Charles Hodge on Ephesians 2:13

V. 13. But now in Christ Jesus, i. e. in virtue of union with Christ; ὑμεῖς οἱ τοτε ὄντες μακρὰν, ἐγγὺς ἐγενήθητε, ye who sometime were afar of, are made nigh. As under the old dispensation God dwelt in the temple, those living near his abode and having access to him, were his people. Israel was near; the Gentiles were afar off. They lived at a distance, and had no liberty of access to the place where God revealed his presence. Hence in the prophets, as in Isaiah 49, 1. 57, 19, by those near are meant the Jews, and by those afar off the Gentiles. This form of expression passed over to the New Testament writers. Acts 2, 39, "The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are far off." Eph. 2, 17, "Preached peace to you that were far off, and to them that were nigh." Among the later Jews the act of receiving a proselyte, was called "making him nigh."The Rabbins said: Quicunque gentilem appropinquare facit, et proselytum facit, idem est ac si ipsum creasset. WETSTEIN. As being far from God included both separation from his people, and spiritual distance or alienation from himself; so to be brought nigh includes both introduction into the church and reconciliation with God. And these two ideas are clearly presented and intended by the apostle in this whole context. This twofold reconciliation is effected, ἐν τῷ αἵματι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, by the blood of Christ. This clause is explanatory of the words at the beginning of the verse. ‘In Christ Jesus, i. e. by the blood of Christ, ye are made nigh.’ Without shedding of blood there is no remission and no reconciliation of sinners with God. When Moses ratified the covenant between God and his people, "He took the blood of calves and of goats and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you. It was necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." Heb. 9, 19-23. As under the typical and ritual economy of the Old Testament the people were brought externally nigh to God, by the blood of calves and goats, through which temporal redemption was effected and the theocratical covenant was ratified; so we are brought spiritually nigh to God by the blood of Christ, who has obtained eternal redemption for us, being once offered to bear the sins of many, and to ratify by his death the covenant of God with all his people, whether Jews or Gentiles.

Vs. 14. 15. These verses contain a confirmation and illustration of what precedes. ‘Ye who were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace. He has effected the twofold reconciliation above referred to.’ This he has accomplished by abolishing the law. The law, however, is viewed in a twofold aspect in this connection. First, it was that original covenant of works, demanding perfect obedience, whose conditions must be satisfied in order to the reconciliation of men with God. Christ by being made under the law, Gal. 4, 4, and fulfilling all righteousness, has redeemed those who were under the law. He delivered them from the obligation of fulfilling its demands as the condition of their justification before God. In this sense they are not under the law. Comp. Rom. 6, 14. 7, 4. 6. Gal. 5, 18. Col. 2, 14. But secondly, as Christ abolished the law as a covenant of works by fulfilling its conditions, so he abolished the Mosaic law by fulfilling all its types and shadows. He was the end of the law in both these aspects, and therefore, it ceased to bind the people of God in either of these forms. Of this doctrine the whole of the New Testament is full. The epistles especially are in large measure devoted to proving that believers are not under the law in either of these senses, but under grace. Thus it is that Christ is our peace. The abolition of the law as a covenant of works reconciles us to God; the abolition of the Mosaic law removes the wall between the Jews and Gentiles. This is what is here taught. By abolishing the law of commandments, i. e. the law in both its forms, the apostle says, Christ has, first, of the twain made one new man, v. 15; and secondly, he has reconciled both unto God in one body by the cross, v. 16.

Though the general sense of this passage is plain, there is no little diversity as to the details of the interpretation. The Greek is printed for the convenience of the reader. Αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν, ὁ ποιήσας τὰ ἀμφότερα ἓν, καὶ τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ λύσας, τὴν ἔχθραν, ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ, τὸν νόμον τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν δόγμασι καταργήσας. Our translators, by assuming that ἔχθραν depends on καταργήσας, and of course that νόμον is in apposition with it, have in a great measure determined thereby the interpretation of the whole passage. The words μεσότοιχον, ἔχθραν, and νόμον must all refer to the same thing. The sense would then be, ‘For he is our peace, having made the two one by having destroyed the middle wall of partition, that is, by having destroyed, by his flesh, the enmity, viz., the law of commandments with ordinances.’ The preferable construction is to make ἔχθραν depend on λύσας. It is then in apposition with μεσότοιχον, but not with νόμον; and καταργήσας τὸν νόμον, instead of being a mere repetition of λύσας τὸ μεσότοιχον, is an independent clause explaining the manner in which the reconciliation of the Jews and Gentiles had been effected. The passage then means, ‘He is our peace because he has made the two one by removing the enmity or middle wall which divided the Jews and Gentiles, and this was done by abolishing the law.’ The reconciliation itself is expressed by saying, ‘He made the two one, having removed the wall or enmity between them.’ The mode in which this was done, is expressed by saying, ‘He abolished the law.’

In the phrase μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ, middle wall of partition, the latter noun is explanatory of the former, i. e. φραγμοῦ is the genitive of apposition. The middle wall which consisted in the hedge, which separated the two parties. What that hedge was is immediately expressed by the word ἔχθραν. It was the enmity subsisting between them. ‘Having removed the middle wall, i. e. the enmity, or their mutual hatred.’ By enmity, therefore, is not to be understood the law, as the cause of this alienation, but the alienation itself; because in what follows the removal of the enmity and the abolition of the law are distinguished from each other, the latter being the means of accomplishing the former.

That ἔχθραν is to be connected with λύσας and not, as our translation assumes, with καταργήσας, is argued first from the position of the words, which favours this construction; secondly, because the expression λύειν ἔχθραν is common, and καταργεῖν ἔχθραν never occurs; and thirdly, because the sense demands this construction, inasmuch as the ambiguous phrase middle wall of partition thus receives its needed explanation. The apostle first states, what it was that divided the Jews and Gentiles, viz., their mutual hatred, and then how that hatred had been removed.

The words ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ, are not to be connected with λύσας. That is, the apostle does not mean to say that Christ has removed the enmity between the Jews and Gentiles by his flesh. They are to be connected with the following participle (καταργήσας). "Having by his flesh, i. e. by his death, abolished the law." This is the great truth which Paul had to teach. Christ by his death has freed us from the law. We are no longer under the law but under grace. Rom. 6, 14. We are no longer required to seek salvation on the ground of obedience to the law, which says: "Do this, and live," and "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them." Christ has freed us from the law as a covenant of works, by being himself made subject to it, Gal. 4, 5; by bearing its penalty, Gal. 3, 13; by his body, Rom. 7, 4; by the body of his flesh, Col. 1, 22; by his cross, Col. 2, 14. In this connection the expressions, "by the blood of Christ," v. 13; "by his flesh," v. 14; by his cross," all mean the same thing. They are but different modes of expressing his sacrificial, or atoning death, by which the law was satisfied and our reconciliation to God is effected. The "abolishing," therefore, of which the apostle speaks, does not consist in setting the law aside, or suspending it by a sovereign, executive act. It is a causing it to cease; or rendering it no longer binding by satisfying its demands, so that we are judicially free from it; free not by the act of a sovereign but by the sentence of a judge; not by mere pardon, but by justification. Who is he that condemns, when God justifies? Rom. 8, 34. The law which Christ has thus abolished is called "the law of commandments in ordinances." This may mean the law of commandments with ordinances-referring to the two classes of laws (ἐντολή and δόγμα), moral and positive; or it may refer to the form in which the precepts are presented in the law, as positive statutes, or commands, τῶν ἐντολῶν giving the contents of the law, and ἐν δόγμασι the form. The idea probably is that the law in all its compass, and in all its forms, so far as it was a covenant prescribing the conditions of salvation, is abolished. The law of which the apostle here speaks is not exclusively the Mosaic law. It is so described in various parallel passages, as holy, just and good, as taking cognizance of the inward feelings, as to make it evident it is the law of God in its widest sense. It is the law which binds the heathen and which is written on their hearts. It is the law fiom which the death of Christ redeems men. But redemption is not mere deliverance from Judaism, and therefore the law from which we are freed by the death of Christ is not merely the law of Moses. Deliverance from the Mosaic institutions could not have the effects ascribed to the freedom from the law of which Paul speaks. It could not secure reconciliation to God, justification, and holiness, all of which, according to the apostle, flow from the redemption effected by Christ. The antithetical ideas always presented in Paul’s writings, on this subject, are the law and grace, the law and tile gospel, the system which says: "Do and live,"—and the system which says: "Believe and live;"—as, however, the form in which the law was ever present to the minds of the early Christians was that contained in the Mosaic institutions; as all, who in that day were legalists, were Judaizers, and as the Mosaic economy was included in the law which Christ abolished, in many cases (as in the passage before us), special reference is had to the law in that particular form. But in teaching that men cannot be saved by obedience to the law of Moses, Paul taught that we cannot be saved by obedience to the law in any form. Or rather, by teaching that salvation is not of works of any kind, but of grace and through faith, he teaches it is not by the specific, ceremonial works enjoined in the law of Moses.

It is objected to the above interpretation of this passage, which is the common one, that in order to justify connecting ἐν δόγμασι with ἐντολῶν (the law of commandments in ordinances), the article should be used. It is therefore urged that ἐν δόγμασι must be connected with καταργήσας and the passage read, "having abolished by doctrine the law of commandments." To this, however, it is answered—1. That the connecting article is frequently omitted in cases where the qualifying word is intimately connected with the word to be qualified, so as to form one idea with it. See Eph. 2, 11. 2 Cor. 7, 7. Col. 1, 4. 2. That καταργήσας has its qualifying clause in the words ἐν τῇ σαρκί. It would be incongruous to say that Christ abolished the law by his death, by doctrine. 3. The word δόγμα never means doctrine in the New Testament, and therefore cannot have that meaning, here. 4. And finally the sense is bad, contrary to the whole analogy of Scripture. The law was not abolished by Christ as a teacher; but by Christ as a sacrifice. It was not by his doctrine, but by his blood, his body, his death, his cross, that our deliverance from the law was effected. The doctrine of the passage, therefore, is that the middle wall of partition between the Jews and Gentiles, consisting in their mutual enmity, has been removed by Christ’s having, through his death, abolished the law in all its forms, as a rule of justification, and thus, opening one new way of access to God, common to Jews and Gentiles.

The design of Christ in thus abolishing the law was two-fold. First, the union of the Jews and Gentiles in one holy, Catholic church. And, Secondly, the reconciliation of both to God. The former is expressed, by saying: "In order that he might create the two, in himself, one new man, making peace." The two, τοὺς δύο, are of course the two spoken of above, the Jews and Gentiles. They were separate, hostile bodies, alike dead in trespasses and sins, equally the children of wrath. They are created anew, so as to become one body of which Christ is the head. And, therefore, it is said, ἐν ἑαυτῷ, in himself, i. e. in virtue of union with him. Union with Christ being the condition at once of their unity and of their holiness. They are created εἰς ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον. They are one, and they are new, i. e. renewed. Καινός means newly made, uninjured by decay or use; and in a moral sense renewed, pure. See 4, 24. 2 Cor. 5, 17. Gal. 6. 15. Col. 3, 10. Making peace, ποιῶν εἰρήνην. The present participle is here used, because the effect or operation is a continuous one. The union or peace which flows from the abrogation of the law by the death of Christ, is progressive, so far as it is inward or subjective. The outward work is done. The long feud in the human family. is healed. The distinction between Jew and Gentile is abolished. All the exclusive privileges of the former are abrogated. The wall which had so long shut out the nations is removed. There is now one fold and one shepherd. Since the abrogation of the law there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for all believers are one in Christ Jesus. Gal. 3, 28.