Jews and Gentiles are united into one church
Paul doesn’t dredge up these old memories to hurt the Ephesians but to help them, not to pull them down but to build them up. He wants them to make a comparison. Formerly they were without hope and without God in the world, but all that has changed.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
Formerly they were “separate from Christ,” but now they are “in Christ Jesus.” Formerly they were “far away” from the covenant and God’s promised salvation, but now they “have been brought near.”
Note that the verb in the last sentence is passive. The Gentiles did not do anything on their own to approach God. They “were brought” near. It was all God’s doing—and it cost him a tremendous price. That change could come about only “through the blood of Christ.” “In Christ” the Gentiles, formerly outsiders, now have been brought into God’s church. Hence, a whole new age has dawned. Again, Paul does not use the term New Testament, but that is really what he is talking about.
In the next paragraph the apostle enlarges on this world-changing event by dividing it into three component parts. His thought progression can perhaps best be sketched with three sets of questions and answers:
1. How did God accomplish the change from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
Answer: by sending Christ, thereby destroying the dividing wall of hostility (verses 14,15a).
2. Why did God do it?
Answer: to create one new man out of the two (verses 15b,16).
3. What are the results of God’s work in Christ?
Answer: peace between Jew and Gentile, with free access to the Father for both (verses 17,18).
How did God accomplish the change from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.
When Paul here speaks of the “law,” it is important to recognize what he’s referring to. God gave Israel a threefold law: civil, ceremonial, and moral. The moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, expresses God’s holy and unchangeable will for all people of all time. As such, it was not only binding on Israel but also on the Gentiles. It was wrong for both to worship idols, kill, steal, or covet.
However, the civil law (dealing with God’s governance of Israel) and the ceremonial laws (such as dietary prescriptions for clean and unclean food) were restrictions binding only on Israel. For example, Gentiles were not forbidden to eat pork.
The purpose of these civil and ceremonial laws, unique to Israel, was to keep Israel a separate nation. The many carefully spelled out regulations were to hedge and protect Israel from heathen influence until the promised Messiah was born.
These rules and regulations, so useful for keeping Jews and Gentiles apart, also bred a great deal of ill will and hatred between the two groups. Thus the civil and ceremonial laws became a “dividing wall of hostility.”
The need to keep Israel a separate nation ended when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The civil and ceremonial laws had fulfilled their purpose. When Jesus on the cross declared, “It is finished,” he was speaking of the completion of our salvation, but his words also marked the end of the Old Testament and its rules and regulations. “In his flesh” Christ on the cross abolished “the law with its commandments and regulation.