Hello everyone. We’re back to our regularly scheduled Trinitarian Bible Study. Yes. We are correctly in the book of Ephesians. I appreciate the lack of a hard time on that one. Tonight, we’re going to be in the second chapter. Again, rather than just give one verse, I wish to give the context of the passage under study. We’ll be looking at verses 14-18, but our main emphasis will be on verse 18.
14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Paul is describing the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, which was still a problem in that day. Christ was the one who came and broke apart the barrier that existed between the Jews and the Gentiles, which is a theme that we will see throughout this epistle. In him, the two are united.
What Christ did on the cross was to take the Law and meet all of its requirements. In so doing, he set up himself as the new man uniting the children of Abraham by faith and those that were of Jewish descent. Now all are united. Of course, I don’t mean that all who are of Jewish descent are saved in saying that.
The cross was the instrument that God used to put to death the hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles. There is no longer any favored position between the two. Now naturally, there was still some hostility going on as Paul was writing this letter. However, there is no longer to be any basis. Jews are not to look down on Gentiles or vice-versa.
Christ came and preached the message of peace. What was that message? It was not just that Gentiles and Jews can have peace with each other. It was that Gentiles and Jews can both have peace with God and both of them have peace with God on the same terms.
The end result? We have access to the Father by the Spirit. What a beautiful Trinitarian text we have here! We can reach the Father through the Son, by the Spirit. This is a consistent pattern that we find throughout the New Testament. When something happens it is the Father as the agent through the Son by the Holy Spirit. It is how God has come down to reach us. In the same way, it is how we are to reach back up to him.
Once again, we are reminded of how important the Trinity is in Christian doctrine. The Trinity is essential to our salvation in the way of God reaching down to us. It is also essential when it comes to how we reach back up to him.
Let us continue to rejoice in the triune God.
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