The Wall of Hostility Torn Down: Reconciled in Jesus Christ

Introduction

Ephesians 2:11-18 is the third message in a series through chapters 2 and 3 of the letter to the Ephesians: "See what God has done for us." The preacher invites you to look at what Jesus made possible in the family of God. Not a family where everyone smiles through dinner and then fires off angry texts the next day. A family where the harmony is real, because someone came and tore down the wall.

The big idea of the message fits in one sentence: Jesus makes full belonging in the family of God possible. First, because he removes every barrier between you and God; second, because he establishes relationship, both vertically (with the Father) and horizontally (with others).

Outline of the message

1. Jesus removes every barrier between you and God

• Paul opens with a technical reminder rooted in Judaism: "Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh... were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:11-12).
• Back to Moses. After the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the wilderness, God gives his people the ten words. Moses sprinkles the people with blood and declares, "This is the blood of the covenant." The people then enter into a contract with the LORD, a relationship with expectations.
• That contract was never meant to exclude. It served first to include a people to whom God had already made promises, so that they would become a light among the nations. But mechanically, if God contracts with someone, there are others who aren't yet part of that contract. That's not exclusion, that's just the reality of a covenant.
• So Paul reminds the Ephesians of their former state: outside those covenants, they didn't serve the same God. In family terms: not everyone was born of the same father and mother. There was, of necessity, a separation.
• But God never wanted to exclude. He always wanted to bring together. Verse 13: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ."

2. The cross: an instrument of execution that brings together

• The question deserves to be asked: how can an instrument of execution reserved for the worst criminals become a place of reunion? For other religious traditions, it's even unacceptable that a messenger of God would die that way. Doesn't the cross divide rather than unite?
• We need to go back to the deep reason Jesus died. Not just because he was condemned by the religious authorities and by Pilate, but because he is "the Lamb who has been killed from the foundation of the world" (see Revelation 13:8). This was God's plan.
• Three examples help you measure what separates us from God:
  • Offense. A desire to possess what doesn't belong to you, a covetousness you replay in your imagination, telling yourself your life would be better with that thing or that person. But God is the one who provides every good thing. Clinging to an imagined life that isn't ours separates us from the one who gives.
  • Shame. A gesture or a word you would never have dared say or do in the presence of someone you respect, even Jesus. That shame also creates a separation between you and God.
  • Powerlessness. Those moments when you know exactly what you should do, but you do the opposite. That inability also separates you from God.
• This offense, this shame, this powerlessness, that's what the Bible calls sin, in all its ugliness. It separates us from God and makes us go looking for something else.
• On that cross, Jesus (the Son of God, God the Son, perfectly innocent), wasn't murdered: he gave his life. He substituted himself in our place. For the offense, he rendered justice. For the shame, he gave his honor. For the powerlessness, he showed the power of God by giving his life.
• That's how he brings together all who believe in him. The cross is the method by which Jesus removes every barrier between you and God.

3. Jesus establishes the relationship between you and the Father

• Removing the barrier isn't enough. Jesus then does something more: he establishes a relationship. And he does it for both the Jewish people and the non-Jewish peoples. "For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross" (Ephesians 2:14-16).
• In family terms: the Jewish people were part of the family, but they were also sinners, knowing just as much offense, shame, and powerlessness. What they had was a system for approaching God and asking forgiveness. But an innocent animal sacrificed for a man's sin could never fully settle the matter. That covenant taught, but only the cross of Christ accomplished what it taught.
• Jesus himself is peace. He is the peace we needed because he carried everything required to obtain it. He secures for you full acceptance, full belonging in the family. He puts an end to all hostility between you and God, and he creates a new humanity now called Christian.

4. A reconciliation both vertical and horizontal

• The reconciliation accomplished by the cross isn't only vertical (between you and God). That restored power also runs horizontally, between you and others.
• The preacher quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who died in a concentration camp near the end of World War II, and his book Life Together. The idea: Jesus is the mediator between me and my brother, just as he is the mediator between me and God.
• That matters, because in real life (by carelessness, by accident, or sometimes on purpose), we hurt each other. So what do you do? You ask forgiveness. Jesus himself taught us to pray this way: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors" (see Matthew 6:12).
• Where does the power to forgive others come from? From Christ, our mediator. Because we have been forgiven, we receive the power to forgive in turn.
• Verse 18: "For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father." That's the unity of this family: one good and gracious Father who loves you like no one else, one Jesus through whom you draw near, one Holy Spirit who fills you and weaves the whole people together.

5. The Church doesn't replace Israel : it completes it

• Does the Church replace Israel, the way you'd throw out an old garment for a new one? No, no more than Israel replaced Abraham. What we're looking at is the work of God from the very beginning.
• Our part is to complete Israel (to fill the room, if you will), and so be united into one new people, through the cross. Whatever your background, Jewish, Italian-American, French, African, or anything else. If you know Jesus and have put your faith in him, you are a child of God and you're part of his work that has been going on since the beginning. What a wonderful inheritance. What overflowing riches.

6. Concrete implications for the local church

• Like Father, like children: unity and harmony in the family. The preacher quotes Ray Ortlund, in his book The Gospel: "Maybe when you were growing up, your family was chaotic. Maybe the children, even the parents, tore each other down and treated one another cruelly. Some families are like that, and some churches are too. But the household of God must never be like that. Such behavior does not fit our Father. He wants us to behave in a way that reveals his heart."
• That doesn't mean everything will be fine without effort. There will be conflicts, there will be hurt feelings, that's simply the life of men and women. All the more so in a multicultural, multigenerational church that's growing fast. That kind of setting is fertile ground for disputes.
• But in Christ, you have every capacity to do the opposite. Imagine what that produces in the eyes of those watching. That's the prayer the preacher carries for his church, and no doubt yours too.

Key takeaways

• You were once "far off": without Christ, a stranger to the covenants, without hope and without God. That wasn't arbitrary exclusion, it was the consequence of a contract you didn't belong to.
• The cross isn't just a religious symbol. It's the place where Jesus settled the offense, the shame, and the powerlessness that separated you from God.
• Jesus himself is peace. He doesn't hand you peace like some outside gift, he is peace, because he carried what it cost to obtain it.
• The reconciliation offered is twofold: vertical with the Father, horizontal with your brother and sister. The same cross makes both possible.
• You have been forgiven, so you receive the power to forgive. Without that source, you won't hold up.
• The Church doesn't replace Israel, it completes it. Whatever your background, if you're in Christ, you're part of a work begun "from the beginning."
• Harmony in the family of God doesn't remove friction; it gives you the power to respond to it differently than the world does.

Personal application

• Where do you still sense, today, a "wall of hostility", between you and God, or between you and a brother, a sister, someone at your church? Name it concretely before God.
• Of the three dimensions of sin mentioned (offense, shame, powerlessness), which one separates you most from God right now? Confess it at the cross, where Jesus has already taken your place.
• Is there someone in your life you need to ask forgiveness from this week? Or someone you need to offer forgiveness to, because Christ forgave you first?
• The next time you share a meal with a brother or sister, a family from church: will you show up with a guarded heart, or with the awareness that a wall has come down and the table can be joyful?
• Look at your church. Is it marked by the harmony Christ makes possible, or by hidden wounds "because we're all adults"? How can you contribute to it this week?

Scriptures referenced

• Ephesians 2:11-18 · the dividing wall broken down, peace through the cross
• Exodus 24:1-8 · Moses sprinkles the people: "This is the blood of the covenant"
• Revelation 13:8 · the Lamb killed from the foundation of the world
• Matthew 6:12 · "Forgive us... as we also forgive"
• Ephesians 2:19-22 · you are no longer strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints

Further reading

• How to Lead a Bible Discussion
• Church Small Groups: How to Create and Grow Them
• Encouraging participation in small groups

Frequently asked questions

How can an instrument of execution like the cross bring people together instead of dividing them?

That's the real question the message raises. Historically, the cross was reserved for the worst criminals, an object of horror, not unity. The answer fits in one sentence: Jesus didn't die like a criminal, he substituted himself for criminals. At the cross he settled what separated you from God (the offense, the shame, the powerlessness), by carrying all of it himself. The result: the very cross that should have condemned you becomes the place where God receives you. Everyone who comes to the cross arrives on the same ground, the ground of grace received. That's where they find themselves united.

Does the Church replace Israel now that Christ has come?

No. The preacher is clear: the Church doesn't replace Israel, any more than Israel replaced Abraham. It's the same work of God, begun at the beginning and still going on. Our part (those of us who come from among the nations), is to complete Israel, to "fill the room," so that together we form one new people in Christ. Your ethnic, cultural, or religious background no longer determines your place in the family of God. What determines it is faith in Jesus.

If the cross broke down the wall, why are there still so many conflicts in churches?

Because the reconciliation that's been secured isn't automatically lived out. The preacher doesn't promise a church without friction, quite the opposite, he says there will be conflicts and hurt feelings, all the more in a multicultural, multigenerational community. The difference is that in Christ you now have the power to respond differently. You've been forgiven, so you can forgive. You've been welcomed, so you can welcome. The wall is broken down legally and spiritually before God; it's now up to you, day after day, to live out that reality in the concrete relationships of your church family.