Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Our world is divided.

Whether it is about politics, morality, worldview, or race,

In the divided world of 2017, unity is the way

Throughout the course of history, it has been shown that human beings tend .

The Chinese built what is known today as the Great Wall of China over a period of over 2,000 years to try to keep out invaders.

Beginning in 1961 the East Germans began construction on the Berlin Wall, which was built to keep people from fleeing from East to West Germany.

Our country has a wall on our border with Mexico in several places.

Even when we build our houses, we build them with walls and then we build another wall around the house for additional privacy and protection.

While we build walls for all kinds of reasons, one thing that all walls have in common is that they cause separation.

Sometimes that separation is good and useful, but other times the separation is actually harmful.

And in those cases, in order to overcome that harm, those walls have to be torn down.

On June 12th of this year, it was actually the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s famous speech in front of the Berlin Wall where he uttered these words:

11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “ Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

“Mr.

Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

A little over two years later, on November 9, 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall began.

By October 1990, not only was the demolition of the wall complete, but the two Germanys that had been separated by the wall became one.

In , Paul writes about how Christ has abolished the dividing wall that existed between humanity.

Let’s read our passage together again:

11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “ Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Background - Jew and Gentile Audience

14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

17 And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near;

11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “ Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

17 And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near;

Body

Ok, so as we read this, you can see that this passage is talking about two groups: Jew and Gentile.

And if you remember from our first week, we said that this was one of the passages of Ephesians that suggests Paul’s audience was comprised of both Jew and Gentile believers.

It might even seem that the church consisted primarily of Gentiles from the way Paul seems be talking to them alone here.

Eph 3:1 says, “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—“ So in both cases, it seems that Gentiles make up a good portion of the church.

And again, we said in week 1 that Ephesus was not in Palestine, but in Turkey.

It was a popular place for people to enter Asia Minor.

It was a place of tourism, the Temple of Artemis was there (Eph 19:27).

It was a pagan center of worship to be sure.

So it makes sense that Paul’s audience would be largely made up of Gentiles.

Now, who were gentiles?

Gentile was a term that simply meant anyone who was not a part of the Jewish race.

This is a term found in the New Testament, although it is rooted in ideas of the Old Testament.

In the OT, you have a distinction between the nation of Israel, and the other ‘nations’ (Hebrew ‘goyim’, for nations or people’) In Josh 24:11, Israel was commanded to drive them completely from the land.

In Genesis 12:1-7, God made a covanent specifically with his people, in a way that was separate from all other nations, and so in the Law of Moses, the Israelites were commanded to be separate from them.

God did not want them to adopt the religious practices of the people around them.

So, there was a dual way in which the Israelites were to treat people of other nations.

On one hand, they were to be separate from them.

Deut 7:1-5 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, 2 and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them.

You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. 3 “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. 4 “For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you.”

So they were not to mix with other nations.

Also, in Ezra 9-10, Ezra made it clear that Jews were not to marry with women of other nations.

And yet, in Gen 12:3, God made it clear that the children of Abraham were to be a blessing to every nation.

“And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

This is also illustrated in the story of Jonah.

And even people like Ruth or Rahab were Gentiles, and yet welcomed into the nation of Israel.

So there was a dual aspect of Jews’ relationship with non-Jews.

But as the Babylonian captivity took place, the Jews became subjects of hostile foreign nations.

And the persecution of Jews by Greeks and Romans from 400 BC to the NT era made Jews retaliate with hatred toward Gentiles and avoid all contact with foreigners.

That is the background to this passage in Ephesians.

There was a tremendous separation between Jews and Gentiles at the time.

There really is no modern parallel in our society.

By the time of the 1st Century, Gentiles were really separated from Jews.

Listen to what William Barclay wrote about this: "The Jew had an immense contempt for the Gentile.

The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell.

God, they said, loved only Israel of all the nations that he had made ... It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile mother [at childbirth], for that would simply bring another Gentile into the world.

Until Christ came, the Gentiles were an object of contempt to the Jews.

The barrier between them was absolute.

If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or if a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, the funeral of that Jewish boy or girl was carried out.

Such contact with a Gentile was the equivalent of death."

As you can tell, this was quite harsh.

But that was how separated the two groups were.

Imagine how must Peter have felt when he was on his rooftop and dreamed that God was telling him that the Gentiles were now clean, or Paul when he saw his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus and was later told that he had been chosen to take the gospel to the Gentiles?

It must have been quite a change in worldview!

But now, let’s imagine that we were Gentiles at that time.

As we said, the people of Israel were told that they were to be a light to lighten the Gentiles.

They were to show by their behavior just how good life could be under God, so that the nations would come to them to share in their blessings.

But imagine you were one of those Gentiles who had come to the land of Israel to join with the people of God.

What would you have encountered?

First you would have experienced the contempt expressed in that description we just read.

The only possible way you could have associated with a Jew would be if you decided to convert to Judaism.

Yet even if you were able to convince Jews that you were serious about worshipping God with them, you would still have found yourself excluded from the center of Jewish worship.

When you walked into the Temple courts here’s what you would have found.

A 5 foot wall with a sign on it that said something like this: "No foreigner may enter within the barrier and enclosure round the Temple.

Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing death!"

Not "Trespassers will be prosecuted", but "Trespassers will be executed!"

This is probably what Paul has in mind when he refers to the dividing wall of verse 14.

Gentiles could get close enough to look up and see the Temple above them, but they could never enter it.

They could never be part of the full worship of God.

In other words, they could never enjoy the full benefits of being part of God’s people.

Well, Paul says that was the reality for Gentiles before they were saved.

Paul says in verse 12 that formerly, the Gentiles were without Christ.

That is, missing out on all the benefits he’s spoken of in chapter 1 that come from us being in Christ.

He says they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise.

In other words, they were excluded from all the benefits that God had promised to Abraham, and finally, as having no hope and without God in the world.

They were without hope (vs 12), first because they didn’t know about God’s promises (vs 12), but second because as we found earlier in the chapter they’d suppressed what truth they had about God (Rom 1) and instead had turned to the worship of idols.

So it’s interesting here that Paul doesn’t just say, “You know, Jews hate Gentiles and don’t associate with them.

But in reality, we’re all the same.

It doesn’t matter who we worship.

We’re all God’s children, and everyone is the same.”