Jews and Gentiles are united into one church.
Paul's points, in short:
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).
Why did God do it?
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
Christ’s cross put an end to the binding force of the Old Testament civil and ceremonial laws, thus removing the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile. The removal of this dividing wall between these two groups of people was only part of Christ’s work, however. The real problem was not between Jew and Gentile but between both groups of people and God. Consequently, the far greater accomplishment of Christ’s cross was that his blood paid for the sins of the whole world. Christ’s perfect life and innocent death earned the merit that avails before God. It secured the sinner’s release from the guilt of his sins.
Paul calls his readers’ attention to the fact that when God reconciled both Jews and Gentiles to himself, he also laid the foundation for their reconciliation to each other. That reconciliation also was in Christ’s heart and mind, for “his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two.” Out of the “two,” that is, Jew and Gentile, Christ purposed to create “one man,” that is, one organic unit, the holy Christian church. This Christian church is a new creation, a thought that will engage Paul at some length later in this letter.