Brought Near by the Blood of Christ
Ephesians 2:11-13
This sermon was preached by Rev. Chris Roberts during the morning service on May 17, 2009.
Very often the world is in division and discord. These divisions are not usually peaceful but come at the end of a gun. Race, religion, nationality, political party, place of birth – the list of things that can divide us is very, very long. The old question still stands: why can’t we all just get along? Why indeed.
There are a few things that seem to bring people together. Marriage and family can help unite people into some sort of harmony, though they are also often the source of discord. Tragedy or national crisis or a shared enemy can also bring people together. Many of the solutions offered to unify people are limited and shaky. One wrong word, one wrong action, and unity is broken, the way of violence returns.
In Ephesians 2:11-22 Paul discusses the one thing that can bring people together. Unity is not found through diplomacy or through violence. It is found only through Jesus Christ. Diplomacy is not a bad thing but it can never offer a lasting solution. True unity can only be found in Christ.
This unity does not erase the division between those who are in Christ and those not in Christ. The believer and the unbeliever are not united. But the promise is that all who come to Christ are joined with Christ, united with God, and brought to peace with all others who are in Christ. The assurance for the believer is that this unity will never pass away.
Before telling us about our unity with one another Paul wants us to know more about our unity with God. In Ephesians 2:1-3 we saw what our moral condition was before God: fallen, dead, children of wrath. In today’s passage, Ephesians 2:11-13, Paul tells us our relational position toward God.
Ephesians 2:11-13
Paul begins in verse 11 with the word therefore. There is a reminder in this. When you read a passage of Scripture you never have just that passage, you have the whole Bible and you’re just looking at a piece of it. Always have the other pieces in your mind as you wrestle with the meaning if the piece in front of you. The principle is to let Scripture interpret Scripture.
This piece, these three verses, follow what Paul said in verses 1-10. There he revealed the total depravity of man, our utter inability to save ourselves, the mercy of God to save us, the great gift of faith, and that we are now called to be faithful and obedient in doing good works for God – works God has prepared for us and has equipped us to carry out.
Therefore. Because of this great grace. Because of the marvels of God’s love for you, the unfathomable depths of his grace when he saved you, the majesty of his glory that he now reveals through you – therefore, dear sinner made saint, remember.
This little word remember is repeated many, many times in Scripture. We are a forgetful people. In preparation for our Sunday night studies in the Old Testament I’ve been reading time and again where God reminds his people to remember his mercies to them and time and again they forget and complain and turn away. We are no different. We forget what mercies God showed us five minutes ago.
Remember what the Lord has done for you. Remember what he has promised for your future. But as you remember don’t be dragged down by the sin and guilt in your past. Paul tells us in Philippians 3:13-14: …forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul wants you to forget what is behind. You are forgiven! Live like someone who was once a slave but has had the shackles thrown off. A dead man, blind and unable to move, suddenly given sight and taste, and touch, and smell, and hearing, able to explore a wonderful new world of God’s mercies. Don’t be consumed with the memory of the things that killed you. But remember what you were before God made you alive. Remember also what he has promised for your future, what 2 Corinthians 4:17 calls an eternal weight of glory with Him.
In verse 11 Paul speaks of you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. He is making a distinction here between the Jews and the Gentiles.
Circumcision was the sign that one had entered into the covenant people of God. It was the visible, physical sign of covenant promise. Throughout Scripture we see that physical circumcision is not the real intention of this act, though it is required of Jews. As early as Deuteronomy 10:16 we read: Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. Similarly, in Romans 2:28-29 Paul tells us: For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.
There is more to circumcision than cutting away a piece of flesh. The physical act should reflect a spiritual truth: the heart is circumcised. Dead flesh has been cut off. Faithlessness has been rooted out. His desire is for the Lord, not for the world.
In the Old Testament if a gentile wanted to be a worshiper of Yahweh he had to enter the covenant community of Israel, adopting the law. Under the new covenant the requirements of the law have been fulfilled and God’s people are no longer under the law. We are still to obey and follow God’s will for his creation but this obedience comes from children, not slaves.
The divide between Jew and gentile is broken down in Christ. We will see more of this as we go on. In today’s verses Paul’s focus is first on the problems faced by the gentile. Really these are problems for all who are not saved, all who do not have circumcised hearts. The Jews are good at acting like upright, moral people, having even been circumcised in the flesh, but nothing has taken place in their hearts. They are in the same boat as the gentiles. What we will see in the rest of this passage is meant to be heard by all of us, Christians saved by the grace of God and unbelievers in need of that grace.
In verse 12 Paul lists five problems faced by the uncircumcised, he says: remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
First, gentiles were separated from Christ. They were cut off from the Messiah. This would be a death sentence except they were already dead. Life comes only from being united with Jesus Christ. The gentiles, cut off from Jesus, have no hope of life, of salvation.
And such were you, Christian, and such are you, unbeliever. Without Christ there is only an eternal weight of despair. We are good at forgetting this or ignoring this but it is still there, the guilt of sin, the deadness that reigns in the hearts of all those who are not united with Christ.
The second problem for the gentiles is that they were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. This is the community with whom God is working. In the Old Testament the community of God was those who followed the Mosaic Law, the nation of Israel. To become part of God’s people Israel you had to become one of them and adopt the law.
In the New Testament the people of God are found in the church of Jesus Christ. We are the New Testament Israel. Entrance into this community is not found through rite or ritual but through the blood of Jesus Christ. It is this community that God is working with and through. It is this community that God will redeem. To be alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, separated from membership in the community of God, is to be left with the world, outside the church, enemies of God that will be crushed on the day of judgment.
Third, Paul tells us the gentiles were strangers to the covenants of promise. In the Old Testament we can find several covenants that God makes with his people Israel. The gentiles, cut off from Israel, would not be participants in the covenants of God. Cut off from God, alienated from the community of God, strangers to the covenants of promise. Ultimately these covenants were about God redeeming his people, sending Messiah who would save his people. Without Jesus Christ you cannot receive the promised salvation.
The fourth problem of the gentiles is that they were having no hope. What hope is left to them? Cut off from every provision for eternal blessing what could they put their hope in? We hear the word hope thrown around a lot today but it is hope in the work and effort of mankind. We are mortal and mortal is the work of our hands. It will pass away. Hope cannot be found in another person. It is found only in the eternal God.
Without Jesus Christ there is no hope for you. Without Jesus’ salvation there is only judgment and destruction and unending punishment. Without Jesus every human effort is doomed to failure. This is why we cannot make peace in the world, why the best minds cannot find a solution to war and hunger. They are, as the saying goes, looking for love in all the wrong places. Hope and peace and life and unity and love are only found in and through Jesus Christ.
If things seem bad for the gentiles they are about to get worse. We saw that the gentiles were cut off from every provision for eternal blessing. Now in the fifth problem Paul tells us they are also cut off from the source of blessing. Gentiles are without God in the world.
The unsaved person is cut off from God. There is no way to experience life with God except through Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus tells us in John 14:6: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Those without Christ have nothing of God. A lot of people today like to talk about being spiritual but not being religious. Maybe they are spiritual, but probably not in the way they think. It is not God they find in their spirituality, it is his enemy.
Each of the five problems go together and the solution for one is the solution for all of them. But of these problems the fifth one has to be the worst. Saint Augustine once wrote as a prayer to God, “Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in thee.” There is no rest for the person who has no walk with God.
Paul does not leave us without hope. In Ephesians 2:13 he says: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
This verse starts with a reminder of distance. Those brought near had been far off. They had not pulled themselves along the miles, only needing Jesus to pull them the last bit. Nor, as we often think it, had Jesus brought them most of the way, leaving them to move the final inches. They were far off, far from God, cut off, separated, in their deadness unable to move, but Christ has brought them to his Father. As near as the throne of Heaven. The void between man and God is corrected in Christ.
The image we have of Christ filling a great chasm that we can walk across to reach the Father is not exactly correct. It is better to envision Christ leaping down a great cliff, picking you up, and leaping back up, depositing you safely at the feet of his Father, now your Father.
Jesus has taken you and brought you to himself. He did not do this casually, without doing something about our moral condition. He brings us to himself through the blood of Christ. This blood was shed at the cross to cover your sins. He lived and died and rose again in such a way that you might be fully forgiven and brought to life and lifted up to the throne of God. Your salvation is a costly thing. Jesus paid for it with his sweat in life and his blood in death. Christian, will you remember what you were? Unbeliever, will you acknowledge what you are? Rejoice in the hope God has given us in Jesus Christ. Turn to him for your salvation and serve him all the days of your life.