Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today,
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from Ephesians chapter two in
the New Testament, Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. I've
been going through chapter two, and I wanna continue that, and
today I'm gonna talk about this subject, made nigh by the blood. Made nigh by the blood, and of
course that word nigh means near, and we're talking about being
near to God and near to God's people in that passage. But the
apostle had just explained how that salvation, all of salvation,
is totally, completely, 100% by God's grace, unearned, undeserved,
through the faith that God gives to His people from Christ, and
it's all based upon the merits of the obedience unto death of
Christ, His righteousness alone. That term righteousness is so
important that we understand that salvation is based upon
a righteousness established, not by us, not by our law keeping,
not even by our efforts, and not even by our believing. A
lot of people today believe that because we can't be perfect,
God accepts our faith as a lesser qualification, but that's not
true. You see, Christ came to keep the law perfectly. And the
Bible says in Romans 10-4 that Christ is the end of the law,
the fulfillment, the perfection of the law, finishing of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So our believing
does not make us righteous. Christ did that for His people
on the cross. And God imputed it to them all
the way down through the ages. He charged it to us. And that's
what the Bible is all about as far as the heart of the gospel.
And so he says here that salvation is by grace. It's the work of
God in Christ Jesus unto, not because of good works. And then
he goes back in verse 11. Now listen to this. He says,
Wherefore, or for this reason, remember that you being in time
past Gentiles in the flesh. Now he's talking to believing
Gentiles here. You know, there are two classes
there, believing Gentiles and believing Jews. And he says,
being in time past, Gentiles in the flesh, this is how you
were physically born. But now, aren't they still Gentiles? Physically they are. But spiritually,
there's something else. There's something else. Now,
he says, being Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hand. So
he's saying, what he's doing, he's recognizing that physically,
there was a distinction between the uncircumcised Gentiles and
the circumcised Jews. Now, to get the background of
what he's dealing with here, we have to understand that unbelieving
Jews, unbelieving Israelites, nationally, okay? Unbelieving
Israelites basically had three things that they boasted in as
to proving that they were saved, that they had a right relationship
with God, that they were God's children. The first thing that
they would boast of is their physical connection to Abraham. Abraham, the friend of God. Abraham,
the father of the faithful. And so they boasted in their
physical connection to Abraham. Now, that was not the case, but
that's what they believed against what the prophets told them in
the Old Testament and against what the Lord himself told them
in passages such as John chapter eight. when he was talking about
Abraham. And he says that Abraham believed
the gospel. Abraham looked forward to the
day of the Messiah. He rejoiced to see my day and
he saw it and was glad, Christ said. So he told him, he says,
your physical connection to Abraham means absolutely nothing as far
as you're having a right relationship with God. But that's what they
believed. The second thing they boasted
in was their circumcision, the circumcision of the males in
Israel. And the male was the representative
of the females. The females were not circumcised,
obviously, but the males were. And if you were connected to
that physical circumcision as represented by the head male
of the family and all the other males, then you had a right relationship
with God. And so they would put the Gentiles
down in that sense, saying, well, there's no way they could have
a right relationship with God, they're uncircumcised. So it
became common to refer to themselves as the circumcision. And they
would say about the Gentiles, they're the uncircumcision. And
that's what Paul is referring to here. Look at it again, verse
11 of Ephesians 2. Wherefore, remember that you
being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Now,
the third thing the Jews would boast in is they boasted in their
keeping the law of Moses. Well, they didn't keep the law
of Moses, but they tweaked it down. You know, they do like
people today, you know, if you got a standard and you can't
keep it, you lower the standard. Well, Christ told them that their
physical connection with Abraham meant nothing as far as salvation
and a right relationship with God. Their physical circumcision
meant nothing. in that way, and their keeping
the law of Moses meant nothing because they didn't keep it.
In fact, in John chapter 5, he said, in Moses whom you trust,
meaning they trusted their works under the law, he said, Moses
will be your judge and you'll be condemned. They who have the
works of the law are under a curse. No man is justified by works
of the law, Jew or Gentile. So all their boasts were just,
it was just sham religion. And that's why they hated the
gospel so much. And that's why they hated the
disciples because the message of the gospel exposed their boast,
their confidence, their grounds of confidence to be sham religion,
nothing but evil deeds. And that's why they hated it
so much. But Paul's telling the Gentile believers, now look back
on the time, you were Gentiles in the flesh, you were called
the uncircumcision by the circumcision. In verse 12 he says, that at
that time, this is Ephesians 2.12, that at that time you were
without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,
strangers or foreigners from the covenants of promise, having
no hope and without God in the world. Now, what Paul is actually
referring to there is the Old Testament time, especially the
period that the Jews were under the Old Covenant law of Moses,
the covenant that God made with Israel through Moses on Mount
Sinai. We talk about the Ten Commandments.
That was part of, that was the center of that covenant. the
ceremonial law, the laws of the priesthood, the sacrifices, the
civil laws, the dietary laws, all those laws that formed that
one covenant with Israel. And back during that time, there
were very, very few Gentiles who were saved. And those who
were saved, usually it was by the means of coming into contact
or into the nation of Israel. and seeing the reality of what
that picture, what those old covenant laws and sacrifices
and all those pictured, which was Christ. Now, let me make
this clear. I don't have a whole lot of time to go back into the
Old Testament on this. I've preached on it before, but
I want to make it clear. Nobody in the Old Testament,
Jew or Gentile, was saved by their works of the law. Nobody. It was always salvation by grace,
through faith, and that not of themselves, it was the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You can go all
the way back to the beginning, but you can, Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Abraham was an example of one
whom God justifies the ungodly. based upon the righteousness
of Christ imputed, which Abraham and Noah and all Old Testament
believers look forward to. The old covenant law was given
to Israel to show them their sin and their depravity and the
impossibility of salvation, of being made righteous, justified
by their works. and it was given to drive them
to Christ for salvation and Christ was in the pictures and the types
and the prophecies of the Old Covenant. The pictures and the
types, the lambs that were slain. The blood of bulls and goats
never took away sin, but they all pictured Christ who was to
come, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. Not
everybody without exception now. but God's elect, Jew and Gentile
all over the world. And so what he's telling these
Gentiles is that back then, because you were aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel and foreigners from the covenants of promise, which
would be the covenants that God made to Abraham, the covenant
of grace that was typified in the sacrifices in the priesthood,
the promise of salvation, having no hope. You see, there's no
hope of anyone being saved without hearing and believing the gospel.
Those who never hear and believe the gospel die in their sins
and they perish. And he says, and without God
in the world. Now, God's everywhere. But when
he talks about without God in the world, in other words, they
were not worshipers of God, they were idolaters. But now look
at verse 13. He says, but now, In Christ Jesus, you who sometimes
were far off are made nigh. You're brought near, how? By the blood of Christ. Now,
under the gospel, under the New Testament, you've heard the gospel
and you've been brought by God to be near to God and near to
his people. On what basis? Because of your
free will? No. Because of your decision? No. By the blood of Christ. That's the key. Go back to verse
10. We are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus. Unto, not because of good works.
You see it? Salvation. A right relationship
with God. Being near to God. Being accepted
with God is all based upon one single solitary ground, and that's
the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, his blood means his death. He died on the cross to save
his people from their sins. He said, the good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was laid upon him, Isaiah 53. That is why he had to die. It
pleased the Lord to bruise him or crush him. He did it as the
surety of his people. That means all of the debt of
their sins were put to his account. He became responsible to pay
the debt of his people. That was a transaction that was
made before the world began in the everlasting covenant of grace.
Christ is called the surety of the covenant. And in order for
him to pay that debt to God's justice for his people, he had
to be their substitute. he had to come into this world
and take into union with himself as the divine Son of God, second
person of the Trinity, he had to take into union with himself
a sinless, perfect, uncontaminated human nature, human body, created
for him, not by the aid of man, not the natural way of the flesh,
but created for him by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin
Mary. and He united Himself to that
human nature. He became God manifest in the
flesh. God with us. The Word, Christ,
the eternal Word, was made flesh and dwelt among us. But He was
without sin now. He was without sin. You need
to understand that. He was never contaminated with
sin. He was never corrupted by our
sin. He was never ever plunged into
sin in the sense that he had any sinful thoughts. He was the
perfect God-man. But he had the sins of his people
legally imputed, charged, accounted to him. That's what the Scripture
tells us. And as our substitute, He went
to the cross and died on that cross, satisfied the justice
of God, and redeemed His people from their sins. We're not redeemed
by our works. We're not redeemed by the things
of this world. We're redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.
The incorruptible, spotless blood of Christ. Now that blood, that
death, equals what the Bible calls the righteousness of God. For therein, in the gospel, is
the righteousness of God revealed. For he was made sin, 2 Corinthians
5 21, God made him, made Christ, to be sin for us. Christ who
knew no sin. How was he made to be sin? The
sins of God's elect were imputed, charged, accounted to him. That
we might be made the righteousness of God in him, his righteousness
imputed to us. We're justified. We're brought
near to God. by the righteousness of Christ
imputed to us. And he gives us life from the
dead and brings us to faith in Christ. And he says, look at
verse 14 of Ephesians 2. He says, for he, that is Christ,
is our peace. The peace of God is established
by the cross. The peace of God between God
and his people is established by the blood. Christ is our peace. We don't make our peace, Christ
made it. We receive him who is our peace. He's the prince of
peace. And it says, who hath made both one and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us. Now, what's Paul
saying here? Well, remember he started out,
he said, you who were Gentiles in the flesh. You weren't in
the commonwealth of Israel. You didn't have the advantages
that the Jews had under the old covenant, even though they perverted
them and denied them and failed to keep the law. But you weren't
in that commonwealth, in that nation. And so you had no hope. You didn't hear the gospel. You
had no hope of salvation. But now, but now, You've been
brought in to a right relationship with God, just the same as the
Jews. Now, he has made peace between
Jew and Gentile. Not only is there peace between
God and his people, Jew and Gentile, now he has brought together Jew
and Gentile in a spiritual way, and so they're at peace, and
he's broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Now,
what is that talking about? Well, that's an illusion. to
the third temple there that was present at that day. This was
the temple that was present when the Lord walked the earth. There
were three temples, we could say. The temple of Solomon, which
was destroyed by the Babylonians. And then the second temple, which
was being, when they came out of captivity, after 70 years,
being built by Nehemiah and Zechariah and the prophets, and it was
nothing compared to the Temple of Solomon, the grandeur of it.
Well, that was there. And then later on, in the New
Testament times, King Herod began to appease the Jews He wasn't
a Jew, he was a Nehemian, but to appease the Jews, he started
building up around it, and that's what we call the Third Temple.
And it was a very, very grand structure. And in that Third
Temple, there was a wall that separated the Jews, the natural,
physical Jews who could go in closer, and the Gentiles who
had converted. to Judaism, and that was the
middle wall of partition. There was a division between
Jew and Gentile. But what Paul was saying is this.
Having been brought nigh to God by the blood of Christ, there
is no middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. He's
made both Jew and Gentile one in Christ. Now that's important. Look at verse 15. He says, having
abolished in his flesh the enmity. That word enmity can be translated
actually hatred. He's talking about the division.
Having abolished Christ by his flesh, by his death on the cross,
his blood, that brought nigh every one of God's people, every
one of God's elect, both Jew and Gentile, made them one. He
abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances, for to make of himself of twain,
or of two, one new man, so making peace. Now in the Old Covenant,
in its ordinances, in its commandments, The Jewish nation was to be separate
from the Gentiles. They were not to intermingle
and intermarry. They did, they disobeyed. But
they were to remain separate. Now that's not that any Gentile
couldn't participate. If a Gentile participated, if
he was a male, he had to be circumcised and he had to take the same way
that the Jews did. He had to be converted, he had
to be a proselyte. to the Jewish religion. And you
remember when Christ told the Pharisees, you encompass sea
and land to make one convert. When you make him, you make him
twofold more the child of hell than you are. In other words,
they were trying to convert people to Jewish, to the Jewish law,
rather than preaching the gospel. And their law was salvation by
works. And so these Gentiles had to
be circumcised, and they could come in with us, but they can
only go so far. That middle wall partition is
as far as they could go. But the point is, in the gospel,
saved by the grace of God, there is no division in God's kingdom
between Jew and Gentile. Christ has made of two one new
man. That one new man is the church. made up of sinners saved by grace,
justified by the blood of Christ, both Jew and Gentile, there's
no division. He made peace. If you'll look
over in Galatians chapter three, listen to this. This is in verse
26 of Galatians chapter three. He says, for you are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. The evidence of being
a child of God is believing in Jesus Christ as He's identified
and distinguished in the Word, in the glory of His person. God
manifests in the flesh, in the power of His finished work, His
blood, His righteousness that brought about all that God required
for His people. And so he says, you're all children
of God. Verse 27, for as many of you
as have been baptized into Christ, now baptism there's not talking
about the ordinance of water baptism. The ordinance of water
baptism is important, it's a confession. But that's not what he's talking
about, that wouldn't even fit the context. All of you who have
been placed into Christ, you've been united to Christ, have put
on Christ. You put him on when you believe
on him, by God-given faith. And he says in verse 28, now
listen to this, there is neither Jew nor Greek. Now Greek was
a common way of referring to all Gentiles because it was a
Greek world. Greco-Roman. So there's neither
Jew nor Greek in Christ now. That distinction means nothing.
There's neither bond nor free. There's neither male nor female.
Now, Paul's not saying that we should always ignore the distinction
between a male and a female like they're trying to do today. What
he's saying is, as far as salvation is concerned, as far as a right
relationship with God is concerned, as far as being righteous before
God is concerned, as far as being brought near to God is concerned,
whether you're a male or a female, bond or free, Jew or Gentile,
means nothing in that sense, don't ever deny the distinction
between man and woman. That's ungodly for people to
do that. It's unnatural. But as far as salvation goes,
it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, bond or free,
Jew or Gentile. He says, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. And he goes further, verse 29,
and if you be Christ, that's a possessive, if you belong to
Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. Now he's talking about Abraham's
spiritual seed. Now in this world, As we walk
through this world and in the flesh, there are distinctions
among people that you could say that separate us, many that shouldn't.
You know, people talk about the different races. You know the
Bible only talks about one race, the human race. And when we talk
about distinctions that are necessary, that are natural, that are good,
But there's nothing that would promote prejudice and hatred
and treating one class of people a different way or in a bad way
than you do another class. But there are distinctions. But
this is the point. When it comes to salvation, it's
all by the grace of God. It's his mercy. It's his unconditional,
unearned, undeserved love. And it's all based upon the merit
of one person who did one great work. Hebrews 10, 14 speaks of
it. For by one offering, Christ hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified, those whom God set
apart before the foundation of the world in divine election,
those whom God set apart in Christ at the cross, sanctified by His
blood, and those whom God set apart in the new birth, sending
the Spirit to give them life and faith in Christ. And when
God gives you life, and gives you faith in Christ, you put
him on. You believe in him, you rest in him, you plead his blood
as your only hope. You plead his righteousness as
your only ground of justification. And that puts you in a company
of one new man, all who believe in him, all who've been saved
by his grace, the true church of Christ. And that's the peace
that he's talking about. That's the middle wall partition
that's been broken down. We've been made nigh by the blood,
made near. There's not a place up here closer
to God for the Jew and a place way back there for the Gentile.
There's not one place for the Apostle Paul and another place
for the thief on the cross. We're all equally saved, equally
justified, equally born again, and equally sure for heaven by
the blood. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. 317-07. Contact us by
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today and may the Lord be with you.