except for fellowship with God, we live to gratify our own desires. Paul says of this gratification: "Gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts."[ 4 ] All the while we think that we are only pleasing ourselves. In the book Watership Down there are a number of wild rabbits, which live well by feeding from food that is put out by a farmer, who sets a trap from time to time when he wants to eat rabbit. This allegory demonstrates the outcome of gratifying our cravings; the punishment is to be eaten by the one who set the trap.
Finally; although we are the object of God's wrath, He loves us. The whole Bible confirms this, and the offer of His love stands throughout eternity. We know that He hates sin and despises the devil, and so should we. However, if we turn against God and side with the enemy, we will share in the wrath that is upon him. "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."[ 5 ] The worst thing that can happen to a man is that he is born into this world and remains all his life in the condition in which he was born, that is under the wrath of God. We cannot help that we are descendants of Adam, but we are responsible if we refuse to allow God change our desires and to be regenerated by the Spirit of God into sons of God in Jesus Christ. We could say that the wrath of God turns from a primal condition to an active punishment.
2:4-10
In the verses 4-7 Paul goes on to describe our salvation. He uses in connection with this the words "great love," "mercy" and "grace." These words indicate God's motive for saving us. The act of salvation is described with the words "made us alive" (the KJV says: 'quickened us'), and "raised us up." The making us alive is the bringing back to life of our dead spirit, the one we inherited from Adam. This means that the organ for fellowship with God is restored to its proper function. In John 3:3 this is called being "born again."
Paul does not elaborate on the subject here. After all, he speaks to people who have had the experience and who know they are born again. In our contact with human beings, we usually do not start by convincing them that they are born into this world. But sometimes it is helpful to make people realize how great the miracle is that they are alive. The miracle in the new birth is even greater. In our natural birth we come from non-existence into existence. In the new birth the process of death is reversed. That is what makes it so marvelous. In John 3 Jesus explains the process to Nicodemus in detail. The image of the brass serpent in John 3:14 and 15 explains it all. "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, That everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."
The next description of our being raised up with Christ does not speak about Christ's resurrection from the dead, but about His Ascension to heaven. The context makes this clear. "Made alive" and "raised up" do not say the same thing here.
But we should go back to the words and phrases that show us God's motive for saving us, "His great love for us." The miraculous aspect of this love is better explained in Romans: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."[ 6 ] God did not love us because we were lovable since in our natural condition we are repulsive to the highest degree. In Romans Paul describes us as "the ungodly," "sinners," and "enemies." The basis of God's love is not in us, but in Himself. God loves us because He is love. We will never be able to fully understand this. But it seems to me that the fact of God's love for us makes our lostness so much worse. This person, who is dying in his sin, is the person God loves so much that He was willing to die in his place.
The second phrase Paul uses is "rich in mercy." The aspect of God's righteousness is not mentioned in this context, but it is never far away. God's mercy does not mean that He takes our sin lightly. However, because the price was paid, God can act as if our sin doesn't matter. Like the father of the prodigal son, He doesn't talk about it any more. In the parable we read "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."[ 7 ] When sin has been confessed and atoned for, God lets his compassion run freely. He runs to us, throws His arms around us and kisses us. God, the Creator of heaven and earth, God the Almighty welcomes us. That is the display of the riches of His mercy. The third word is "grace." Grace rules out any merit on our side. Paul uses the word three times in these few verses (5,7,8): in vs. 5 it is salvation while we are dead in sin; in vs. 7 it is the demonstration of His riches of kindness to us, as a testimony to the rest of creation; and in vs. 8 it is God's gift to us, which we receive by faith. The way Paul expresses it, grace is the beginning, the end, and the means. Grace begins while we are dead, and it comes to full bloom in the apotheosis, when in glory the fullness of what God has done in us will be manifested. Grace is grasped by faith. The second phase, the one painted in Verse 7 is what these chapters are all about. Here again we are pulled up to a level that is far beyond what we can presently see or understand. The third phase shows the present; it is by faith that we grasp and start experiencing. We trust that it is true, although we cannot see it. The best illustration of what faith is not, is given in Thomas' words after Jesus' resurrection. In We read: "But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."[ 8 ] And Jesus answers him: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."[ 9 ] We will not be able to touch, or see, or taste. But for most of us the relief to feel the load of guilt slide from our shoulders is enough proof that it is true. The Hebrew epistle says: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."[ 10 ] And the KJV expresses it: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I prefer the KJV in this particular verse.
When we start trusting God, knowing that if He would lie the universe would fall apart, spiritual things become tangible to us. That is why I believe that when John says: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched; this we proclaim concerning the Word of life,"[ 11 ] he does not merely talk about the physical observations he made when Jesus was on earth; He wants to give "substance" to our faith.
The idea that faith would be any kind of achievement on our part is ridiculous. It doesn't even take courage to believe since often it is our last resort. It is true, however, that faith grows with use, just as a muscle becomes stronger with use. But for salvation we need as little muscle strength as a baby needs it to be born. Salvation is a gift of God.
Verse 10 is one of the great verses in the Bible. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." In order to understand what Paul is saying here, we have to realize that "created" applies to the new creation, not to the creation of Adam or our natural birth. "Created in Christ Jesus" has the same content as "blessed in Christ" and "chosen in Christ" in ch. 1:3,4. The verse: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"[ 12 ] says the same. If we do not see this, we should understand that God has predetermined what we should do and should not do, which would rob us completely of the dignity of choice. But if we see this as a completely new spiritual universe in which God has reserved a place for us with functions to exercise and responsibilities to take, we get a better picture.
When Paul says: "We are God's workmanship," he does not speak about the fact that God created us, but that He saved us from our sins, gave us new life in Christ, and seated us with Him in the center of the new heaven and earth. I read once a translation that sounded rather fascinating: "You are God's masterpiece ...." In the physical, mental, and spiritual sense, this is true, but that is not what the text is about. It is also true that God's new creation is a masterpiece, even of greater proportions than the first one. But the issue can be obscured by using flowery language. Verse 10 states in a nutshell what Paul has been singing about in the first fourteen verses of this epistle.
2:11-22
Beginning with 2:11, the Apostle starts to explain what turns out to be the essence of his letter: the mystery of the Gospel. In ch. 3 he uses the term four times (3:3,4,6,9). Obviously this is what he refers to in ch. 6:19: "Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel."
In our present age the church is mainly a body of believers of non-Jewish origin. It is very hard for us to imagine the immense struggle that took place among the Jewish believers when the first heathen came to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Although Jesus' mandate to the disciples clearly included heathen, ("But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,"[ 13 ]) it took specific intervention by the Holy Spirit two times to make the Apostles understand that the Lord was serious about Samaria and the ends of the earth.
In Acts 8:5 we read that the deacon Philip was the first one to go to Samaria to preach the Gospel. From ch. 5:14-17, we understand that the Apostles in Jerusalem did not know what to make of Philip's ministry. It took Peter's and John's prayers to have the Spirit come upon these people, so that nobody could say that there was any difference between them and the believers in Jerusalem. The Samaritans worshipped the God of Israel and they kept the law of Moses; so that even though the Jews did not approve of them, there was enough of a common basis between them to justify what happened. And when Philip led the Ethiopian eunuch to the Lord, he was dealing with a proselyte, a non-Jew who had embraced Judaism.[ 14 ] The real problem arose when Peter entered the house of Cornelius. It took a vision of a sheet with unclean animals, which Peter was commanded to eat, a vision that had to be repeated three times, and it took a baptism in the Holy Spirit of a house full of heathen, to convince the Jews that God made no difference between Jews and Gentiles. Then it took a special session of the general assembly of the church in Jerusalem to approve what the Holy Spirit had done to make it official. God in heaven must have laughed loud and long. It had not been easy to convince the people He had chosen to be a kingdom of priest in this world, that the Gospel was for the whole world, not just for themselves. Even Paul's excitement in this epistle shows how deeply ingrained the Jewish prejudice was. We, believers from among the heathen, should not take this lightly.
Most of the things Paul says in the verses 11-22 can be taken in two ways. They have a personal application and a collective one. The mistake is often made to pay attention only to the personal aspect. This evolves from our misunderstanding which is caused by the distance that removes us from the problem that was so acute in Paul's time. There was more at stake than a prejudice on the side of the Jews toward the Gentiles. We get a clearer understanding of this when we read Paul's treatise of the subject in Rom. 9-11. There Paul says of Israel: "Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen."[ 15 ] Jesus said to the Samaritan woman: "Salvation is from the Jews."[ 16 ] It is my understanding of this epistle that Paul says, this is no longer true. It is the church of Jesus Christ, consisting of Jews and Gentiles, that has become a kingdom of priests. We, as members of the body of Christ, have the task to announce God's salvation to a lost world.
Further in Rom. 11:17-24 Paul argues that the Gentiles have been grafted into the olive tree in the place of some branches that have been broken off.
Much has been said and written, especially in the last 200 years about Augustine's dogma that the church is the spiritual Israel and has replaced Israel as the recipient of God's promises. It was felt that the church went overboard on this issue and that Israel's role in the world was not finished, as most Christians thought. The dispensationalists in the previous century argued correctly that Israel would be restored and the events of 1948 proved that they were on the right track in their prophecy. But it seems that the evangelical community is in danger of going as much overboard as Augustine did. It is true that Israel no longer occupies the place of a kingly priesthood in this world; in fact they do not even claim to. Judaism is concerned with the maintaining of the Jewish identity and little else. What John says in the introduction of the book of Revelations pertains to the church: "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."[ 17 ] So when Paul says "remember" in vs. 11 and 12, he does mean to embarrass them, but he wants them to marvel about the fact that people, who were dead and did not have any chance to be saved, have been elevated to the status of "kings and priests," that is, to missionaries!
Although he speaks collectively, as we said before, the private implications of these things are tremendous, and we do well to ponder them. The term "uncircumcised" stands here for the whole concept of not being included in the promise of God to Abraham. The Jews had a birthright that we as non-Jews did not possess.
It would have been easier to recognize if Israel as a nation would have lived as a kingdom of priests. During its long history those moments were rare and far apart, and never did the whole nation live up to its calling. As we said before, the fact that this is now history, since the death of Jesus on the cross changed all that, does make it hard for us to understand what it must have been.
We can still see some of the value of the original condition when a modern Jew accepts Jesus as his Messiah. A whole heritage comes alive of which we, as heathen, know nothing. The only thing in vs. 12 we can relate to now is that we were "without hope and without God in the world." The Christian hope is the realization of everything that God promised in terms of restoration of dignity, fellowship, and incorruptibility. It is the fullness of resurrection and glory. For a person outside Christ, death is the end, and at best an "undiscovered country from which bourn no traveler returns," as Shakespeare expressed his concept of death. For the child of God, real life starts where life on earth ends. What people call "hope" in this life has nothing in common with the reality of God's hope. We are talking about what Paul calls in 1:3 "every spiritual blessing in Christ."
"Without God" is the translation of the Greek atheoi from which our word atheism is derived. This does not necessarily mean that the heathen did not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, but that because of a lack of revelation, such as Israel possessed, they had no real knowledge of God. In most cases those fragments of knowledge which mankind must have possessed when they were dispersed over the earth after the flood and the tower of Babel, must have been lost, or so badly deluded by other cultural influences that they were beyond recognition. There are very few places on earth where those traces were kept for centuries. Traces of this knowledge were found among the Stone Age tribes of New Guinea (Irian Jaya) when the first missionaries entered.
Even in our present time, people who are not acknowledged materialistic atheists, live in practice as if no God exists to whom they have to give an account of their lives, and even people who, know there is a God, live as if there is no God, like the fool in the book of Psalms.[ 18 ]
In ch. 2:13 Paul says: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ." This means that in reality we have been accepted as a Jew. In a sense the Judaists were right when they said that only Jews could be saved. They were wrong in assuming that heathen had to submit themselves to bodily circumcision. The blood of Christ accomplished in our life that of which circumcision was a shadow. As Paul says in Romans: "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God."[ 19 ] Physical circumcision foreshadowed the renewal of our heart.
The real issue of Judaism is not to keep the Jewish identity, but entrance into the presence of God and fellowship with Him. Because of the blood of Christ we enter hand in hand with people who are Jews by physical descent and worship God with them. There is no difference.
What Paul says about peace between Jews and Gentiles can be applied in a more pertinent way in our present time to our fellowship with other human beings, particularly fellow believers. If Jesus is the peace between Jew and gentile, He must be the peace between me and you. "I and Thou," as Martin Buber calls it. This places my relationship with other Christians on a basis that is quite different from any other relationship. Most relationships that we consider good are based on "chemistry." We like each other, and things click between us. The first lesson the Lord taught me as a new Christian was that I could no longer divide mankind into two groups: the ones I liked and the ones I disliked. (The first group was much smaller). I felt compelled to go to someone who irked me and to be kind to him, as if I really liked him. I realized that I could be in trouble if God would divide humanity as I did. The death of Christ shows that God loves the world, and we are supposed to do the same.
It is of the utmost importance that we understand that this goes absolutely against our natural experience; truly loving takes supernatural intervention. If Christ is not our peace, there is no peace between one human being and another. Differences in temperament, character, and approach can only be overruled by the presence of Christ between you and me. The hardest test the Lord gave me was in being in the same Bible school with another student, whom I felt was the most obnoxious creature I ever met. And I still say to myself that it must have been he who made it difficult, not I!
Paul's quote in Verse 17 comes from Isaiah: " 'Creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near,' says the LORD. 'And I will heal them.' "[ 20 ]
When Adam severed the line of fellowship with God, he alienated himself also from the fellow human who was his wife. His sinful nature was inherited by his descendants, and accounts for the first murder when Cain slew Abel. That is how hatred and wars came into this world, but hostility was put to death on the cross. We, who are saved by Jesus' death on the cross, should be the first ones to put into practice that hostility is no option for a Christian. The terms foreigners, aliens, and fellow citizens must have been very meaningful to people in the Roman empire. Paul uses the same thought in Philippians, where he says: "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."[ 21 ]
The expression "members of God's household" brings it even closer to home. There is an intimacy, when we are born in a family which is not present in citizenship. Paul says in Galatians: "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."[ 22 ]
Paul really piles up the metaphors in the last verses of this chapter. The fellowship of believers makes them citizens of the same city, members of the same family, and parts of the same building, that is the temple in which God dwells through the Holy Spirit. Once again he talks primarily about the unity between Jews and Gentiles in Christ, but the present application for us should be within the gentile church. I see little reason, as some evangelicals do, to side with the State of Israel in everything they do, on the basis that they are God's chosen people and we should side with them. I understand that Israel's role in the plan of God with this world is not finished. But we have presently as little in common with a nation that rejects its Messiah, as the returning Jews did with the transmigrants they found in their country after captivity. In the book of Ezra we read: "They came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, 'Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.' But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, 'You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.' "[ 23 ] This last image stresses again the thought of the priesthood of the church of Jesus Christ. Every believer is individually a temple of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own."[ 24 ] But collectively, and I would say on a higher level, we are the dwelling place of God and as such we function as priests in this world, building the bridge between those who are still in darkness and those in the kingdom of light. Peter says much the same in his first epistle: "You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Jesus."[ 25 ]
Concerning the foundation of this temple, Paul says in vs. 20: "Built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." These words are apocalyptic. John wrote: "The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb."[ 26 ] Christ is referred to as the cornerstone, (or capstone) an image that is transferred into the New Testament from the book of Psalms: "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone."[ 27 ] The inference is also in Zechariah's vision: "See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,' says the LORD Almighty, 'and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day... What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of `God bless it! God bless it! ' "[ 28 ] Jesus Himself quotes Ps 118:22 in Matt. 21:42. Paul uses the image also in First Corinthians: "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."[ 29 ]
It is clear why Christ is called the cornerstone, or capstone or foundation of the temple in which the Holy Spirit lives. Without His death on the cross, the Holy Spirit would not indwell any human body. It is because of what He did that He could pour out His Spirit upon us. But why are the Apostles called the foundation? According to the biblical definition, an Apostle is a man who witnessed the resurrection of Christ. The Apostles were the first ones who spread the message of salvation in the blood of Christ and the proof of the truth of this was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. As John states it in his first epistle: "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us."[ 30 ] And in Acts Paul says: "For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."[ 31 ] Peter states it most clearly when he says: "But God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen; by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead."[ 32 ] The fact that the Apostles are part of the foundation of the church is more due to their being witnesses of the facts of salvation then to their persons. The content of their message is more important than who they are.
[ 1 ]
Rom. 5:12-14
[ 2 ]
Ex. 23:2
[ 3 ]
II Cor. 4:4
[ 4 ]
Eph. 2:3
[ 5 ]
John 3:18, 36
[ 6 ]
Rom. 5:8
[ 7 ]
Luke 15:20
[ 8 ]
John 20:25
[ 9 ]
John 20:29
[ 10 ]
Heb 11:1
[ 11 ]
I John 1:1
[ 12 ]
II Cor. 5:17
[ 13 ]
Acts 1:8
[ 14 ]
See Acts 8:26-39
[ 15 ]
Rom. 9:4
[ 16 ]
John 4:22
[ 17 ]
Rev. 1:5b, 6 (KJV)
[ 18 ]
See Ps. 14:1
[ 19 ]
Rom. 2:28,29
[ 20 ]
Isa. 57:9
[ 21 ]
Phil. 3:20
[ 22 ]
Gal. 3:26,29
[ 23 ]
See Ezra 4:2,3
[ 24 ]
I Cor 6:19
[ 25 ]
1 Peter 2:5
[ 26 ]
Rev 21:14
[ 27 ]
Ps 118:22
[ 28 ]
Zech. 3:9; 4:7
[ 29 ]
I Cor. 3:11
[ 30 ]
I John 1:3
[ 31 ]
Acts 17:31
[ 32 ]
Acts 10:40-42
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