Short Summaries of

Sermons on Ephesians

by Rev. Ralph Allan Smith

Enmity and Peace

(Eph. 2:13-16)

Since the tower of Babel there has been enmity among various groups of men, but we must remember that there was a more fundamental enmity among men much earlier. First, wherever there is sin, there is enmity among men. Adam hated Eve after the fall, pointing to her as the source of his problems -- "the woman . . . she gave me from the tree" -- though his primary hostility was against God -- "whom Thou gavest me" (Gen. 3:12). God is the only source of peace and unity. When men hate Him, they also hate one another. This leads to the second aspect of enmity, the hatred of non-Christians for Christians exhibited in Cain's hatred of Abel, but predicted before in the curse against the serpent: "And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel" (Gen. 3:15).

All other manifestations of human enmity are subordinate to these two important truths from the first chapters of Genesis. One, man's hatred against God overflows into everyday life as enmity among men, since they are God's image. Two, covenant-breaking man has a special hostility toward covenant-keeping man, because more than any other man he reflects the glory of God. We are thus reminded that the essence of man's sin is hatred toward God: "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:6-8).

Jews and Gentiles

The tower of Babel, however, is also important in the history of animosity among men. After the tower of Babel, men were divided into language groups who could not communicate well with one another. Distrust from communication problems and perverse aspects of group "bonding," such as tribal assertions of inherent superiority to other men and tribal ascription of world problems to other groups of men, are just two of the many aspects of inter-tribal tension and hatred that arose after Babel.

Racial prejudice is not the right word or concept, even though it is the commonly used expression in our day. In America the friction between black and white people is a problem between two races, but in most parts of the world that is not the problem at all. African blacks have a long history of mutual hostility that goes back all the way to Babel. It has nothing to do with race, they are all negroid. Europeans and Asians have the same kind of hostility among themselves, again in spite of the fact that they are all racially the same. To add just one more painful example, the present war in Bosnia is an eruption of tribal hatred that is as intense as it is long standing-- combined, to be sure, with religious hated, but in no way racial.

Tribal groups usually, though not always, defined partially by language, were in a state of almost constant warfare from the time of Babel. Where empires -- vast multilingual areas including many small kingdoms united under one political system -- existed in the ancient world, they were virtually all established and maintained by force rather than faith -- even the famous Buddhist emperor Asoka inherited his kingdom, according to Buddhist sources, by usurping the throne and killing all possible rivals, beginning his reign as a tyrant. After his death, the empire that he apparently tried to unify by faith in the Buddha fell apart.

Gentile tribes and kingdoms in a state of constant warfare with one another was one aspect of the animosity among men that reflected their hatred against God, similar to Adam's wrath toward Eve. The deeper division among men was the division between Jew and Gentile, not because it was intended to reflect the division between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent but because, as a matter of historical fact, it usually did. The "seed of Abraham" was not equated with "the seed of the woman" when they were chosen to be priests for the world. But they were given special privileges such as access unto God. Israel was close to God, the Gentiles far from God. This arrangement was established for the Gentiles salvation and blessing, but it presupposed their condemnation and tended to excite their jealousy and enmity.

The very same thing can be seen within Israel, for they were not all equally priests. The Levites were exalted above the other tribes in priestly authority. Among the Levites the family of Aaron was exalted to the priesthood and among the family of Aaron, the firstborn son was exalted to be the high priest. The higher up one was on the scale, the closer he was allowed to approach God. This represents privilege, but even more responsibility as the representative of other men.

The rebellion of Korah is one of the most famous stories of the Mosaic era. Korah, of the tribe of Levi, together with some of the Reubenites rebelled against Moses and Aaron, saying "all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?" (Num. 16:3). Gentiles too felt the same way toward Jews: "What makes you so special that your nation alone is a nation of priests and your temple alone the temple of the one true God?"

The New Man

What the Jews themselves often forgot was that the laws that allowed them to be close to God taught them more than anything else about their distance from God. No Israelite could come close to the holy things, only the tribe of Levi had access. Not just any Levite could enter the temple, only the family of Aaron. Among them, only the high priest could enter the most holy place, and that only once a year for a very short time. The entire temple system taught the Jews that they were far from God, condemned because of sin and defiled.

The law established a wall between Jew and Gentile because of the priestly distinctions between them (Eph. 2:14-15), but even greater than the wall between Jew and Gentile was the wall between God and man. Christ bore the curse of our sin in order to break down all barriers between man and God so that we could approach God through Him. That means that He also broke down all barriers between Jew and Gentile, for they are both reconciled to God through the cross (Eph. 2:16).

Christ, furthermore, makes the two groups into a new body. He has put to death the enmity provoked by the law (Eph. 2:15) by taking all of the curse of the law upon Himself. Salvation means that we trust in Him as our covenantal representative before God. All men who believe, Jew and Gentile, are accepted in Christ. They constitute a new humanity, the two being made "into one new man" (Eph. 2:15).

Peace is established between Jew and Gentile because Christ established peace between God and man. God's enmity toward man because of sin is taken away through Christ's substitutionary sacrifice. The temple system, though it was rich with the promise of redemption, revealed God's basic hostility toward man. Through the death of Christ the wall dividing Jews and Gentiles, together with every other wall in the temple, was demolished. Whoever believes, Jew or Gentile, may now approach God through Christ. We may all enter the true Holy place in heaven with no fear of rejection because Jesus has redeemed us from sin.

The destruction of the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile includes secondarily the destruction of all other enmity among groups of men. Christ brings peace between man and God and therefore heals the wounds of hatred. Scythian, barbarian and Greek can worship the true God together with Korean, Chinese and Japanese brothers in Christ. Christ alone is the hope for world peace. Men cannot be unitied (saved from that aspect of sin that manifests itself in hatred of one's neighbor) by law -- today's secular Phariseeism promoted especially by the UN. Men can only be saved by Christ. We must have peace with God first. Peace with man becomes the possession of the human race when the race has been reconciled to God by faith in Christ.

We must never forget that the Gospel that we preach is the answer for all of man's problems, that Christ is the Savior for all of man's sins.

God grant that the Gospel may grow in its influence unto the salvation of the world even in our day to the praise of the glory of His grace.

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