Paul knows, from personal experience, the bitter enmity between Jews and Gentiles. From the time of Abraham his people experience conflicts with neighbors: Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians, Midianites, Edomites and others. Jews suffer insults and tortures from supposedly “superior” invaders: Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and now Romans. The Jews, for their part, keep racially and religiously pure by shunning Gentiles. In Peter’s words, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation” (Acts 10:28).7 This is the reason Paul wears chains in Rome and now writes his Prison Letters. For when Paul visited Jerusalem he was seen with “Trophimus8 the Ephesian” (Acts 21:29). The Jews falsely accused Paul of taking this Gentile friend into the temple. The Jews rioted so violently that Roman soldiers intervened, which eventually led Paul to a Roman prison.9 Now Paul, who carries scars from both Gentiles and Jews, writes back to the Ephesians that Jesus “has made the two one.”
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Ephesians 2:14-16).
“The dividing wall” reminds us of the temple in Jerusalem. In Paul’s day, the temple’s structure is a series of barriers dividing priest from non-priest, Jew from Jewess, and especially Jew from Gentile. A literal wall with armed guards keeps Gentiles at a distance, and carries warnings: “No stranger [i.e. Gentile] may enter within the railing around the sanctuary and within the enclosure. Whoever is caught doing so will be responsible for his own death, which will inevitably follow.” Such barriers exist because of the Law of Moses. As long as it remains in effect, it is the real “dividing wall” that separates Jews from Gentiles. God uses that separation as a lesson: The holy cannot mix with the unholy. Now, having fulfilled every demand of the Law, Christ removes its rule.10 His death reconciles us to our Father and to each other. It brings us all together as brothers and sisters in one body, which is to say, one church.11
7. Acts 11:2-3; John 18:28; 4:9
9. Research subject – Paul’s imprisonment: Acts 21:27-36; 25:11; 26:21-32; 27:1; 28:16,30-31; Ephesians 3:1; 4:1; 6:20; Philippians 1:7-17; Colossians 4:3,10,18; Philemon 1:1,9-10,13
10. Research subject – Removal of the Law’s rule: Ephesians 2:14-15; Colossians 2:14-17; 2 Corinthians 3:13; Romans 7:1-7; 10:4; Galatians 3:24-25; Hebrews 7:12,18; 10:9; Jeremiah 31:31-34 with Hebrews 8:7-13; 9:15; see Study Note Six: Abolishing The Law.
11. Ephesians 1:22-23; 5:23; Colossians 1:18,24
Picture: Archeologists have recovered part of this warning sign from the Jerusalem temple. The stone sign forbade Gentiles to enter the temple on penalty of death.