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Peter Wade.
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9. The Wealth Unfolded(continued) by Ruth Paxson
Let us, then, sum up finally God's way of conciliation as set forth in 2:14-16:
| "In Himself" |
{ Christ is the Mediator between
{ Jew and Gentile.
{ Christ is the Eradicator of all
{ barriers between
Jew and
{ Gentile.
{ Christ is the Reconciler of Jew
{ and Gentile unto
God.
{ Christ is the Conciliator of Jew
{ and Gentile
with each other.
{ Christ is the Centre of the new
{ man composed of
Jew and
{ Gentile. |
"Of twain" -- Jew and Gentile -- "Both one" -- Out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation (Rev. 5:9). Though they differed in tradition, temperament, or training, Christ has been able to unite men in Himself. He has eliminated race prejudice, nationalistic superiority, class distinction, religious bigotry, and personal dislike, and welded men together in one Body.
"One new man" -- Note very carefully that God is not making a new world, but a new man. God makes no attempt to improve world conditions by repairing the old systems, but He replaces the old, earthly nationalisms by a new order whose citizenship is of heaven.
3) Christ Preached Peace
2:17. "And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh."
Having become peace and having made it, Christ now preaches peace. It was His personal message after His resurrection (Luke 24:36; John 20:19,21,26). He preached it later through His apostles, and continues to preach peace through His Word faithfully given by His ministers.
It is God’s clearly declared purpose to heal the schism made by sin in humanity; otherwise His plan of salvation would be incomplete. In this present age He would do it through grace. Peace has not been established on earth because men will not follow God’s way. But in the age to come, through government the Lord Jesus Christ shall rule over the earth as King of kings and Lord of lords. Then righteousness shall prevail and peace shall be its fruit.
The Construction of the Church (2:19-22)
2:19. "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."
"Now therefore." Paul now summarizes the results of God’s workmanship, and shows the benefit of His work to God as well as to the saints. Connecting 2:19 with 2:18, these words also show that now the Gentile and Jew have equal access to the Father through the Son by the Spirit.
1) The Church Becomes the Household of God
Here is a picture of the felicity and harmony of the divine family, gathered about the Father’s hearthstone. Oh! what joy there is in the Father’s heart. For the prodigal son has at last come home!
"Ye are no more strangers and foreigners." The "ye" undoubtedly refers to the Gentiles, who once knowing God had not glorified Him as God, but in the blindness of their minds and foolishness of their hearts had given themselves up to idolatry (Romans 1:21-23). Having departed from God they went out into the far country of utter moral degradation.
But note the marvelous change in the heart of that elder brother, the erstwhile bigot, Saul of Tarsus! Listen to that Hebrew of the Hebrews, as he welcomes the prodigal son home:
"But fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." By the Cross of Christ all racial prejudice and enmity have been abolished. Now in Christ the Jew can say to the repentant, believing Gentile, Ye are no longer strangers, but home-born ones; not now foreigners, but fellow-citizens and fellow-members of the Body of Christ. "We both," as members of the household of God, have the same access to the Father’s heart and home.
2) The Church Becomes an Holy Temple in the Lord
2:21. "In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord."
Paganism had its temple there in Ephesus, the magnificent temple of the Asian goddess Diana. Its fame was world-wide, and worshippers came there from far distant places. Judaism had its temple in Jerusalem, which was the stronghold of the Jewish faith. So Christianity has its temple, a building not made with hands, but builded by God, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.
Upon this divine foundation God lays one living stone upon another, the saints born into the family of God since the day of Pentecost. Each is put in his own place by God, and in such a way that they exactly fit together. The building is not yet completed, but grows day by day, as a soul here or in a far corner of the earth is won to the Lord and made a living stone.
3) The Church Becomes an Habitation of God
2:22. "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."
God must have a dwelling-place on earth as well as in heaven. Where His family is there He must be. Also where needy, sinful men are, there He must have some way of revealing Himself to them and of reaching them with the Gospel message. So during this age of grace God takes up His residence in the Church and in the Christian. We are the habitation of God, the visible part of God on earth. Oh! what a challenging truth! Is God seen in us?
The Constitution of the Church (3:1-12)
God states in this passage that He is doing an altogether new thing. A "mystery," or secret, hid in Himself from the beginning of the world, was now made known by special revelation to Paul, and through him to the apostles and prophets of the new dispensation.
3:3,5. "By revelation he made known unto me the mystery... which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit."
What this new thing was cannot be stated more clearly than in God’s own words:
3:6. "That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel."
That the Gentiles were to be saved and that they were to be blessed through the promise given to Abraham was revealed in the Old Testament. But that God purposed to create this new man out of Jew and Gentile, and constitute them one Body over which Christ would be the Head, and in which the Gentile would be a co-equal with the Jew in every respect, was indeed a new thing. Jews and Gentiles are to be fellow-partakers in everything in Christ.
Were Paul here to-day witnessing the anti-Semitism which is sweeping like a tidal wave over the world, and, sad to say, has caught some Genti1e Christians in its devastating onrush, would he have to reverse Romans 3:29 to read, "Is he the God of the Gentiles only? Is he not also of Jews? Yes, of the Jews also."
What would this "prisoner for the Gentiles" (3:1) think if he read the following paragraph?
Just recently a decree was issued by a Christian church that hereafter no Jew could worship there because of governmental threats. A very consecrated Hebrew Christian missionary in that country who had membership in that church and often preached there, was among those ejected. He and other Christian Jews were compelled to form a Hebrew Christian church. Christian Jews not allowed to worship with Christian Gentiles as fellow-heirs, fellow-members, fellow-partakers! Not "both one," but both two. Not "both one body," but each one body. Oh! the awful shame and sin of such an act!
In the light of such a murderous wound inflicted not only upon the Body of Christ, but upon Christ Himself, let "the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles" make his last appeal to us present day Gentile Christians.
2:11-12. "Wherefore remember... that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."
Did not God put that word "remember" in 2:11 for such a day as this? "remember" that "in time past" you were an helpless, hopeless outcast in the deepest depths of sin. "Remember" you would still be there, as "far off" from God as any Jew you know to-day, had you not been "saved by grace." "Remember" that you were then the "alien" and the "foreigner" belonging to a pagan, unprivileged race, while the Jew belonged, and still does, to God’s chosen people, a nation privileged in God’s sight beyond all nations of the earth. "Remember" that apart from the blood of Christ you could never have been "made nigh" unto God. "Remember" that, as a Gentile, you have nothing in yourself or in your race of which to boast; and that your position as a "wild olive tree grafted into the good olive tree as a branch" is held only through faith, and not because of any personal, national or racial merit or superiority (Romans 11:11-34). "Remember" that God has no favourites in His family, and that both Jew and Gentile have the same access unto the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. "Remember" that, when once either Jew or Gentile has been incorporated into Christ through faith in His blood, he is a fellow-member of Christ’s Body and a "fellow citizen" with all saints. "Remember" that "we twain" are made "one new man" in Christ, and that henceforth we belong to a heavenly race that is super-racial and super-national, sharing alike both the privileges and the responsibilities of the Christian Church. O yes, ye Gentiles "remember" that your two most precious possessions, your Saviour and your Bible, came to you through the Jew; that the door to the Church was opened to you by Peter, the Jew; and that the revelation given of your equal possession of all its blessed privileges came to you through Paul, the Jew. And to any Gentile Christian who gives over all the curses to the Jew pronounced upon him in God’s Word, while he glories in all the blessings as promised to himself, even those plainly and exclusively given to the Jewish nation, "remember" the Word of God spoken centuries ago to the father of the Jews:
Genesis 12:3. "I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
And the Word of God through the Psalmist:
Psalm 122:6. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee."
And our Lord’s own touching word regarding "my brethren":
Matt. 25:40, 45. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me... Inasmuch did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me."
  
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