(text and audio)
Title: Three Walls
Intro:In our culture today, what images does the word “wall” drum up?
We see the concept of “walls” all over scripture.
Probably the most famous example is the walls of Jericho tumbling after the shout from the people of Israel.
We have Ezra and Nehemiah after the exiles are allowed to return to Jerusalem rebuilding the walls of the city.
In Acts 9 we have the story of Paul being lowered in a basket through a hole in walls of Damascus to escape the Jews, just after his conversion to Christ.
Others?
14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall…(NASB)
(read/pray)
(brief explanation of covenentalism vs. dispensationalism)
The next two sermons will focus on verses 14-16 and I want to establish up front that these verses certainly seem to overwhelmingly support covenantalism in terms of the view of Israel. Two people groups have been made into one in Christ. But we’ll get to that.
“He himself is our peace”
This speaks the actual physical nature of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. If anyone ever tells you the actual physical resurrection doesn’t matter, it’s what Jesus taught that is important, direct them to this very passage. There was something material, something of matter, something physical that HAD to happen for us to have peace with God.
There had to be a perfect, without blemish, sacrifice, one that held the law perfectly, without any hint of sin, and that sacrifice had to physically die, and be resurrected by God, showing the approval of God. Then…and only then would we have hope.
There are THREE “dividing walls” being broken down.
- Literal:The walls in the Temple that separated the court of the Gentiles from the court of the Jews. There were signs posted in the outer court of the Gentiles that forbade them from coming into the inner court of the Jews. It was in this inner court where the sacrifices were performed.
- Think about that for a moment….
- From the perspective of the Jews: They are separate. They have access to the one true God in a way that Gentiles are not allowed to have.
- From the perspective of the Gentiles: They can come close to God, but because of nothing they have done, but who their parents were, through no decision of their own* they are destined to be able to know about God, but never to truly know God.
- *One exception to this would be the “God-fearing” Romans who actually converted to Judaism. It was extremely rare, but it did occasionally happen. (Ruth would be an example.)
- Think about that for a moment….
2. Spiritual: The second wall is the wall of sin that separates us from God.
Many of us have grown up hearing, and probably using the “bridge illustration” when sharing the Gospel message of what Jesus did for us. It usually looks something like a person standing on one side of a great chasm, trying to get to the other side where is God is waiting.
But whatever bridges the man attempts to build to span that chasm, be they moral living, tithing to church, doing unto others, or even praying to God, these bridges all fail.
Then the cross is introduced and it is the only thing that is capable of spanning that gap, and we had nothing to do with it, we have to accept that it was done for us, with no contribution from us and we are then graciously reconnected with God.
But I wonder if maybe a more apt description is one of a wall. There is a wall of our own building, that grows taller and stronger with every day that we live, with every decision that we make without Christ at the center of our being, no matter how moral those decisions are, doesn’t do anything to get us closer to God, rather it just strengthens and heightens this wall of separation.
And this wall can’t be scaled, it can’t be tunneled under, it can’t be reasoned with, and it certainly can’t be brought down…at least not by us, or any of our ability.
Some people spend their lives trying to scale the wall. “If I study and understand God, I can ascend and be one with him.”
Some try to tunnel under the wall. “There is another way, a way to get around what only seems impassable, if I use ingenuity and creative thinking I can make myself comfortable with an alternative plan that is unique to me.”
Some try to reason with the wall. “Okay wall, I acknowledge your existence, but I firmly believe that you want me to be with you, so here’s what I’m going to do…I won’t commit any of the big sins, I’ll be a generally good person, you’ll see that, and let me scale the wall and be with you.”
Some try to destroy the wall, “There is no God, therefore, there is no sin, everything is relative. What’s right for you is not binding to me.”
3. National: The Wall between “Israel” and the Gentile World
Placed into context of the larger narrative of what Paul is saying (remember we just spent two lessons in Ephesians 2:11-13 looking at the stark disadvantages of Gentiles as compared to the Jews)
Now what Paul is teaching us is that Jesus’s sacrifice was so powerful, it turned a nation (Israel) that was once separated from the rest of the world for the purposes of holiness, into ONE people, that ANYONE from any race, creed, gender, economic background, or previous religion, would be on equal footing before God if they surrendered their lives to Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Seen through a covenantal lens, once Jesus comes as the savior to the world, the line between traditional Jew and Gentile gets blurred severely.
A covenentalist would read the N.T. and understand “Israel” as “The Church” because the truest definition of who and what Israel is would be: The Children of God.
Conclusions:
Jesus Christ is the greatest UNIFYING power in the Universe. And he, (ironically?) does that unifying by DIVIDING those who are true believers, from those who are not.
Don’t believe me? Consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 10:34-35
34“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35“For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; 36and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.
Q&A