Paul is writing to a community that was made up of two very different groups. Many Jews in the time and region hated gentiles. Gentiles were “made to fuel the fires of hell,” it was written. If a Jew married a gentile, they would hold a funeral. There was significant hatred between the groups.
It had its root in God’s command to Israel to be separate from the peoples around them, though obviously taken too far.
Similarly, God Himself was set apart, within the Holy of Holies, within the inner court, set apart from the outer court, itself set apart from the Court of Women, itself set apart from the Court of Gentiles by a dividing wall and threat of death.
When Solomon built the temple, neither the court of women or gentiles existed. In fact, when he dedicated the temple, Solomon asked God that “when a foreigner comes and prays towards this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling-place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel.”
Paul himself is writing this letter from prison specifically because he was accused of bringing a Ephesian man into the temple grounds.
So that is the context of this letter. Paul here talks directly to the gentiles, slurred by the Jewish community around them. And Paul acknowledges that they indeed were separated from God alienated from God and his people.
But Christ broke down that separation explicitly, breaking it “in his flesh.” The reformed preacher Richard Baxter wrote “Every time we look upon our congregations, let us believingly remember that they are the purchase of Christ’s blood”.
We are born again and made new creations, beyond any other distinctive – in Galatians, Paul writes that it goes beyond ethnicity, gender, social status and every other division. What he has done in us is eternal – all the rest is temporal.
In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes that “the love of Christ compels us.” Is that true for us? In our interactions with each other, are we controlled by Christ’s love? Are we seeking the unity Paul writes about here, that Jesus prayed for in the Garden of Gethsemane? Are we engaging in the ministry of reconciliation that we have been given?
Of course we will have conflict, but we have instructions for how to deal with those. Mainly, we need to deal with it and move on, and to work with all people in love. We need to walk in reconciliation so that when the world looks at us they see the love and unity of Christ in our midst.
We should examine ourselves today for any bitterness, any divisiveness, anything that is keeping us from the unity that Christ died to bring to us.
– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, September 13, 2020