🛡️WEB · Ephesians 2:15
What does Ephesians 2:15 mean?
"having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace;"
— Ephesians 2:15 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition,
having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace;
and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.
He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.
For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
Explanation
Ephesians 2:15 sits in the middle of a passage where Paul describes what Christ accomplished on the cross for two groups of people—Jews and Gentiles—who had previously been divided by deep religious and cultural barriers. In plain language, the verse says that Christ, through his death ("in his flesh"), put an end to the hostility that existed between these two groups. That hostility was tied to "the law of commandments contained in ordinances"—a reference to the Mosaic law, particularly the ceremonial and ritual regulations (dietary laws, circumcision, sacrificial rules, purity codes) that marked Israel as distinct from the surrounding nations. By dealing with this barrier, Christ's purpose was to create "one new man" out of the two previously separate peoples, thereby making peace between them.
The letter to the Ephesians was written by Paul, likely while imprisoned in Rome, to the church in Ephesus (and probably circulated among other churches in the region). Ephesus was a diverse city, and the early church there, as elsewhere, included both Jewish and Gentile believers. This mixture created real tension: Jewish Christians had grown up under the law of Moses, with its clear boundary markers separating them from Gentiles, whom they often viewed as "unclean" or excluded from God's covenant promises. Gentile Christians, meanwhile, had no such heritage and were sometimes treated as second-class members of the faith. Paul's broader arg
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