For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
All Commentaries on Ephesians 2:14 Go To Ephesians 2
John Chrysostom
AD 407
* For He is our peace, Who made both one.
What is this, both one? He does not mean this, that He has raised us to that high descent of theirs, but that he has raised both us and them to a yet higher. Only that the blessing to us is greater, because to these it had been promised, and they were nearer than we; to us it had not been promised, and we were farther off than they. Therefore it is that he says, And that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. Romans 15:9 The promise indeed He gave to the Israelites, but they were unworthy; to us He gave no promise, nay, we were even strangers, we had nothing in common with them; yet has He made us one, not by knitting us to them, but by knitting both them and us together into one. I will give you an illustration. Let us suppose there to be two statues, the one of silver, the other of lead, and then that both shall be melted down, and that the two shall come out gold. Behold, thus has He made the two one. Or put the case again in another way. Let the two be, one a slave, the other an adopted son: and let both offend Him, the one as a disinherited child, the other as a fugitive, and one who never knew a father. Then let both be made heirs, both trueborn sons. Behold, they are exalted to one and the same dignity, the two have become one, the one coming from a longer, the other from a nearer distance, and the slave becoming more noble than he was before he offended.
* And broke down, he proceeds, the middle wall of partition.
What the middle wall of partition is, he interprets by saying, the enmity having abolished in His flesh, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. Some indeed affirm that he means the wall of the Jews against the Greeks, because it did not allow the Jews to hold intercourse with the Greeks. To me, however, this does not seem to be the meaning, but rather that he calls the enmity in the flesh, a middle wall, in that it is a common barrier, cutting us off alike from God. As the Prophet says, Your iniquities separate between you and Me; Isaiah 59:2 for that enmity which He had both against Jews and Gentiles was, as it were, a middle wall. And this, while the law existed, was not only not abolished, but rather was strengthened; for the law, says the Apostle, works wrath. Romans 4:15 Just in the same way then as when he says in that passage, the law works wrath, he does not ascribe the whole of this effect to the law itself, but it is to be understood, that it is because we have transgressed it; so also in this place he calls it a middle wall, because through being disobeyed it wrought enmity. The law was a hedge, but this it was made for the sake of security, and for this reason was called a hedge, to the intent that it might form an inclosure. For listen again to the Prophet, where he says, I made a trench about it. Isaiah 5:2 And again, You have broken down her fences, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her. Psalm 80:12 Here therefore it means security and so again, I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be trodden down. Isaiah 5:5 And again, He gave them the law for a defence. Isaiah 8:20 And again, The Lord executes righteous acts and made known His ways unto Israel. Psalm 103:6-7 It became, however, a middle wall, no longer establishing them in security, but cutting them off from God. Such then is the middle wall of partition formed out of the hedge. And to explain what this is, he subjoins, the enmity in His flesh having abolished, the law of commandments.
How so? In that He was slain and dissolved the enmity therein. And not in this way only but also by keeping it. But what then, if we are released from the former transgression, and yet are again compelled to keep it? Then were the case the same over again, whereas He has destroyed the very law itself. For he says, Having abolished the law of commandments contained in ordinances. Oh! amazing loving-kindness! He gave us a law that we should keep it, and when we kept it not, and ought to have been punished, He even abrogated the law itself. As if a man, who, having committed a child to a schoolmaster, if he should turn out disobedient, should set him at liberty even from the schoolmaster, and take him away. How great loving-kindness were this! What is meant by,
