Ephesians 2:14 - Meaning and Application

We have now reached the last part of the chapter, where Paul explains the great blessings that both converted Jews and Gentiles receive from Christ. He shows that those who once lived in hostility are now brought together in peace. There had been deep hostility between Jews and Gentiles, and there is also hostility between God and every person who has not been made new.

Now Jesus Christ is our peace (Ephesians 2:14). He made peace through his own sacrifice, and he came to reconcile two things. First, he reconciled Jews and Gentiles to each other. He made both groups one by bringing together these two kinds of people, who used to speak badly of each other, hate each other, and insult each other.

He broke down the dividing wall, which was the ceremonial law, the set of outward religious rules that separated the Jews from the Gentiles. Paul calls it a dividing wall because it also points to the wall in the temple that kept Gentiles out of the inner court where Jews could enter. In this way, Christ put away the hostility in his flesh (Ephesians 2:15). By suffering in his human body, he took away the binding force of the ceremonial law, and so removed the cause of distance and hostility between them.

The ceremonial law is here called the law of commandments contained in ordinances, because it required many outward rites and ceremonies, and included many rules about external worship. Christ brought those legal ceremonies to an end, since they found their fulfillment in him. By removing them, he formed one church of believers, whether they had first been Jews or Gentiles. In this way he made the two groups into one new humanity. He shaped both groups into one new people, joined them to himself as their common head, and renewed them by the Holy Spirit. Now they worship God together in a new gospel way, and peace is made between people who once stood far apart.

Second, there is hostility between God and sinners, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. Christ came to end that hostility and reconcile both groups to God (Ephesians 2:16). Sin creates a quarrel between God and human beings. Christ came to settle that quarrel and bring it to an end by reconciling both Jew and Gentile, now gathered into one body, to a God they had offended. He did this through the cross, through the sacrifice of himself there. When he was sacrificed, he put the hostility to death.

Paul then explains the great benefit both groups receive through the mediation, that is, the work of acting between two sides to bring them together, of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:17). Christ purchased peace on the cross, and he came partly in his own person, especially to the Jews, who are said to have been near. He also came through his apostles, whom he sent to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, who are said to have been far off, as Paul has already explained. He preached peace, meaning he announced the terms of peace with God and the promise of eternal life.

We should notice that when Christ’s messengers deliver his truth, it is as though he himself were speaking directly. He speaks through them. So the one who receives them receives him, and the one who rejects them, when they are carrying out their commission and giving his message, rejects Christ himself.

The result of this peace is that both Jews and Gentiles now have free access to God (Ephesians 2:18). Through Christ, in his name and by his mediation, both groups have entry into God’s presence, because God has become the common reconciled Father of both. The throne of grace is now open for us, and we are given liberty to come near it. Our access is through the Holy Spirit. Christ bought for us the right to come to God, and the Spirit gives us the desire and strength to come, including grace to serve God in a way he accepts. We draw near to God through Jesus Christ, with the help of the Spirit.

Since the Ephesians now had this access to God, just as the Jews did, and through the same Spirit, Paul tells them, “You are no longer strangers and foreigners” (Ephesians 2:19). He says this in contrast to what they had been in their pagan life. They were no longer outsiders to the people of Israel, and no longer what the Jews used to think all other nations were, namely people without God. Instead, they were fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, meaning they belonged to Christ’s church and had a right to all its blessings.

The church is compared to a city, and every converted sinner belongs to it as a full citizen. It is also compared to a house, and every converted sinner belongs there as part of the family, both as a servant and as a child in God’s house. In Ephesians 2:20, the church is compared to a building. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of that building, though only in a secondary sense, since Christ himself is the true foundation. More likely, Paul means the teaching given by the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament. Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone.

In Christ, Jews and Gentiles meet and become one church, and Christ holds the whole building together by his power. All believers, who make up that building, are joined to Christ by faith and to one another by Christian love. They grow into a holy temple and become a sacred people in which there is close fellowship between God and his people. As in the temple, they worship and serve him, he makes himself known to them, they offer spiritual sacrifices, and he gives them his blessings and favor. So the building is a temple by nature, a holy temple, because the church is the place God has chosen for his name to dwell. It becomes this temple by grace and strength that come from him, in the Lord.

The whole church, built on Christ as the foundation stone and joined together in Christ as the cornerstone, will finally be glorified in him as the top stone. Paul adds, “In whom you also are built together” (Ephesians 2:22). We should notice that not only the universal church is called the temple of God, but also local churches, and even every true believer is a living temple, a dwelling place of God through the Spirit. God now lives in all believers, because they have become his temple through the work of the Holy Spirit. His present dwelling with them is a pledge of their future dwelling with him forever.