At the end of World War II, at the Potsdam Conference on July 17, 1945, it was decided how Germany would be divided by the American, British, French, and Soviet Allied leaders. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation to be controlled by the United States, Britain, France, and Communist Russia (the Soviet Union). The city of Berlin was split up by the four powers even though it was located within the zone controlled by Russia. Because West Berlin was formed by the American, British, and French sectors, East Berlin would be marked by its stark ideological differences shaped by communism because of its control under the Soviet Union.
In 1949, Germany split into two independent nations known as the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) as a democracy in stark contrast to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) that was marked by the communism of the Soviet Union. In 1952, the East German government closed its border with West Germany; to keep people from escaping East Germany to the West, a wire barrier was constructed around West Berlin on August 12-13, 1961, with the plan to build a permanent wall designed to divide neighborhoods, separate families, and keep any influence of a freedom loving West from a restrictive and oppressive East. The Berlin Wall would eventually grow into two walls measuring 96 miles long and 13 feet tall. Anyone who attempted to gain freedom from East Berlin by entering West Berlin was shot.
By 1989, more than 100 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall and hundreds more who tried to escape from East to West. There were 302 watchtowers along the 96-mile-long wall that separated the free from the burdened. On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Regan delivered a speech in West Berlin, a speech I remember well when I heard as it aired on television when I was only 13 years old. President Regan’s speech has been nicknamed the “Tear Down This Wall” speech from a line in his magnificent speech; I want you to hear just a sampling of this marvelous and important speech for a reason that will become clear in this sermon:
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same – still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar…. As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind….
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate.
Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
On November 9, 1989, Germans from the East and West gathered and began tearing the Berlin Wall down. On October 3, 1990, East Germany and West Germany were no more; Germany was reunited as one free nation.
The Christian Has Been Brought Near to God (vv. 11-13)
There are four things that were true of the Christians in Ephesus; these four things are true of you if you are now a Christian; these same four things are still true of you if you are not a Christian. Because most of you in this room are Christians, I will refer to these four truths as something that once was true of you.
You at one time were Christless (vv. 11-12a). There were two types of people in Ephesus and in the world: the “Uncircumcision” and the “Circumcision.” The “Uncircumcision” were the Gentiles in the world while the Circumcision were the Jews who prided themselves on being the physical descendants of Abraham. The “Uncircumcised” Gentiles were convinced that they were very different than the “Circumcised” Jews, and the Jews felt the same way about the Gentiles. However, there were two things that these two groups did share in common: Both groups believed that so long as they were religious enough, they would be prepared for what comes after death, and both groups were dead in their sins because both were Christless.
You were homeless (v. 12b). What I mean by “homeless” is that the Jews had known about and looked forward to the promises of God made to the descendants of Abraham. For example, when God called Abraham out of the city of Ur, He made the following promise to both him and his wife, Sarah: “Go from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you into a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:1-3). The Jews had grown to assume that the promise was not for Gentiles and failed to realize that it would be through the Jewish people that the Gentile nations would experience the blessing made to Abraham. It was not that the promises were not for the nations also, but that the Gentiles were not aware of such promises.
You were hopeless (v. 12c). What were the promises given to the Jews really for? They were promises concerning God’s plan to redeem Adam’s fallen race. Think about the promises made to the Jews for a moment! How would “all the families of the earth” be blessed? The Child promised in Isaiah 9:6-7 would be Jewish and would come through Israel, and this promise is for the nations:
For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this.
So how were the Gentiles in Ephesus without hope? They were without hope because unlike the Jews, they were unaware that unlike emperor Nero of Rome who was reigning at the time Ephesians was written, there was coming a true and better King who would do what Rome could never do: “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David… to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.” For the Gentiles, Rome was as good as it would get is the same way that many today believe that life before death is as good as it will ever get, which is pretty hopeless!
You were godless (v. 12d). Finally, the gentiles were godless in the sense that they were left to their idols because they did not know God. This does not mean that the Jews were not godless either, for if they were without Christ, then they were also Godless. To be “Godless” is to be without God. Do you know what happens when you are “Godless”? You will find a way to place an idol in the place only God was meant to reside in your life. You will find something that promises the sort of things that only a real God can give and provide; such as joy, satisfaction, contentment, meaning, and purpose to your life and you will be robed of the very things that idols promise to give. The God whose image you bear is the only being who can provide lasting joy, satisfaction, contentment, meaning, and purpose to your life.
If you are a Christian, you are no longer Christless. Because you are no longer Christless, you belong to the people of God and are no longer homeless when it comes to the promises of God. Because you are now the recipient of the promises of God through Jesus, you are no longer hopeless. Because your hope rests in Jesus for your salvation, Paul declares: “Now in Christ Jesus you who previously were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (v. 13).
The Christian Has the Peace of God (vv. 14-18)
God’s plan for the salvation of sinners always included Gentiles. Before instructions for the construction of a temple that would serve as the center of worship for Israel where the presence of God would be experienced by His people, God instructed Israel: “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel” (Exod. 19:5-6). In other words, Israel was commissioned to be God’s priests before the nations to lead the nations to God. Through the prophet Malachi, as He did throughout Israel’s history, God reminded His people that the redemption of the nations was always the plan: “For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name shall be great among the nations, and in every place frankincense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name shall be great among the nations,” says the Lord of armies” ( Mal. 1:11).
So, what is this “dividing wall” the apostle Paul refers to in verse 14? The temple that King Herod built for the Jews included a place known as, “The Court of the Gentiles.” The Court of the Gentiles was the place within the Temple Walls that allowed Gentiles to gather and worship the God of the Hebrews, but they were forbidden to go any further than the outer court because they were considered too dirty to come any closer to the inner courts, only the true Jew was permitted to into the holier place that was closest to the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was. There was a wall that stood about 4.5 feet high that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts and signs that were posted that stated in Greek: “No foreigner may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.”[1]
The Court of the Gentiles is also the place where Jesus taught while in the Temple (Matt. 21:23; 26:55; Luke 19:47; John 7:14). The Court of the Gentiles is also the place where money was changed because the required coinage for people to use for the Temple tax had to be Tyrian shekels (aka the “shekel of the sanctuary”) because of the uneven value of other coinages and the idolatrous images on other coins. During Passover, it is estimated that over 200,000 lambs were sacrificed for the sins of the people; the Court of the Gentiles was the place where people could purchase their sacrifice. The Court of the Gentiles was where the money was made and exchanged, and for many, became more important than worship itself. The Court of the Gentiles was not in the original plans God gave His people for the Temple (see Numbers 15:14-15), nor were they ever a part of God’s plans for the place where His people would worship Him. Here is what Isaiah said of the place of God’s worship:
“Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to attend to His service and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it, And holds firmly to My covenant; Even those I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”
It was the Court of the Gentiles that Jesus entered into during Passover week before He would die on the Cross as the perfect and true Lamb of God, and was enraged over the way Israel had perverted the Temple:
And He entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple grounds. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written: ‘my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:15-17).
They crucified Jesus because the Jews who were convinced that their religion was enough, but what Israel failed to see was that their problem was the same as the problem of the Gentiles. There exists before all of humanity a far greater wall than the one that separated the Gentiles from the Jews in the Temple! It is a wall that only One Lamb can remedy and of all the peoples of the nations that should have known that such a wall exists, it should have been those who had before them from the commandments, writings, and the prophets, “the covenants of the promise” (v. 12). The wall is greater than any other wall, for it is the great wall of mankind’s sin and guilt before a Holy God and there is nothing that the Jews or the Gentiles could do to tear it down, nor is there anything that you and I can do to remove the wall. For the Jew, the Law simply pointed to the wall of our own sin and that there is only One who is able to tear down the wall (see Gal. 3:23-29). Jesus tore down the wall by going to the Cross, He “redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us…” (Ga. 3:13). It is only through the blood He shed for sins we are guilty of that, “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings…” (Eph. 1:7).
The wall was our sin, the hostility was ours before a Holy God, and our only hope for a peace with Him was and is the Prince of Peace! This is why Paul wrote, “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace…” (vv. 14-15). How did He do it? Through His cross: “…and that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the hostility” (v. 16).
Conclusion
Through Christ, the wall that alienated and separated us from any hope of knowing God or being known by God was blown to ashes through the Cross! The Christian, regardless of culture, skin color, or language, is now reconciled to the One whose image we all bear—He is our peace! Christian, because the wall of your sin was torn down by the Lamb of God, you share the same thing that the Chinese Christian, the Korean Christian, the Indian Christian, the Burmese Christian, the Iranian Christian, the Sudanese Christian, the Canadian Christian, and the Mexican Christian all have that you now have through Jesus Christ: “Access in one Spirit to the Father” through the Son! What better news could there possibly be than what we read in these verses:
For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace; and that He might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Regardless of your ethnicity, the thing that you share with every other Christian rescued, ransomed, and redeemed by the blood of Jesus is that we now belong to His Tribe and our colors are the same because we are covered by the blood of the perfect Lamb of God! To be a Christian is to be the Church, and to be the Church is to be the People of God! Your identity is no longer in the nation you live, the color of your skin, the language you speak, or the culture that has shaped and formed you. No! Your identity is now in Christ!
If you are not a Christian, the great wall of your sin still stands, and your greatest need remains! There is only One who is able to remove the wall of your sin, so why wait any longer to be reconciled to God through the blood of the Lamb of God?
