Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20091129.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Ephesians: Overcoming Our Insecurities In Christ
Part I: The Believer's Secure Position In Christ, Ephesians 1:1-3:21
J. Overcoming The Insecurity Of Inferiority As A Gentile In Christ's Body
(Ephesians 2:11-22)
  1. Introduction
    1. There is a tendency today for Gentiles Christians to feel a type of "Biblical inferiority" to Messianic Jews due to their rich Hebrew heritage and practices relative to various Old Testament Biblical feasts.
    2. Actually, such "inferiority" is entirely unwarranted, for it is not of God, a fact Paul laboriously developed in Ephesians 2:11-22 through his extensive explanation of the blessed unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ:
  2. Overcoming The Insecurity Of Inferiority As A Gentile In Christ's Body, Ephesians 2:11-22.
    1. Part of God's "workmanship" in creating the believer as a new creation at salvation (see Ephesians 2:10) involved taking the Gentiles who had been so alienated from God and remaking them into His people.
    2. Thus, Paul explained the huge transformation God wrought in the Gentiles to make them His own, and to unite them in a shared spiritual union they had with Jews who believed in Christ, Ephesians 2:11-22:
      1. Before salvation, Paul's Gentile readers were separate from Christ, both personally unsaved and having no national messianic hope that Jewish believers possessed, Ephesians 2:11-12a.
      2. Before salvation, they had been alienated and estranged from citizenship in Israel, Ephesians 2:12b; Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament, p. 625.
      3. Before salvation, they had been "deprived of direct participation in God's covenants and thus had no hope of future glory and blessing as Israel did," Ephesians 2:12c; Ibid.
      4. Before salvation, Paul's Gentile readers had been without hope, not expecting a Deliverer in the Messiah like the Jewish people were anticipating, Ephesians 2:12d.; Ibid.
      5. Before salvation, these Gentiles were without God in the world, separated from Him, Ephesians 2:12e.
    3. However, in their spiritual position in Christ at the point of faith in the Gospel (Ephesians 1:13), these Gentiles had been brought near to God and His blessings by the death of Messiah, Jesus, Ephesians 2:13.
    4. Specifically, Gentile believers had been positionally made at peace with believing Jews, and then with God Himself as described in Ephesians 2:14-22:
      1. God took both the Jewish and the Gentile believer, breaking down the wall of partition between them in Christ, abolishing the enmity between them in removing them from the curse of the Law, making in Christ one new man, a Christian, reconciling and creating peace between Jew and Gentile in Him, Eph. 2:14-16. Thus, spiritually, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but "Christian" in Christ! (Galatians 3:28)
      2. This union of Jew and Gentile in a new man in Christ was proclaimed to Jew and Gentile, Eph. 2:17.
      3. Accordingly, both Jew and Gentile in Christ have access to God the Father by the Holy Spirit of God who indwells both Jewish and Gentile Christians, Ephesians 2:18 with Acts 11:15-18.
      4. Consequently, these Gentile believers are fellow citizens with Jewish believers in Christ, and belong to the household of God, a position of highest standing before God, Ephesians 2:19.
      5. As such, they are also now built upon the foundation of the New Testament era apostles and prophets of the Early Church, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone, Ephesians 2:20; Ibid., p. 627.
      6. This body, the Universal Church of Jesus Christ, is joined together, and is growing into a holy temple of the Lord Himself, Ephesians 2:21.
      7. This spiritual temple, like the material temple in Jerusalem in the Dispensation of the Law where God's Shekinah glory had dwelt in the Holiest of Holies where once only the High Priest could go once a year, is now God's dwelling place, Eph. 2:22. This is remarkable, that God Who once indwelt only the exclusive Holiest of Holies is now indwelling a building of saved Jewish and Gentile believers!
Lesson: Both Gentile and Jewish Christians must not feel either inferior or superior to each other, for by grace through Messiah Jesus, we have been perfectly, equally united in the spiritual realm, formed into the temple of God Who Himself indwells not a mere building of stone, but we His PEOPLE!

Application: May we rejoice and be awed at the gracious union we Jews and Gentiles have in Christ! May we not feel either superior or inferior to any other believer, for we are ALL saved by GRACE!