The Middle Wall of Partition Abolished: Ephesians 2:13-15
One of the more vexing questions
that has plagued the church throughout history has been the question of the
relationship of the Christian to the Law of Moses. The problem showed up almost at the beginning
of the church. Acts 15 is about the
debate that took place in Jerusalem among the leaders of the church as to the
relationship Gentiles to the Law; in particular, whether or not they were required
to be circumcised and to observe the whole apparatus of the ceremonial
law. It was decided that the Gentiles
didn’t have to observe the law. This
conflict also lies behind the tensions implied in Romans 14, where Paul argued
that those who observed the feast days and food laws of the Mosaic law should
not judge those who didn’t. He further
argued that they should all receive each other, as Christ received us to the
glory of God (Rom. 15:7). Above all, the
question lies behind Paul’s epistle to the Galatians.
When we survey the Biblical
evidence, it seems that there were two problems that the early church had to
deal with when it came to the relationship of the law to the Christian. The first was a matter of obedience. The question was whether God still requires
obedience to all aspects of the Mosaic ordinances. For many Jews, it was simply unthinkable to
say that God no longer required the observance of the Passover, Day of
Atonement, observance of the Sabbath, food laws, and so on. It had been part of the obedience of the
faithful for 1500 years. Though many of
us think of the law as partitioned into ceremonial, judicial, and moral, such
distinctions would have been foreign to the Jew. For them, all the law was moral because all
the law was part of their obedience to God.
To imagine that these were suddenly no longer part of a life of
faithfulness to God was simply anathema to many. So you can see why this would have been such
a big issue in the early church. I think
it was this problem that was at the heart of the conflict recorded in Acts 15
and Romans 14-15.
The other problem was more
serious. It was a matter of
justification. It seems that there were
those who not only taught that obedience to the law was necessary for
obedience, but that it was necessary for justification. They taught that a person was made righteous
through keeping the law; that a person’s acceptance before God depended on
their keeping the law of Moses. It was
this view, which Paul calls “another gospel” (Gal. 1:1:7-8), that he addresses
in Gal. 2:16: “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but
by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we
might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
These two problems illustrate the
different ways that legalism has tried to invade the life of the church. It is legalistic to add to God’s commands and
to require what he has not required. But
the more dangerous type of legalism is that which seeks to place obedience to
God’s commands as the basis of our acceptance with God. It of course doesn’t have to be the law of
Moses that we place as the basis of our relationship to God; it can be any kind
of work.
In a real way, these two types of
legalism were what motivated the Protestant Reformation. On one level, the medieval church had piled
on all sorts of extrabiblical requirements for the Christian. For example, if you really wanted to be holy,
you had to embrace the ascetic life of the monastery. More seriously, the whole sacramental system
left many with the impression that you had to make yourself good enough in
order to get to heaven. This was
certainly the way Martin Luther felt as he tried to assuage the intense guilt
of sin that oppressed his soul. It was
why he became a monk, why he tormented his flesh, why he spent sometimes six
hours in the confessional trying to rid himself of the stain of sin upon his
heart. It wasn’t until he understood
that the righteousness that justifies is not something we give to God but
something we receive from God that he felt as if he had entered open doors into
paradise itself.
But these two problems are
perennial. Five hundred years after the
Reformation, we are still tempted to add to what God has required. We are also tempted to believe that by doing
something we can achieve God’s acceptance.
Our text deals with both these
problems. It lays an axe to the root of
legalism in both forms. For it tells us
that the Mosaic Covenant as a whole is no longer necessary for our
sanctification and it tells us that the law of Moses has never been necessary
for our justification. In verse 13, the
apostle tells us that the Gentiles who were once far off are now made near by
the blood of Christ. We saw last time
that the Gentiles were far off in two ways.
They were far off from God, without God and without Christ and without
hope. They were also separated from the
people of God. This double alienation was
bridged by the death of Christ for us.
By his death, our Lord broke down the middle wall of partition by
abolishing the law of commandments – the law of Moses. The law of Moses is no longer a barrier
between Jew and Gentile because it no longer expresses God’s will for the
people of God. Thus our Lord reconciled
Jew and Gentile (14-15). But he also
reconciled both Jew and Gentile to God (16).
He ended the hostility that existed between Jew and Gentile (14) and the
hostility that existed between both Jew and Gentile and God (16). On account of his life and death, we no
longer look to Moses but to Christ as our law-giver. And we no longer look to our righteousness to
bring us peace with God but to the peace with God that our Lord purchased on
the cross for us (17-18).
This morning, I want to deal with
that aspect of our Lord’s redeeming work that frees us from obligation to the
Mosaic law. Verses 14-15 very clearly
teach that the law of Moses is no longer operative for the Christian. It’s pretty clear that the apostle is
referring to the law of Moses by the words “the law of commandments contained
in ordinances” (15). The law consisted
of many commandments that expressed God’s will for the nation of Israel. Paul says that our Lord by his death abolished
this law. In a parallel passage in
Colossians, Paul writes that by his death our Lord blotted out “the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of
the way, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14).
In another passage, the apostle tells us that we have died to the law
(Rom. 7:6). If our Lord abolished the
law, nailed it to the cross, and if we have died to the law, then it must be
that we are no longer obligated to the demands of the Mosaic covenant.
We need to approach this matter
both negatively and positively. First of
all, I want to make very clear what the apostle was not teaching by saying that our Lord abolished the law. There are many who draw inferences from the
NT emphasis on freedom from the law that are not warranted by the overall
teaching of the NT. But then we need to
approach these things positively, and establish exactly what it was the apostle
was teaching.
First, negatively. Now I want to be clear here. The apostle was not arguing that freedom from
the Mosaic law means freedom from all law.
As he tells the Corinthians, he was “not outside the law of God, but
under the law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21, ESV).
Freedom from the law of Moses does not mean that we can live anyway that
we please. This is why I think the
distinction between the moral, ceremonial, and judicial aspects of the law are
helpful. The Mosaic law ultimately did
not come from Moses but from God. And as
such, it reflected God’s holiness and his desire for his people to live holy
lives. Since God never changes, we
should expect that there are aspects of the Mosaic law that were true before it
was formally given on Mount Sinai and remained true after the abolition of the
Mosaic covenant. These aspects of the
Mosaic covenant are what theologians have referred to as the “moral law.” The moral law consists of those matters of
obedience to God which are timeless. It
was wrong to steal, kill, and commit adultery before God gave Moses the Ten
Commandments and it will always be wrong.
You see this in the Sermon on the
Mount. Recall that in the fifth chapter
of Matthew, our Lord is correcting some Pharisaic misinterpretations of the Law
of Moses. He does not abolish the Law of
Moses; if anything, he strengthens it.
He reminds his audience that the commandments that forbid murder and
adultery don’t just refer to what we do to other people but what we think and
feel in our hearts. He tells us that except
our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees we will never enter
into the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 5:20).
But how do we distinguish between
those aspects of the Mosaic law which are timeless and those which are
not? It is common to say that we are
only required to keep those commandments which are reiterated in the NT.[1] Though I would agree with this as far as it
goes, this statement needs some qualifications.
So blandly stated, it makes it sound like we don’t even need to read the
OT.
First of all, the underlying
principle we need to keep in mind is that Christ has fulfilled the law. This is what he said in the Sermon on the
Mount: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law of the prophets: I am not
come to destroy but to fulfill. For
verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall
in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the
kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be
called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:17-19). Christ did not destroy the law, he fulfilled
it. And clearly our Lord assumes that
the commandments of the law have enduring validity for the kingdom that he came
to usher in.[2] But does this mean that we are still required
to keep the ordinances associated with the OT ritual? The answer given in the NT is clearly, no. And the reason is that the early church read
the law in light of our Lord’s fulfillment of it. They understood that the ritual aspects of
the law were no longer necessary after our Lord fulfilled them. However, in fulfilling the moral law, our
Lord not only did not abrogate the moral law, he strengthened it (cf. Mt.
5:21-48). Again, we have to read the law
in light of our Lord’s fulfillment of it.
And though I realize the
distinguishing between moral and ceremonial in the law of Moses is out of
fashion, I don’t see how you can make sense of our Lord’s words in Mt. 5:19
unless you assume that he is referring to those enduring aspects of the moral
code in the Mosaic law, when he says that whoever breaks one of these least
commandments will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. The moral law is not abrogated in the death
of Christ, but the ceremonial and judicial aspects are.
So when the apostle says that our
Lord broke down the middle wall of partition by abolishing the law of
commandments contained in ordinances, he is not referring to those commandments
which still remain the rule of conduct for the Christian, God’s moral law. Freedom from the Law of Moses means that we
are free from that law as a covenant.
But we are not free from our obligation to obey God. It’s simply impossible to read the NT and not
see the emphasis on holy living. The
standard of conduct is not less than the standard of conduct in the OT; if
anything, it is elevated by the teaching of our Lord and his apostles and by
the example of our Lord and his apostles.
Second, not only must we read the
OT in light of our Lord’s fulfillment of the law and the prophets, but we must
also read the NT in light of the OT. We
must never forget that the Bible of the first-century church was the OT. If we somehow think that because we are NT
Christians, we no longer need the OT, then we are completely out of sync with
the church founded by our Lord. The fact
of the matter is that the NT simply does not make sense apart from the OT. If you want to understand what it meant for
our Lord to give himself as an atoning sacrifice for sinners, then you have to
go back and understand what was happening when the OT priests offered
sacrifices. For our Lord’s death was a
fulfillment of all those ritual sacrifices.
He was the “Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.”
But this also applies to the
moral code of the NT. It has been
pointed out that the NT never explicitly forbids bestiality. Does that mean it is okay for
Christians? Of course not! Again, we need to read the NT prohibitions
against sexual immorality in light of the OT proscriptions against
immorality. Read in this light, the NT
condemns every type of immoral behavior also forbidden by the OT, including
bestiality. Whoever breaks on these
least commandments will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. The standard of holiness in the NT is not
less than that of the OT.
We must beware of falling into
the trap of those ancient heresies that taught that the God of the OT was
different from the God of the NT. One of the more serious heresies to afflict
the church as early as the second century was the Gnostic gospel preached by
the followers of Marcion. Marcion taught
that the Old and New Testaments were absolutely opposed to each other, and that
the God of the OT was the Demiurge, “a cruel and unloving Being, and Judaism
was an evil religion, a religion of law and works and self-righteousness.” The NT, on the other hand, was a religion of
the supreme God and his Son Jesus and was a religion of grace, faith, and
freedom.[3] Accordingly, Marcion banned the OT and much
of the NT with the exception of most of the epistles of Paul. Though Christians today would not go to the
same extremes of the ancient Marcionites, the fact of the matter is that many Christians
are all but Marcionite in their outlook upon the OT. We must recognize it for the heresy that it
is. The God of the OT is the God of the NT.
But positively, what was the
apostle teaching? He was teaching that
the Law of Moses is no longer a barrier between Jew and Gentile. The people of God are no longer identified by
the keeping of the Law of Moses.
Circumcision is no longer the sign of the covenant between God and his
people, baptism is. God’s people are no
longer primarily identified by a racial connection to Abraham, but by
exercising the faith of Abraham. The
door to belonging to the church is not participation in an elaborate ritual
consisting of a multitude of holy days and sacrifices, but faith: “For ye are
all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27).
There are some Christians today
who still believe that the Law of Moses in all its aspects is still applicable
to the Christian. But this is precisely
the type of legalism that the apostle in our text is forbidding. In other places, we are explicitly told that
we are not required to keep the food laws.
In fact, Paul described those Christians as “weak” who believed they
still needed to keep the food laws, and said that those who kept the food laws
should not judge those who did not (Rom. 14:2-4). He also went on to say that the religious
calendar of the Law was not necessary for sanctification: “He that regardeth
the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the
Lord he doth not regard it. He that
eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not,
to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks” (Rom. 14:6). To the Colossians, he wrote, “Let no man
therefore judge you in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the
sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ”
(Col. 2:16-17).
The apostle is saying that we are
no longer under the Old Covenant. We no
longer approach God through the priests ordained under the Law of Moses, but
through the High Priest to whom the entire Aaronic priesthood pointed. And “the priesthood being changed, there is
made of necessity a change also of the law” (Heb. 7:12). Rather, if we belong to Christ, we relate to
him through the terms of the New Covenant.
Our obligations to God under this covenant are spelled out in the New
Testament, in the writings of the NT apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20).
And when we celebrate the Lord’s
Supper, we are not celebrating the Passover, an OT ordinance, but something
which points to the New Covenant that our Lord established by his death: “this
is the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25). Every time we share Communion, we are
reminding ourselves that we are participants, not in the Old Covenant which
Moses instituted, but it the New Covenant purchased by our Lord’s redeeming
death.
Note that this change of
covenants required the death of Jesus Christ.
The apostle writes that this wall, the law, came down by Christ, “in his
flesh” (15). This phrase, “in his flesh”
is almost certainly a reference to his death.
You see this by the parallel between verses 15 and 16.[4] In verse 15, Christ abolished the enmity
between Jew and Gentile “in his flesh.”
In verse 16, our Lord slays the enmity between man and God “by the
cross.” It thus appears that “in his
flesh” is parallel to “by the cross.” It
follows that the obligation to obey the Law of Moses passed away because of the
death of Jesus.
But why
did it require the death of Jesus? It
required the death of Jesus because the purpose of the Law of Moses was above
all to point to the death of Jesus. “The
law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by
faith. But now that faith has come, we
are no longer under a guardian” (Gal. 3:24-25, ESV). The whole sacrificial system had to remain
until it was fulfilled. And it was in
Jesus’ death. He is the Paschal
lamb. He is the Prophet, Priest, and
King to whom all the OT prophets, priests, and kings pointed.
That is
why it is ridiculous to insist upon keeping the ceremonial aspects of the
Mosaic law. To do so would be to say
that Jesus had not yet come and fulfilled the law. Why sacrifice a goat which will never take
away sins, when we can look to Jesus who fully and completely took away the
guilt of sin for those who believe in him, by bearing the punishment of their
sins in his own body on the cross?
So the
apostle is saying in verses 13-15 that by his death, Christ has taken down the
cause of hostility between Jew and Gentile by abolishing the law which was like
a wall of partition between them. We are
no longer under the Law of Moses as a covenant.
We no longer have to keep the ceremonial law. But that does not mean that we are free to do
whatever we want. We should beware of
leaving legalism only to stray into antinomianism. As members of the New Covenant, we are under
the law of Christ. Neither do we abandon
the OT. We read the OT in light of our
Lord’s fulfillment of it. And we read
the NT in light of the OT teaching. The
Bible of the Christian is both the OT and the NT, because God is the God of
both the old as well as the new covenant.
Christ is
the one who ties both together. He is
the Christ of the covenants. The Old
Covenant pointed to him and the New Covenant was inaugurated by him. This is why we preach Christ and him
crucified. He is the only redeemer of
mankind. He is the only one in whom we
can find eternal salvation, the forgiveness of sins, and wonderful fellowship
in the presence of God forever. And it
is both the privilege and the responsibility of the church to share that all
who believe in him will be saved.
[1]
Hoehner, p. 376.
[2]
Some try to get around the implications of this text by saying that God temporarily
abandoned the kingdom project for the interim project of the church, so that
this text does not apply to the church.
This, however, has absolutely no support in the Biblical text. When Paul preached the gospel, he preached “the
kingdom of God” (Acts 28:23), the same kingdom about which our Lord preached
and which was ushered in by our Lord’s life, death, and resurrection.
[4] The
Greek is somewhat ambiguous here. I am
following the translation of the KJV here; the ESV also puts “in his flesh”
with “enmity” or “hostility,” but does so in verse 14.
Comments
Post a Comment