Whenever we hear that another shooter has killed people or another driver has driven his car into a crowd or another group of people has attacked another group of people or another marriage is falling apart or another friendship is on the rocks, we can begin to feel anxious. Anxiety is a lack of peace.
The Apostle Paul addresses this issue of peace in Ephesians 2:14 – 18…
For 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. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
The key theme in this passage is peace. In the message of the gospel, the cross of Christ provides vertical peace between God and us and creates horizontal peace between believers.
Paul uses the word peace four times in our text and all of his phrases in this passage are either synonymous or contrasting ways of describing peace. Paul uses all this language and all these words to paint the picture of peace so we can grasp the gravity of what the gospel of peace is and does.
1. Where does true peace come from?
The Ephesian church was facing storms on various different levels. Scholars comment that the Ephesian church was a ragtag bunch of people from various different social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. It was a melting pot of different values, different experiences and different deeply held belief systems.
The Jews were Jewish in ethnicity and were staunch in their deeply held conservative religious practices. The Gentiles were a mixed bunch of ethnicities and were accustomed to what might be called a more liberal set of religious values. This was a recipe for all out war among people. Think about Barack Obama and Donald Trump worshiping in the same church!
Whenever we hear that another shooter has killed people or another driver has driven his car into a crowd or another group of people has attacked another group of people or another marriage is falling apart or another friendship is on the rocks, we can begin to feel anxious. Anxiety is a lack of peace.
When we feel this lack of peace we can easily begin to ask where authentic peace comes from. Paul says that Jesus himself is our peace. Jesus is the embodiment of peace. He is the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the one who gives us peace that surpasses our understanding. Authentic peace comes from Jesus because he is peace.
2. What is the effect of experiencing true peace?
When you and I begin to follow Jesus he gives us true peace between one another. This is one of the effects of experiencing true peace. This is why Paul says that Jesus has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. Christ’s work at the cross removes ethnic, religious and relational hostility.
The dividing wall of hostility that Christ broke down in his flesh on the cross was the law of commandments that was expressed in ordinances. Ordinances are man-made practices or laws. In the Jewish temple the dividing wall of hostility was an actual man-made wall that divided Jewish worshipers from Gentile worshipers. They were segregated and separated.
There was a front room for so-called privileged people and a back room for so-called second-rate people. No Gentile worshiper was allowed into the special place of the worshiping Jews. The Jews were supposedly privileged and the Gentiles were not. But Jesus destroyed all of this when he died on the cross to unite people together through the gospel of peace.
The gospel of Jesus unites us together in peace and harmony. That person sitting across the room from you today is there because the gospel of peace unites us. Those people in that church across town that look and act and worship differently than us are part of us and are united to us in the gospel of peace.
The person you think will never cross the doorstep of this church may be here in a year because of the gospel of peace. The effect of experiencing true peace in the person and the work of Jesus Christ is unity because Jesus broke down the dividing wall of hostility that divides us.
3. How are people united in the gospel of peace?
It’s not just that Christ’s work at the cross unites people from different backgrounds it actually has creative power. Unity is not something that can be contrived it must created and it must be created by someone who isn’t broken. And that unbroken person is Jesus.
The gospel doesn’t just draw people together it also creates new people in one place. That’s how people move across dividing lines of hostility and become untied as family. Paul says that Christ broke down the barriers of hostility through his work at the cross so that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace. True peace is found in Christ and is expressed, not in a religious practice of segregation but in desegregation and unity that comes through the creation of brand new people by a perfect Savior at the cross.
This is why Paul says that Jesus is our peace and that he has broken down the walls or barriers of religious and ethnic hostility so that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two so the one new man might be reconciled to God in one body through the cross. This is a picture of Christ making all things new.
As you and I are reconciled to God through the work of Christ at the cross the hostility between God and us is killed. The hostility that once existed between you and I is put to death. We become new creations in Christ Jesus. The old life of separation from one another passes away and the new life of belonging to one another begins.
Experiencing peace on the horizontal level with other people is a result of experiencing peace on the vertical level with God. Broken marriages. Broken friendships. Shattered families. Divided ethnicities. All of these become reconciled as people become new creations in Christ Jesus together. This is why Paul says Jesus preached peace to those who were far off and to those who were near.
The Gentiles were considered far off from God and the Jews were considered near to God. But Christ preached peace to each party so they could become reconciled to God and then reconciled to one another so they could become one new body, one new family, one new creation, one new person together. This is a massive benefit of experiencing true peace.
4. What is the biggest benefit of experiencing true peace?
Racial, ethnic and relational reconciliation is really important and it’s a massive benefit of experiencing true peace in Christ Jesus. But the biggest benefit of experiencing true peace in Christ is the truth that we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
Paul basically says “hey it’s not just that one of you have found a father and are no longer fatherless, but both of you have been found by the same father and you now have equal access to him together.” In the words of one commentator this passage is like the picture of a white father with both a white baby and a black baby in his arms.
Fatherless people who once were separated from each other by the sickening division of racial and ethnic and religious division are now brought together and given the same access to the same loving Father through the work of Christ Jesus at the cross.