One Body, One Spirit, One Building

SERMON OUTLINE

• I. What We Were
• II. What Christ Has Done

TRANSCRIPT

Please turn with me now to Ephesians, the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians 2. As we continue our study of this epistle, we come to this passage in the second part of Chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2:11 - 22. This is our text for this morning. And let me read this passage for us, Ephesians 2: 11 - 22, “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” Amen.

The apostle Paul has been speaking, as we have seen in this epistle, of what the church is in the plan of God, something glorious, a sovereign and gracious work of God. The apostle Paul has mentioned already something of the basis and means by which the Ephesians have been brought into this church: the election of God, predestination (Ephesians 1:11); but then also the preaching of the gospel, faith, belief in the gospel message. They believed, they were saved, they were brought into the church (Ephesians 1:13). Paul has spoken of what the Ephesians have gained and what they will gain: an inheritance, the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of that inheritance until the full redemption of the purchased possession.

Paul has emphasised also the exceeding greatness of the power of God that has been at work in all this, the power that was at work in the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the power that was at work also in the quickening from the deadness of sins of those who were lost and far from the kingdom. In all this, Paul has assumed the universality of the church as comprising both Jews and Gentiles. This is an aspect of the manifold wisdom of God that Paul is going to elaborate on further. This is the reason the Ephesians, who are mainly Gentiles, have such a place in the church.

And therefore Paul, having laid out the individual aspect of salvation in the first part of chapter 2, ‘God hath quickened you. You who were dead in sins have been quickened by God. By grace ye are saved. By grace through faith,’ now, having emphasized and elaborated on that individual aspect of salvation, Paul goes on to elaborate on the corporate aspect of the gospel message. Here from Ephesians 2:11, he is elaborating on the together of verse 5: “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This togetherness in Christ, together with Christ, together in Christ - Paul is elaborating on this together.

Now he wants the Ephesians to remember the wonder that they should feel at the fact that they have been brought into the kingdom, and they have been brought in on the very same footing as the Jews. They stand on the same level. They stand on the same basis. Grace: “By grace ye are saved,” together with all who have been saved, all by grace through faith, all on the same basis, all on the same footing. There is one household of God. The church is not like the temple, the temple which the Jews at that time were used to, the temple in Jerusalem with the outer court and the inner court, the court of the Gentiles and the court of Israel. No, the church is one building of God, one household of God, no separation within the body of Christ.

And this is what Paul is elaborating on and emphasising here in the passage that we read just now. And before we get into this, we must keep in mind the newness and the strangeness of this idea for many, for the Jews especially in those days, steeped for so long in the idea of their own exceptionalism. ‘We are the Jews. We are the people of God. We are the children of Abraham.’ This is what the Jews again and again brought up in their controversy with the Lord Jesus. This was the cause of controversy in the early church as well. The Gentiles cannot be brought in unless they become Jews. They must be circumcised; otherwise they cannot be saved, because salvation is only for the Jews.

This was the occasion for heresy and false teaching in the church as well, the whole problem with the Judaisers which caused such great concern for Paul as he ministered to the churches in Galatia. The whole problem was this: the Gentiles cannot be part of God’s kingdom without becoming Jews. But this was a contradiction of the gospel message. So you see, what Paul is elaborating on here is not just something peripheral, not something tangential to the gospel. It is right at the heart of the gospel message. Right at the heart of this message of salvation by grace through faith is this idea of oneness and unity in Christ, Jew and Gentile together on the same footing. It is because salvation is by grace alone through faith alone that we all stand together in Christ.

To deny that, to make a separation in the body of Christ, to say that the Gentiles must become Jews, is to say that salvation is by works. It is a contradiction of what Paul has just emphasised: “By grace ye are saved… not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8) Of course, it is not that the Jews ceased to be Jews. There were promises given to Israel as a nation, Israel as a people. These promises have not disappeared. But there is now a greater and higher reality. We have been brought together in one body in Christ. The kingdom of God is expansive, and all who are in it stand on the same footing, that of the manifold grace of God.

This was something the church in Ephesus needed to remember to guard them against false teaching, a false idea of separation. This is something the church today also needs to remember, that we may be guarded as well from these false ideas. There is a corporate aspect to the church, not merely an individual aspect to our salvation. And this is essential to what the church is. This corporate aspect is essential to the gospel, essential to the very purpose of God in our salvation. We are saved in order to be brought together in one body in Christ and thereby to display the manifold wisdom of God.

And this is what we want to see as we go through this passage together. The movement of thought is similar now in this elaboration of the corporate aspect of salvation. The movement of thought is similar to what we saw earlier in the elaboration of the individual aspect of salvation. Remember the first part of Chapter 2, the movement of thought was: what we were, what God has done for us in Christ, what we are now. And that is the same movement that we see here from verses 11 - 22 of chapter 2: what we were, what Christ has done, what we are now in light of what Christ has done.

I. What We Were

So first of all, what we were. Remember verse 11, this is the point here: remembering and rejoicing in what God has done in light of who we were. This remembering begins with remembering who we were apart from the grace of God. “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh” Paul is saying to the Christians in Ephesus: ‘remember, in time past you were sinners. You were guilty and condemned. You were children of wrath, even as others’ - that was earlier on in Chapter 2 - ‘Remember also that you were Gentiles. You were uncircumcised. You bore in your flesh the mark of your exclusion from God’s kingdom. You were called Uncircumcision. You were known by this. You were defined by this. You were despised for this by the Jews of the Circumcision,’ the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. These are the unbelieving and unconverted Jews. Their circumcision was merely fleshly, made by the hands of men, not the hand of God in the heart. There was this separation. There was this hostility and animosity.

But the true difference between Jew and Gentile is spiritual, not physical. And now even this gap will be bridged in the eternal plan of God. But again, the point here is to emphasise their despised condition as Gentiles. They were without Christ, that is, they were apart from Him. They were far from Him. They did not even know the glorious details of the promise of salvation in Christ. There was Genesis 3:15 from the beginning all along, but so much more was revealed specifically to Israel, beginning with Abraham through Moses and all the prophets. Christ was set forth in such glorious detail.

This is Paul’s affirmation in a slightly different context of the privilege that was accorded to the Jews in Romans 3:1, “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” They had the revelation of God committed to them. They had Moses and all the prophets. They knew of Christ. Remember what we saw in the Sunday school this morning, those of you who were there. Remember how the Lord Jesus before His ascension taught the disciples, opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. He said unto them, Luke 24:44, “These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.”

This is what the Jews had. They had Christ in the revelation of the Old Testament. They had the books of Moses. They had the prophets. They had the Psalms, all speaking of Christ. But the Gentiles were without Christ. They were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. They were unable to enjoy the blessings given to Israel as a nation. Unique and wondrous blessings given to Israel as a nation constituted under divine principles. A nation given the divine law, the law of God, to govern all their relations with him and with each other. A perfect law to establish peace and order in their society. That is something wonderful.

Not just the civil law of Israel, but the ceremonial law as well, the worship of God. An entire nation organised around proper worship, worship commanded by God Himself. They alone of all nations knew how to worship God according to His prescription. This is the commonwealth of Israel. Something that Israel themselves, to their shame, so often despised. They turned away to paganism. They made themselves like the other nations. They changed their glory, as the psalmist says, “into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.” (Psalm 106:20) They traded this glory. But it was a real glory, a real blessing, a real privilege. The commonwealth of Israel, the Gentile nations under the Old Testament dispensation were excluded, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise.

The covenants, not as if there were many different covenants, but many iterations, as it were, of the covenant, but all given to Israel, beginning with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all summarised in this glorious promise, ‘I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.’ That was said to Israel. Again, under the Old Testament dispensation, the Gentiles were excluded. It was Israel who was the people of God, Israel whom God chose out of all the nations separated at Babel. God chose Israel to be his. ‘I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.’

The Gentiles were strangers from the covenants of promise. They had no hope. They had not the hope that can come only from the revelation of God’s covenant promise. They were in bondage. They were in bondage to the one who had the power of death, who through fear of death held them in bondage. As the apostle says in Hebrews 2, they had no hope. They were without hope. They were without God, without the knowledge of God. Remember Paul in Athens, walking through the city, seeing their idolatry. Saw also the altar that was made there with this inscription, ‘To The Unknown God.” That was the Gentiles. They did not know God. Paul said in Athens, “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” (Acts 17:23) This was the condition of the Gentiles, a poor condition. They were far off.

II. What Christ Has Done

“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13) “But now” in verse 13 has the same impact as “But God” in verse 4, ‘But now you are brought from paganism to the kingdom of God. You who formerly were far off, far from the holy city, far from the temple, you are made nigh. You are brought near. The promise is to you.’ This is what Peter said in Acts 2:39, “For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Those who are far off as well as those who are nigh. “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13) The power of the blood of Christ is such that even aliens may become citizens. Strangers may become children. The hopeless may become hopeful. Godless sinners may become saints of God in Christ Jesus. “Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

By the blood of Christ sin is removed for all who trust in Him, and all need this remission of sins. This is the reality. Even though there is an external sense in which some are near and some are far, seen in this external way, in this superficial way, the Jews were near and the Gentiles were far off. But in the true spiritual sense, all of us are far off because of our sins. All of us have been separated far from God because of our sins. All of us need the gracious promise of forgiveness through Christ. All of us need the blood of Christ, “for he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” (Ephesians 2:14) In order to understand this, we have to understand again in what sense Israel was given the law of God, the uniqueness of Israel.

Now Israel was given God’s law. They were given the moral law in the fullness of its revelation, encapsulated in the Ten Commandments. Israel was given also the ceremonial law, the law of ordinances, the prescriptions for worship, the sacrificial system, and so on. But all of this was meant to point to Christ. The law given to Israel did not set them on a higher plane, as if they alone of all people could be saved by works. Their entry into God’s kingdom was by faith, not by works. Just as it is for everyone, from Abraham and for all others, it is by faith. Their trust had to be in Christ, not in themselves.

And this was the purpose of the revelation given to them. The oracles of God entrusted to them underscored this very truth, pointing to Christ, and now he has come. This is the “but now” in verse 13. The new dispensation brought in by the advent of Christ is: believe, and be saved. The same message for all, one new man, “that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” (Ephesians 2:16). The cross is a symbol of peace, not only between God and man, but between man and man. It is to the same cross that we all must look in order to be saved. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:22)

And it is because the cross is basic to our salvation in this way that it serves as a point of unity. It is the common means for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles, what Christ has done. And so now this message of peace is preached to both Jew and Gentile by Christ and by His apostles whom He has sent. This message of peace is preached. Both Jew and Gentile have access to God by one Spirit through Christ. We have access unto the Father. We Gentiles have access to the Father.

Do not miss how wonderful this is. Do not miss how amazing this is. We Gentiles, far off, without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, we have access to the God of Israel, by the same Spirit, through the same Saviour, the same Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been made nigh by the blood of Christ. We have access to the Father. Think of the familiarity with which Abraham could speak to God. Abraham, called the friend of God. Think of the access that he had to God. Think of the access that Moses had to God. Think of the access that David had to God, and the prophets, what access they had to the God of Israel. Something that, as Gentiles under the old dispensation, was alien to us. He is the God of Israel. But now He is our God, our heavenly Father. In Christ, we have access by one Spirit to the Father. What a marvellous privilege.

Do you see that? What a shame when we do not make use of this access. What a shame. What a tragedy when we behave as if we are still far off. We will not come to God. We will not commune with Him. We will not spend time with Him. We will not pray to Him. When we have this access by the blood of Christ, by the Spirit of Christ, we have been brought near. You see how important it is for us to see these things so that we can live in light of them, so that we can appreciate the things that we ought to appreciate. We are not far off because of the grace of God. We need to appreciate what we have now, what we are now because of what Christ has done for all of us.

There is now this equality of position between Jew and Gentile in Christ. We are fellow citizens with the saints. No more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens, not second-class inhabitants, but citizens on the same level, part of the same household, the same family of God, the same building. We are grafted in, to use the picture that Paul uses in Romans 11, the same plant, the same building, built on the same foundation. Verse 20, “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” as instruments by whom God’s revelation is delivered to man, the foundation, the revelation of God given through the apostles and through the prophets. Now of course the primary foundation is Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3: “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” The metaphor is different here. However, the apostles and prophets are considered as servants of Christ used by Him to lay this foundation, the foundation of truth and revelation on which the church is built. And therefore here in this metaphor, Christ is the chief corner stone.

And again the commentators tell us how the corner stone is an essential part of the foundation in that it determines the shape of the whole structure. Everything takes its shape, takes its order from the corner stone. The corner stone sets this basis so that everything can be measured with respect to it. It is the measuring point. It is the marker that every other part of the building uses and takes its direction from. Everything adjusts to the corner stone, one chief corner stone, that is Christ. And the whole building, built on one foundation, the apostles and prophets, this is one structure. This is one harmonious work of God. And as the apostle Peter puts it in 1 Peter 2, we are the living stones built on Christ, living through him, each stone fitted in its proper place, all joined to Christ, all growing up together in him as “an holy priesthood… to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,” a holy temple unto God for His habitation.

This is what the church is. This is what God has done. He has built a habitation for Himself. “Ye are the temple of the living God.” That is the word of God to us, the church. You are the temple of the living God. God dwells in your midst, a dwelling place of God formed of believers from every nation, every kindred, every tribe, every tongue, a dwelling place for the Almighty God, filled with His Spirit, prepared by His Spirit, sanctified by His Spirit. And this is the glorious reality that we need to keep in mind. The church is not something mundane but something divine. It is not a human organisation. It is a divine constitution. It is not the work of man. It is the handiwork of God Himself. He has built us together as one in Christ, that He might dwell in us, that His glory and His wisdom might be displayed in us.

This is something the Ephesian church needed to hear and needed to remember. “Wherefore remember,” they needed to remember this. They needed to know this so that they would be guarded against the spread of false teaching, which was rampant and dangerous in those days. It was still a point of live controversy on what basis the Gentiles can enter the Kingdom. There was still dispute about this. There were still false teachers promoting these false ideas that the Gentiles must become Jews. But this is to deny what God has done and what God is doing, what God has purposed for the church. It is to deny the message of the gospel.

The Ephesians needed to be reminded of this. That is what Paul wants to do here. See what the church is. See what God’s purpose is in the church. “all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2: 21-22) For us, the controversy over circumcision is effectively over. I trust we are not in danger of thinking that we need to be circumcised in order to be saved. But that does not mean this message is irrelevant. That does not mean we do not need to hear this. We are still in danger. And though we may not think that we need to be circumcised in order to be saved, we can fall into similar kinds of error.

We can err in the first place by failing to recognise, by failing rightly to appreciate what God has done in our salvation. We can err by taking it for granted that we, as Gentiles, now have a place in the kingdom of God as fellow citizens with the saints. We can take it for granted. We can think highly of ourselves. We can forget that, as Gentiles, we were far off. Now we are brought near. We have no right to be in God’s kingdom. We have even less basis than the Jews. We are Gentiles. We were far, far off. And yet now we are in the Kingdom of God. We have access by one Spirit to the Father. We can call on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as our God. We are children of Abraham by faith.

This is a marvellous thing that God has done. And we err greatly when we fail to appreciate that. Then also we can err by still thinking in terms of works. We may not think in terms of circumcision, but we can still think in terms of works. There are other ways that we can contradict the message of the gospel, other works that we can rest in, other than the work of circumcision. We can even today begin to think of ourselves as if we are saved because we were better than others, as if we are more deserving of salvation than others. The Jews do not have a monopoly on pride and self-righteousness. What we read in the Gospels, the ways the Pharisees and the scribes thought and spoke, it is not only they who were in danger of such sin. We all have this tendency to think that we are more deserving than others, to think that we stand on some other basis than the grace of God in Christ.

There is no such thing as an elite Christian, someone who is elevated above others, someone who is holier than others because of his works or her works. We need to beware of such an error also. But then finally, and I think also most urgently for us today, we can, by submitting to factionalism, by dividing the church on some kind of external basis. This was something the Corinthian church, for example, ran into. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 12- 13, speaks of how it has been told to him that there were divisions in the church. There were factions in the church. “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided?”

Paul says, ‘Is Christ divided? Is the body of Christ divided?’ We must beware of this tendency and this danger. We are one in Christ. We should not allow ourselves so easily to be divided. We must not think of ourselves as divided. There is a danger of this. Even now in this church, we have the Chinese congregation upstairs. We have the Filipino congregation upstairs. But we are one in Christ. We are not divided. We are not separate. We are not better. We are the same. We stand on the same footing. We are brethren in Christ. We must not forget that we are not more deserving than they are.

There is this tendency. I think you see it, this kind of insular, provincial tendency to think of ourselves first and others second. We must look after ourselves, our own needs, our own concerns. Me first, other people second. I look after myself first. I think this is the wrong kind of thinking in light of what the church is. We are one, fellow citizens, the same household, the same family. Why is there so much disunity? Why is there hostility even in churches? Is it not because we have forgotten what Christ has done? We have forgotten that He died. He went to the cross to put to death all these enmities, to put an end to all these hostilities and all this separation.

How easily we band together against our brethren. We form groups and cliques, us versus them. It is so easy, even in the church. Christ went to the cross to break down all these walls. We stand in Him on the same footing. We are reminded of this here in scripture. We are reminded of this in the sacrament also. Every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper, “ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ,” all equally in Christ. We must not allow carnal differences to divide us when we ought to be focused on this overarching, overriding unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. That is the application. We are all one in Christ. We are God’s workmanship, not only as individuals but supremely as a corporate body. God’s purpose is that we should be one.

Now, of course, some of you, I am sure, will be thinking of this. We must not fail to mention that in this fallen world there is also the need for separation. This is taught in scripture. We must separate from those who walk disorderly, and so on. But the point made here stands no less emphatically. All Christians, all who believe, are one in Christ. We are one body. We are one building. God dwells in us, with all that that reality and that description of the reality entails. This is what we are because of what Christ has done. This is what the church is, one building of God, which he has made to be a habitation for Him through the Spirit. We must live in light of that. We must have that in our minds when we come together. This is our understanding. This is who we are when we look at one another.

These are the spectacles that we wear. This is the lens through which we see one another: Christ and the cross. When I look at you, you look at me, we see Christ, ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ This is what we must keep in mind. Then we will not allow these carnal things to divide us so easily. When we look at one another, we must see Christ and what He has done to bring us together in Him. May the Lord help us to remember this. This is so important for us, elaborated in such detail, wonderfully and gloriously for us so that we will not forget. Wherefore remember. Let us close with a word of prayer.

Our Father in Heaven, help us to see these things. Help us to see and understand what we have read in Your word. Help us to appreciate what You have done in the church in bringing us together, Jews, Gentiles, people from all nations, all kindreds, all tongues, all brought together to be one in Christ. Is it not Your desire that we should be one? Then help us to overcome all these divisions. Help us to put aside these differences, the things that so easily come between us. Help us to keep in mind the truth and the glorious reality of Christ and what He has done on the cross. He has made in Himself one new man. We are part of that one body in Christ because of Your grace. Help us, help us to remember this. We ask it in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.

THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS

All Spiritual Blessings

All Spiritual Blessings

Ephesians 1:1-7

The Exceeding Greatness of His Power

The Exceeding Greatness of His Power

Ephesians 1:20-23

God’s Workmanship

God’s Workmanship

Ephesians 2:1-10

Message 1: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 1)

Message 1: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 1)

Ephesians 2:1-10

Message 1: The Nature of Faith

Message 1: The Nature of Faith

Ephesians 2:8, Hebrews 11:1

Message 2: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 2)

Message 2: Hindrances to a Personal Relationship with God (Part 2)

Ephesians 2:11-18

Good Friday Service: Reconciliation with God

Good Friday Service: Reconciliation with God

Ephesians 2:11-18

One Body, One Spirit, One Building

One Body, One Spirit, One Building

Ephesians 2:11-22

The Amazing Prospect And Awesome Responsibility Of Being A Christian

The Amazing Prospect And Awesome Responsibility Of Being A Christian

Ephesians 2:19-22

God Is Able

God Is Able

Ephesians 3:20-21

Walk Not as the Gentiles

Walk Not as the Gentiles

Ephesians 4:17-24

A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember

Ephesians 4:17-32

Be Ye Followers Of God

Be Ye Followers Of God

Ephesians 5:1-2

Be Careful How You Live

Be Careful How You Live

Ephesians 5:15-17

Message 6: What is a healthy and strong marriage? One that obeys God’s model!

Message 6: What is a healthy and strong marriage? One that obeys God’s model!

Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:22-33

Honour and Obey Thy Parents

Honour and Obey Thy Parents

Deuteronomy 5:16; Ephesians 6:1-3

Message 7: What are children for? Heritage of godly seed for Christ!

Message 7: What are children for? Heritage of godly seed for Christ!

Psalm 127:3, Malachi 2:15, Ephesians 6:4

Be Prayerful

Be Prayerful

Ephesians 6:18