Ephesians– overview of 2:14-18; Double Reconciliation, part 3.Sunday June 23, 2019
Eph 2:14-18 – The Double Reconciliation.
The church is a house built for an occupant.
Eph 3:14 For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father,
Eph 3:15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,
Eph 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man;
Eph 3:17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
Eph 3:19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.
Jesus said that a house divided against itself will not stand. Php 2:12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
Php 2:13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
In Eph 2:11-18, Paul sees the reconstruction of the human race to perfect peace beginning in the church with the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile.
This peace will be upon the whole earth in the future at Christ’s second coming, and of course in eternity. For now, its beginning starts in the church.
Eph 2:14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,
Eph 2:15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace,
Eph 2:16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.
Eph 2:17 And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near;
Eph 2:18 for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Division was in the church from its beginning.
The attempted building of walls came from Jews and Gentiles, Hellenistic Jews and native Hebrews, Jerusalem and Antioch, and within particular churches like Corinth, those who liked Peter more than Paul or Titus more than Apollos.
1Co 1:10 Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.
1Co 1:11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.
1Co 1:12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ."
1Co 1:13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
We might have different teachers, but what they are teaching us is about the same Lord, the same Spirit, the same Father, the same truth. How is it that different church buildings or different teachers should make division among us?
1Co 1:22 For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom;
1Co 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness,
1Co 1:24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1Co 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1Co 1:26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;
1Co 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
1Co 1:28 and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are,
1Co 1:29 that no man should boast before God.
1Co 1:30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
1Co 1:31 that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."
|