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Sermon preached on Ephesians 2:14-18 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 01/11/2026 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We continue working through this section, today focusing on verses 14-18. This section explains how Jews and Gentiles find unity together in Christ. Last week we considered how outsider Gentiles have become insiders to God’s people as they received Jesus even while insider Jews became outsiders when they rejected Christ. As we focus today on verses 14-18, this truth will be further developed in the specific aspect of “peace”. Jesus is our peace and brings peace with each other and with God. The world often speaks of the need for peace between humans, missing how we especially need peace with God. These verses address both aspects, acknowledging both the hostility between humans and with God. Paul here declares that Jesus is solution for both, for he himself is our peace.
We’ll see this as we work through our passage in three points. First, we’ll consider the need for horizontal peace among humans, as we discuss verses 14-15 and see how Christ has broken down the “dividing wall of hostility”. Second, we’ll consider the need for vertical peace with God, as we discuss verse 16 and see how Christ “killed the hostility”. Third, we’ll discuss verses 17-18 as we consider the preaching of Christ our peace, far and near.
Let’s begin in our first point to consider verses 14-15. Paul explains how horizontal peace has come for Jews and Gentiles, finding a relationship of peace and unity in Christ. This develops the point from last week of how Gentile Christians have been brought into the visible church of Christ which was Israel. What is different, of course, is that the church of Israel has been reformulated under the new covenant, ratified by the shed blood of Jesus. But verse 14 explains that prior to this work of Christ, there was a dividing wall of hostility that separated these Gentiles from God’s people. This word “hostility” describes the enmity that existed between the Jews who were in a covenant relationship with God and the Gentiles who were not. There was a great divide that separated them and that produced the hostility. This hostility was the opposite of peace.
This dividing wall of hostility was visibly expressed back then at the Jewish temple. The temple had graduated levels of access. The most outer court was called the court of the Gentiles. That is as close to the temple that they could get, there was even a sign warning them not to go in any farther, at the threat of death. Jews could go in farther, and next closer was the court of women, which is as far as they could go. Then the Jewish men could go in slightly closer before the access got restricted to only the priests. That’s where the altar was and the sacrifices were made, but even that was still outside the actual temple. Only for specific worship purposes such as offering incense and tending to the lampstand at set times could the priests enter into the temple itself. Even then they couldn’t go into the Holy of Holies, unless they were the high priest, and even then just once a year. So, the whole temple was arranged to limit access to God’s holy presence, but the Gentiles were literally the most far off, separated from the access those Jews had where they could get nearer to God’s presence.
Let us appreciate that this setup of the temple access reflected the broader provisions of how the old covenant itself enforced a sort of dividing wall. That dividing wall is explained in verse 15 by referring to the law of commandments expressed in ordinances. It says this is what Christ abolishes so that Gentiles Christians can now be united in peace with Jewish Christians. So what does this law of commandments expressed in ordinances refer to? Well, it surely must not refer simplistically to God’s moral law where we are commanded to love God and our neighbor in good works. That moral law is not abolished by Christ but repeatedly upheld and commended, as even verse 10 does right before today’s passage. Rather, what this surely has in mind is the broader arrangement of the Mosaic Covenant, especially the ceremonial aspects of it. Sometimes that is how the Mosaic Covenant is described, as the law. The prophets spoke of how Israel had broken that covenant and how a new covenant would come with the Messiah. Jesus has abolished what separated Jew and Gentile under the Mosaic Covenant when he replaced it with a new covenant. That old Mosaic covenant enforced a sort of dividing wall between Jew and Gentile that is no longer there under the new covenant.
Let me then explain how the Mosaic Covenant, especially the ceremonial aspects, enforced such a division. The ceremonial aspects are summarized in the book of Leviticus, where Israel was called to distinguish between clean and unclean, and between holy and profane. Israel as God’s people were to pursue living as God’s holy and clean people. The Israelites were physically marked as holy and clean with the sign of circumcision, while the Gentiles were not. The Mosaic covenant had kosher food laws to require clean eating that visibly separated them from the Gentiles who ate differently. There were a number of other laws of ceremonial cleanliness, that also distinguished them from Gentiles who didn’t follow such practices. Likewise, the ceremonial laws required many different sabbaths, like giving the land a sabbath. There were economic restrictions like the whole system of forgiving debts and the Year of Jubilee. And, chiefly, there was the sacrificial system to atone for sin and express fellowship with God. These are some of many tangible ways that the ordinances of the Mosaic Covenant kept Gentiles away from the people of God and the fullness of biblical worship.
Now it is true, that there was a mechanism for a Gentile to convert to Judaism and become a part of Israel. They could become circumcised, as even verse 11 acknowledges and Exodus 12:48 legislates. But if a Gentile wanted to truly become a part of God’s people, it wasn’t just the painful act of circumcision. While circumcision was the initial ceremony for joining the covenant community, that was just the start. Your circumcision said you were committing to follow all the Torah “law of commandments expressed in ordinances.” You’d be committing to follow all the many ceremonial laws I just described, that would represent significant life changes. I remember how that rich young ruler went away from Jesus disheartened by Jesus’ call for him to let go of his earthly treasure to follow him and gain heavenly treasure. That rich young ruler thought it too difficult for such a life change. Yet, how much more life changes would a typical Gentile have to make to fully embrace the life regulated by the entire Mosaic Covenant. That’s why many Gentiles back then who did begin to revere the Lord were known as God Fearers. They weren’t yet prepared to be circumcised and take on the yoke of the whole Mosaic Covenant (c.f. Acts 15:10).
But the good news is that with the advent of Jesus, there is no longer any need to take on the yoke of the Mosaic Covenant. For verse 14 says that Jesus has broken the dividing wall down in his flesh, a reference to his blood shed at the cross. There, he ratified a new covenant that did not have those ceremonial laws anymore. To clarify, it’s not that those ceremonial laws were bad. It’s that they were serving a greater purpose. The ceremonial laws looked forward to the work of Jesus. Jesus’s blood atones for our sins better than any old covenant sacrifice. Jesus brings a cleanliness to our souls that the laws of cleanliness only foreshadowed. We become holy by Jesus setting us apart and putting his Spirit inside us. Jesus fulfills that which these ceremonial aspects anticipated. So it is not that these ideas aren’t present in the new covenant. It is rather that they are radically fulfilled in Jesus. So then, both Jew and Gentile can experience the substance of what the Mosaic Covenant was all about, without the former dividing wall.
The result of this is peace. When both a Jew and a Gentile can be in the same church of Jesus Christ, that says there is peace between them. There is no longer any hostility or enmity that would keep them divided. Of course, this means that any who are outside of Christ church, there yet does remain a division between them and us. We see expressions of this hostility still today. Non-Christians aren’t seeking to live holy and pure lives in Christ, and we are, by the grace of God. We recognize that we have a hope of eternal life, and they don’t. Our faith convictions literally can upset them and get them mad at us. Let us look to love them, even if they hate us. But we recognize there is yet some sense of hostility between Christians and non-Christians. But Christians themselves should be at peace with each other.
Let us now turn in our second point and consider verse 16 and see the vertical peace Christians have with God. There it speaks about Jesus reconciling us to God through the cross. This speaks of Jesus’ sacrifice where he atones for our sins. That sacrifice made propitiation, meaning, it turned away God’s wrath, by satisfying the debt of our sin. Our guilt has been removed because Jesus gave his life as an offering for our sin. God now rightly justifies us who have faith in Jesus, for the sake of Christ’s righteousness for us. This is the basis for our reconciliation with God.
Realize that for reconciliation to be needed with God means we were otherwise not at peace with God. That is what is in mind at the end of verse 17 when it says that Jesus killed the hostility. This word “hostility” is the same word as back in verse 14. But, back in verse 14, it described the former hostility between Jews and Gentiles. But here, it speaks about the hostility between God and man. When Adam sinned against God, he fractured our relationship with God. All humanity came under God’s wrath and curse because of sin. Under this conflict, God was fully in the right and we were fully in the wrong. The relationship needed reconciliation, but in our sinful nature that was dead in sin, we weren’t going to do anything to try to fix it. That’s why the previous passage explained that God took the initiative by sending Jesus to atone for our sin and sending the Spirit to work new birth in us. Our reconciliation with God is not just God ignoring what we did. It is God dealing with what we did, so that the offense could be truly removed, and the relationship can be truly restored.
Let us appreciate that this need for reconciliation with God was not just something Gentiles needed. This isn’t a Gentile-problem, this is a human-problem. It wasn’t just those “far away” Gentiles who needed this. Even those “more near” Jews also needed it! Did you notice that only the high priest among Israel could actually really go near to God into the Most Holy Place, and only with great sacrifice, and then only once a year? Indeed, the whole old covenant sacrificial system showed the need for Christ’s reconciling work for them. For the old covenant sacrificial system, in a provisional senses, sought to make propitiation before God to bring about reconciliation. But as Hebrews 10 says, if those sacrifices were sufficient, then they wouldn’t need to keep offering them to God. Hebrews 10:4 concludes that, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.” In other words, the old covenant showed the need for propitiation, and had a provisional means for it. But if Jesus never came and went to the cross, then those old covenant sacrifices would have been all in vain. And so, it is both Jew and Gentile who need the reconciling sacrifice of Jesus. His once for all sacrifice also puts an end to that ordinance of the law that required such ongoing offerings for sin.
So then, in this second point, we’ve seen that humanity’s greatest need for peace is with God. If we don’t have peace with God, it won’t really matter if we have peace with each other or not. But more wonderfully, this passage brings it all together. The way humans will find peace with each other is as they together first find peace with God. Ending the hostility with God is the basis for ending hostility with each other.
This leads us then to our third point to discuss verses 17-18 as we consider the preaching of Christ our peace far and near. Verse 14 began with these words, that Jesus himself is our peace. We’ve already seen how Jesus brought this peace both horizontally and vertically. But let us appreciate that verse 17 explains that this peace, which is Christ, needs to be preached. Christ himself preached this peace, first on earth, and then from heaven through his apostolic messengers. Today that continues to happen through the church. We preach Christ is to say that we preach Christ as the peace of God for all who will turn to him in faith and repentance.
Let us appreciate that verse 17 says that Christ came and preached peace to both those who were far away and those who were near. It was not just the far away Gentiles who needed this preached peace. It was also the near Jews. In fact, as John’s gospel says so wonderfully, Jesus came first to his own. Jesus first preached this peace to the Jews. And as many who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12). The old covenant repeatedly exposed how the Jews needed this peace, through its types, shadows, and promises, which prefigured Christ. But Jesus also has been preaching this peace to the nations. For it would be too small of a thing for Jesus to only redeem ethnic Israel. And so, in the Great Commission, Jesus called us to go with this message to all the world. The book of Acts wonderfully shows the beginning of preaching this peace to the ends of the earth. Indeed, now, there have been so many Jews and Gentiles who have trusted in Christ and found peace with God and with one another.
Let us then notice all the ways this united peace among Jewish and Gentile Christians is described. In verse 14, it says Jesus has made the two groups into one. In verse 15, it says that Jesus hade created one new man in place of the two. In verse 16, it says that we both “together” have been reconciled to God in “one body”. Verse 17 emphasizes then the “peace” that we all have together, whether we were near or far.
Then, finally, and wonderfully, verse 18 explains that we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Appreciate how verse 18 wonderfully culminates what we’ve been talking about. Remember that temple that had limited and separated access. Jews and Gentile were separated in that physical and earthly access to God, and even the Jews didn’t have full access. Now, in Christ, Jews and Gentiles together have access to God spiritually, through the Holy Spirit. The ceremonial expressions of the old covenant that functioned to divide have now given way to provide a way to worship God by Spirit and truth. This is the access Christians of all sorts have. But it is the access that non-Christians do not have.
And so this passage says we need to preach Christ because Christ himself is the peace. This is why we have this focus in all our sermons. A Christian church must preach Christ. As verse 14 says, Jesus himself is our peace, a peace he made in his flesh. As verse 15 says, Jesus created in himself one new man. As verse 16 says, Jesus reconciled us both through the cross, through his sacrifice of himself for us. As verse 17 says, Jesus himself is one who even preaches this peace to us, it’s his message, a message he even accomplished so he could preach it. As verse 18 says, our access to God is “through him”, i.e. through Jesus. Do you see how each verse in our passage shows why Jesus is our peace? I remember that Christian slogan, “Know Jesus, know peace. No Jesus, no peace.”
Trinity Presbytery Church, I hope you have been blessed with this preaching of Christ our peace. For us in the church, we continue to preach this peace, because we all will only know this peace in Jesus. I think especially of our covenant children, we pass on this message of peace to those who are near, literally born into the church, that they too would appropriate the blessings of the gospel of peace by personal faith in Jesus’ name. And we continue to preach it with the hope that also those far away would hear and receive Jesus and find such peace. For while Christ has removed the dividing wall of hostility, if you don’t come to Christ in faith, you will still be separated God and God’s people. But the gospel of peace calls you to become united to the body of Christ and know this wonderful peace – peace that is horizontal and especially vertical.
My final application is a horizontal one. Christians, we have this peace. Let us live this peace out in the church. There is no place for earthly prejudice among God’s people, whether it be racial, economic, gender, or any other outward distinction. We are all one in Christ Jesus, united as a single body of Christ, growing together, worshipping God together, and serving together. Let us love one another boldly and passionately. That is why we speak of pursuing the peace, purity, and unity of the church. It can be hard outwardly, but Christ our peace even now pursues this in his body, even with this sermon today. And we look forward to the consummation of this peace at his return, life together with God in the new creation.
Amen.
Copyright © 2025 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
