Unexpected Truths – The Church Is For All People

Unexpected Truths – The Church Is For All People takes us into some dicey territory for many Christians.  Does God really want everyone in his church?

Rampant Racism

¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

These verses can be a little confusing without the context.  The two that Jesus is making one in verse 14 isn’t God and man here.  To be sure God does tear down the wall that separates us from Christ, but in these verses Paul is talking about Gentile and Jew.  This was racial hatred.  Racism – the concept that you think more or less of someone based on the color of their skin is disgusting and sinful.  It is a huge change for God to erase those barriers.  Some of those barriers were created by God’s Old Testament Law.  Racism wasn’t codified in the Old Testament, but the idea of separation was, circumcision was a huge barrier as were the dietary laws.  If you recall the Jews who were calling for Jesus’ execution on Good Friday didn’t want to enter Pilate’s palace or else they would be ceremonially unclean.

Law Fulfilled

Jesus did away with all of those rules.  He kept the law perfectly in our place and then to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  The only cure for sin and guilt and hatred and racism is forgiveness in Jesus.  That forgiveness had a dear price – the life of God was given.  When Jesus died, your sin and the sin of the whole world died with him.  On that Good Friday right after Jesus’ death the curtain of the temple was torn in two.  No longer do you need a priest or someone else to go to God.  In Jesus you can go straight to God in prayer.  The barrier between the sinner and God and one sinner and another is gone.  That is a really big change.

Want to hear more?  Watch this week’s message from Ephesians 2, Unexpected Truths – The Church Is For All People.