Ephesians 2:14

Αἰτὸς γάρ ἐστιν ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν. Cf. Micah 5:5; Isaiah 9:6. It is characteristic of this group of Epistles that the effect should be regarded as due in the first instance to what Christ is in Himself rather than to any specific acts performed by Him. His doings and sufferings have their power not, if we may so speak, for their own sake, but from the light which they throw on the nature and character of the doer and the sufferer. All that He achieved was already implied in what He was. To know Him (Philippians 3:10) is at once the goal and the inspiration of the highest moral endeavour. In this sense it may even be true to say that the Incarnation is the Atonement. Controversy with false teachers at Colossae had shown afresh the importance of a right understanding of Christ both as the Image of the invisible God and as the Head at once of the created Universe and the Church. It is characteristic of Ephes. that the power at work reconciling man to man and man to God should be traced back to its source in the same Personality. Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:30. Peace is personified in Philippians 4:7; Colossians 3:15.

ὁ ποιήσας τὰ�.τ.λ. The main purpose of this sentence is clear, though the relation of its parts cannot be precisely determined. It is best on the whole to take τὴν ἔχθραν (1°) as governed by λύσας and explanatory of τὸ μ. τ. φ. So the stichometry of D, and Origen. then τὸν ν. τ. ἐντ. ἐν δ. κατ. is a subordinate clause showing how He destroyed the enmity, viz. ‘by abolishing the Law.’

The alternative is to throw the weight of the sentence on καταργήσας, ‘He made the two systems one, and destroyed the wall … by abolishing.’ This treats τὸν νόμον τ. ἐντ. ἐν δ. as = τὴν ἔχθραν. It is difficult, however, to believe that St Paul would have regarded them as interchangeable in this way.

τὰ� … τοὺς�. He speaks first of the abolition of the distinction between the systems (cf. John 4:21 ff.). The union between the men moulded by the systems follows.

τὸ μεσότοιχον. The barrier in the Temple at Jerusalem, which it was death for the uncircumcised to pass, aptly symbolized the division. The reference further prepares the way for the thought of the one true Spiritual Temple with which the paragraph concludes.

λύσας. See Intr., p. lxxxviii. λύω has at the same time a recognized use in connexion with ἔχθραν.

ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ. ‘In the humanity that He assumed at His Incarnation,’ not of course simply by appearing in the flesh but by offering it on behalf of all on the Cross (cf. Colossians 1:22, ἀποκατήλλαξεν ἐν τῷ σώματι τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ). References to the ‘Flesh’ of Christ to describe His Human Nature, familiar to us from John 1:14, are rare in St Paul (Romans 8:3; 1 Timothy 3:16). For σάρξ as constituting the reconciling offering cf. John 6:51. Origen writes τοῦτο οὖν τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ ἔχθρα τύγχανον ἐλύθη διὰ τοῦ ἐνηνθρωπηκέναι τὸν σωτῆρα ἡμῶν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο λέγεται λέλυσθαι ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ αὐτοῦ.