The Way of Peace

Ephesians 2:14–18

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

If you read the news today, the headlines are the same as they were 10, 50, or 100 years ago. Why are Israel and America locked in a conflict with Iran that they do not know how to end? Why is Russia fighting with Ukraine? Why do India and Pakistan have a deep, historic hatred and conflict that never seems to end?

Year after year, generation after generation, people come and go, nations change, but wars continue. As if military conflicts were not enough, there are other kinds of wars: trade wars that destroy our economies, religious wars that tear communities apart, along with language, cultural, and traditional wars.

Wherever you look, you see division. Within our own country, we see constant Hindu-Muslim hatred, as well as fighting between lower and higher castes within Hinduism. In the Middle East, we see Jews and Arabs fighting. In developed Western nations, we see racial conflicts between Blacks and Whites. Every community tries to build walls of separation, declaring, “We are different from you, and therefore, we must fight you.”

This occurs not only at the international and national levels, but also at the family and personal levels. Why is there always conflict in our homes between husbands and wives, or between brothers and sisters?

To resolve these conflicts, humanity has tried education, politics, peace treaties, and international bodies like the United Nations. Yet every human solution has failed to tear down these walls.

Scripture states in Romans 3: “The way of peace they have not known.” It is always the same problem—humanity does not know the way of peace.

In the passage we are studying today, the apostle Paul teaches us the true way of peace. When he wrote these words 2,000 years ago, his world was deeply divided between Jews and Gentiles—two groups that hated each other with a venom rarely matched by any other groups in history. There was an infinite gulf between them, and no human bridge could connect them.

Paul shows us that this gulf was bridged by the Gospel of Christ. The Gospel not only changes our vertical relationship with God; it transforms our horizontal relationships with our fellow human beings. This passage contains the secret of peace, teaching us how peace can be brought into any area of conflict or hostility—whether among individuals, families, communities, or nations.

Recapping Our Past Condition

Last time, we saw how Paul commands us to remember how far off we once were. We were GUCASHA:

• G – Gentiles
• U – Uncircumcised
• C – Christless
• A – Aliens
• S – Strangers
• H – Hopeless
• A – Atheists (without God)

We were cut off from every means God had ordained for bringing sinners near to Himself. We had no prophets to teach us the truth about the one true living God, no sacrificial system to atone for our sins and find God’s favor, no priesthood to intercede for us, no scriptures, no temple, no covenants, and no promises. We were without hope and without God. In a word, we were far off from any means of salvation.

“But bless God!” Verse 13 declares: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

A great transformation has taken place. Paul uses the metaphor of distance to explain our new standing: we who were far off have been brought near. This was accomplished on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ—that is, the finished work of Christ on the cross.

The shedding of Christ’s blood does not automatically bring every Gentile in the world near to God. Notice the specific application in verse 13: “in Christ Jesus by the blood of Christ.” This blood is applied when we are united to Christ through faith. Only those who are united to Christ through His blood are brought near.

Verses 11–13 give a brief, general summary of how we were far off and how we have now been brought near. Having given this general summary of what God’s grace has done, Paul expands, amplifies, and profoundly enlarges upon this truth in verses 14–22.

We were brought near—and now he explains how. He shows that we were brought near not only to God, but also to the Jews. We, who were at enmity both with God and with the Jews, have been brought near. How? By Peace.

The word “peace” is the central theme here. It appears three times in this passage (verses 14, 15, and 17). We were brought near through peace.

The Structure: The 5 “P”s of Peace

To help us grasp Paul’s full line of thought in Ephesians 2:14–22, we can organize the passage around five points:

1. The Person of Peace (The Origin) — Verse 14a
2. The Procurement of Peace (The Process) — Verses 14b–16
3. The Proclamation of Peace (The Announcement) — Verse 17
4. The Participation in Peace (The Experience) — Verse 18
5. The Privileges of Peace (The Consequences) — Verses 19–22

It took me five days of intense study to grasp this structure, though it takes only a moment to outline! Let us examine the first two points today.

1. The Person of Peace (Verse 14a)

“For He Himself is our peace…”

The first truth that confronts us is this statement concerning the Person of Peace. Every word in this phrase is rich with meaning.

The word “For” connects back to verse 13: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” How? Because Christ Himself is the very essence of that peace.

Before Paul explains how Christ broke down the barriers, purchased peace, and brought us near, he places the spotlight directly on the Person of Peace who accomplished it. He wants us to keep Christ as the absolute center of peace. In the original text, the emphasis is: “For He, even He and only He, is our peace.”

If we have been brought near, all the glory, honor, and worship belong to Christ, because it was accomplished entirely through His work. Notice how every action in this entire passage is performed by Him:

• Verse 14: He is our peace, who has made both one.
• Verse 14: He broke down the middle wall of separation.
• Verse 15: He abolished the enmity in His flesh.
• Verse 15: He created in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.
• Verse 16: He reconciled them both to God in one body through the cross.
• Verse 17: He came and preached peace to you.
• Verse 18: Through Him we have our access by one Spirit to the Father.
• Verse 20: Christ Himself is the chief cornerstone—the stone that plumbs the two walls and unites them.
• Verses 21–22: It is in union with Him that the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple, a dwelling place for God.

You must never think of peace—whether toward God or toward fellow human beings—apart from this glorious Person and the perfection of His work on the cross for sinners.

Notice also that Paul does not say, “He is your peace, you Gentiles.” He began this section in verse 11 by addressing them directly: “Remember that you, the Gentiles… you uncircumcised… aliens… strangers… without Christ… without hope… without God… you who were far off.” But now, in verse 14, he changes the pronoun to “our.” He includes himself as a Jew: “He Himself is OUR peace.”

Christ is the peace for both Gentiles and Jews. The peace Christ accomplished applies equally to all people, giving His work a universal scope as the Peace of all mankind.

Furthermore, notice that this statement is in the present tense: “He Himself IS our peace.” It is not merely a past historical act on the cross, but an ongoing present reality. Christ not only purchased this peace on the cross in the past; He ascended to heaven, proclaimed peace to the Ephesians through His Spirit, and continues to apply that peace today by uniting believers to Himself through His Spirit.

What Does Peace Mean Here?

Peace in this context does not mean a vague, superficial greeting. Peace means the removal of every barrier between a holy God and sinful man, as well as the removal of every barrier between the most hostile groups of human beings, bringing them into an intimate, loving relationship.

That is true peace. Peace is not merely the absence of hatred and tension; it is the positive presence of loving, intimate communion and fellowship—both Godward and manward.

We lost peace with God and with one another because of human sin. From the very first brothers, Cain and Abel, conflict arose because of sin. Therefore, peace can be found in only one place: in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, because He alone can deal with our inherent sin problem.

2. The Procurement of Peace: The Process (Verses 14b–16)

Having seen the Person who brought peace, let us now look at the process and basis by which He purchased that peace.

“..who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”

This is one of the most profound and complex passages in the entire epistle. To understand it clearly, we can ask three questions:

1. What were the hindrances between Jews and Gentiles?
2. What did Christ do to those hindrances?
3. What was the result of Christ’s work?

Question 1: What were the hindrances between Jews and Gentiles?

Verse 14 presents three interconnected hindrances:

1. The middle wall of separation (a visible/structural separation).
2. The enmity (an invisible, deep-seated hatred in the heart).
3. The law of commandments contained in ordinances (the root cause that was misused to fuel this enmity).

Let us examine each of these.

First: The Middle Wall of Separation

This wall does not refer to the vertical barrier between God and man, but to the horizontal barrier between Jews and Gentiles. It describes the long-standing separation between the two groups.

Jews would never associate with Gentiles. They would not eat with them, join with them, or even make eye contact. When returning to the Holy Land after traveling through Gentile territory, Jews would shake the dust off their feet so as to avoid defiling their land. Even Gentile converts to Judaism (proselytes) had to maintain their distance in the temple courts.

In the Jerusalem temple, there was a physical, stone wall separating the Outer Court (the Court of the Gentiles) from the inner courts where Jews were permitted. Gentiles were forbidden to pass beyond this wall. Inscriptions carved into this wall warned:

“No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.”

Entering the inner temple grounds carried a penalty of death for any Gentile. Paul may well have had this physical barricade in mind as an illustration of the deeper spiritual barrier keeping Gentiles far away.

It is worth noting that Paul was in prison as he wrote this epistle precisely because of this wall! In Acts 21:27–36, while Paul was in the Jerusalem temple, a mob falsely accused him of bringing Trophimus, an Ephesian Gentile, past this wall barrier into the inner court. A riot ensued, the mob attempted to tear Paul to pieces, and the Roman commander had to rescue him and place him under arrest. That temple wall was a physical symbol of the deep, uncompromising separation between Jews and Gentiles.

Second: The Enmity

What caused that wall of separation? The text states it was enmity—deep, mutual hatred.

It is difficult for us today to fully grasp how intensely Jews and Gentiles hated one another, because we are so far removed from that ancient context. It was a hostility that had lasted for centuries.

God had chosen the nation of Israel by His grace. However, instead of recognizing their privilege as an unmerited gift, the Jews developed a self-righteous pride. Rather than pitying the Gentile world, they came to despise them. It was a common saying among Jews that Gentiles were created by God merely to be fuel for the fires of hell. It was considered unlawful even to assist a Gentile mother giving birth, as doing so would only bring another Gentile into the world. If a Jewish son or daughter married a Gentile, the family would hold a funeral service for them, treating them as dead.

We see this attitude in the prophet Jonah. When God commanded him to go to Nineveh and preach repentance, Jonah fled in the opposite direction. He hated the Gentiles so much that he did not want them to receive God’s mercy. Even after his dramatic experience in the belly of the fish, when he finally preached to Nineveh, his message was a brief warning: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” When the entire city repented, Jonah became furious with God. He went outside the city, sat down, and wished for death, complaining that God was being merciful to Gentiles.

We see this same hatred in the New Testament. When Jesus spoke in His hometown synagogue in Nazareth, He reminded the people that during the severe famine in Elijah’s day, Elijah was sent to none of the widows in Israel, but to a Gentile widow in Zarephath; and that in Elisha’s day, none of the lepers in Israel were cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. By pointing out that God’s mercy reached Gentile outsiders, Jesus wounded their religious and racial pride—and the crowd immediately tried to throw Him off a cliff!

Even Peter, after three years with Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, struggled with this deep-seated Jewish bias. God had to give him a supernatural vision before he would go to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile.

The Gentiles returned this hatred in full measure. When Pontius Pilate spoke to Jesus, he said with disdain, “Am I a Jew?” When Paul and Silas preached in Philippi, the crowd arrested them, crying, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city!” Gentiles viewed Jews as a peculiar, arrogant people and referred to them as “enemies of the human race.” This deep hostility persisted through history, all the way to Hitler’s era and into the modern world.

There was a massive wall of separation built on mutual enmity: Jews despising “Gentile dogs,” and Gentiles despising Jews.

Third: The Law of Commandments Contained in Ordinances

Verse 15 explains what created this division: “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.”

This refers to the ceremonial and dietary laws—the Mosaic Levitical regulations that were unique to Israel as a nation in covenant with God. God originally gave these laws for two primary reasons:

1. To serve as types and shadows pointing to the coming Savior and their need for salvation.
2. To preserve and protect Israel from the defilement of the surrounding pagan nations, which were steeped in idolatry and moral corruption.

God gave Israel rules regarding clean and unclean foods, ceremonial washings, sacrifices, and worship practices to regulate every detail of their lives as His covenant people. These rules created a distinct boundary between Jew and Gentile. God intended this boundary to act as a protective hedge around His people.

However, instead of viewing these laws as a protective hedge and a pointer to the coming Messiah, the Jews turned them into a badge of religious pride. They raised the wall even higher by adding countless human traditions and regulations. Rather than seeing themselves as a light to the Gentiles, they viewed the ceremonial law as proof that they were inherently superior to the rest of humanity.

Thus, the hindrances were:

• The wall of separation, which was caused by
• Enmity in the heart, which was fueled by
• Misusing God’s ceremonial laws as a symbol of pride rather than a pointer to the Savior.

Question 2: What did Christ do to these hindrances?

Verse 14 states: “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation…”

Christ destroyed it! He completely dismantled it. How?

Verse 15 tells us: “…having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances.”

What does the phrase “in His flesh” mean? As we saw in verse 13, we were brought near “by the blood of Christ,” and verse 16 speaks of His being slain upon the cross. “In His flesh” refers to His sacrificial death on the cross.

When Christ hung upon the cross, what happened to the Mosaic ceremonial system? As Colossians 2 explains, all the ceremonial rules of the Old Testament were shadows, but the substance belongs to Christ.

The five primary sacrifices in Leviticus, the priesthood regulations, the temple worship, the dietary distinctions between clean and unclean, the thousands of animal sacrifices offered generation after generation, and the High Priest entering behind the veil on the Day of Atonement—all of these pointed directly to the hour when the Lamb of God on the cross would cry out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

They pointed forward to the moment when the great High Priest, the Lord Jesus, would offer Himself up without spot to God through the eternal Spirit, entering the true sanctuary and pleading the eternal efficacy of His own precious blood.

When Christ died, He completely fulfilled every type, shadow, and requirement of the ceremonial law. Therefore, those ceremonial ordinances were abolished in His flesh. There was no longer any need for the shadow, because the Substance had come!

To demonstrate that the ceremonial system was finished, God Himself performed a dramatic act the moment His Son cried out, “It is finished!” God reached down from heaven, took the thick, heavy veil of the temple that separated man from His presence, and tore it in two—not from the bottom to the top (as a man would tear it), but from the top to the bottom! The middle wall of separation had been permanently torn down by the hand of God.

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God was saying, “Now there are no more ritual commands required; the wall is broken, and the way to God is opened through My Son to every Jew and Gentile through faith.” That is what Christ did to the barrier: He abolished it completely, fulfilling its entire purpose by His redemptive work upon the cross.

So, we have seen the hindrance and what Christ did to that hindrance.

Question 3: What was the result of Christ removing the hindrance?

Look at the text in verse 15: “…having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.”

Notice the intent and purpose of Christ: in order that He might create in Himself, out of the two, one new man, thereby making peace. His intent was that, in union with Himself, He might—by the operation of creative power—make the two into one. All those for whom He died, He brought into vital union with Himself, and by an act of creative power, He made the two—Jew and Gentile—into one new man.

The text says, “one new man.” It was not Christ’s purpose to turn Gentiles into old Jews by making them submit to circumcision and other rituals, but rather to create both into one new man united in Christ. The Jew does not have to become a Gentile, and the Gentile does not have to become a Jew. His purpose was not to make Gentiles like Jews or Jews like Gentiles, but to create a brand-new humanity in which there is no ceremonial law to differentiate them—leaving no room for enmity, and no wall of separation.

This is why Paul could declare in Galatians 3:27–29:

“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Distinctions existed among people prior to being united to Jesus Christ—distinctions of rank, slave or free, or that greatest of all distinctions: Jew or Gentile. But those distinctions become non-existent when someone is united to Christ. A person is incorporated into the new man that God has made—the new humanity in which these divisions are utterly gone.

That is why, in Acts 15, the Jerusalem Council decided that Gentiles do not have to follow any of those old ceremonial laws regarding circumcision, sacrifices, or ritual observances. It was all fulfilled in Christ. Through Him, Gentiles are made one with Jews.

The exact same truth applies across all religions and cultures: you do not have to convert to my culture or religion, nor I to yours; we all become a new man in Christ Jesus. There is a oneness, a fellowship, a union, and a beautiful relationship that ultimately has nothing to do with cultural heritage.

The poor do not have to live like the rich; the rich do not have to live like the poor. The uneducated do not have to act like the educated, nor the educated like the uneducated. There may be different standard-of-living levels within the church, but there is an underlying oneness, joy, and mutual acceptance of one another.

Notice the final result of breaking the wall and forming one new man in verse 15: “…thus making peace.” The ultimate result of creating this new man was the accomplishment of peace. Paul uses a present participle here to describe a work that goes on continually and will keep going until every last Gentile and every last Jew appointed for salvation is united in Christ as one new man, and every barrier Godward and manward is eradicated.

So, we have covered two points: The Person of Peace and The Procurement of Peace. We will look at the remaining three points—Proclamation, Participation, and Privileges—in the coming weeks.

Application

This message is not merely abstract theology; this truth teaches us two vital principles for living in peace in a world filled with conflict. If you are experiencing conflict with anyone today—whether in your personal life, home, workplace, neighborhood, church, or broader community—this is the way of peace.

How do we experience true peace? We must learn two things: The Person of Peace and The Process of Peace. The Person of Peace is Jesus Christ, and the Process of Peace is His finished work on the cross.

1. First Principle: Peace is Found in a Person

The Person of Peace is Christ. A warring world is desperately seeking peace, and people have tried every human angle to achieve it:

• Humanism: Believing that we as humans can achieve peace without God’s help, saying, “Let us just talk as human beings.”
• Sociological Manipulation: Trying forced association by law, putting opposing groups together and punishing them if they fight.
• Liberalism: Refusing to stand for the unique truth of the Gospel, saying, “Let us agree with all religions and surrender the truth that Christ alone is God.”
• New Age Mysticism: Practicing transcendental meditation, trying to escape outward troubles by turning inward upon oneself.

How foolish! The answer lies outside of us in the Gospel truth, not inside ourselves. Humanism, social manipulation, liberalism, and mysticism are completely incapable of producing real peace.

This passage teaches us that Christ is our peace. The absolute best way to produce peace between hating minds is to bring them to the very same Savior. That will heal enmities far better than any other human method. Yet natural humanity resists this, because the cross humbles human pride. Proud people will do anything to escape the humbling message of the cross—they will try every alternative first. But the work of the cross was designed not only to produce peace with God, but peace between hostile people. Do you see how futile it is to talk about peace apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Christ’s peace is not like the temporary peace of the world. True peace is oneness. It is not merely the cessation of hostilities or the temporary absence of conflict; it means being truly united. Otherwise, peace is just a superficial word.

Is it true peace when two opposing armies lay down their weapons and stop firing at each other? We call it peace, and it is certainly preferable to active warfare, but it is not true peace. It is often just exhaustion from fighting—an agreement to pause until both sides can recuperate and rearm. Then conflict breaks out all over again because nothing was truly resolved. God is not interested in that kind of truce. True peace is genuine oneness.

When a church meets regularly and people refrain from shouting at one another, does that alone make it a peaceful church? Peace is oneness and harmony; anything less is superficial, external, temporary, and deeply unsatisfactory.

Is it peace when a husband and wife agree not to get a divorce and stay together for the sake of the children, while the home remains cold, loveless, and divided without harmony or joy? Simply agreeing not to fight is not peace. Sooner or later, it inevitably leads to a new outbreak, with all the underlying animosity surging back to the surface. This is why human attempts at peace never last—because they are not really peace at all; there is no oneness.

As one commentator noted: “There cannot be any lasting peace among sinners apart from the radical solution of the cross.”

Paul teaches that true peace can only be found in a Person. In order to live at peace with others, you must first have peace on the inside. Everyone wants to stop conflict on the outside, but you can never stop outward conflict until you possess inward peace—and that peace comes from Jesus Christ alone. He gives peace both Godward and manward. To live at peace with someone else, you must be at peace with the Person of Christ.

Why do people fail to live in peace with others? People often feel upset, troubled, discouraged, or angry, listing all the terrible things others have said and done to them, feeling completely justified in their resentment. But they fail to see that their fundamental problem is a lack of peace within themselves. Being emotionally distraught and bitter colors everything they do and think. They cannot see clearly, their perspective is distorted, and everything is out of focus. It is impossible to solve a relational problem until a person acquires inward peace. Once we place the matter into the hands of the Lord and experience His peace in our hearts, we can begin to understand what is happening and apply wise remedies to resolve the situation.

If Christ is our peace, then to be ignorant of Him is to be devoid of peace. You cannot have true peace with God or man without Him. Without Christ, you remain in that miserable GUCASHA state: having no hope, unable to claim any promise of God for this life or the next, living without God in the world. You are right where those Ephesian Gentiles were before the Gospel reached them. You cannot claim you haven’t heard the Gospel—and if you hear it and still do not believe, it is because you love your sin.

When you lack inner peace, you live as though surrounded by walls, isolated from God and others.

How can you receive Christ’s peace? Just as Christ came and proclaimed peace to the Ephesians, He comes through His Word today to preach peace to you. If you lack peace in your heart and in your relationships, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! He offers true rest for your soul through the work He accomplished on the cross. When you accept Him, you will experience a peace you have never known before. Once you have His peace, you can begin resolving the conflicts around you.

Are you struggling with internal peace right now? Come to God through the Person of Peace. Call upon His name, transfer the weight of your guilt onto Him, and rest entirely upon His work on the cross. You will experience divine peace with God. This is God’s explicit promise to believers in Philippians 4:6–7:

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Dear child of God, the degree to which you and I enjoy the peace that Christ is and has procured is the degree to which we live by faith in the Son of God. When you feed on Christ daily, live in union with Him, and trust in His work, you will always see the reconciled face of God and enjoy His peace. He is our peace—the ultimate source of all peace.

Even in the church, conflicts can arise. The pathway to peace is to have Christ reigning as Lord in every heart. To the extent that He is truly Lord of your life and my life, we will experience peace between us. One of the clearest marks of true conversion is when people who were formerly hostile toward one another begin to pursue peace together. At the source of this new peace is Christ dwelling in each heart, subduing our selfishness and pride.

The more we are drawn to Him, the more we will live in peace and loving communion with one another. Whenever a congregation falls into fighting and mutual suspicion, mark it as an inflexible rule: they have ceased to abide in Christ, and Christ has ceased to be the focal point of their life together.

2. Second Principle: The Process of Peace (Removing Self-Righteous Demands)

Secondly, we must learn the process of peace. Why is there a lack of peace in so many homes? Because people do not know the way of peace. Although Paul was writing about resolving the great historic conflict between Jews and Gentiles, the principles apply directly to our personal conflicts today.

There are middle walls of separation standing among us as well—walls of anger, bitterness, hatred, and distrust between husbands and wives, parents and children, or neighbors and friends. When we feel deep-seated bitterness, we often throw up our hands and say, “It’s no use; there’s nothing we can do.” So the walls in our homes become higher and thicker every day.

We must learn to remove our walls just as our Lord removed His: by addressing the root cause. The wall between Jew and Gentile was sustained by enmity that stemmed from a legalistic misuse of ritual laws. The ceremonial law, approached without grace, produced self-righteous pride among the Jews. By fulfilling and abolishing that ceremonial law, Christ removed the cause of the enmity and broke down the wall.

The exact same process applies to our lives. Why do walls rise in our relationships? Why does hostility grow? It grows because of self-righteous laws, rigid demands, and unrealistic expectations placed on others, without recognizing that it is only God’s grace that changes any of us.

It is “Law” (demands without grace) that creates hostility. If you remove the demand, you end the hostility.

We are dealing here with a profound spiritual and psychological insight: the strength of any hostility is demand. Hostility feeds on expectations and conditions. We demand something from someone; when they fail to meet our standard, enmity grows.

Hostility is usually created by our self-righteous demands on others, forgetting that it is only the grace of God that sustains us. Apart from His grace, we would be the worst of sinners. Yet we demand perfection from others, get angry when they fail, and harbor resentment. It is a one-sided, holier-than-thou insistence that says, “Why can’t you be like me? I am so godly, kind, and good.”

The Jews despised the Gentiles because they considered themselves inherently better. In their self-righteous blindness, they thought they were keeping God’s Law because they avoided certain outward, external sins. They looked down on the Gentiles as inferior. The Gentiles, on the other hand, hated the Jews because they saw their self-righteous hypocrisy. Thus, intense hostility flared between them.

Jesus’ solution was to take away the ceremonial Law as a basis for superiority. He showed that God’s moral Law judges both Jew and Gentile alike, placing everyone on the exact same level: both are sinners, both need grace, and both need forgiveness. When you put people on the same level at the foot of the cross, you destroy self-righteous hostility.

When we are tempted to accuse someone of sin and failure, we ought to remember what the Lord said to the crowd accusing the woman caught in adultery: “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” Everyone stands accused before God; all are on equal ground. The cross of Christ demonstrates that both Jew and Gentile are sinners in desperate need of mercy. He alone saves by grace. We cannot elevate ourselves in self-righteousness and build walls of division. It is all by grace! How easy it is for us to act like those ancient hypocrites—looking down on others and building walls.

So this is where hostility ends: stop being self-righteous. Drop the rigid, self-righteous demands that demand change in others without acknowledging our own need for grace and growth. We all need to change!

As long as one person insists that the other is entirely at fault and that they themselves have nothing to apologize for, hostility and resentment will remain. We see this in marriages and in parenting. When parents insist they never make mistakes, never do anything wrong, and never need to say “I’m sorry” to their children, those children often grow up harboring deep resentment. Self-righteousness always breeds hostility. It is only when parents humbly admit they can be wrong, acknowledge their own need for forgiveness, and show a willing heart to ask for and grant forgiveness that true harmony can flourish. Hostility comes by self-righteous demands; remove those demands, and hostility dies.

God Creates Something New

Is God content merely with ending hostility? Never! There is a second step in verse 15: “…so as to create in Himself one new man.”

Notice the word create. Creating is something only God can do. Humans cannot create from nothing. Only God can take a seemingly hopeless situation of hatred, where human effort has failed, and create a brand-new unity out of nothing. He makes a new man—a unity that never existed before.

Many people have experienced this in their personal lives and marriages:

“Once I stopped judging my spouse and we came together acknowledging that we both desperately need grace and forgiveness, I discovered a relationship I never dreamed was possible. It is better than anything we had before. Something genuine and new has begun.”

When people say, “Our marriage is dead, our love is gone, and there is no way to restore it,” what a joy it is to point them to Christ! In Him, a completely new relationship can come into being. Many have laid hold of this truth and found that in the new unity born at the cross, there is a freedom, glory, beauty, and richness that was never there before.

We see this same principle in the church. Think about how Christ has made us into “one new man.” We come from diverse backgrounds, traditions, and life experiences—people who, apart from the Gospel, might have viewed one another with suspicion or hostility. Yet in Christ, we enjoy sweet fellowship and look forward to gathering together.

Why? Because He is our peace. We must continue to let this fellowship grow by accepting one another as we are, never judging people based on their outward backgrounds.

What a wonderful sight it must have been to the ancient world to see Gentiles and Jews worshiping God side by side—a true crowning miracle of the New Testament! The church today should demonstrate that same reality to the world: diverse people united as one new man through the cross, free from worldly divisions. We must view every conflict through the lens of the Person and work of Christ.

A Note on Modern Misunderstandings

Consider what this means regarding modern Zionist or dispensational teachings that seek to re-establish the old division between Jew and Gentile. If Christ has broken down the wall between Jew and Gentile and made them into one new man, how wrong it is to attempt to rebuild that wall, dividing people again and generating new enmities!

Some groups teach that when Christ returns, He will reinstate the Old Testament temple, Aaron’s priesthood, and animal sacrifices for Jews during a literal thousand-year period. But this passage explicitly states that Christ abolished those ceremonial ordinances in His flesh on the cross!

To teach that animal sacrifices and temple rituals will be rebuilt and re-instituted is a direct contradiction of Ephesians 2 and many other New Testament scriptures. It dishonors the glorious, finished work that Christ accomplished on the cross. If the precious blood of Christ has abolished the wall and its ritual commands, it is an insult to His blood to claim that God will rebuild what He destroyed. What Christ abolished through His blood must never be reconstructed by man. Whatever future plans God has for the Jewish people, it will never involve re-establishing an obsolete ceremonial system. Almighty God will never direct Israel back to sacrificing lambs, which would diminish the once-for-all finished sacrifice of His Son.

The All-Sufficient Cross

It is marvelous to see how Paul finds every answer in the cross of Jesus Christ. We never outgrow the cross! It is as we grow in our understanding of what transpired at Calvary that we mature in true grace and knowledge.

All true solutions to our deepest human problems are anchored in the cross. We do not need worldly philosophies, sociological theories, or secular therapies to solve the fundamental problem of human conflict. We need to return to the cross and ask: What did Jesus Christ accomplish when He was crucified?

As you understand what He did more deeply by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, you will find the answers to your struggles. By faith, lay hold of what Christ has done, and pray that the Holy Spirit will apply its power directly to your life today!