Jesus brought peace between us all

Saturday March 19, 2022

Jesus brought peace between us all

“He came to proclaim peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.” Ephesians 2. 17

The prophet Isaiah calls Jesus “Prince of the peace” (Isaiah 9:5). How to explain this title ? Paul does so in his letter to the Ephesians : “Remember that at that time you were without a Messiah, cast out of citizenship in Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have become near by the blood of Christ. Indeed, he is our peace, he who made two groups one and who broke down the wall that separated them, hatred” (Ephesians 2. 12-14). The apostle means that Jesus, the prince of peace, abolished by his death the wall which separated the children of the promise, the Jews, and those who were strangers to this promise and made one people of all those who became His disciples. In the time of Jesus, in the Temple there was a veritable dividing wall, made of stone, called the soreg, which prevented non-Jews, the “impure”, from entering the court where the sacrifices took place. Inscriptions in Latin and Greek warned those who tried to cross this wall that they risked death. The separation between the circumcised and the uncircumcised was taken very seriously in those days! Remember the riot caused by the coming of the apostle Paul to the "sanctuary" of the temple (Acts 21. 27-31), because the Jews imagined that Paul had introduced his friends, Greek Christians, into the forbidden enclosure. The torn veil in the temple at the time of Jesus' death signified the abolition of the separation between God and men. But the dividing wall between the circumcised and the uncircumcised also needed to be torn down. Jesus broke this separation so that there would be peace among all who became His disciples. Paul writes : “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3. 28). It is also up to us to maintain peace among ourselves, whatever our differences in skin, education, character and social situation, such is His word for you today.

Source (His Word for Today)