MLK Day - Ephesians 2:11-22

It is in the death and resurrection of Christ that we see the death of racism and the inclusion of all races in one new creation. This is by Christ and for Christ, and only comes in Christ. The rejection of Jesus is ultimately an embrace of racism. Jesus made peace. To God be the Glory.

"Part of the new creation that God establishes through his Messiah is a new humanity. In 2:11-22 Paul says that this new humanity consists of both Jews and Gentiles, two formerly discrete and hostile groups that Christ has now united and reconciled (2:14-15, 19). Christ has also reconciled this newly created people to God (2:16-17). He has accomplished both these feats through his death on the cross...

...Paul, like Isaiah before him, combined the notion of the eschatological pilgrimage of the nations to Israel with the notion of a new creation. Isaiah could speak of the 'new heavens and the new earth' in one breath and of 'all flesh' coming to Jerusalem to worship God in the next...Paul similarly could merge these two ideas and speak of Christ 'creating' Jews and Gentiles 'into one new humanity' (2:15)...

Through Christ's death he has also started the process of bringing together in Christ all things in heaven and on earth (1:9-10). Christ's death started this process because it demolished the dividing wall of partition that stood between Jews and Gentiles and also between both groups and God. Christ's death brought in the period of peace that Isaiah said would characterize the time of Israel's restoration, a period when the nations would come from afar and join Israel in the worship of the one 'who created the heavens,... who fashioned the earth and made it' (Isa. 45:18)."

p. 817, 818. Thielman, Frank S. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.