"Abolishing Grace" Ephesians 2:14-16 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This is the word of the Lord, Ephesians 2, verses 14 through 16.

Ephesians 2:14–16

Paul writes this for he, speaking of Jesus, he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Well, with apologies to the nation China and to President Trump, the most significant wall in recent history is the Berlin Wall, which stretches approximately 30 miles across East versus West Berlin, or at least it did from 1961 until 1989.

The Berlin Wall guarded with towers, snipers, an area between the two sides of the wall called the Death Strip.

By the end of the 1960s, the Death Strip had been completed, so there was kind of a no-man's land there.

If you scaled one half of the wall, you had a valley, an area to go through that was littered with mines and nails and sniper shots.

There were, of course, traffic both directions across the wall.

There were people, spies, espionage, military assets that would try to go from west to east, and there were all kinds of people who would try to escape from east to west.

The wall was bit built to cordon off communist-run East Berlin from democratically controlled West Berlin.

Those in the communist bloc said that the wall existed to protect the communists from the nefarious influences of fascism from the western side of the wall.

That it was built for their own protection.

Those on the west side knew the truth that the wall was designed to keep those on the east in.

After all, the people going west to east were military or spies.

They weren't people for the most part trying to escape to East Germany.

In fact, Ronald Reagan, in one of what would turn out to be his second most famous encounter at the Berlin Wall, was walking along it when he was accosted by a massive number of protesters, protesting democracy, protesting the United States.

And Reagan famously quipped to them that by asking them, Do you realize that if you were on the other side of the wall, you would not be allowed to protest?

He made a good point.

But his most famous encounter on the wall was the speech that he gave as he had the platform built as he backed up directly to the wall, and he addressed his speech to Gorbachev, who was the secretary of the Communist Party at the time, and he said, I think foreign minister perhaps.

He said, Minister Gorbachev, if you seek peace, you must tear down this wall.

And I love his connection.

If you seek peace, you must tear down this wall.

President Reagan understood that walls don't produce long-term peace.

They may separate sides that have hostility.

They may put a physical barrier between those that want to harm each other.

They may trap people on one side or the other, but they do not create peace.

That was the point, really, of that whole speech that he gave.

Well, that might be the most famous wall in our Western experience, but it is not the most famous wall in terms of biblical theology.

For that we turn to Ephesians 2, but we see the same concept that the wall doesn't create peace.

For there to be true peace, the wall must come down.

And the wall is described in verse 14.

That Jesus Christ is himself our peace, and he has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall.

There's that phrase, in his flesh the dividing wall.

This is a very complicated verse.

You have to read it many times to try to understand what Paul's conveying here.

There's lots of phrases.

It's unclear how they all connect to each other, but what is obvious is that there is a dividing wall in the world, and that Jesus breaks it down, and he breaks it down in his own body.

The reason it's a confusing verse is because that's a word picture that doesn't make a lot of sense initially.

How do you break down a wall that's visible in your own body?

You can break down a wall by your own body if you hit it hard enough, but he breaks it down in his own body.

And I hope by the end of this morning you'll understand what Paul means by that analogy.

The wall he's referencing is the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles.

There was a physical barrier in the temple court separating the Jews from Gentiles in the temple court.

There was a court of the Gentiles where Gentiles were allowed to go in the temple in Jerusalem.

It was death to a Gentile if he crossed from that into the Jewish court.

This is what Paul was accused of in the book of Acts of bringing Gentile converts with him into the Jewish area.

They sought to put him to death, and Paul, of course, denied that that's what he was doing.

That's not the wall that's referenced in the book of Ephesians.

That wall was still standing when Paul wrote the book of Ephesians, but that wall is emblematic, though, of the wall Paul's talking about.

The wall Paul is describing here, that is broken down by Jesus, is the wall that separates Jews from Gentiles in their relationship to God, in the world.

It's not in the temple, it's what we read about last week in Ephesians 2, 11 through 13.

It's that God made distinctions between Jews and Gentiles so that Jews would not be around Gentiles because Jews called Gentiles unclean, and that Gentiles couldn't access Yahweh because they weren't part of the Jewish people.

That's the wall of separation.

The wall of separation is seen in the Jewish calendar, it's seen in the Jewish clothes, it's seen in the Jewish food, in Jewish bathing, in circumcision.

We looked at last week, a very visible way in the Roman world to differentiate Jew from Gentile.

The Jews were not allowed to, Jewish men didn't cut their hair, they didn't shave their sideburns, so they drew out with the curls on it.

So you could recognize a Jewish man just by seeing how he cut his hair.

The Jews wore different clothes than the Gentiles.

They couldn't wear mixed fabric, so they stood out.

They had a different calendar than the Gentiles.

They wouldn't work from Friday at sundown till Saturday at sundown.

They took that day off.

That's not how the Romans operated.

The Jews wouldn't worship the Roman gods.

They wouldn't eat the Roman food.

Everything in the Jewish world was clean versus unclean.

The Jews ate food that the law described as clean.

They would not touch the food the law described as unclean.

Jews wouldn't go into a Gentile house.

Gentiles couldn't go into a Jewish house.

We talked about this last week.

There's no record of Jesus ever going into a Gentile home.

There was a wall of separation between the two of them.

In fact, this is so much of the Old Testament law, it uses the word holy.

The law created a holy people.

By separating Israel from the world, it made Israel holy.

The word holy means separate, it means distinct.

Well, if you build a wall and everything on this side of it is holy, that means everything on the other side of it is unholy.

And this is the driving factor, the driving force behind the Jews viewing the Gentiles with disdain.

The Gentiles were by definition unholy.

They were not participants in the covenant.

They ate unclean food.

They touched unclean things.

They were unclean.

So much of the Jewish religion was designed to enforce that wall of separation.

This is one of the main functions of the priests.

Priests existed basically to do sacrifices, and when they weren't covered in blood, they were teaching.

And the content of their instruction was about how the Gentiles were unclean.

This is from Ezekiel 44, verse 23.

Ezekiel 44:23

The priest shall teach my people the difference between holy and common.

They will show the Israelites how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.

This was the function of Israelite religion: to divide the whole world between clean and unclean.

And everything Gentile related was unclean.

That was the point of the law.

It separated Israel.

Now this word for the word for wall here in verse 14 is a common word in the Old Testament, and it's a common word in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and it's used to describe the wall that you would build around a vineyard or that you would build around a city to defend it.

But the vineyard use is very, I think, insightful because Israel in the Old Testament is often called a vineyard.

Think of Isaiah chapter 5 for the most famous example of this.

Isaiah 5 · chapter mention

Israel was called a vineyard.

And a vineyard owner, step number one of making a vineyard be profitable, is to build a wall around it.

That keeps enemies out, that keeps wild animals out, it lets you protect it.

It marks a very physical border between what you cultivate on this side and what you're not cultivating.

Let the wild animals run free out there.

They're not allowed in here.

Thieves can eat the food that grows over the fence out there.

Passerbys can eat the food off the vines that grow over the fence, but they cannot eat the food in here.

This belongs to you.

This is your property.

That's the concept of a fence.

It's defensive around the city, it wards off enemies.

God refers to Israel as his own vineyard.

The law is the fence.

It keeps the Gentiles out, it keeps the wild animals of the Gentile world away from the Jews.

It keeps the Jews from being defiled by the Gentiles.

That's the wall.

Now, this inherently creates hostility between the Jews and Gentiles.

That's not to say the law is responsible for the hostility, but the law does create that hostility.

And a good example for this might be Cain and Abel.

Think of it in this term.

God told Cain and Abel that he would only be worshipped through a sacrifice.

Cain refused to bring the sacrifice.

He brought grain instead of an animal.

And so Abel's sacrifice was accepted, Cain's was rejected.

Cain took his anger out on his brother by murdering his brother.

So it's the command of God that one kind of sacrifice is acceptable, the other is not, that in a sense causes that division.

But God does not cause the murder of Abel.

Cain does, because Cain is so offended by the existence of that wall.

The law has that function.

The law separates a Jew from Gentile.

The law is not responsible for the hostility the Jews feel towards the Gentiles or the Gentiles feel back towards the Jews.

The law is good, Psalm 19, verse 7 says.

Psalms 19:7

The law is holy.

In fact, the law was supposed to draw the nations to Israel.

It was supposed to, they were supposed to see how godly Israel was and how holy Israel was and be attracted to that and come and find out about Israel's God and worship Israel's God and even be converted to Judaism.

It never worked that way, of course, though.

You remember?

The only example I can think of, really, is the Queen of Sheba who was drawn to Israel under Solomon's reign, so impressed with what she saw there.

She said, 1 Kings chapter 10, happy are your people, happy is your land, holy is your God, is basically her response.

1 Kings 10 · chapter mention

But then Solomon married a thousand women, and that window closed forever.

The law was supposed to be a magnet.

It was supposed to be a wall.

It was not supposed to be a pedestal.

And that's what the Jews used it for.

The law was supposed to separate holy on the inside, unclean, common on the outside.

But by being on the inside, the Jews climbed up and stood on top of it and looked down at everybody on the outside.

That's how it functions.

We saw this last week.

The Jews had ethnic slurs they used towards the Gentiles.

They called them the uncircumcision, which was even a more graphic term than that.

They spoke evilly of them and wickedly of them.

They thought they were unclean and impure.

I read even a thing a rabbi wrote from a hundred years ago, a German rabbi, who said that if a Jew married another Jew, he would conduct a wedding and have a party for three days in his synagogue.

But if a Jew married a Gentile, he would conduct a funeral service for the Jew.

Even more recently, there was a member of our own congregation who died this summer during COVID.

And he was Jewish.

He was raised Jewish.

He converted to Christ later on in life.

His family wanted him buried in the King David Cemetery, their own uh graveyard, and um, which he would be welcome to be be buried there.

He was Jewish and his extended family was there, and they have a section of the graveyard that's for the Goim for the Gentiles, and they were even going to consider burying him there.

But when the rabbi saw the baptism testimony, which is a video on our church's website of his baptism testimony, he was so put off by that he said, you know, he can he can be buried here, but there will be no scripture.

He can be buried in the Gentile part, but there will be no scripture read at his graveside.

The rabbi would stand there in silence as his body was lowered.

That's the dividing wall right there.

In some people's hearts, it remains to this day that there can be no mingling between Jews and Gentiles.

In this case, even a guy who was a Jew, but he converted to Christ.

Now, why did the law make a wall around Israel?

This is the million-dollar question for understanding this section of scripture.

This is such an important question.

It gets back to the point of the Old Testament.

Why did God design the law to isolate Israel?

And the law did isolate Israel.

It did make them different in the rest of the world.

You have to ask yourself why?

This is the driving narrative in the Old Testament.

Why did God make Israel so different?

And there's two answers to that, both of which are at play here in our section this morning.

The first answer is that Israel is supposed to be separate from the world so that they can produce the line of the Savior.

So the promise that sin enters the world because of Eve's sin, the promise is that the Savior will come to the world through an offspring of Eve.

So any human in that sense could be the Savior, anyone descended from Eve.

Of course, it would be a virgin birth, it would be from the seed of the woman.

Nevertheless, any human being is in the line of Eve.

So that covers everybody.

But then the next promise, Genesis chapter 12, the Savior will come from the line of Abraham.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

So in order to make sure that happens, Israel has to be separated from the other nations of the world.

Otherwise, the ancestry, the line of the Savior, the seed with the promised Savior, could be lost.

It would be diluted in the world.

Then on top of that, there's the promise that the Savior will be not just any Jew, but from the line of Judah.

This is the prophecy given to Judah.

And then on top of that, and so the law separates the tribes, then on top of that, the promise is that the Savior will be from the line of David.

And so the law guards the kingship of Israel.

So that when the Savior is born, this is why Matthew chapter 1 begins with a genealogy.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

It attests that Jesus does descend from Eve, does descend from Abraham, does descend from Judah, does descend from David.

The law made Israel separate from the world to guard the promised seed.

The second function of the law was to show the Israelites that they cannot be saved by law-keeping.

So the law was designed to isolate them.

It gave them rules and restrictions to follow.

It gave them commands to keep, 640 plus commands in the Old Testament.

Regulated every aspect of the Jewish life.

It made them different from the nations, showed them how God wanted them to live.

The point of that for those inside the wall was to teach them that they cannot earn God's favor by keeping the law.

The law was designed to convict them of sin and break them down and show them that they need a savior.

That was the function of the law.

To show them that they cannot earn God's favor by law-keeping.

God's favor is not given through keeping of the law.

Those are the two functions of the law.

Now, if you're a Jew, how do you relate to the law?

Well, many of the Jews loved the law.

They loved it because it demonstrated to them that they were holy while the nations were defiled.

So think of Peter.

Okay, here's Peter who's a godly Jew.

Acts chapter 10, Gentiles are getting saved.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

And the Lord comes to Peter and tells Peter, You gotta go minister to the Gentiles.

And Peter goes somewhat reluctantly, and then the Lord gives a vision to Peter of the sheet with all the food on it, like all the bacon and everything.

And Peter looks at the food and says, No way, God.

I can't eat that.

Alright?

So he sees the food and he says, No, it may never be.

My family went to dinner last night and I got some fried chicken on waffles with a bacon gravy.

A bake.

I went into cardiac arrest just looking at it.

It was like a bacon maple gravy on chicken and waffles.

It was insane.

The waitress brings it out like a sheet coming from heaven.

It descends right in front of me.

And you remember Peter always had this attitude.

Peter, you know, Jesus says, wash my feet, and Peter says, No way will I wash your feet.

Jesus says, Peter says, May it never be, you will not go to the cross.

Jesus says, eat this food, and Peter says, No, I will not.

I'm not eating the bacon gravy.

It's not going to happen.

And Jesus rebukes Peter, if you remember, and says, Don't call unclean what I have called clean.

So the law is being set aside in Jesus Christ, and the Jewish response to that, Peter's response, a godly Jewish response, is no.

Because the whole existence of the law separated the Jews from the Gentiles and showed them that they were holy and those things were not holy.

So how could you tell a Jew to suddenly go eat that food?

It just corrodes their whole identity.

But that's the function of the law.

The law created the division between Jew and Gentile.

It made it like a big wall, and Jews couldn't get out, and Gentiles couldn't get in.

For those outside the wall, it showed them the Savior would be born inside.

For those inside the wall, it showed them that they could not earn God's favor by keeping the law.

That's the function of what is called the dividing wall of hostility.

And it was a wall of hostility.

Now, when Jesus comes, he breaks down this wall.

And let me give you an outline here.

That was a long introduction.

The rest is the uh the sermon.

Okay.

When Jesus comes, he breaks down that wall of hostility.

First, he creates our peace with others in one body.

This is verse 14.

He is our peace by breaking down the dividing wall of hostility in his flesh.

So Jesus does away with this hostility by being our peace.

The Romans had a concept of peace.

The big phrase in the Roman world during this time was the Paxramana.

The Roman government was bringing peace to the world.

They responded to rebellion quickly and swiftly by bringing a world peace.

And Paul here says the Paxramana is not the real Pax.

The Roman peace is not the real peace.

Jesus is our peace, and he is peace between Jew and Gentile by breaking down the dividing wall of hostility in his flesh.

Now he breaks it down in his flesh again in two ways.

The same two functions of the law.

He fulfills them both in his body.

The first function, remember, to separate the promised seed of the Savior so that he would be born to the Jews.

So he would be, the point of the wall is to make sure the seed is born inside.

The Savior is born inside the wall.

So when he's born, the wall is no longer necessary.

It's broken down by the birth of Christ.

By being born, he negates the power of the wall.

He fulfills it because he's now born on the earth.

The seed has come.

You don't need a wall to ensure his birth once he's born.

Do you follow that?

So he breaks down the wall by being born, fulfilling the promised seed.

It's no longer required.

It's no longer required.

That's the first point.

I stayed at a hotel recently and had the uh the sticker on the door, the sticker that made like an L shape on the door to show this room is COVID clean.

You know, they cleaned it with the hazmat suit or whatever, and they put a sticker on the door.

You open the door and the sticker breaks.

So now you can tell I'm the first person who's entered the room since it was COVID cleaned, the sticker is.

Now broken.

I don't need to ask them for another sticker because I have entered the room now.

The point of the sticker was to close the room off until I entered.

Me entering negates the purpose of the sticker.

The wall was designed to seal Israel off until the Savior was born.

Once he arrives, the purpose of the law is fulfilled.

The second function of the law was to show those that were inside the wall that they cannot earn God's favor by law-keeping.

So Jesus lives a sinless life and fulfills the law.

He obeys everything the law requires.

He fulfills, as John the Baptist says, as Jesus tells John the Baptist, he fulfills all righteousness.

Every command that is given in the law, he does, and he does perfectly, thereby fulfilling the law.

The Jews realize they can't earn God's favor through lawkeeping because Jesus has done it.

So the two functions of the law are both fulfilled in the birth of Christ and in the life of Christ.

So that in the death of Christ, the law is completed.

It is done with.

It becomes obsolete, is the language Paul uses.

It becomes broken down.

Look at verse 15.

He does this in his body by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in the ordinances.

This is talking about the Mosaic law.

He abolishes the Mosaic law because he has fulfilled it.

Peter says, I will never eat that food.

I will never eat that food.

No, no, no.

And Jesus tells him, I have fulfilled that law.

I have made that food clean.

You are no longer have to be separated from the Gentile nations in that way.

You no longer demonstrate holiness by keeping the law.

I have fulfilled it, Peter.

I have fulfilled it.

This is what Romans 10, verse 4 means when it says, For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Romans 10:4

Christ fulfills the law.

He ends it, is the language of Romans 10.

It is over.

He ends it.

For all who believe.

You have righteousness.

The law was given for righteousness.

You have a righteousness that comes through faith in Christ.

You do not need the law for righteousness.

And I asked earlier, how do you think the Jews would respond to this?

Well, many Jews would be distraught, like Peter was.

How can you take away what's so significant?

But if you were a Jew that was burdened by the law, that felt weighed down by trying to keep the law, wouldn't you rejoice at this?

That the burden of the law has been removed?

And this is what Jesus had in mind in Luke 19, when he's standing over the hill looking over Jerusalem, weeping over them, and he says, How often I would have gathered you together, but you wouldn't listen.

And then he says, Would that you, even you, speaking to Jerusalem, had known on this day the things that make for peace.

Oh, if only the Jews would have known that by abolishing the law there would be peace.

By breaking down the wall, there would be peace.

But they didn't know that.

That was truth, it was hidden from them.

It was hidden from them.

Now, if you go back to Ephesians 2, verse 15, it says, by abolishing the law of commandments.

Ephesians 2:15

I mean, that is that is a hard phrase right there.

It's not one we'd be comfortable saying.

It's not one I'm comfortable saying.

I don't normally say, you know, Jesus abolished the Old Testament law.

He abolished the commandments in the Torah.

If I heard somebody else say that, I would probably say, ooh, be more careful with your words.

Like, well, it's the language in Ephesians 2.15.

Oh.

I guess it's the Bible, so it's true.

And as I said, Paul elsewhere says he's made the law obsolete.

But he has accomplished it.

So it no longer has power over people.

And I tell you this, I want to make very clear to you that you understand the Old Testament law, speaking here specifically of the commands given in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, that's the Mosaic law.

That you are not under those commands.

You're not required to keep those commands.

God doesn't, first of all, if you're a Gentile, if you're not Jewish, you're obviously not under it.

It was never given to you.

But even for a Jewish person who's come to faith in Christ, you're not under the law.

It has no power over you.

You're not expected to keep it or follow it.

It's not binding on you.

You're freed from it.

It has been abolished.

It has been abolished.

You should still read.

As a believer, as a Christian, you should still read those books of the Bible.

Still read Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy.

Read them.

Don't read them to try to figure out how you're supposed to live your life, though.

Don't read them going, oh, which of these can I follow and which of these can I can't?

No, don't.

You read them to learn about God's character.

You read them to see how God responds to people when they disobey.

You read them to learn about sin.

And you know, every one of those commands you read, understand people invented very incredible ways to break those commands.

You see the wisdom of God and how to rule his people, and you see the sinfulness of man and how they rebel against them.

You see the grace and mercy of God and how he responds to that.

You see the justice of God and how he responds to it.

You learn a lot about the way what God deals with people.

You learn a lot about the way God deals with unbelief, the way God deals with sexual immorality, the way God's holiness is revealed, the way God interacts with sinners.

Those are all great things to learn as you study the law.

But it is not for you to study the law and say, so this is then what I should do and keep.

I want to make sure you understand that.

There are many Christians that try to divide the law up into thirds.

Maybe you've heard this.

They say one-third of the law is moral, commands like don't murder, don't commit adultery, and you still have to keep those.

One-third of the law is civil, which is commands about, you know, taxation and the tribe of the Levites and the cities of refuge, and those are just how Israel ran its country.

And one third of the law is ceremonial, law is about food and sacrifices.

And the people that teach that say two-thirds of the law, civil and ceremonial, fulfilled in Christ, you don't have to follow that.

One third moral, you do have to follow that one-third that's moral.

There's problems with viewing the law that way, though.

Namely, that's not what the Bible teaches about it.

The Bible never presents the law as divided up into thirds.

I mean, who would decide which law goes into which category?

I mean, let's take the Sabbath law, for example.

The fourth commandment.

All right, so let's choose one of the ten commandments.

I choose the fourth commandment, the Sabbath law.

Is that binding on believers?

Are you from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night?

Are you allowed to leave your home?

Are you allowed to work?

Of course.

Many of you do.

Are you in violation of the fourth commandment?

No.

You're not.

So would you say, well, that's one of the ten commandments, but that's that's a civil one, or perhaps even ceremonial, pointing towards your Sabbath in Christ.

Okay.

Why do you put it there and not as a moral command?

The Jews would definitely say it was moral.

They confronted Jesus and said, Why do you and your disciples pluck grain on the Sabbath?

Jesus didn't say, Well, because you can divide the law up into thirds.

Do you know the first death penalty case in the Old Testament was for Sabbath violation?

They caught somebody gathering firewood on a Saturday and brought them to Jesus and said, What do we do?

Brought them to Moses and said, What do we do with them?

And Moses did not say, let he use out sin and cast the first stone.

Moses prayed to God and God said, put him to death.

I mean, the Sabbath was very much a moral command.

Honor your father and your mother so it goes well with you in the land.

And where do you start dividing this?

Tattoos.

Don't put marks in your body.

Is that ceremonial or is that moral?

You say it's ceremonial, it's expired, I can get a tattoo.

Your parents say no, it's moral, never get a tattoo.

Who decides which category that goes in?

Better to say the whole law is a unit.

It stands together, and Jesus fulfills all of it, has made all of it obsolete, and has abolished all of the law expressed in ordinances.

All of it.

He's abolished.

And that doesn't mean you're allowed to murder and commit adultery and lie, because believers are under a different law, the law of Christ.

There are overlaps between the law of Christ and the law of Moses, of course, because it reflects the character of God, both of them.

So you would expect to find overlaps.

Nevertheless, believers are under the law of Christ.

And Jesus tells you to forget and don't murder.

Don't hate your brother.

Murder flows from that.

Don't even hate.

Jesus says, don't commit adultery.

Also don't look at a person with lust in your heart.

Don't.

You know what?

Drunkenness.

Don't be drunk with wine.

Ephesians 5, 18.

There are so many moral principles that are taught to believers.

And the law of Christ is so different than the law of Moses, because the law of Christ builds us up.

There's grace involved in it.

There's heart examination in it.

It's just in many ways fundamentally different because we were empowered by the Spirit to live it out.

Anyway, all that's to say, verse 15, when it says abolish the law of commandments, expressed and ordinances, means Jesus broke down the law by fulfilling it.

He abolished it, he broke a hole in it, he opened it up, and in its place, he makes, it says in verse 15, a new man.

He makes a brand new person.

The wall used to have Jews and Gentiles.

Jesus obliterates the wall and makes a new group of people called the church, which is his own body.

He fulfills the law in his own body.

And remember how he does it in his own body.

He fulfills the law in his own body by being born as the seed.

Just his birth.

His body, the existence of his body, breaks the wall down.

And then he fulfills the law a second way by actually living it out in the flesh.

He lives out the law in his flesh.

So it's literally his body that fulfills and then breaks and abolishes the law.

And in its place, he combines believers from both Jews and Gentiles and makes a new body.

So yes, there's still Jews in the world, yes, there's still Gentiles in the world, and there's a new group.

A new man, it says.

A new body, it says.

One new man in the place of the two.

And this is how he makes peace.

By bringing the two groups together, by bringing some people together from both sides.

He does this by making the law inoperative.

The law no longer creates division in the church.

It's become inoperative.

I remember watching a cartoon that my girls were watching, and there was a bunch of robot-like creatures attacking the hero, okay?

So robot, I think there were even dogs, robot dogs attacking the hero.

And the hero has a wingman that was trying to get into the computer to shut off the computer that was controlling all the robot dogs.

You got that visualized?

And when the wingman hits the kill switch, all the robot dogs turn off.

Robot dogs sleep, right there, is what that was.

And the hero lives.

This is what the law has done.

The law used to be the robot dogs that were after you, and the the power behind them has been turned off.

They've been put to sleep.

The power of the law is over.

It has no power over you.

It's not binding, it's been powered down.

It's been made inoperative.

He deactivated it.

This is why Paul can say, 1 Corinthians 9 21, to those outside the law, I became as one outside the law.

Paul says, I want to go minister to Gentiles.

I step outside of the Torah to live like one outside the Torah as I interact with them.

Not with sin, of course.

That means there's no more Jew-Gentile distinction in the church.

We don't have the Jewish wing and the Gentile wing.

We don't have that.

It's a new body, a new person.

Galatians 6.15, a huge verse when you start thinking of it in these terms.

Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision.

That would blow a Jewish person's mind right out of their head.

That you have a Pharisee here saying circumcision doesn't mean anything in the church.

It's over.

It's over.

It means nothing anymore.

It's a new, Paul says to Galatians 6.15, it's a new creation.

He made a new person by making inoperative the wall that made the old identity.

He negates the hostility between the two sides by making a new person that draws both sides.

He's not saying when Gentiles become Christians, he's not saying they could become Jews.

Like what happened in the Old Testament.

Ruth believes in Yahweh, she becomes a Jew for all practical purposes.

He's not saying they become this category of God fears.

In Acts chapter 10, you meet a group of people that believed in Yahweh, believed in the Torah, but were not circumcised and were not assimilated into Israel.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Acts 10, verse 2 calls them God fearers.

Acts 10:2

That's not what Christians are.

They're not God fearers in that sense.

It's a new body that didn't exist before.

It's brand new.

Brand new.

Let me give you a sports illustration.

There used to be a soccer team that I played on, and we had our rival team.

Players hate each other.

This is when I was in high school.

Players hate each other.

Teams play against each other for several years.

We don't like each other.

Our senior year in high school, the coach of one team moves away.

So there's a new coach that comes in, and he makes a new team by taking players from both teams and makes a new team.

We get new colors, we get a new name, we get a new field, we get new everything about us is new.

It's players from both teams.

The rivalry is over at that point.

The rivalry is over.

Those other two teams may still exist, they may go on and play each other somewhere else, but the rivalry is dead, and there's been a new team made out of them.

That's a very poor illustration, but it's the best one I got.

I mean, that's what happens in the church.

That there are players taken from both teams, so to speak, and a new team is made.

We're not added to the Jewish people, the Jews who come to faith aren't added to the Gentile people.

It's a brand new person.

And because of that, of course, there's going to be peace in the church because the rivalry is dead.

It's over.

This is Romans 7, verse 4.

Romans 7:4

That says, He has made, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ.

Do you see the same language here?

You died to the law.

Don't try to keep it.

You died to it through the body of Christ, that same image who's fulfilled it, so that you belong to another.

That's the new person.

To him specifically, who's been raised from the dead, in order that we might bear the fruit of God.

So by being part of this other body, we're part of the body of Christ that was raised from the dead.

This is why the church is called the body of Christ.

We're adopted into him.

So he by his own body breaks down the wall.

We, by virtue of faith in Christ, are reconciled to each other in the church.

The church becomes his body.

Do you recognize how this makes peace with one another?

This makes peace with each other.

When we come to faith in Christ, we're now reconciled with each other because we're part of one body.

Well, that's the first point here.

Let me take you to the second point.

The second point is that he is our peace with God through the cross.

He is also our peace with God through the cross.

Horizontal is not the only dynamic of peace here.

There is peace between each other in the church, but there will also be peace with God through Christ.

This is verse 16.

He might reconcile us both to God in one body, both being Jew and Gentile, to God in one body, being the church, through the cross.

This is the story of the Bible that people are not just hostile towards each other, they're hostile towards God.

The very first encounter of God with sinners is emblematic of this.

Adam and Eve sin, and what does a sinner do when they sin?

They hide from God, they run from God, they get away from God.

What does God do when sinners sin?

He comes after them to curse them.

That's why Adam was being sought by God.

He was going to give him a curse.

Eve was being sought by God because she was going to receive a curse.

That's Genesis 3.

So sinner sin, they hide.

Sinners sin, God comes to curse.

And you see this time and time again.

The world is covered in violence in the days of Noah.

God sends his word to call sinners to repentance, and then he sends his reign to judge the earth.

God sends his prophets through the Old Testament.

He sends his word calling people to repent, and when they don't repent, he sends the curses.

That's part of the Mosaic covenant.

That when you don't keep it, God sends you a curse.

God curses people that are sinners, and sinners run from God.

They hide from God.

This is John chapter 3 that those who are in the darkness hate the light because they don't want their deeds exposed.

John 3 · chapter mention

They run from the light and they hide in the darkness.

God is after sinners because sinners are enmity with Him.

God is holy and He will judge them.

He judges them in this life with the curses they experience in this life, and He judges them in the next life with hell.

The wages of sin is death, and those wages are eternal.

The result of the person who sins is that they will die in this life and they will be cast into the fires of hell forever.

That's because they've made God their enemy.

However, God can make peace with his enemies, and he does that through the person of Christ on the cross.

Jesus, by dying on the tree, the scripture says, cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree, Jesus by dying in a cursed way, takes the curse that sinners have on his own body.

Jesus, by fulfilling the law, takes the curse the Jews had for their failure to keep the law on his own body.

He becomes the curse for us.

He becomes sin for us.

So when God pours out his wrath that we deserve, he pours it out on his son, on Jesus Christ from the cross, who is cursed in our place.

Thereby it says in verse 16, killing the hostility.

Remember I told you verses 11 through 16 are filled with these kind of puns, these wordplays.

Here's another one at the end of verse 16.

He kills the hostility by nailing it to the cross.

You could render it this way: He murders murder.

He abolishes the abolishing power.

He crucifies hatred.

I mean, that's the image here.

It says he kills the hostility, but it's like he ends violence with violence.

He takes the hatred and nails it to the cross.

He takes the hostility between God and man and kills it.

He murders murder by nailing it to the cross in his own body.

Reconciliation is a common theme in the Bible, and you always see it through the cross of Christ.

Romans 5, verse 10.

Romans 5:10

Well, we were enemies, God reconciled us by the death of his son.

It's by reconciliation to God through faith in Jesus Christ that we have peace with God.

That's the vertical aspect.

But because we have peace with God vertically, we will have peace with others horizontally.

Notice that the cross connects your relationship with God, enables your reconciliation with others.

Of course, people in the world have hostility towards each other because they haven't been reconciled to God.

You can't pursue reconciliation with people in this world apart from reconciliation to God through Christ.

That's the point of this.

The two are together, but in the church, the two are together.

The cross does connect, it is nailed together in the middle.

And hostility has been killed at the cross of Christ.

There's very practical applications of this.

Let me give you two obvious ones.

First is racial animosity, racism.

There should obviously be no racial animosity or racism in the church.

Should have no place in the church.

Preferring one ethnicity over another is a form of pride.

People that elevate one ethnicity over another, it's always their own ethnicity.

Have you noticed that?

People love their own ethnicity over others.

That's like loving the mirror.

You know that?

You love the mirror.

You like people that look like you over people who look like others, you're in love with the mirror, my friend.

And what kind of person loves the mirror?

Someone who's not in love with who's not in love with Jesus, someone who's not aware of their own sin loves the mirror.

When you're aware of your own sin, you look in the mirror and you see the person that crucified Christ.

You don't see an ethnic group to be elevated.

However, the world is filled with those that elevate their own ethnic group, that elevate their own culture above others.

That's racial animosity, ethnic prejudice, and pride, and that is a sin.

And it should have no place in the church because the horizontal beam of the cross reconciles warring parties to each other through faith in Christ.

Your faith in Christ has to be stronger than your ethnic preferences.

Your ethnic preferences end up being nailed to the cross also.

You can't bicker about culture and ethnicity if you're at the foot of the cross, in other words.

My family got to visit the White House this week.

What a great week to visit the White House, too.

There were so many checkpoints to get in.

So many checkpoints.

And they asked us our birth date at all of them.

Our girls, even the youngest, had to learn her birth date, and the first guy asks, What year?

Like, oh, we didn't work on the year.

And the next guy asks, How old are you?

That's an easier question, right there.

Make him do the math.

That's what he's paid for.

By the time we get inside, though, we've gone through so many checkpoints.

There's more freedom.

There's more freedom inside to move around because everybody has been cleared, that's there is the idea.

You've made it in there, you're cleared.

You're good to go.

I want you to picture the foot of the cross like that.

Everybody who's gathered around the foot of the cross has been cleared to be there.

Everyone who's drawn together in the church has been cleared to be there.

And the way you're cleared to be there is not by memorizing your birth date.

The way you're cleared to be there is by recognizing, confessing that it is your sin that crucified Jesus.

It's your sin that put him on the cross, that he died for you.

So now you've got a group of people around the foot of the cross.

The only people who are there are those that confess their own sins, that know that they are guilty.

So how can they have division towards each other?

How can they?

How can they say, but your culture, your ethnic group, or your racial group is worse than mine?

No, the only people who are there are responsible for crucifying Jesus.

It's level ground through our own sin.

That's one very practical application.

That's why we can be reconciled horizontally if we are first reconciled vertically.

Second very obvious application for this is in marriage.

In marriage.

Couples that are having a difficult marriage, that think about separating or divorcing, that refuse to be reconciled, are living without being reconciled to God.

If you're reconciled to God, you should have a horizontal reconciliation.

It makes no sense for two believers to say they're going to divorce, or two believers to say they're going to separate because they're in a very difficult marriage, difficult or dysfunctional marriage, so we have to separate.

How can that be?

If you are reconciled to God, you should be able to be reconciled to others.

I'll tell you this: this is not the most politically correct thing to say, but a Christian couple that pursues divorce or pursues separation is committing the same sin of racism, the same root sin that is behind racism.

You wouldn't say it like that, but you are.

You're saying there's another person in this world, the person that knows me the best, coincidentally, that refuses to be reconciled to me and me to them.

The gospel's not strong enough to bring us together.

We're too much apart.

I hate that person, or that person hates me too much for the gospel to reconcile us.

It can't be done.

I mean, the cross did a lot, but it can't bring me together with that person.

Do you recognize how that's the same sin behind racism?

That those people are less than or they are wicked or they're evil or they're whatever word you want to use to justify it.

Only you're directing it at somebody who knows you well and who lives with you.

If you're reconciled to God, you should be able to be reconciled to others too.

I mean, you should never counsel another believer.

This is a lesson for those who are counseling other believers to separate or divorce.

You should never counsel another Christian to separate from their spouse or to divorce their spouse.

Because you're counseling them and saying, hey, I'm sorry, the cross just isn't good enough for this.

The cross is a lot, but your marriage is really messed up.

No.

Let no root of bitterness spring up and rob you of your joy in Christ.

Consider yourself less significant than the glory of reconciliation that comes to the cross of Christ.

Obviously, marriage situations are difficult and hard because the people know you better than other people.

It's easy to be reconciled to people that don't know you.

Harder when the people know you.

But it is worth pursuing because if the cross connects in the middle, it connects in all directions.

It connects in all directions.

It's no coincidence.

The Bible allows divorce under the circumstance of a non-believer who won't live with you anymore.

Because then there's no sense in reconciling.

The non-believer wants out, let him go.

Because he's not reconciled to Christ.

How could he be reconciled to you?

But in Christ, there should always be reconciliation.

And that reconciliation comes through the one body, the church, Jesus Christ, who is nailed to the cross, who broke down the division between Jew and Gentile.

When you say you won't be reconciled to somebody else, you're putting another hole in the body of Christ.

Don't put a hole in the body of Christ that God didn't put there.

He put the right amount.

All human love of reconciliation only comes out of having the peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding.

Lord, we're thankful that you have given us this peace through the death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.

It's through his glorious resurrection that we have the hope of a new day, that we have peace with you, and so we pray that you would help us live out peace with others.

We know there is sin in the world, there is conflict and strife in the world, and so we pray that you would motivate us to pursue peace as much as we are able in light of the peace we have first with you.

I pray for anyone here today who doesn't know you, who has never given their life to you.

I pray today that they would be convicted of their sin.

They would see the peace that comes through having a relationship with you, and they would see your body on the tree cursed for them and their sin.

They would repent and put their faith in you.

I know this is a work only you can do, and I pray that you would do it even this morning in the hearts of some that are here.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.