Please turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter two, verse 11 through three, and I'll actually read through 3.13. So 2.11 through 3.13, hear the word of God. Therefore remember, that you once Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 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. Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the house of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which was given to me for you, how that by revelation, he made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly written already, by which when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy prophets, apostles, and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power. To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. Therefore, I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, how we thank you for this portion of your inspired, inerrant, infallible word We pray, oh Lord, that you would help us now to understand it and its application to us. Bless us with this passage by your spirit working in us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. This passage has more in it than we will get to tonight. I anticipate spending at least one more and maybe two more weeks in trying to deal with this passage and trying to get some of the things out of it that are in it. But I want us to, I wanna give you something of a brief outline of the way this passage breaks down. And you'll recognize the outline because last week's passage broke down similarly. First, what they now are. And secondly, how that has changed. And so the passage deals with that. What they, I'm sorry. I said it wrong, what they once were. That's the way it was last week as well. They were dead in trespasses and sins. How has that changed? Well, we saw last week that with regard to that passage, the first part of chapter two, that that's changed by them having been made alive together and raised up together and seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. How did that change? From what did it change to what? And it changed to that, but how did it do that? And we saw that it did that through grace and through the work of God. So this week we'll be looking at another passage the one we have before us, and we will see what was true of them before and how that's changed, both in some degree to, it's changed to what, but also how that change in particular has come about. So let's look at what they were and what the situation was. Look at verse 11 and 12. you once Gentiles in the flesh. So right in the beginning, you're knowing that this is something that's no longer, but once was, they were Gentiles in the flesh. Well, I mean, in one sense that hasn't changed, but in another and more important sense, it has changed. Their family tree did not change. Their genealogical heritage is still of the Gentile nature, but they were once Gentiles in the flesh. and called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, and that's the Jews. But already in here, there is an allusion to the fact that the Jews who understand things that way had it wrong even then. The circumcision made in the flesh by hands are people that elsewhere we're told are not necessarily Christians, not necessarily saved by any stretch of the imagination or any theological twist. Verse 12, that at that time when they were once Gentiles in the flesh, some past time, They were, you were, he says, without Christ. Well, that's significant. But at this point, I want to introduce a shade of difference between this passage and the previous passage in verses one through 10. There is a change for them in verses one through 10 that is a change in regard to their standing and their status before God individually, as to their salvation individually. Here, with the same plural pronouns, so it's not a matter of changing of words, but of how those pronouns are used, whether they're used in a collective sense of all the people together as a group or in a sense of multiple individuals. the previous many individuals here, a collective sense, you people as a group, you Gentiles in the church as a group, verse 12, at that time before you're coming to Christ, they were without Christ. And they were, and look at what more they were not and were, they were aliens. from the Commonwealth of Israel, from the nation of Israel, but not the word nation used here. And they were strangers from the covenants of promise. Because of that, they were in the situation of having no hope and being without God in the world. Think back in your mind. to the first century and the time before that, the Roman Empire, the Greek Empire. The pagan world was the world to be equated with the word Gentiles, all of those who weren't Jews. It was a pagan world. It would apply now as well, but this was a pagan world and those who were members of it outside of Christ and outside of the Jew by being a Jew were without Christ and were outside the covenant altogether in terms of where they were situated then in terms of their inclusion, not in terms of God's eternal purpose and plan. And we read about that in the first 10 or 11 verses of chapter one, but here they were, and they were in this situation and this setting. It's true, not just of one of them, but of all of them. And then verse 13 starts, but now, and here is where I want to emphasize that, but now, a radical change that everything is different now. What is different? In Christ, you who wants, and this is a category of Gentiles, but it also is the individual Gentiles there. In Christ Jesus, You who once were far off, that's how they're characterized, that's the Gentiles, that's the pagans. You who once were far off have been brought near, near to those things that they were far from, near to the covenant, near to Israel, near to God. They have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Verse four. For he himself, that's Christ, is our peace, who has made both one. Our peace, meaning peace between Gentiles and Jews. Paul, of course, has a Jewish heritage. He is called, as he makes reference to, called to preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ, chapter three, verse eight. But both he and the other Jewish Christians and the Gentiles have a peace in Christ Jesus. They have been brought near. He himself is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. Let's talk about that middle wall of separation a bit. There was no one more despised by the Jews than Gentiles. Well, that's everybody else. But they were looked down on specifically because they were Gentiles and they as Jews were in the covenant. They were God's people. And so those who were not God's people were looked down upon by them. This is not just an ethic issue, a situation of ethnic differences. It's not just a situation of racial differences, genealogical differences, but for the Jews was a situation where the Jew could say, we are the people of God. And the Gentiles are not. And that's the way they looked at it. And that's the whole thing. And they were despised. As you know, even the Samaritans were despised by the Jews. The Samaritans, in many ways, emulated Jewish religion when they were brought there. Centuries past, they adopted some of the Jewish ways, but they were despised by the Jews as shows up in the gospels. But Christ changed that. So the but now in verse 13 is about that redemptive historical event or complex of events surrounding Christ, His birth, death, ministry, resurrection, ascension, that's all changed. And the situation as to who is the people of God has changed. And that's what's going on in this passage. How did it change? Well, all of the things that are mentioned here, but let us look at verse 15. having abolished Christ, 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. Now, there is an enmity that it's involved, that is an enmity that excludes the Gentiles. It's an enmity that is in the law of commandments and ordinances. That's gone away. That's changed, that's finished. Not the commandments are gone away, but those commandments that would separate Jew and Gentile no longer have any force whatsoever. And it is Christ who has abolished that. He has done that in the flesh, which is a reference again to his death, his blood being shed. So that is gone away and what is left as a result is a new man. Peace between Jew and Gentiles in Christ. Now it did not change the relationship between Jews who were not Christians and Gentiles. who were not Christians. That relationship didn't change. The Jews continued to despise the Gentiles. The Gentiles continued to look down on the Jews who had this holier than thou attitude, who looked down on them as spiritually inferior. They continued to do that. But in the church, and I'm jumping ahead a little bit, in the church, Jew and Gentile are reconciled. Verse 26, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. For Jewish Christians, there is to be no enmity towards the Gentiles. And that enmity existed, that hatred existed for many of them before that. It would have existed for Paul, who later becomes the apostle to the Gentiles. But for Christians, that enmity is put to death through the cross. Now I want to go back to a couple of things. One, in our own day, there are those who want to maintain, want theologically to maintain the middle wall of separation. to make sure that theologically we keep the church composed mostly of Gentiles and Israel or the Jews entirely distinct and separate. That's because they believe that there is a different destiny for those two groups. And so that theological position is over against covenant theology called dispensationalism. Now, by criticizing their theology, please don't think that I am saying they are bad people. I know lots of dispensationalists have known lots more. I usually find them to be very good and very committed Christians. But theologically, they want to keep the middle wall of separation. They want to keep two men instead of one new man. They want two bodies with different theological destinies. This passage is one where Paul repudiates that idea entirely. Now, The repudiation of that idea in its entirety seems to be in this passage, I will say is in this passage, pretty clearly a matter of the redemptive historical approach to the scriptures. That is what is indicated in this but now in verse 13. but now the situation has changed. But God, in verse four in chapter two, shows that the situation of individuals has changed, but here it is a matter of the whole situation has changed, the opportunity and situation for Gentiles has changed, and the nature of the church, has changed from what it was in the Old Testament to what it is in the New Testament. So there is a mighty change that is going on here. Now, it's redemptive historical in that things were different before and now different after, and it is brought about as a result of the finished work of Jesus Christ. So that's the heart of it, the finished work of Jesus Christ. Let me just show you that this but now is also to be echoed in verse five of chapter three. which actually gives us some additional type of information that is talking about other ages, verse five of before, the mystery of Christ from verse three and as well earlier in verse, yeah, in verse three, but also later in verse four, which in other ages, in previous periods of times, the same wants that's in verse 11, and at that time in verse 12, is in other ages, was not made known to the sons of men as it has now, and you see the word now, I've underscored it, been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets. That mystery is explained explicitly in verse six this way. Here's the mystery that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. Now the promise there is the promise of the covenant. They are partakers in covenant promises. Covenants of promise, verse 12, is what they were far from and they were without. But now they are to be included as partakers of God's promise in Christ through the gospel. And so this is the mystery that Paul is presently talking about. There are other mysteries. There are other mysteries in apparently parallel passages, which are not the same mystery exactly. And that would be something that occurs in the book of Colossians. But now jump down to verse nine. Part of Paul's job is to make all see, Verse nine, what is the fellowship or the communion or the union and unity of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages, notice that backward look, has been hidden in God who created all things through Christ. So there's this mystery, but it's been hidden And here it is, here's the reason, verse 10, to the intent that now, he is preaching, reveals that mystery, verse 10, to the intent that now, now that Christ has come, now that Christ has completed his work, now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. who are these principalities and powers in the heavenly places? Well, that would be those that have eminence and power and position in the spiritual realm or the heavenly realm. That would include at least the archangels, the leaders, the chief angels, but would also likely include, because they're also referred to as principalities and powers, the devil and the demons. That the manifold wisdom of God would be made known to them. How? By the church. How by the church? By the church preaching it? No. By the church living it. By the church demonstrating the unity and the oneness that Christians are called to have with one another. The word in verse 10 or the two words, manifold wisdom, the word manifold there is a word that is more than just many. It has the idea of many dimensions. You might could use the word multifaceted wisdom of God. It's a word that we would use to describe the, in a different sense, facets of a diamond. The way as you turn the diamond and look at it in some light, with light reflected on it, it reflects in different ways, and you see the beauty of it. The idea here is the beauty of God's wisdom would be shown by the church in its unity between Jew and Gentile. And I think it's appropriate to extend that to the idea of the church in its unity in general. that that unity of the church that transcends all sorts of differences, not just that between Jew and Gentile, but all sorts of differences of culture, class, ethnicity, religious background, and upbringing, denominations, all of that. should be transcended by the church in a unity in Jesus Christ. Now, this is according to the eternal purpose. This is verse 11 in chapter three. which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, we've been seeing references to God having a purpose all the way from the beginning of verse, about verse three in chapter one. God had a plan. And his plan included among those things, this unity of the church. Now, God's wisdom is manifold or multifaceted and included more things than that, but this is accordant with God's eternal purpose or plan. And the thing to be noted, especially in terms of this redemptive historical sense, is that plan God accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. The world's changed. Everything is changed because of what Christ has done. It is because of what Christ has done that the salvation of verses one through 10 in chapter two is available to Gentiles also and somewhat readily. Whereas before it could be had, but basically through a process of becoming a Jewish proselyte, going through the ceremonies to become in some way religiously official a Jew. But now, all of this is accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. All of the changes from before and after, or before to after, from the other ages to the current age, are changes brought about by the finished work of Christ. They are accomplished. They are done. They are completed. the work of Christ has changed everything so that we and the church in our day live in a different setting from that setting in which Paul grew up, that setting in which Isaiah and David grew up. It's a different setting. It's a different world. It's a world though that is complete and is as God has intended it to be. Now, I want to be careful to explain that, say for instance, what we read in chapter three, verse five, that this mystery in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, that that is qualified by the statement as it has now been revealed. It's not that it never was made known, and I won't take the time tonight as part of what I said would continue over, but from Genesis 3.15 to the establishment of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Jews and the Gentiles both were included in God's covenant revelation. But it's clear as we read through the Old Testament that the Jews didn't pick up on that, not in any grand way, nor that they readily reached out with the truth that had been taught to them to Gentiles to make that truth known to them for their salvation. But now, in a church that was initially Jewish, not even to discount the history of that foundation. The foundation now is that of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, chapter two, verse 20. But ignoring the past part of that, the church as we know it from Pentecost was a Jewish church. The people who were gathered at Pentecost hearing the sounds and hearing the apostles and other Christians speaking in their own tongues were We're told in Acts chapter two, basically Jews of the dispersion, Jews who had been in other parts of the world, Hellenistic Jews who had come to Jerusalem for the festival and they were there for that, but they were converted in the early church was a Jewish church and they faced issues when the first Gentiles were received into it. That being Cornelius, who by Peter and those with him, and with his whole house were baptized after Peter preached the gospel to them and they received it. And God manifested his blessing on them in a way very much parallel to what was manifest among Jews on the day of Pentecost. So that God has brought about a radical change in line with his revelation from the beginning, but not clear until the time it actually begins to happen. And it was happening in Paul's day. So that the church moved fairly quickly from being a church basically dominated, almost limited by Jews at the very first, to one in which Jews were rare. But it is still a church that binds both together. Other passages in scripture that talk about that, and even the eschatological end time significance of that, we will put off for right now. But for right now, we should know that the times changed with the finished work of Jesus Christ. And an important part of that was the inclusion, not separately, but with the Jews of the Gentiles in God's church as his people, as recipients of and partakers of the covenants of promise. from which they appeared to be excluded before. All of that's changed. All of that is changed so that God's manifold wisdom might be demonstrated and made known by the church in heavenly places according to God's eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus. God's eternal purpose, which we've already been seeing and which seems to be demonstrated by the display of God's wisdom by the church in verse 10, an eternal purpose that is predominantly God's. This is for God's glory. Does it have any meaning for us other than learning to appreciate a redemptive historical approach to scripture? And we'll talk more about that part of it certainly later, but the answer is yes. The answer is yes, not just in the sense that, well, now we shouldn't exclude Jews. If a Jew comes and wants to go to church and wants to believe in the gospel and become a member here, we should welcome him. We would do that anyway. But we should understand as well the overriding sense in which disunity and lack of love is not a characteristic of the church, cannot be a characteristic of the church. So that Whereas the Jews look down on the Gentiles, we now should not look down on others, especially others that are brought into the church. They are Christ's. And we should love them as brothers and sisters in the Lord. There shouldn't be built up any false middle walls of partition. That would be wrong. That would not be the Christian approach. Christ has already torn down all such walls officially in his church. If we build them up again, we do wrong. If we build them up again theologically, we are missing the theological unity that is insisted on in this passage. But we need to know, that we are as Christians to see the church as belonging to all of those who are in Christ Jesus. And that we are joined with them in covenant with God through Christ Jesus. We are to know that Christ Jesus makes all the difference in the world. And we'll talk more about some of these things God willing, next week, let's close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we know how badly and how greatly the Jews despised non-Jews, Gentiles, including Samaritans. We see how this cannot be in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, that Christ has put an end to that, not just to other enmities, but especially to that between Jew and Gentile, so that we as Christians should not in any way despise the Jews, Nor should we think they are some people with a separate destiny. But we are to know that they are joined with us in the church of Jesus Christ when they believe in Christ. We pray, Lord, for the conversion of the Jews, the conversion of individual Jews, but the conversion of the Jewish people even. We pray that we would see demonstrated more completely than has been visible in the church for 2,000 years, the unity between Jew and Gentile in the covenant that you made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and have continued with your people in Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for the display of your manifold wisdom. We pray that it would be more fully displayed in the church than it yet has been. Father, we pray for your glory. We thank you, above all else almost, that everything changed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. in His coming to earth and living a holy life and dying on the cross and rising from the dead and ascending into heaven and sending His Holy Spirit. And Lord, we see that we are in a setting that is the setting that Paul was writing out of the midst of. And our setting is basically unchanged, although there has been historical development. In terms of your plan, Lord, we are still in that time, that age that follows Christ and that precedes the consummation in his second coming. Lord, help us to live as his people in that setting, as your people in that setting. Bless us in the church that we would give glory to you by the way we live, the way we function, the way we are united and show love to one another in Jesus Christ because of what Christ has completed and accomplished. We pray in his name, amen.