Ephesians 2:13-22 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost Sunday, August 16, 2026 “Brought Near by the Blood of Christ”
It’s amazing how something you believe is obvious is not just foreign to someone else, but the exact opposite of what they think is obvious. Hopefully I can give you a real-life example without it being too politically charged or allowing that to distract us. There has been an ongoing and active debate in our country about what should be done at our borders. Most specifically, this has centered on the southern border that’s not all that far away from us, and it has centered on the question of whether to build a wall to set a physical barrier between the Unites States and Mexico. One side of the “build the wall” debate says that walls and fences are useful all over the place. They serve the same purpose that locking our doors does. Many of us have fences around our yards, sometimes to keep the pets in but also to keep unwanted visitors out. We rarely have intense debates over whether doors should be locked or fences should be in place. This faction says the same logic is obviously valid regarding the country as a whole, and building a wall makes sense. Hopefully you recognize that there is also another side. And those who take the opposite position seem as convinced that their point is obvious. Walls separate people and sometimes in a way that is unnecessary or cruel. Walls can be erected for racially charged reasons. Examples abound in history, in our own country and beyond. If the highest good is complete freedom of movement and choice, then it does seem obvious that walls get in the way. We’ll come back to the question of how obvious a truth is. The example of a wall, however, is one of many pictures that are apparent in our reading from Ephesians. God led Paul to write about a wall of separation. This wall was put in place through commandments and regulations. The wall was the separation between Jews, the Old Testament people of God who were descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the gentiles—everyone else. The Jews, the Israelite people, had God’s commandments. They had the regulations he had given through Moses on Mount Sinai. They had specific instructions about worship and life and government. And many of those laws drew a sharp distinction between the people of God and others. But Paul doesn’t call this a wall of separation. He calls it a wall of hostility. And that’s what it had become. While God had good reasons for keeping his people separate, he also wanted to bring people from other nations into his family. We heard about that in our Isaiah reading. By the time of the New Testament, by the time Jesus lived and the time Paul wrote, Jews were not just separate from gentiles, they were often hostile to them. And hostility frequently went both ways. In fact, Herod’s Temple, the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, had a physical barrier wall beyond which no gentile was allowed. Both that wall and the reality of history divided Jews from gentiles. The Jews were in a sense near to God because they had his Word. They had his promises. They had his laws. The gentiles did not. They were far off. In the Old Testament, gentile people who wanted to worship God along with the Jews would have to follow the regulations that were part of the Jewish culture and upbringing. They had to become more like the Jewish people in order to experience the worship life of God’s people. Instead of bringing people closer to God, however, this separation and hostility too often brought people into conflict with each other. Instead of caring about all people the way God does, the Jewish people took pride in their position. Instead of desiring the ways the God had blessed the Jewish people, the gentiles detested them. The reality all along was that both Jew and gentile were far from God in a very real sense. Sin separated both from God, and people came close to God only by God’s undeserved love that came to them when he worked faith in their hearts. So many of the Jewish worship regulations were meant to teach exactly that, not to teach that the Jews were somehow superior. The fact that sin separates us from God means that we have all been far off from him, too. We were born with hearts set on disobeying God just like generations before us. We were born without an interest in
serving others or loving them. We were born intending to serve and love only ourselves. It was as though a wall had separated us not just from other people but also from God. That’s the bad news, but if you will, that’s just the setup. That’s the premise behind what Paul writes to the Ephesians. The good news that he is really focused on is that we have been brought near. God tore down the wall that separated. He took away all the regulations that kept Jew and gentile separate. He brought them together in Jesus and together he also reconciled them to God. He made peace between Jew and gentile, and he made peace between all believers and God. He preached peace to those who were far off and those who were near. He tore down the walls that separate us from each other and the wall of sin that separated us from God. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. There is another problem, though. The problem is that we still hold on to sin. And in many cases, that shows itself by the separation from certain people that we seek and we create. And perhaps worst of all, we at times even create that separation in the very place where God intends to provide reconciliation, in his house, in the church. Just think of the things that could and do separate people: race, gender, certain lifestyles, political opinions or affiliations. Are there people you would be disappointed to see walk through that door? Someone who hurt or wronged you in the past? Someone who isn’t dressed well enough or isn’t clean enough? There’s a broader truth in these verses beyond the Jew-gentile divide that probably doesn’t affect us in the same way it did the early Christians. But anytime we let some status or some outward feature determine how close we are to someone, we’re failing to recognize how God has reconciled people to each other and has reconciled us to himself. If we treat people differently based on these external things, whether they have already walked in the door or we are considering inviting them through the doors with us, we are creating barriers to them hearing about the love of God for them. We, too, should be preaching peace to those who are far and those who are near. And we find our motivation in remembering that we who were once far off have been brought near ONLY through the blood of Christ. If we exclude anyone because of race or gender or economics, we’re acting as if who we are or what we have is something other than a gift from God. It is through him and only through him that we have anything. It is only through Jesus that we have access to the Father and peace with God. We don’t have time to explore thoroughly every picture used in the language of our text, but we can certainly mention some of them. That dividing wall has been removed. There does not need to be any separation between us and others. And that’s not the equivalent of a border wall being torn down. It’s everyone on both sides being granted citizenship, not in this country, but in the household of God. Keep in mind that citizenship in the Roman Empire was an important benefit. Foreigners and aliens didn’t have the same rights. But we have been made citizens. We have been made members of the household of God. He feeds and clothes and takes care of us. These verses even describe us as part of God’s temple. We are bricks in a building being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets who first shared and recorded God’s Word for us, and the most significant and important part of that foundation is its Cornerstone, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. That’s an amazing place to be. That’s an amazing status to have. We can and should rejoice in this good news. We can and should share this good news. We can and should desire that every aspect of our lives better and better reflects this reality. I started by mentioning diametrically opposed opinions that seem obvious to the opinion-holders. That’s actually understandable among people with different backgrounds, upbringings, customs, cultures. Even the truths that we suspect are airtight are not necessarily so. What’s so valuable about the truths we will be learning and discussing in this worship series is they are absolute. But we’ll only find them in Scripture. They are unexpected in that way. Here’s the first: God’s church is for all people. All of us are brought near by his blood. That’s an unexpected truth over which we ought to rejoice.
The Text: Ephesians 2:13–22 (EHV) 13But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of
Christ. 14For he himself is our peace. He made the two groups one by destroying the wall of hostility that divided them 15when he abolished the law of commandments and regulations in his flesh. He did this to create in himself one new person out of the two, in this way making peace. 16And he did this to reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by putting the hostility to death on it. 17He also came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. 19So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and
members of God’s household. 20You have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22In him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.