For the Christian there is no law. Where there is law there is judgment.
The law demands that you do something. There is NOTHING for us to do other than to live by faith. "THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH" Romans 1:17.
We live by faith in the work and the person of Jesus Christ, (The Gospel)
Robert, you are merely asserting. You have not interacted with the passage you are using for these assertions. You want the passage to bear more interpretative freight than it contains. Why not
make an actual interpretative attempt and explaining what you think you have read and why you think thusly? There mere naked quotation of Scripture answers no dispute as to what said Scripture means to the writer of the passages nor to the intended recipients to whom the writer was writing.
Hermeneutics is not a monologue, Robert. The author does not simply address the readers through the medium of the text, the text alone does not speak to the reader and the reader does not address only a silent text. A proper hermeneutical method is one that integrates three worlds: the author’s, the text’s, and the reader's. To rightly divide Scripture, Robert, try this four-step method:
First step- Word Focus: etymology, synonyms, antonyms
Second step- Word Relations: grammar, syntax
Third step- Context: immediate context, whole book context, whole Bible context.
Fourth step- Culture: Social—the customs of the times; Temporal—the period in history; Geographical—the place on earth.
Now, as for the verse you are appealing to, Eph. 2:15, let's look closely at what Paul has to say.
Eph. 2:14
For he is our peace
Paul here now includes Jews in the privilege of reconciliation, showing that through the one Messiah, all are united to God. This shuts down the false confidence of the Jews that despised the grace of Our Lord, boasting that they were the holy people, and chosen inheritance, of God. If Jesus Christ is
our peace, all those who are out of Him must be at emnity with God. No one who is in Christ can doubt that he or she is reconciled to God.
Who hath made both one
That Jesus Christ is our peace was a necessary distinction. All interaction with the Gentiles was held to be inconsistent with the superior claims of the Jews. To subdue their pride, Paul tells the Jews that they and the Gentiles have been united into one body.
Accordingly, Paul reasons...
1. If the Jews wish to enjoy peace with God, they must have Christ as their Mediator.
2. But Christ will not be their peace in any other way than by making them one body with the Gentiles.
3. Therefore, unless the Jews admit the Gentiles to fellowship with them, they have no friendship with God.
And breaking down the middle wall of partition
From Scripture, we know by the will of God that the Jews were separated for a certain time from the Gentiles. We also know that ceremonial observances were the open and avowed symbols of that separation.
God had chosen the Jews to be a peculiar people to himself, passing over the Gentiles. Hence, a wide distinction was made, wherein the one class were “
fellow-citizens and of the household” (see Ephesians 2:19) of the church, and the other class were foreigners. We see this plainly stated in the
Song of Moses:
“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel: for the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:8,9)
God fixed bounds to separate one people from the rest out of which arose the enmity Paul speaks about. The Gentiles were set aside. God was pleased to choose and sanctify the Jews by freeing them from the ordinary pollution of mankind. Afterwards, ceremonial observances were added, which enclosed (like
walls) the inheritance of God, preventing it from being open to all peoples or mixed with other possessions, thereby excluding the Gentiles from the kingdom of God.
But now, says Paul, the enmity is removed, and the wall is broken down. By extending the privilege of adoption beyond the limits of Judea, Our Lord has now made us all to be brethren. Thus the prophecy is fulfilled: “
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” (Genesis 9:27)
Eph. 2:15
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity
The meaning of Paul's words is now made clear. The middle wall of partition hindered Our Lord from forming Jews and Gentiles into one body, therefore the wall has been broken down. Paul adds the reason—to abolish the enmity, by the
flesh of Jesus Christ. In the assuming of a human nature common to all peoples, God the Son has formed in His own body a perfect unity.
Even the law of commandments contained in ordinances
The metaphorical
wall is now plainly expressed by Paul. The ceremonies, expressions of the distinctions between Jew and Gentile, have been abolished through Jesus Christ. What were circumcision, sacrifices, washings, and abstaining from certain kinds of food, but symbols of sanctification, reminding the Jews that their lot was different from that of other nations. Not only does Paul declare that the Gentiles are equally with the Jews admitted to the fellowship of grace, so that they no longer differ from each other, but also Paul declares that the
marks of these differences has been taken away for the ceremonies have been abolished. When an obligation is discharged, the handwriting is destroyed—a metaphor which Paul employs on this very subject in Colossians 2:14.
[A
bonus teaching is also available here: In this passage the means of refuting an erroneous view held by some today is available. There are those that still claim circumcision and all the ancient rites, though they are not binding on the Gentiles, are in force at the present day upon the Jews. On this principle there would still be a middle wall of partition between them and us, which is proved to be false by Paul's clear teachings herein.]
That he might make in himself
By the use of
in himself, Paul moves the Ephesians from seeing the diversity of men, and entreats them look for unity nowhere else but in Christ. To whatever extent Jew and Gentile might differ in their former condition,
in Christ they are become one man. Paul emphatically adds,
one new man, intimating to what he explains later that “
neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision, availeth anything,” (Galatians 6:15,) but that “
a new creature” holds the first and the last place. If we are all renewed by Jesus Christ, the Jews no longer can congratulate themselves on their ancient condition, but let the Jews be ready to admit that, both in themselves and in others, Christ is all.
To wrap up what Paul has been teaching, we see that in the following verse,
Eph. 2:16, Paul adds another advantage derived from Jesus Christ, that all have been brought back into favor with God.
The Jews have no less a need for a Mediator than do the Gentiles. Without a Mediator, neither the Law, nor ceremonies spoken of herein, nor their descent from Abraham, nor all their dazzling prerogatives, would be of any good. We are all sinners; and forgiveness of sins cannot be obtained but through the grace of Jesus Christ.
In this same verse Paul adds,
in one body, to inform the Jews that to cultivate union with the Gentiles will be well-pleasing in God's sight. In this verse Paul points out the out the propitiatory sacrifice,
by the cross. Sin lies as the cause of enmity between God and us and until it is removed, we shall not be restored to God's favor. Sin has been blotted out by the death of Christ, a death in which Our Lord offered Himself to God the Father as an expiatory victim. The cross is mentioned here for another reason, for it is through the cross that
all ceremonies have been abolished. Accordingly, Paul writes,
slaying the enmity thereby. These words, which no doubt relate to the cross, may also have two senses. One, that by HIs death, Our Lord has turned God the Father's anger towards us, or two, that having redeemed both Jews and Gentiles, Jesus Christ has brought them back into one flock. I think the latter to be the more probable interpretation, as it agrees with Eph. 2:15,
abolishing in his flesh the enmity.
AMR