Followers

Friday, December 2, 2016

...He has set aside in his flesh the law with its commands ... Eph 2:15

Dear Marie,

I am not sure what translation you are using, but you have included too little of the context for the meaning to be clear.  The following is the entire paragraph according to the NIV with minor edits by me:
11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Messiah, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Messiah.
14 For he himself is our shalom (peace), who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making shalom (peace), 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached shalom (peace) to you who were far away and shalom (peace) to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Messiah Yeshua himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Now this passage is operative on several different levels.  At the surface: today we think of the division between Jew and Gentile, but who are the Jews?  Historically, the people groups that made up the Jews were the clans of the tribe of Judah, priests and Levites living among them, the clans of Simeon who assimilated into Judah, some of the clans of Benjamin, escapees from the northern kingdom following its defeat by the Assyrians, and Gentiles like Ruth who married into the tribe.  The northern kingdom had an equally diverse group.  Following the exile of both kingdoms, the people of Israel assimilated into the societies where they went and over time many of these groups forgot their unique identity.  The people of the southern kingdom mostly lived apart by force or by choice from the Gentile cultures wherever they went and so resisted assimilation to this day.  The result was mutual enmity.  The descendants of the southern kingdom viewed the Gentiles as unclean, and the Gentiles viewed them as different and therefore undesirable.  Because they kept together, all of the descendants of Jacob became known as Jews even though they are not all actual descendants of Judah.  The important point is that the very factor that prevented assimilation resulted in mutual enmity between 'Jews' and and all those who were not Jews.  This is at the cultural level and is part of what Paul is addressing.  This was manifest in many ways in Paul’s day:

·       The separation between the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women in the temple.  A death penalty was imposed on any Gentile who went beyond the boundary set in the temple court yard.
·         Acts 10:28 – 'It is not lawful for a Jew to associate with a Gentile.'  This is not biblical.  Torah states that anyone who contacts anything that is ceremonially unclean becomes ceremonially unclean.  Anyone familiar with the Torah instructions will realize that everyone is ceremonially unclean much of the time, but the Jews came to regard every Gentile as unclean all of the time.  There are many other examples like this from scripture and from history to this very day.

Now, what about Torah?  God’s stated purpose was to make Israel an example nation – a kingdom of priests and nation set apart (ממלכה כהנים וגוי קדוש – Ex 19::6) among the nations.  To do that, the people were commanded to be different in many ways from the other peoples among whom they lived:

·         Circumcision made the males physically different from most other people groups, but for the most part that difference is not visible under normal circumstances.  (Israelite men did not walk around in public with their penises exposed to show the sign of circumcision.)
·         God demanded the people’s exclusive worship without any type of physical representation of himself.  This was completely unique in the ancient world and remains mostly unique even today.
·       God’s name יהוה is completely unique.  There is no other god name like it in the ancient world or even today.  The approximate meaning is ‘He causes being.’
·      The presentation of laws and statutes to the people is not unique, but their content is.  One merely needs to compare the laws in the Torah with those of other ancient cultures to see the difference.  As an example, Torah anticipated the time when Israel would demand a king, but that king was to remain himself subject to the demands of Torah.  In contrast, in 1 Kings 21 Jezebel assumed that the king could do and take whatever he wanted.
·       Whatever else may have been their purpose, the dietary restrictions made the Israelites different from the peoples among whom they lived as did the requirements for ritual purity.
·    Originally, Israel was unique in that God and no human was their king.  (Prior to Saul, the lone exception was Moses, who functioned as prophet, priest, and king.) When the people demanded a king so that they could be ‘like the other nations,’ God viewed this as rebellion against himself rather than as rejection of Samuel as judge.
·    The Mosaic covenant was made with Israel, not with the other nations.  The laws and statutes – described as ‘your wisdom’ -- were intended to be examples to the other nations.  Others could and did join with Israel, but Israel was forbidden and judged for making herself like the other nations.

Being different was a problem for the people of ancient Israel, for the Jews of the Diaspora, and for most people today.  The Torah commanded Israel to be different from the peoples of the ancient world, and the New Covenant writings commands believers in Yeshua to be different in their conduct from nonbelievers.  Being different created animosity between peoples in the ancient world, and it continues to do so today.  This in part is what Paul is addressing here in Ephesians, in Galatians, and the first seven chapters of Romans.

Now, Eph 2:15 states, “… by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making shalom (peace)….”, and you asked what law?  Various Christian groups have used passages like this and the book of Galatians to assert that the Torah and the ten commandments have been superseded or abolished.  Such an idea is rightly repulsive to anyone who loves Torah; however, it is easier to list what Paul did not mean by this text than the other way around. 

·      He did not mean that Torah has been superseded.  By his own testimony, he continued being Torah observant (Acts 28:17) throughout his life.
·         He was not teaching that Jews should become like Gentiles or that Gentiles should become observant Jews (1 Cor 7:17-24, Acts 15, Galatians).  As a note, God promised Abraham that the Gentiles would bless themselves in him.  To fulfill this, Gentiles would need to remain Gentiles; a Gentile who converts to Judaism is a Gentile no longer.
·        He was not teaching that Torah was bad and needed to be done away with.  But rather he stated that the Torah is holy, just and good; it is spiritual, but we naturally are not (Rom 7:10-14).

In short, Gentiles have the same problem that Jews do.  Leaving aside the specific details of covenants that do not directly apply to Gentiles, Torah commands us to be holy, but neither Jew nor Gentile has accomplished this in themselves (c.f., Rom 1-6).  Torah provided the standard that neither group was able to live up to, and the penalty for this failure is death.  Both the standard and the penalty are spelled out in Torah.  It is the penalty aspect of Torah that was set aside in the flesh of Yeshua establishing peace with God, and that peace is the basis for peace between believing Jews and believing Gentiles.  The natural consequence of this is that hostility remains between all who do believe in Yeshua and all groups that do not.


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