Ephesians 2

“Therefore remember.” Gentile believers must not forget the flesh-labels: “uncircumcision,” named by those whose mark was made by hands. Memory of exclusion is meant to humble and to bind them to mercy.

Remember grace so you do not despise others still outside. The God who brought you near still calls the far-off. Circumcision in the flesh never was the saving thing; Christ is.

Paul commands memory of a former state. Ethnic and covenantal lines were not imaginary. Hand-made circumcision could name a people, but it could not give the life of vv. 4–10.

Remember, because forgetting the pit breeds pride. The church’s unity later in the chapter rests on a shared confession that we did not invent our nearness. God made the far into household.

Five absences stack: separate from Christ, alienated from Israel’s commonwealth, strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope, without God in the world. Gentile lostness was not a mild disadvantage.

Arminian readers preach this as the world’s condition apart from Christ—and as the reason the gospel must be offered. “No hope” is honest diagnosis; the blood of v. 13 is honest hope.

The verse is a map of ruin. “In the world” yet “without God” is the most devastating pairing.

This is what we were. Nearness will have to be created by God in Christ, not negotiated by Gentile effort. The emptiness of v. 12 makes the “But now” of v. 13 astonishing.

“But now in Christ Jesus” turns the story. Those once far off “are made near in the blood of Christ.” Distance is closed by sacrifice, not by becoming Jews first. Nearness is located in Him.

The blood truly brings near, and that nearness is received by faith. The far-off are invited; the brought-near should never bar the door they themselves walked through.

“But now” is as decisive as “But God” in v. 4. In Christ, by His blood, the far off are made near—accomplished fact, not a possibility waiting on ritual.

Blood does what labels and covenants-in-the-flesh could not. Those in Christ need not wonder if they are still far. The nearness is as true as the cross that brought them in.

“He is our peace.” Wesley heard not only a purchased peace but Christ as the bond and centre of union. He made both—Jew and Gentile—one church, and broke down the hostility in His flesh.

Arminian readers preach a Person, not a program. Peace is not first a feeling; it is Jesus. Those who trust Him are joined to one another because they are joined to Him. The wall falls where He is received.

Calvin’s question follows: if Christ is our peace, those outside Him remain at variance with God. “Our peace” is His beautiful title—the peace between God and men. In His flesh the wall of hostility is broken.

Let no one who dwells in Christ doubt that he is reconciled to God. Peace is not a mood we maintain; it is the Son we are given. Hostility’s wall is down because He died.

In His flesh He abolished “the law of commandments contained in ordinances”—the barrier-system that kept nations apart—so that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace.

The new humanity is in Christ, and peace is made there. The church must not rebuild ordinances as a second wall. All who come to Him are welcome into the one new man.

Abolition and creation sit together. Christ does not merely cancel hostility; He creates one new man in Himself. Peace is the product of that new creation, not a truce between unchanged rivals.

“In himself” is the location of the new humanity. God is the creator; the cross is the means. The church’s unity is Christ’s workmanship, as sure as His flesh.

The aim reaches further: to reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility. Vertical peace with God and horizontal peace with one another share one wood.

Those in Wesley’s line hear a finished cross and a living call. Hostility is killed there; we must not revive it here. The same blood that brings the far near also makes enemies into one body as they receive the peace He made.

Hostility is not managed; it is killed. The body is one because the sacrifice is one.

What the cross killed stays dead in God’s accounting. Unity with God and with one another is not a human peace-plan. It grows from Christ’s reconciling work—already accomplished, then lived out in the body.

He came and preached peace to the far off and peace to the near. The same announcement reaches Gentile and Jew. Peace is news before it is a feeling—proclaimed so that it may be heard and trusted.

Preaching peace is Christ’s ongoing work through the gospel. Those still far off need the same word you received. Do not privatize what He published.

The Preacher is Christ; the message is peace; the audiences are both far and near. What He made in the flesh He announces in the word. The two peaces are one peace, because the two peoples are being made one.

The sermon is as divine as the sacrifice. God does not leave reconciliation silent. Those who hear and believe are hearing the voice of the Peacemaker Himself.

“Through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.” Access is Trinitarian and shared: the Son is the way, the Spirit the one atmosphere, the Father the welcome. Jew and Gentile approach on the same terms.

Arminians treasure access as an open door. Grace brings us to the Father, and faith uses the access Christ provides. No second-class children wait in the courtyard; both have the Spirit’s entrance.

Through the Son, in one Spirit, to the Father—this is the Christian’s approach. Access is a gift of the reconciling work, not a ladder we raise. “We both” means the former far and near now share one Spirit.

If you are in Christ, the Father is not distant. The Spirit is the living proof of access. What God has opened in His Son He does not close to those He has brought near.

“So then” draws the civic and family conclusion. Identity has changed; belonging is the new fact.

Live like family. Household manners are holiness and welcome. Those God has made citizens should not treat one another as guests on probation.

Status language is gospel language. Strangers become citizens; aliens become household members. God names the new address before He commands the new walk.

You are not crashing a family gathering. Membership is granted in Christ. The household of God is as sure as the blood that brought you near. Belonging is gift before it is duty.

The household is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone.” The church does not invent its base. Apostolic and prophetic witness, with Christ as cornerstone, holds the structure true.

Rest your faith on this foundation, not on private visions or ethnic pride. The cornerstone aligns every stone. To receive the apostolic gospel is to be set on Christ.

Foundation and cornerstone are given, not voted. Apostles and prophets—the Christ-witness of the church’s beginning—lie under us; Jesus Himself squares the whole.

The church’s security is architectural and Christological. If the cornerstone is Christ, the building will not finally skew. Stay on what God has laid, and do not replace the apostolic foundation He gave.

In whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Union with Christ is the joining; holiness is the temple’s character; growth is living, not static.

Classical Arminians find a call to remain in the joining. The temple grows as people are fitted to Christ and to one another. Holiness is communal: a dwelling, not a pile of private bricks.

The structure grows “in whom”—in Christ. Joining-together is His work in the Lord. The temple is holy because the Lord is its location and life.

Growth is organic and given. God is building a sanctuary, not a club. What He joins, He grows. The church’s holiness is the holiness of being in the Lord, not a private project of loose stones.

“In whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” “You also” pulls Gentile believers into the same construction. The tense is present: building continues.

God still dwells where the Spirit joins people to Christ and to one another. Cooperate with the building—peace, holiness, welcome—because the dwelling is for God, not for our brand.

In Him, by the Spirit, you also are built together. The dwelling place is God’s; the agent is the Spirit; the location is Christ. Gentile inclusion is not an annex; it is the same house.

The present tense does not mean uncertainty. It means God is not finished displaying what v. 7 promised. The Spirit will have a temple. Those in Christ are already stones in that dwelling.