, as justly remarked by Harless, indicating also the connection between this and other statements of the apostle, ‘does not treat of the law as regards any part of its contents, but of the form, the legal externality of its demand, which, as unfulfilled, wrought enmity, because it pronounced the judgment of condemnation upon men’s guilt, and hence is rendered without effect. This is done objectively without us, through the atoning death of Christ. (Col_2:14.) Subjectively, it is realized in us, when, as the apostle elsewhere expresses himself, the word of faith comes to be in the mouth and in the heart, (Rom_10:8.) or, as stated presently here, when Christians, through the redemption in one Spirit, have access to the Father, and are built into an habitation of God in the Spirit. This is the subjective realization of the law’s displacement. The apostle speaks of it in Rom_7:6, when he says, “We are delivered (κατηργήθημεν) from the law,” as, inversely, they who would be justified by the law are delivered (κατηργήθητε) from Christ.’ (Gal_5:4.) All, therefore, depends upon the sense in which such expressions are understood, or the respect in which they are applied. They merely tell us that we have the law made of no force and effect to us, done away as the ground of justification before God, or as the means of obtaining a solid reconciliation and peace with Him: but this simply on account of the high and holy nature of the requirements it sets forth, which for fallen men made the good it aimed at practicably unattainable. Its relation to men’s responsibilities as the revelation of God’s righteousness, in the sphere of human life and duty, remains thereby untouched.

Vers. 16-18. These verses, which contain merely some further expansion and application of the principles exhibited in the preceding context, call for no lengthened remark here. And that He might reconcile both of us in one body to God through the cross: this was the higher end of Christ’s work on earth—the lower having been mentioned just before, namely, the uniting of the divided human family into one new corporate body; and the former, though the last to be named, the first in order, as being that on which the other depends. It is the reconciliation of both parties to God through the peace-speaking blood of Christ’s cross, which carries them over the fence of earthly divisions and antipathies. And this being said to be done in one body, points—not, as some would understand it, to the corporeal frame of Christ, in which respect the idea of plurality was, from the nature of things, excluded—but to the compact society, the one corporate, mystical body which Christ forms for Himself out of the scattered and too often antagonistic members of the human family. Alike drawn through the cross to God, (Joh_12:32.) their common enmity to Him, and their individual enmities one toward another, receive, in a sense, their death-blow; they melt away under the redeeming love of the cross; but only, of course, as regards men’s personal experience, when this comes to be realized as a Divine power in the heart. To this the next clause refers, which says of Christ, ‘And having come, He preached peace to you who were far off, and peace (the εἰρήνην should be again repeated, with all the better MSS., and most of the ancient versions) to them that were nigh. This also is ascribed to Christ, for His agency was continued in that of the apostles, who, in preaching the tidings of salvation to Jew and Gentile, derived their authority from His commission, and their success from His presence. (Mat_28:20; Joh_14:18; Act_3:26; Act_24:23.) So that to Christ belongs at once the effective means of reconciliation, and the bringing of these to bear on the personal state of mankind. The relatively near (Jews) and the relatively far off (Gentiles) alike need the salvation provided, and they alike have it brought within their reach. Then follows the ground or reason on which the proclamation and assurance of peace proceeds, for through Him we have our access, both of us, in one spirit to the Father to (πρὸς) the Father as representing the Godhead, through (διὰ) the Son as Mediator, and by or in (ἐν) the Spirit as the effective agent—shewing clearly the pre-eminent regard had by the apostle in the whole matter, to the peaceful relationship of the parties to God. It is this more especially that is mentioned here, because this is what is primarily and directly secured by the death of Christ; and the distinction between Jew and Gentile falls away, because, as component parts of one redeemed family, they are animated by one Spirit (the Spirit of life and holiness in Christ Jesus), and in that Spirit are enabled to draw near, and abide near, to God—equally inmates of His spiritual house, and alike free to participate in its blessed privileges and hopes.