What is the wall of separation (Ephesians 2:14)?

"For He Himself is our peace" (v.14). This is not the question of peace with God but of peace between Jews and Gentiles, who previously were enemies. Christ Himself is the present Bond between the believers of both groups. He has made both one, His blessed work of redemption has broken down the "middle wall" that so separated them. This middle wall involved both the law of God itself which separated Jews from Gentiles and the difference in cultures resulting mainly from that law.

The Lord Jesus has abolished the natural enmity between these peoples "in His flesh." Coming in flesh and blood, He has voluntarily "been put to death in the flesh" (1 Pet.3:18). This took away the guilt of believing Gentiles who were without law, but it also delivered Jews from the bondage of the Mosaic law which they had broken. "The law of commandments contained in ordinances" (v.15) has kept Jews and Gentiles far apart for the Jew boasted in the law, while the Gentile would have nothing of it. Yet the Jews only observed the law outwardly with selected forms and ceremonies. They could be fiercely zealous of it, yet have no real heart for obeying it to please God. But in Christ this is all done away. He has made in Himself "one new man" of two divergent peoples. This "one new man" is the body of Christ, the Church. So He who is our peace has made peace in a sphere that was once so extremely antagonistic.

The law which separated the Jews from the Gentiles is called a 'middle wall.' In the cross this was removed for believers, and both were made one, no longer remaining Jews or Gentiles. Christ formed the two into one new man, and thus made peace between them. Eph. 2:14-15.

He is our peace, making of both one. The parties mentioned here as made one are Jews and Gentiles. 2. Broken down the middle wall and abolished the law of commandments. Between these two there stood a middle wall of partition, which separated them. This wall is the law. God Himself had put it up. But now in the cross of Christ, God has broken down this middle wall and made an end of the enmity which existed between Jews and Gentiles. And the law of commandments and ordinances finds its end in the cross. 3. Making in Himself one new man.

Jews and Gentiles, believing, trusting in Christ, made nigh by His blood, are made both one and constitute one new man. This is what God has accomplished, taking believing Jews and believing Gentiles, gathering them into one. This is the masterwork of God, He does during this age. When the kingdom age comes the Jews will receive their place of blessing and glory in their land, and the Gentiles will be greatly blessed and enjoy righteousness and peace. Both Jews and Gentiles will be in the kingdom then, but not as one body. In the present age a body is forming "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all" (Col. 3:11). This new man is the church, and Christ is the Head of that new man. Grace flowing from the cross of Christ, where peace was made in the blood, takes up Jews and Gentiles and makes them one. When our Lord prayed in His high priestly prayer "that they may all be one as we are one," He must have thought of this great truth, now fully revealed in this Epistle by the Spirit of God.

Now, all this separation was not a human, but a divine, "middle wall of partition." Doubtless prejudice and hatred, never contemplated in the law, came in, for the pride of the natural heart is only too prone to cherish such things. But, apart from all this, Judaism was as distinct and separate from everything Gentile, and that by divine ordinance, as it is possible to conceive.

It is to be observed that God has "broken down" the wall which He Himself reared (it would have been sin for anyone else to have done so) of old. Jehovah said to His people, "I Jehovah am holy, and have severed you from other people that ye should be mine" (Lev. 20:26). The godly gloried in this, and could say, "He shows His word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. He has not dealt so with any nation: and as for His judgments, they have not known them" (Ps. 147:19-20). So that Peter was warranted in telling Cornelius that it was an unlawful thing for a Jew to come to, or keep company with, one of another nation. But such distinctions belong to the past. God's present work is the formation of the one body. Christ has abolished in His flesh the enmity (ver. 15). Peace is now proclaimed to the distant and to the nigh: and both draw near to the Father.

In what way are we made nigh? Israel had a certain nearness under the old covenant. Are we to be a kind of duplicate of them? No, for according to verse 14 both have been made one. The word, "both" indicates believing Jews on the one hand, and believing Gentiles on the other. This oneness has been brought to pass by Christ. He has broken down the dividing wall and made peace between the warring factions. He has abolished the enmity in His flesh: that is, by the offering up of His body in death.

The enmity was connected with "the law of commandments contained in ordinances." The law of Moses contained great moral enactments, which are never abrogated, but there were also many ordinances of a ceremonial nature connected with it. These ceremonial rules separated Israel from the nations by making them a peculiar people in their habits; indeed, they were intended so to do. Such ordinances were annulled for believers in the death of Christ, and at once this great cause of hostility was removed. Acts 21:20-26, shows how little this was realized by the early believers in Jerusalem, and how even Paul himself seems to have been for the moment deflected from what he here lays down. We see in that passage also how great the hostility was on the part of Jews; an hostility which was fully reciprocated by the Gentiles.

Having thus abolished the enmity, the Christ has made the two into one in Himself. It is not that the Gentile is now one with the Jew, but that the Jew in Christ is now absolutely one with the Gentile in Christ. Both are found in a position and condition before God which is wholly fresh and original. They are no longer two men but one man, and that man is altogether new. This is a complete solution of the enmity difficulty — "so making peace." Two men might quarrel. One man cannot very well do so. And he has no inclination to do so, for he is a new kind of man. In all this we are of course looking at what God has accomplished in an abstract way: that is, according to its essential character, and without introducing those modifications found in our practice, owing to the flesh still being found in us.

(V. 14). Secondly, Jewish and Gentile believers are “made both one”. None can overestimate the importance of being made nigh by the blood; but, for the formation of the church, more is needed. The church is not simply a number of believers “made nigh”, for this will be true of every blood-bought saint from every age: it is formed of believers from among Jews and Gentiles “made both one”. This Christ has accomplished by His death. In a double sense “He is our peace.” He is our peace between God and the believer; and He is our peace between Jewish and Gentile believers.

(V. 15). In His death Christ removed “the law of commandments” which was the cause of distance between God and man, and between Jew and Gentile. The law, while promising life for those who kept it, condemned those who broke it. Seeing that all have broken the law, it inevitably brought condemnation to those under it, and thus put men at a distance from God. Moreover, it raised a sharp barrier — a middle wall — between Jew and Gentile. Until this barrier was removed there could be neither peace between God and men nor between Jew and Gentile. In the cross the condemnation of the broken law has been borne, and thus the enmity between men and God, and Jew and Gentile, has been removed. The peace that is the result is set forth in Christ; He is our peace. We look back to the cross and see that everything between God and our souls — sin, sins, the curse of a broken law and judgment — was there between God and Christ, our Substitute; we look up and see Christ in the glory with nothing between God and Christ but the everlasting peace He has made, and therefore nothing between God and the believer. Our peace is set forth in Christ, who is “our peace”.

This truth paves the way for the statement that Christ is our Peace. He is our Peace, not now with God only, but as between Jew and Gentile; and He becomes this by that same death on the cross, which laid the foundation for the reconciliation of both the one and the other; for thereby He has broken down the middle wall of enclosure (τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ) that fenced off the Jews from all the other peoples of the earth. It was God who had thus separated them to Himself, and put them under His law and government. but we know how immediately they broke His law and transgressed His commandments, so that the law became a ministry of condemnation and death. The death of Christ met alike the claims of God upon the Jew and the Gentile, for He took upon Himself the whole of our responsibility, and thereby He broke down the wall of separation between the two, since both the one and the other must now be saved, not by works of law, but on the principle of faith. He thus abolished in His flesh the enmity between the two — the law of commandments in ordinances — that of the two He might make in Himself (Jew and Gentile alike on believing being united to Him by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven) one new man, so making peace; and that both might be reconciled to God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Hence, on the foundation of what He had accomplished on the cross, He could come preaching peace both to Jews and Gentiles; for all being justified by faith, would have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God had raised a wall between the Jews and the Gentiles, which in Christ's death was broken down for believers, "to make in himself of twain one new man." Eph. 2:14. "There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . . for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Gal. 3:28. This does not touch unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, who are kept separate in God's present and future dealings.

20 Verses 13-16. The blood of Christ does away all difference between those who were far off and those who were nigh. It is evident that the Jews, having put to death the Messiah, had destroyed every link between themselves and God: the middle wall of partition was broken down. They were like the nations, and more guilty than they. All that had belonged to them was entirely destroyed, and set aside by the death of Christ. That which had made the distinction of the Jew consisted in the ordinances by excluding the Gentiles who had no part in them. Now there is no longer need to know whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, for we see in verse 15 that the end of God is to take Jews and Gentiles in order to make one body of both. He has broken down the middle wall of partition, and wishes to form not the commonwealth of Israel again, but a new body in His presence, taken from either by the cross. It is evident that he who approaches to God by the cross has done with the Jewish ground. The apostle insists upon this point, that God, having laid this foundation in Christ, means to have but one body before Him; and then he shews how this is accomplished here below. If I draw near to God through the blood of Christ, I am a member of His body.

Verse 17. God had made peace, through the blood of Christ, between Jews and Gentiles, by reconciling them both to Himself by the cross; it is a new thing, a new man in Christ, in Jesus Himself. The apostle says it is the cross which has done it, by breaking down the middle wall of partition; and this oneness was established in principle, the moment Christ died. It is the cross which has done it; all difference is destroyed. The uppermost thought with God was to gather together in one, one glorious body in His presence; but in order to do so He must make peace and break down the middle wall of partition; this is what was done by the cross of Christ. It is remarkable that it should be said that it is Christ who came to bring us peace, for it is not His spirit but Himself who brings us peace, this peace which is before God, which is accomplished. It is by Him that we have the enjoyment of it. Christ does not only produce good results in us; but He brings to us the good news of the peace which is made, and He brings it with Himself. "He came and preached peace to them which were afar off, and peace to them which were nigh."