“New Life Corporately,” Ephesians 2:11-22
Outline
I. Introduction
II. Transition
a. CIT / CIS: The Church is one in Christ.
III. Exposition
a. (v.11-13) No racial boundaries in the Body of Christ.
i. No longer Jew or Gentile.
ii. Racial reconciliation then and now.
1. Biblical ideal and cultural reality.
b. (v.14-15a) Christ alone is the remedy for hostile humanity.
i. Man’s methods fail because they are inherently flawed.
1. Based on man’s wisdom. Based on man’s measurement of sin and success. Based on man’s ability.
ii. Extends beyond racial boundaries. Christ is our peace.
1. Christ alone is the head of the Church.
c. (v.15b-17) Christ’s purpose.
i. To create a people unified in Himself.
ii. To destroy hostility at the Cross.
1. "I've found the paradox: If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” (Mother Teresa)
2. The Cross is the prescriptive formula for new life.
a. Its revolting beauty is our mandate and victory.
b. Its power is to tear down the walls.
iii. To create a people whose central ideal is the glory of God.
d. (V.18-22) The Church has new life corporately.
i. The Church is God’s household.
ii. The Church is built on a foundation of truth.
1. I don’t have room in my relationship for a religion.
2. I don’t have room for religious games.
iii. The Church is the Temple of God. (Acts 17:25)
IV. Conclusion
“New Life Corporately,” Ephesians 2:11-22
Introduction
E.Y. Mullins recounts the following. He says, “I teach students for the ministry. Some of them grow impatient in their preparation, and I have often said to them: When God builds a tree, it takes Him about three generations, but when He builds a squash, it takes Him about three weeks. A man can choose which He will be—a tree or a squash. We misjudge children, we misjudge church members, we misjudge the church itself, when we forget that the Christian life is progressively realized, that it comes slowly. I once saw in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, Massachusetts, the restored ribs and keel of an old ship that was dug up from the sands of Cape Cod. They were worm-eaten and moldy. As I gazed upon them I reflected that when the ship was built, hundreds of years ago, these ribs and this keel were in the same position. Then, however, it was a prophecy of a ship that was to be. When I saw it, it was a reminiscence of a ship that had been. The imperfect Christian is a prophecy, not a reminiscence. The imperfect church is a prophecy of the glorious church that is to be, not a reminiscence.”
Transition
The Church, though it is imperfect, is nonetheless of the highest importance in the plan of God. The message of this text is plain. We have new life corporately. Through the Cross, in the Church, God has crushed the dividing lines of ethnicity.
Through the Cross, in the Church, God has gathered for Himself a people called the Church, the Body of Christ, to live in unity with one another to His glory through the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the sacrifice of His Son.
God’s plan is to reestablish universal unity within and with His creation. His primary instrument to that end is the Christian Church.
CIT / CIS: The Church is one in Christ.
Exposition
(v.11-13) An immediate and obvious aspect of this text is that there are no racial or ethnic boundaries in the Body of Christ. That is, this is true at least according to God’s perfect will and plan for the Church.
Of course, we know that there is a significant distinction between principal and practice in this regard. There is no longer a distinction in God’s economy of salvation between Jew and Gentile. God’s plan to bring salvation through Israel has come into full realization.
We see Messiah now revealed as savoir, not only of Israel, but to the Nations. The full impact of this is in its historical context is probably largely lost on us today. Even righteous gentiles who converted to worship Yahweh, the One True God, were not allowed to worship in the inner courts of the Temple.
In fact, there was a wall separating the outer courts from the inner courts that stood 4 ½ feet tall which served as a dividing wall for Gentile worshipers or those Gentiles who had traveled simply to marvel at the great Temple, as it was something of a tourist attraction of the ancient Mediterranean for its grandeur.
The Nation of Israel was the chosen people of God. He had delivered them from Pharaoh, from the Babylonians. The orthodox people of Israel saw and see to this day if they are not in Christ, a radical distinction between them and Gentiles.
“The Jewish historian Josephus informs us that thirteen stone slabs written in Greek and Latin stood at intervals on the barrier, warning Gentiles not to enter.”
While the dividing line and barriers between Jew and Gentile of the ancient world may be somewhat difficult for us to get it given the distance between now and the historical context of the Bible, barriers between race, social status, denominations, and more remain with us today.
Ever since the Tower of Babel mankind has highlighted the differences between the so-called races of men. However, there has never been a biblical precedent for racial superiority or any other pride based, pride laden way of relating to one another and to God.
We, the Church, live in the dichotomy between the biblical ideal and our own cultural reality. If we would be honest, we must admit that the Church in general has done a very poor job of putting the reality of this basic idea of this text into practice. There is no more segregated hour in America than the worship hour.
The reality of the culture of the Body of Christ is not very consistent with the message of reconciliation of people in and through Christ.
“Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:25-29 NIV84)
The writer of the Interpreter’s Bible, commenting on this passage of Scripture half a century ago and his words nearly as pertinent today as then, says that “Christian culture has to confess that it has not solved completely the problem of racial unity in its common life… Mere legal equality will not remove the fundamental fact of creation. Short of brotherhood in Christ across the walls of still recognized, and even gladly accepted, difference, no solution will endure the test of time. No apologies for Christianity, however, are valid if they remove the sting of conscience in our hearts for our sins of disunity.”
(v.14-15a) Christ alone is the remedy for hostile humanity. We fail to create or maintain unity because we rely on our own methods. Man’s methods fail because they are inherently flawed. Better educated men are better educated sinners. There is no lasting compassion apart from the love of Christ.
Man’s methods are based on man’s wisdom. Man’s methods of social change are based on man’s measurement of sin which is rooted in a belief that he is basically good and no a sinner. Only in the Church and in Christ can hostility be ultimately put down between races of men, classes of men, and all other lines of division.
Christ is our peace. The truth of the Scripture and our experience of this broken world is that “In God alone can man meet man.”
Only through mutual submission to Christ as the head of humanity can the races, classes, sexes, marriage partners and denominated classes of man be united. Only on the premise of the shed blood of Christ, for all of humanity, can reconciliation of any type become a present and permanent reality.
Christ alone is the head of the Church. Christ alone is the head of man. Society fails to reconcile men because it does not have the power to do so.
(v.15b-17) Christ’s purpose is to create a people unified in Himself. Jesus came to destroy hostility at the Cross. This is truth in paradox. Mother Teresa once wrote, "I've found the paradox: If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” When we come to the end of pain only love can continue. When we come to the end of reason only faith has the power to move us beyond ourselves.
The Cross is the prescriptive formula for new life. Its revolting beauty is our mandate and victory. Its power is to tear down the walls that we build up. The Cross is at the same time the emblem of vile shame and glorious beauty.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5 NIV84) The Cross is not a part of Christianity. The message of the Cross is ultimately the message at the core of the center of our way.
(V.18-22) The Church has new life corporately because Jesus laid down His life individually. The Church is God’s household, built on a foundation of truth.
I don’t have room in my relationship with for a religion to get in the way.
Neither do I have room in my relationship with rest of the body of Christ, of which I am a part, for division, distrust, or disdain to get in the way of my relationship to the rest of the body of which I am a part and that I love.
I don’t know about you, how you feel, but I don’t have room in my life for religious games.
The Church is of utmost and central importance in my life and in the life of my family. The Church, however imperfect she may be, is central to the heart of God and His plan for this world.
It is as foolish for a Christian to claim love for God and yet to deny the importance of the Church and the gathering of the saints, as it is for a husband and father to claim love for his wife and children and yet live in another state, forget the names of his children, and live another life.
The Church is the Temple of God but not in the conventional sense. (Acts 17:25) We are the dwelling place collectively as God dwells in each of us individually.
Conclusion
Christianity is not a lone ranger religion. It is shared. We are attached to one another. Consider Church history. When under persecution, early Congregational Christians in early 17th century England fled jointly to Holland escape persecution for their belief that Christ alone was the head of His Church. Many of these same individuals would later flee to America as the group we know as the Pilgrims.
The early restoration movement in America, sparked by James O’Kelly in the late 18th century, of which Cypress Chapel played an important role, was a movement which similarly recognized two basic principals – the unity of believers in the local Church and the autonomy of the local church under the headship of Christ alone.
Christians from the very beginning have understood the unity of the Church and the headship of Christ alone for His Church. From time to time church leaders and laity have had to remind the Body of Christ of the need for top down thinking.
That is, that Christ is the head and we are the members of the His Body.
We tend to think individualistically. I, we, make up the Body of Christ. That’s true. But it’s entirely more accurate to say that Christ is the head the Church and each one of us are integral parts of His Body. I don’t join in. I am woven in!
I don’t come alongside the Church and support her mission. I am an integral, vital, organ, tissue, sinew, without which the Body would not function properly and eventually break down and fall apart. Amen.
