brought us the picture of what we were before we became believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That dreadful verse 3 that paints such an awful picture, and verse 2 as well, of us in our fallen state. And then we moved on to wonder at the marvellous grace and mercy of God. There in verse 8, for by grace are ye saved through faith, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. And last week we looked at verse 10 and reminded ourselves, excited ourselves, I hope, with the thought that we are God's masterpiece, his work of art. And it was all possible only through that same power that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, as we read of it in verse 19 of chapter one. So let's read through this chapter again together this evening. Hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience? Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made 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 ye, who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of petition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. For to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And came and preached peace to you which were far off, and to them that were nigh, for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. So reads God's precious word. And so this evening we come to the next few verses in this particular chapter. We're going to think this evening about verses 11 through to 18. Wherefore remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who were called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye 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. Since time immemorial, right across the whole world, we've been subject to social distinctions, racial barriers, narrow nationalisms, iron curtains, genocides, etc. They exist in our very own country today, as we well know. You didn't have to listen to very much news last week to hear the problems with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party there at their conference. There are still those social distinctions apparent in the world. There are still racial barriers. There's still nationalism, as we saw this last weekend there in Catalonia. These things, then, exist today. But can I suggest to you that perhaps none has been more divisive, none has been more exclusive and unrelenting than that between the Jews and the Gentiles, particularly in biblical times. It seems that at that time, it was all pervading through society, the Jews and the Gentiles at each other's throats, as it were. The Jews of that time believed that the Gentiles were created for one reason and one reason only, and that was to be the fuel for the fires of hell. That was what they said of the Gentiles at that time. They were only fit to be used as fuel on the fires of hell. Pretty dramatic stuff. A Jew was forbidden by law to aid a Gentile woman in childbirth, as that would bring another heathen into the world in their eyes. And the Gentiles, they said, were no better than dogs. This was their understanding and appreciation of the Gentile world from a Jewish perspective. The Gentiles, too, had their own hatred of the Jews, as they did for anybody not quite like them. They considered the Jews to be homicidal enemies of the human race. These are pretty strong words, aren't they? But this is what history records of these people, the Jews and the Gentiles. The Greeks and the imperialistic Romans waged unrelenting war against people of other races. And it came right down to our very own time, does it not, as we see wars being fought across this world in which we live because one country does not particularly like or understand an ethnic minority or another country. So what was the reason for this alienation then? For that's what it was. Verse 11 says that it was because of Gentiles in time past who were called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. The Jewish people believed emphatically that they were God's chosen people and so they were. but they carried it beyond the bounds of reasonable behaviour to the point where they considered that everyone else, as I say, was destined for hell and only right that they were so. And Paul is going to show that it was not social or cultural behaviour but it was spiritual behaviour that brought this about and it was going to be spiritual intervention that was going to put things right. And so he says about alienation that these people considered that the Gentile nations were far off. And in verse 12 he gives five-fold reasons for that alienation. In verse 12, first of all he says, you without being a Jew, without being a Jew you were Christless, you were without Christ, you were not part of the Messianic people. that at that time you were without Christ, he says. This was the Jews' consideration of, or rather this was Paul's consideration of the way in which the Jews were treating Gentiles. And Paul says, since Christ came, since the cross, you would be considered to be without Christ. They had no thought nor hope for a Messiah, the Gentile nations. Totally beyond them to have that sort of hope. Not only were they stateless, he says, you were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. You were stateless. You had no claim as a nation under God. The Jewish believed that, and rightly so again, that they were a nation under God, a theocracy in which the Gentiles had no part whatsoever. So Paul says, this was your position, okay, the Jews might have been a little bit harsh in the way they spoke of it and treated you because of it, but you were Christless, you were stateless. But too, he goes on to say, you were strangers from the covenants of promise. Being strangers has the thought of being friendless. They hadn't got friends in the plan of God for future mankind. strangers then from the covenants of promise. God had covenanted with the Israelites to bring blessing upon them which was going to culminate in the coming of their Messiah. Go right back to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15 to read there of a Messiah being promised, a Redeemer coming. The Gentiles had no such promise. They couldn't claim to have any hope nor to look for a Messiah. So they were Christless. You were Christless, he says. And he's speaking of us, of course, we were Gentiles. And he says you were stateless and you were friendless. Then eventually he comes to the end of that verse and he says you're having no hope and without God. He says you're hopeless. and you're godless. A pretty stark picture, a pretty uncompromising picture of the way in which, Paul says, we were seen in the world. We were those who were Christless, stateless, friendless, hopeless and godless. There was and there is still to this day a massive evidence of religion in the pagan world. There was in those days amongst the Gentile nations and there still is to this very day. There were and there are indeed to this very day many temples and statues everywhere. So what condemns the Gentiles? What condemns the pagan world then, and now to being labelled hopeless and godless? Well, it was simply this, that their false gods and their religious ceremonies had nothing to do at all with the true God. That's the difference between the world's religious systems and that of the one true God. These systems had nothing to do with the true God. And so the Gentiles were indeed without hope and without God. And it had a tremendous impact on them. They suffered greatly because of it. There are many reports that in the first century it was an age marked by suicide among the Gentile nations. And many of those people, it is said, killed themselves simply because they were indignant at the very fact they'd been born and had no hope and no future. Imagine that. Men and women killing themselves simply because they felt that they had no hope and that they had no future at all before them. And apart from Christ, of course, it's exactly the same today, isn't it, with people? They live in a world that's going nowhere other than to destruction. They refuse to think about the ultimate reality of life and death. You'll know, you've spoken to people, I don't doubt, who've got on to talking about life after death and the rest. They have no hope. And they have no future. And they don't want to talk about it particularly. It's not something we want to talk about. I have a neighbour and her one cries, I don't want to think about dying. I don't want to talk about death. Now, we don't want to major on death because it's not a particularly nice subject to talk about, is it? But, you know, we have a different attitude to it, don't we, I hope? Of course we do. We think differently about death because we know where we're going and we know who's going to be there to meet us when we get there. I've just been talking to Dick this evening and in his hospital there, in his nursing home there, I mean, He's not afraid of death. He's not afraid of what's going to happen in the future. Oh, he'll be like the rest of us, perhaps a little concerned about what's going to happen to loved ones that you're going to leave behind. He's going to be concerned about the way he might die. But above it all, there's a smile on his face when he talks about going and leaving this world because he knows where he's going. He knows who is going to meet him. And so apart from Christ, the world today that lives around us, the folks around us, just like those Gentiles of that long gone time, they were going nowhere and there was no Messianic hope therefore before them. People today and always have wrapped their lives around things and refuse to think about the ultimate reality. Life for them is either an intellectual discussion or it's an unending game, never-ending game, where they move from one place to the next. Compare that with the hope that we as believers have, as we've just been saying. Do you ever wonder, as I do often, how on earth do these people cope with life? Is it small wonder that people commit suicide because they have nothing on which to hang their lives? That then is alienation and that's what's in view here. Alienation from God. Alienation from man, and it just brings about a dehumanization and a debilitating state of affairs. It's a very sad, sad state. And it is, if you study it through, it is obviously the very root cause of the social distinctions that we were talking about. The racial barriers, the narrow nationalisms, the iron curtains where we began our study. And so that is the alienation that Paul speaks about here. He says, remember that you being in the past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Verse 13, but, but, Now we come to reconciliation, not alienation. We're not far off, we're being brought near. But now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. That's the difference for the believer. The alienation between the Jew and the Gentiles was to be resolved, and so too can the alienation in the world today be solved through the crosswork of the Lord Jesus Christ. The answer lies in that sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. It is the blood of Christ that makes it possible for born-again Jews and Gentiles to become one and further possible because he is our peace. Verse 13 goes on to say, 14 goes on to say, for he is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of petition. He is our peace. He is the peacemaker between man and God, and between man and other men. He is the peacemaker. It's graphic, it's emotive language, isn't it? It's forcibly bringing before the folk, both the Jews and the Gentiles, of the day, the enormity of the crosswork of Christ. This is what Paul is doing. And Paul in this verse where he speaks about the middle wall of petition between us being broken down, he has in mind there Herod's temple. In that temple there was a wall and it was a wall which divided the court of the Gentiles from the rest of the temple. The rest of the temple. The Gentiles were not allowed to proceed beyond that wall. Not so many years ago, a century or so ago, when they were excavating, they found the remains of that wall. that had been broken down, and they found inscriptions. And on these inscriptions was written words which forbade the Gentiles to go beyond that wall. And when they translated it, it said simply this, no foreigners 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. So what they were saying was, if a Gentile goes through that wall, you can't blame anybody else but yourself if you get yourself killed for going through into the temple. And I understand that those signs, some of them, are displayed in museums to this day. So, here we have graphic, emotive language forcibly bringing to both Jew and Gentile then, and to us in our day, the enormity of the crosswork of the Lord Jesus Christ, which broke down that wall. Christ, by his death and resurrection, has torn down the barrier between man and God, and he invites all to come near to himself. and to each other. We often think and we often speak about being brought by the cross of the Lord Jesus into the family of God, being brought near to God, and that of course is absolutely true, and a wonderful truth. But you know the thought here, Paul says as well, that as believers we're being brought together, we're being brought near to each other. The answer to alienation from God and each other is not intellectual, and it's not political or social, but it is spiritual. We cross that demolished barrier to come close to God and close to each other. Verses 15-16, he goes into a bit more detail. He says, "...having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." What is he saying here? First of all, he's saying that the Lord Jesus Christ, dying on the cross, abolished the law. Now Jesus said when he was challenged on one occasion that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil the law. And there can be no doubt surely in our minds that in his perfect sinless life he fulfilled the moral law to the very letter, keeping all of its commandments, something which we could never do. But as well as that, Paul says, he abolished the impossible demands of the ceremonial law. Verse 8 and 9 says, for by grace, i.e. saved through faith, that not of yourself, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. live by the law if you possibly could, and it still wasn't going to save you and take you into the family of God. So he abolished the law, not only the moral law, but the ceremonial law as well. None of these were going to be useful in salvation in any way, shape or form. But as well, he created a new humanity. And this is the wonderful fact of these verses, I feel. He says, so making peace. And in making peace, Christ created a new race, a third race. Not Jews, not Gentiles, but a third race. And they were to be called Christians. Jews weren't Christianized, nor Gentiles Judaized to become this new third race. It was a fact that both of them, both Jews and Gentiles, needed to be recreated, as it were, into this new race. God was not going to create a half-breed, as we might think, if a Jew was Christianized or a Christian Judaized. He did not create that half-breed, but an entirely new man, an entirely new race, a new race in Christ Jesus. We thought about that last week, was it not? For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. God created that new race of Jews and Gentiles, and he created them through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary, and as we said earlier, using that same resurrection power that he used to raise Jesus from the dead. A new race then was to be the answer to the problems between the Jews and the Gentiles. And then thirdly, he reconciled the new humanity, the new race, to God. Verse 16 says, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. It's saying simply this, that Jesus killed in his own body on the cross the hostility that existed between Jews and Gentiles. Indeed, between all and humanity. And the reality of that death of that enmity between two peoples, the reality of it is seen in the church, the body of Christ, those who are truly born-again believers. That's where the reality of this reconciliation is to be seen to this very day. These three things culminate in the Lord Jesus Christ's ministry of peace and reconciliation. You remember how that he was prophesied as the one who would bring peace. He was prophesied as the one who would preach peace. Both of those appear in Isaiah. He came as the prince of peace. He was heralded by the angels as the one who would bring peace on earth. He promised peace to the disciples as he went to the cross. and he brought peace to the disciples after the cross. Paul says, he is our peace, and that is through his cross work on Calvary's cross. 17 says, and he came and preached peace to you which were far off, and to them that were nigh. So to the Jews and the Gentiles, he preached peace through the cross. He is our peace. And the highest and fullest blessing of that peace, verse 18 says, for through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. That is the highest and fullest blessing that can be possibly imagined through the Lord Jesus Christ being our peace. That we have access to the Father God. Peace with all two, he says, who are in contact with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Peace amongst ourselves, each and every one of us. Peace between Jew and Gentile. Peace between the world's races, the ethnic groups, the rich, the poor, the educated, the uneducated. And it comes only through Christ, through the peace gained at the cross of Calvary. It follows then, that we, the Church, the people who are the recipients of this peace, that we have a great responsibility. And that is of exhibiting that peace, the peace of God and the God of peace, to the world at large. It should be part of the DNA of each and every one who is a member of this new race, that they exhibit this peace of God and the God of peace in their daily lives. We must not be alienated one from the other, but reconciled to each other, forgiving and being forgiven. No middle wall of petition between us. We'll have our differences, for sure, but we have to be agreeing to differ and not to be alienating each other in our differences. Jesus in Matthew 5, 23 to 24, speaks about that reconciliation. And he says that reconciliation is essential if you're going to be true followers of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you're going to be those who want to bring worship to God. As we come to worship, we need to be those who are of the same mind. Jesus speaks of having anything against another brother or sister in our fellowship. We should examine ourselves and we should put that right. We should leave it at the door. We must put that right before ever we come and expect to be accepted as true worshippers of God. So Jesus came, died on that cross that he might break down that middle wall of partition, that we might be one new man, one new nation, one new group of people. He abolished the law, he created that new humanity, and he reconciled each and every one of us of that family to God. And we have that responsibility to demonstrate that to the world outside and to keep alive that hope that we have within us. Amen.