Ephesians 2:14

2:14-18 Jesus Christ made peace by the sacrifice of himself; in every sense Christ was their Peace, the author, centre, and substance of their being at peace with God, and of their union with the Jewish believers in one church. Through the person, sacrifice, and mediation of Christ, sinners are allowed to draw near to God as a Father, and are brought with acceptance into his presence, with their worship and services, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, as one with the Father and the Son. Christ purchased leave for us to come to God; and the Spirit gives a heart to come, and strength to come, and then grace to serve God acceptably.

Our peace (ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν) Christ is similarly described in abstract terms in 1 Corinthians 1:30; wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. So Colossians 1:27, hope of glory. Christ is thus not merely our peace-maker, but our very peace itself. Both (τὰ ἀμφότερα) Lit., the both. The neuter gender shows that Jews and Gentiles are conceived by the writer merely as two facts. The masculine is used in Ephesians 2:15, Ephesians 2:16. Hath broken down (λύσας) Lit, loosened or dissolved. Rev., giving the force of the aorist tense, brake down. The participle has an explanatory force, in that He brake down. The middle-wall of partition (τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ) Lit., the middle wall of the fence or hedge. The wall which pertained to the fence; the fact of separation being emphasized in wall, and the instrument of separation in fence. The hedge was the whole Mosaic economy which separated Jew from Gentile. Some suppose a reference to the stone screen which bounded the court of the Gentiles in the temple.

{12} For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (12) As by the ceremonies and worship appointed by the Law, the Jews were divided from the Gentiles, so now Christ, having broken down the partition wall, joins them both together, both in himself, and between themselves, and to God. From which it follows, that whoever permanently establishes the ceremonies of the Law, makes the grace of Christ void and of no effect.

For he is our peace; i.e. Peace-maker, or Mediator of peace, both between God and man, and between Jew and Gentile. He is called our peace, as elsewhere our righteousness, redemption, salvation. God is said to reconcile us, 2 Corinthians 5:19 , but Christ only to be our peace. Who hath made both one; i.e. one body, or one people, or one new man, Ephesians 3:15 . And hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having taken away the ceremonial law, which was as a wall of separation between Jew and Gentile, as appears in the next verse. It seems to be an allusion to that wall of the temple which parted between the court of the people into which the Jews came, and the outmost court, that of the Gentiles, who, when they came to worship, might not come into the other court, and were excluded by this wall.

Ephesians 2:14 . Αὐτὸς ) He .[28] We have here Emphasis.[29]— ἡ εἰρήνη ) peace , not merely, the peace-maker; for at the cost of Himself He procured peace, and He Himself is the bond of both (Israel and the Gentiles).— ὁ ) Apposition: Peace; He who hath made , etc. A remarkable saying, Ephesians 2:14-18 . He imitates poetry [canticum, a song of joy ] by the very tenor of the words, and almost by the rhythm.—We have a description—( α .) the union of the Gentiles with Israel, Ephesians 2:14-15 ; and then ( β .) the union of the Gentiles and Israel, as now one man, with God, Ephesians 2:15 , middle of verse— Ephesians 2:18 . The description of each is subdivided into two parts, so that the first may correspond to the first, concerning the enmity that has been taken away; the second to the second, concerning the ordinances of the Gospel. — τὰ ἀμφότερα , both ) The neuter for the masculine, Ephesians 2:18 [ οἱ ἀμφότεροι ], properly, because ἓν , one [neuter], follows.— μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ , the partition wall of the fence [ the middle wall of partition ]) It is called τοῖχος , a wall , because the separating space between [Jews and Gentiles] was very strongly fortified; φραγμὸς , a fence , because it is easily removed at the proper time. The partition wall separates houses; the fence separates tracks of land; comp. Ephesians 2:19 .[30] Therefore the distinction between circumcision and uncircumcision is hinted at.

The very structure of the temple of Jerusalem was in conformity with it. The wall and the fence prevent an entrance; and the Gentiles were prevented from entering, inasmuch as they were not permitted to approach so near as the Israelites, even as those who were in the humblest rank.— λύσας , who hath broken down ) Who hath broken down—who hath abolished, and not being repeated, very closely cohere. This short clause, and hath broken down , is explained in Ephesians 2:15 , in the first half of the verse; He hath abolished the enmity in His flesh; comp. Ephesians 2:16 , at the end. The law of commandments , which was properly adapted to the Israelites, He hath abolished , in the universal ordinances of grace;[31] comp. Ephesians 2:17 , at the beginning of the verse. [28] He alone and pre-eminently.—ED. [29] See App. An addition to the ordinary meaning of a word, with the power of increasing its force on either side. [30] Where ξένοι refers to the separation of countries by the fence , φραγμὸς : παροικοι to the separation of houses by the μεσοτοιχος , or partition wall; to which are opposed respectively συμπολῖται and οἰκεῖοι .—ED. [31] But Engl. Vers. takes ἐν δόγμασιν with τῶν ἐντογῶν , “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.”—ED.

14. he—Greek, "Himself" alone, pre-eminently, and none else. Emphatical. our peace—not merely "Peacemaker," but "Himself" the price of our (Jews' and Gentiles' alike) peace with God, and so the bond of union between "both" in God. He took both into Himself, and reconciled them, united, to God, by His assuming our nature and our penal and legal liabilities (Eph 2:15; Isa 9:5, 6; 53:5; Mic 5:5; Col 1:20). His title, "Shiloh," means the same (Ge 49:10). the middle wall of partition—Greek, "… of the partition" or "fence"; the middle wall which parted Jew and Gentile. There was a balustrade of stone which separated the court of the Gentiles from the holy place, which it was death for a Gentile to pass. But this, though incidentally alluded to, was but a symbol of the partition itself, namely, "the enmity" between "both" and God (Eph 2:15), the real cause of separation from God, and so the mediate cause of their separation from one another. Hence there was a twofold wall of partition, one the inner wall, severing the Jewish people from entrance to the holy part of the temple where the priests officiated, the other the outer wall, separating the Gentile proselytes from access to the court of the Jews (compare Eze 44:7; Ac 21:28). Thus this twofold wall represented the Sinaitic law, which both severed all men, even the Jews, from access to God (through sin, which is the violation of the law), and also separated the Gentiles from the Jews.

Verse 14. - For he is our peace. Explanatory of the preceding verse - of the way by which we are brought nigh. Christ is not only our Peacemaker, but our Peace, and that in the fullest sense, the very substance and living spring of it, establishing it at the beginning, keeping it up to the end; and the complex notion of peace is here not only peace between Jew and Gentile, but between God and both. Consult Old Testament predictions of peace in connection with Messiah ( Isaiah 9:5, 6 ; Micah 5:5 ; Zechariah 9:10 , etc.). Who made both one ; literally, both things , both elements ; so that there is now no ground for separating between a Jewish element and a Gentile; they are unified. And broke down the middle wall of the partition. The general idea is obvious; the particular allusion is less easily seen. Some think it is to the veil that separated the holy of holies from the holy place ( Hebrews 10:20 ); but that could hardly be called a wall . Others the wall that separated the court of the Jew from that of the Gentiles; but that wall was literally standing when the apostle wrote, and besides, the Ephesians could not be supposed to be so familiar with it as to make it a suitable illustration for them. In the absence of any specific allusion, it is best to understand the words generally, "broke down that which served as a middle wall of partition" - what is mentioned immediately in the following verse. Ephesians 2:14

(2 b. ) Ephesians 2:14-18 pass on from the description of the call of the heathen to personal union with God in Christ, to dwell on the perfect unity and equality of Jew and Gentile with each other in Him, and the access of both to the Father. (14) He (Himself) is our peace.—There is clearly allusion, as to the many promises in the Old Testament of the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:5-6, et al.), so still more to the “Peace of Earth” of the angelic song of Bethlehem, and to the repeated declarations of our Lord, such as, “Peace I leave with you: My peace I give unto you.” Here, however, only is our Lord called not the giver of peace, but the peace itself—His own nature being the actual tie of unity between God and mankind, and between man and man. Through the whole passage thus introduced there runs a double meaning, a declaration of peace in Christ between Jew and Gentile, and between both and God; though it is not always easy to tell of any particular expression, whether it belongs to this or that branch of the meaning, or to both. It is well to compare it with the obvious parallel in Colossians 2:13-14, where (in accordance with the whole genius of that Epistle) there is found only the latter branch of the meaning, the union of all with the Head, not the unity of the various members of the Body. Who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.—In this verse the former subject is begun.

The reunion of Jew and Gentile is described in close connection with the breaking down of “the middle wall of the partition” (or, hedge). The words “between us” are not in the original, and Chrysostom interprets the partition as being, not between Jew and Gentile, but between both and God. But the former idea seems at any rate to predominate in this clause. Whether “the middle wall of the hedge” refers to the wall separating the court of the Gentiles from the Temple proper (Jos. Ant. xv. § 5), and by an inscription denouncing death to any alien who passed it (see Lewin’s St. Paul, vol. ii., p. 133), or to the “hedge” set about the vineyard of the Lord (Isaiah 5:2; comp. Matthew 22:33)—to which probably the Jewish doctors alluded when they called their ceremonial and legal subtleties “the hedge” of the Law—has been disputed. It may, however, be noted that the charge of bringing Trophimus, an Ephesian, beyond that Temple wall had been the cause of St. Paul’s apprehension at Jerusalem (Acts 21:29), and nearly of his death. Hence the Asiatic churches might well be familiar with its existence. It is also notable that this Temple-partition suits perfectly the double sense of this passage: for, while it was primarily a separation between Jew and Gentile, it was also the first of many partitions—of which the “veil of the Temple” was the last—cutting all men off from the immediate presence of God.