The Thirteenth Sermon, the Fifth on the Second Chapter - - Ephesians 2:13-15
which we receive at his hand. That it may please him to grant this grace, not only to us but also to all people. Amen.
The Thirteenth Sermon, which is the fifth upon the second Chapter.
13 Now in Jesus Christ, you that once were far off, are made near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the wall that was between them, 15 That is to say, the enmity, through his flesh, abolishing the law of the commandments which were in ordinances: to the end he might set them both in himself, to make one new man of them.
We have seen heretofore how we are all enemies of God by nature because we have gone away from all righteousness through the sin of Adam, so there is nothing in us but lewdness and rebelliousness.
Although men soothe and flatter themselves, it is certain that they cannot bring anything before God which will not provoke His wrath.
God must necessarily disclaim us as His children unless we are guided by our Lord Jesus Christ, for we cannot come to God by any other means.
The Jews had some familiarity with God because He had adopted them; it is said that Abraham's offspring was holy. This was not because they were more worthy than the rest of the world, but because of God's goodness in choosing them. Therefore, before our
Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, the Jews were nearer to God, while the Gentiles were further off. Not that the Jews were better than the Gentiles, as I said before, but because it had pleased God to count them as His own household. You see then that they were near because it was said to them that God dwelt among them, and they were a priestly kingdom. This was also visible through the signs given to them, such as the Sanctuary and all its appurtenances.
Now St. Paul, addressing the Gentiles, says that they have changed their state. Whereas they were once far from God, they are now made near by the cross of Jesus Christ. This serves to magnify God's grace even more. For as I have declared before, if we do not consider the plight in which God finds us before He reaches out to draw us to Him, we shall never know how much we are beholden and bound to Him, nor how great His mercy is toward us.
When it is shown to us that from our birth we are cursed, held under the devil's tyranny, enslaved to sin, and that God is as it were armed against us to be our judge with all severity, then added further that God has drawn us out of the dungeon of hell to advance us to the kingdom of heaven, assuring us that we have our inheritance there, which cannot fail us, and also showing us that we have the certainty of all these things in Jesus Christ, then we must needs be rapt in wonderment, considering that God's goodness surpasses all our understanding. This is what St. Paul continues with here.
This matter is well worthy of frequent remembrance; it is not needless talk to put us in mind to yield God His due honor and to
have a steadfast settledness, so we may call upon Him freely, being thoroughly persuaded and resolved that He will always be a Father to us and accept us as His children if we are members of His only Son, as united to Him by belief in the Gospel.
You see then that the thing we have to mark in the first place is that by the means of our Lord Jesus Christ, because He has reconciled us to God His Father by His death, we are now brought near to the kingdom of heaven, from which we were far off, and without hope of access or entrance there. And although St. Paul has spoken to one nation, yet his message is general. Thus, the Holy Ghost exhorts us today by the same doctrine to consider our own misery, so we may be abashed in ourselves and receive the inestimable benefit offered to us by the Gospel in the person of Christ.
Hereupon he adds that He is our peace, making both one, even those who were far off, as well as those who were near. Just as in the previously mentioned sentence, St. Paul aimed to humble the Gentiles and showed how much they were indebted to God, so here he adds a warning for the Jews to pull down their pride, so they might not think themselves better than other men because God had chosen them. For, as men are always given to advancing themselves beyond measure, that people abused God's grace and convinced themselves that the lineage of Abraham was as a lineage of angels. In short, when it was told them that the Church should be united together both of Jews and Gentiles without exception, they thought that God did them great wrong and injury. Inasmuch that it was often told them that God's choosing of them was neither for their virtue nor for their nobility, nor for anything else He found in their persons, but because He had loved their fathers without any desert of theirs.
Often, therefore, they were warned by Moses and the Prophets not to claim anything at all for themselves, but to acknowledge God's free goodness, to spy out themselves there, to the end they might confess that if they had any prerogative above others, that was not of themselves, nor for their own sakes, but because it was God's good pleasure to keep them to Himself for His own heritage. And yet for all that, St. Paul shows here that the Jews renounce their own salvation if they do not match with the Gentiles in true brotherhood.
For why? Although the Jews were near God already and had witnessed that He held them for His children, yet the matter hung in suspense until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then it behooved them to be knit to God by the mediator, or else they would have had no peace in their consciences. For when men examine themselves, they must conclude that God is justly their enemy.
And for proof thereof, what have we in our thoughts, in our lusts, in our souls, and in our bodies but utter corruption? Therefore, it ought to make us quake as often as we think what we are. But the Jews had the ceremonies and shadows of the Law, which were assurances of God's grace unto them. Yes, but if they had stayed there, what a thing had that been? For the blood of brute beasts could not scour away their spots, nor set them in God's favor. Therefore, it stood them in hand to resort to Jesus Christ. And that is the reason why St. Paul shows that the Jews ought not to be so puffed up with pride as to shut the heathen out of the doors, as though they were not worthy to be of God's Church. For Jesus Christ is the mediator as well of the one as of the other unto God His Father. In so much, that without Him, all of us are shut out from the hope of salvation. No man then ought to despise his neighbor in this case, nor to look over the shoulder at him, as the proverb says. But we ought to embrace one another in true unity of faith and love, knowing that each one of us,
from the greatest to the least, should rightly be cut off from God's Church, but that He, of His own mere goodness, gathers us to Him.
After the same manner does St. James exhort the great men of this world to glory in their smallness, because God has taken away the blindfolding that prevented them from knowing their own wretchedness. For we know that men willfully abuse their greatness and believe themselves to be marvelous beings until they come to know God. Therefore, the great men of this world have their eyes blindfolded, which deceives them and makes them take the liberty to do what they wish. Now, St. James says that they have cause to glory in their smallness, for our Lord shows them to be creatures out of all hope, as of themselves, and yet nevertheless takes them into His favor by His own mercy. And let the humble ones (says he) rejoice in their nobility because God has exalted them, inasmuch that whereas they were but wretched worms, and had nothing but reproach in them, God has taken them up and made them new creatures.
You see then that the means to unite us as we ought to be is that each of us in his degree acknowledges himself to be in a wretched and miserable plight, and that when he has yielded all to God's mere mercy, he acknowledges that the same is spread over all today, and that it is not for us to limit or to bridle Him, but inasmuch as He has chosen us, it is our duty to receive those into our fellowship whom
He has set in the same array and company with us. That (I say) is the thing that St. Paul aimed at in saying that our Lord Jesus Christ is the peace of all men, yea even as well of them that were near as of them that were yet far off. But yet (as I told you before) he had an eye to the foolish overweening of the Jews, which would have driven away the Gentiles from the kingdom of God. And he tells us that if we mind to have Jesus Christ to be our mediator, to give us entrance to God His Father, and to guide us thither, and that all this should be
grounded upon God's mere mercy, let us not be so foolish as to claim anything to ourselves, as if we were better than other men, or ought to be preferred before them, but let each of us acknowledge that all of us had need of God's infinite mercy, because all of us were shut up under sin, as St. Paul says in another place.
Now, we must apply this well to our own benefit. For some think that men are advanced the more because some of them have been of an honest and unblameable conversation to the world, some born of honorable houses, and others endowed with excellent virtues, or with some skill and cunning. To be short, every man searches and seeks as much as is possible, to allege something why God has accepted him rather than his neighbors. But let us learn that although we were near God in outward appearance, yet notwithstanding, the only way to be in His favor, and to be able to call upon Him, and to hope that He will hold us in His fatherly love even to the end, is that Jesus
Christ be our head. And how may that be? It is certain that He has come to save that which was lost. And again, (as it is said in another place) it is a sure and infallible saying, that our Lord Jesus Christ came to call again to salvation the sinners that were in damnation.
Since it is so, let us learn to humble ourselves with all modesty, and not only to shrink in our horns, but also to be utterly abased and brought underfoot, that God may be glorified as He is worthy, and that one of us does not perk above another, but make all one body, for that is the condition whereupon we are called.
Furthermore, the title that St. Paul gives to our Lord Jesus Christ, namely that He is our peace, ought to be well considered. Without that, we would always be as distraught, or as blocks. Those who have any feeling of their sins cannot be at rest without feeling severe torments, but are so out of quiet that it would be better for them to
be sunk under the earth than to see themselves continually cited before God's judgment seat and to be distressed in such a manner.
Then, if we do not have Jesus Christ for our peace, surely the awakening of our consciences must daunt us and hold us as if upon the rack, by making us feel that God sets Himself against us as an enemy. Otherwise, it must utterly confuse us and make us brute beasts, so that we not only fall further but also are so bewitched by the devil that we feel no more grief or remorse for our sins. Thus, this lesson, where it is said that Jesus Christ is our peace, cannot be emphasized enough. First, it warns us to be deeply touched by our sins, so that we may be sorry for them, considering that God's goodness calls none unto Him but those who are weary and heavyladen. Again, when we once know this, we may overcome all distrust and doubting because, whereas we have provoked God's wrath, it is appeased again by our Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas we have contended with God and kept continual war against Him, Jesus
Christ has made peace between us. And whereas God hates us for our sins and for our wicked and wayward nature, Jesus Christ puts all that away, so that God may take us, not only as His creatures fashioned after His own image, but also as His dear children, whom
He has adopted to be heirs of His kingdom. And so you see what we have to gather upon that statement.
If this point were thoroughly understood, the world would not be so constantly afloat, nor so unsteady as it is. For most men nowadays are carried one way and another, and do nothing else but wander.
The Papists on one side have their pride to keep them from continuing straightforward unto God. They will maintain their free will and their own worthiness as much as they can, distancing themselves from the grace of Jesus Christ as much as possible. And God, in the meantime, pays them as they are worthy. For as for those
who are so firmly possessed with that devilish self-meaning that they can dispose of their life in such a way as to be able to come unto God and to deserve somewhat at His hand, and again have their reckonings with Him, when they have done so, all slips away like wind, and they end up in the other extremity, saying, "How shall we be saved if we do not have free will?" And so they are utterly confounded.
Meanwhile, Jesus Christ is all the while unregarded. They make their byways and do not go to Jesus Christ, who is the true way.
Forasmuch then as they leave the right way, which cannot mislead them, they must needs wander now to one side and now to the other, and after long tiring themselves, break both their arms and legs, and in the end find that the further they proceed, the further they go back from God. So much the more, therefore, does it stand us in hand to weigh these words of St. Paul, where we are assured that we shall be received lovingly at the hand of our God if we have Jesus Christ for our peace and rest wholly thereupon. And for the same cause, I join thereto the statement of the text already cited, namely, "You shall find rest for your souls." Whereby our Lord Jesus Christ makes us understand that all such as separate themselves from Him and are not contented to have Him for their mediator shall ever be unquiet.
Although they assure themselves and bear themselves up with this and that, yet nevertheless they are afterward afraid and find no resting place to stay their foot on, neither have they any safe harbor wherein to escape the storm.
Therefore, it stands us upon to go to our Lord Jesus Christ and to be thoroughly resolved that He is our peace if we intend to call upon God freely and without any doubting. Finally, all men without exception must come to this, as well those who are near God as those who are far off. If there be any who think there is any valor or
worthiness in themselves, surely they will never repair to our Lord Jesus Christ until they have laid that imagination underfoot. Again, on the other side, though we be a thousand times past hope in outward appearance, yet let us assure ourselves that our Lord Jesus
Christ is of sufficient ability to wipe away the remembrance of all our iniquities so that God shall receive us into His favor. Accordingly, St.
Paul, having said that Jesus Christ came to save wretched sinners, adds that he himself is an example thereof: inasmuch that he who had been a persecutor of the Church, an enemy of the gospel, and a shedder of innocent blood, was nevertheless received, not only into the common array, but as an Apostle, to bear abroad and to publish through the whole world the message of salvation, from which he had erst been excluded.
Seeing then that God has poured forth the treasures of His goodness upon him, we may well assure ourselves that if we trust in our Lord
Jesus Christ and seek to be at one with God His Father by means of His death and passion, even if we were in the bottom of hell, we should be rescued from thence, and Jesus Christ would show indeed that His title was not given to Him by imagination. And so you see what we have to gather further upon these words of St. Paul.
Now he adds that Jesus Christ has broken down the wall that was between them. He uses that metaphor to declare that the ceremonies and figures are abolished, so that now nothing prevents us from being united in concord and brotherly love. Soon after, he compares the ceremonies of the Law to enmity. Just as we now have Baptism, which separates us from the heathen, so when God chose the Jews,
He gave them circumcision. When we are baptized, we bear the mark by which God wants us to be known as part of His Church and the flock of His Son, Jesus Christ. The same significance and use had circumcision in the time of the Law. The sacrifices testified to them
that God forgave their sins. Since such a privilege was not given to any other than Abraham's lineage, it is said that it was as a wall between them. It was like a fenced ground to keep sheep in, or like a stable to keep cattle in. Even so, it was then. For God, as is shown in the song of Moses, had stretched out His lines to hold the lineage of Abraham separate from the rest of the world. There was God's path, and the ceremonies were as walls or fences to hold that people under the keeping and protection of God. And what were the Gentiles?
They went on at adventure, even unto destruction, as it is said, that God had not granted them the favor to manifest His righteousness unto them. St. Paul also shows plainly that God had allowed them to walk in their own ways and that they had been as wretched beasts in that respect.
Now we see St. Paul's meaning when he speaks of the ceremonies, how they were as a wall to divide the Jews from the Gentiles. But now they are all broken down because Jesus Christ, who is the truth and very substance of them, has come to put away all those shadows.
The giving of the ceremonial law was not intended for the people to focus entirely on that and put their trust in it, as hypocrites do, who pervert God's meaning. It was to supply the absence of Jesus Christ, as St. Paul speaks of them in the second chapter of Colossians. The Jews had not yet the pledge that is given to us in our Lord Jesus
Christ, and therefore it was necessary that they should be upheld in good hope until He was revealed to the world. Thus, not without cause were all those things cast down by His coming, for He is now unto us as the day-sun of righteousness. Therefore, it is no reason that we should be led any more by dark shadows. By that means, the enmity is done away, because we are now joined to that lineage which God had dedicated to Himself, and there is no more diversity at all. Forasmuch as we are made the children of Abraham by faith, there is but one spiritual kin among us.
Let us note that Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are the Sacraments that Christ has ordained, are not a division like the figures of the Law. Although we are separated from the unbelievers and from such as never came within God's Church, there is not any one certain nation of the world that He accepts peculiarly by itself, but He wants His grace spread over all. There is no such distinction as there was before, where it could be said, we come of the lineage of Abraham, we are the ones whom God has chosen to adopt. None can say so now, for there is neither Jew nor Gentile anymore, as it is said in many places of the Scripture. Therefore, whoever calls upon God's name purely, of whatever nation they may be, is well-liked and accepted by Him, as St. Peter says in the sixteenth chapter of Acts and also in his first Epistle. Baptism and the Lord's Supper serve nowadays to unite the whole world. Let the most barbarous sort that can be come, and God will receive them. Baptism shall be administered to them, because it belongs to all such as are knit together into the body of the only Son of God.
Now let us apply this text to our edification. First of all, let us understand that the abolishing of the ceremonies, as touching their usage, was the very key to open to us the kingdom of heaven. The accomplishment of them was fully shown in our Lord Jesus Christ, so that it is known better than ever that they were no trifles nor unprofitable things. Yet, for all that, it is not for us to use them, seeing we have the full perfection of them all in Jesus Christ. By that means, we see how God has poured out His goodness upon those whom He had shaken off before. That is the means whereby we belong to Him today. In that respect, the Gospel is published indifferently to all the world, so that our forefathers, who were heathen men, were received into the Church, and we have succeeded in their place. Although it is seen that the world has been utterly forlorn and that there has been a horrible desolation in it, yet God
has made the thing effective which is spoken of in His Law, namely that He continues His mercy to a thousand generations. Thus, you see what we have to remember in the first place.
Secondly, although baptism does not serve peculiarly for any one people, city, or country, yet we are, as it were, marked out by God when He gives us the use of His sacraments to assure us of His adoption and to nourish the hope that He has given us by His Gospel.
It is true that those who shrink away from our Lord Jesus Christ do, in a sense, make their baptism vain, but that shall cost them dearly because the pledge and earnest that God gives us to show that we are joined to our Lord Jesus Christ and are clothed with Him (as it is said in the twelfth chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians) is too precious a thing to be so misused. Therefore, all those who dishonour themselves with the name of the Church and yet are disordered and dissolute persons shall one day feel what a treacherous wickedness it is to have so desecrated their baptism, which God had ordained for their salvation.
But let us, on our side, take heed that we walk as people separated from the filth of the world. For, as St. Peter says, the very reason why our Lord Jesus Christ has gathered us to Himself is that we should glorify Him for delivering us out of the darkness of this world and of the devil into His own light. We have seen before in the Epistle to the Galatians how Jesus Christ wants His death to serve to draw us away from all the uncleanness and filthiness of the world. Likewise, in the first letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul says that we are not called to uncleanness but that we ought to be pure and dedicate ourselves to our God in purity so that we may show indeed that we intend to honour Him with all that He has given us. Therefore, the lesson we have to gather upon these words of St. Paul is that we must not run astray like wild and mad beasts, nor yet kick against Him, but quietly
bear the yoke of our God and approach Him with true obedience.
Furthermore, we must curb our own wandering lusts so that we may walk like holy people, like people dedicated to God, and finally as His heritage. Thus you see how this text is to be practiced by us today.
Now he adds purposely that Jesus Christ has done it in the flesh, meaning in our nature, so that we might be sure that in His person we are acknowledged to be God's children. For just as in Adam we are all lost, so by our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, we are restored to the hope of salvation. Indeed, the Apostle shows us that we may boldly trust that God will always be our Father for His sake.
For He has not taken on Him the nature of the angels, but the seed of Abraham. Although Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus Christ begins at the person of Abraham, as the wellspring and root, yet St. Luke leads us further and tells us that Jesus Christ appeared not only for the Jews. Truly, St. Matthew does it upon very good reason, namely to show that Jesus Christ came especially to perform the promises that had been made of old time. But St. Luke shows the same thing that St. Paul declares here: namely that when we have gone up as far as to our first father Adam, we shall find that our Lord Jesus Christ was yet still before him. True, He was conceived by the secret and wonderful power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of His mother, but yet for all that, He ceased not to be the true lineage of Abraham, of David, and also of Adam. There is no doubt that we are joined to God by this means, seeing He is our true brother. We need not seek far because we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, as we shall see hereafter in the fifth chapter. Thus, you see in effect what St. Paul meant by adding this saying, that the fulfillment or performing of all these things was done in the flesh of Jesus Christ. For if we should consider nothing else in Jesus Christ but His heavenly glory and divine majesty, what would come of it? We would be abashed and might say He were too far off for us to come unto Him. But now
seeing He has the same flesh that we have and is become very man, like unto us in all things, saving only sin, so as He undertook our passions or sufferings, and our wants and wretchedness, to have pity on us, as the Apostle says, we may assure ourselves that when we offer ourselves unto God, we shall be joined unto Him in the person of His only Son. For just as He is very God, so on the other side He is akin to us, because He came down hither and refused not to be in this state of bondage to the intent that we might be glorified by His means. For just as He not only abased Himself but also emptied
Himself utterly, so will He also lift us up into His heavenly glory. For that cause also is He called our brother. This one saying alone ought to break off all distrust when we are in doubt and perplexity whether
God will accept us or not. For seeing we have this record, that Jesus Christ is our brother, what would we have more? So then, we may well conceive out of what filth and defilements, yea and out of what a gulf God has drawn us, seeing He has assured us of His fatherly love, whereupon our salvation is grounded, yea and that in the person of Jesus Christ.
For we see how the wretched Papists know not to which Saint to vow themselves. To bar themselves of all excuse so as there may need no other process to condemn them, they make a common proverb of it.
For even in that one saying that they know not to which Saint to bow themselves, they show themselves to be faithless and destitute of all advice and stay of themselves, and to be as stray beasts. For they have such a multitude of their Saints that they have made whole warrens of them. It is true that all of them have the Virgin Mary for their advocate; they catch hold of Saint Michael, or of Saint Peter, for their patron, or of some other Saint, as their superstitious mind leads them here and there. However, all that they do is with unquietness of mind, and they shall never find rest because they have no word of God to stay upon. When they find themselves hampered in any
perplexity, they are like wretched forlorn creatures that are utterly at their wit's end because they see well enough that they find no ease at all when they have tossed and turmoiled never so much. But now, seeing that we are sure of the hope which we ought to have because our Lord Jesus Christ is our peace and is given unto us to unite us to God His Father, let us understand that the same is an inestimable benefit, for which we ought not to be afraid to suffer ten hundred thousand deaths if need were.
St. Paul says consequently that the Law consisted in ordinances and decrees, to show that God abolished not the law of good and holy conversation when He minded to call the Gentiles to salvation, but that He did away only the ceremonies that served peculiarly for the present time and were not given but only to the lineage of Abraham.
You see then what was abolished. Therefore, let us leave the figures of the Law, such as circumcision, sacrificing, feast days as they were kept then, the difference of meats, lights, perfumes, and all that is set down in writing by Moses. For all those things must have vanished away at the coming of Christ. Yet for all that, let us hold still the Law that God has given us, which is inviolable. That is to say, let us worship Him purely, let us call upon Him, let us put our trust in Him, let us do Him homage for all the benefits that He has bestowed upon us, and let us hallow His name. Again, let us advise ourselves to walk in purity of life, and with such conscience towards our neighbours, as we may do no man wrong or harm, and finally, let us withdraw ourselves from all the defilements of the world. Here you see that the Law which God has given us to rule our life by must continue still, for that is not abolished, but only that which consisted in traditions and in the figures that served but for the time and were to have an end by Jesus Christ. Now seeing it behoves us to give over the shadows that were used and had their full scope in the time of Moses and the Prophets, it is much more reason that the Christian
Church should not nowadays be burdened with men's inventions.
According to which, St. Paul tells us that we must content ourselves with God's Law, which serves to show us how we may be unblameable. That is to say, by walking in righteousness, justice, faithfulness, and mercy, and especially by calling upon God purely and after a spiritual manner. Mark that for one point.
Again, he says that the shadows of the Law should, in these days, not only be superfluous but also like a curtain to keep us still in darkness and to prevent us from seeing our Lord Jesus Christ as we ought to do in the mirror of his Gospel. Therefore, let us conclude that the righteousness which God requires at our hands is entirely different from that which the Papists have imagined. For all the things which they term God's service are mere gewgaws. Indeed, what do they serve but to deface the peculiar operation of our Lord Jesus Christ?
The poor ignorant souls are held fast to them and focus entirely upon them. When I speak of ignorant souls, I mean the most able among them, even those who think themselves to be of greatest capacity, for they are all entangled like wretched beasts.
Therefore, let us learn to hold to the simplicity of the Gospel and to look upon our Lord Jesus Christ there, as he also speaks familiarly to us, so that we might be advanced by him, boldly call God our Father, and flee to him for refuge, not doubting that he will be near us whenever we call upon him in truth.
Now let us cast ourselves down before the majesty of our good God, with acknowledgement of our faults, praying that his making us feel them more and more may cause us to forsake them by true repentance and to walk continually aright and to give ourselves to holy conversation. And that, forasmuch as we are so weak that there will always be many vices in us, it may please him to hold us up until