Paul’s concern in this chapter from his epistle to the Ephesians is to show the unity that happened with Christ’s death and resurrection between the Jews and the Gentiles. This is why Paul went to say this; he didn’t say that the Lord made peace, but that he is the peace. The Jews used to despise the Gentiles, so Paul came and said that the Lord “has made both one (i.e. the two nations), and has broken down the middle wall of separation (the law separating them), by abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments”. He means here the canonical commandments (Do not touch the dead, do not eat pork) and not the moral commandments especially the ones represented in the Ten Commandments.
Paul did not say in his epistle that the Jews and Gentiles became one nation. It has been said in another place that they became “one new man” which means that they became the body of Christ. And he immediately follows by clarifying that this happened through crucifixion; crucifixion that produces the annunciation of peace.
This unity produces the fact that the Jews and Gentiles could together reach the Father in one spirit which is the Holy Spirit. If you were in one road to God “so then you are no longer strangers and foreigners”, you are all brothers in the church and “fellow citizens with the saints”. He may have meant by this expression the Christians of Jerusalem, and maybe he meant all the faithful. This expression is a synonym to what he called “the household of God”.
“Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”. He means here surely the twelve apostles, “And upon this rock I will build my church”. As for “the prophets” he meant the word of the prophets in the Old Testament. And this is what confirms for us the meanings that God intended in the Old Testament which is still read in the church on the evenings of the big feasts, in the prayers of the Lent and in the presanctified liturgy.
Whatever the old or new stones of this house (the church) were, Christ stays “the chief corner stone”. This is what’s called in Lebanon “the closing stone” in a vaulting building; the stone that all the walls of the room use to consolidate. This is why the apostle says “grows into a holy temple the Lord”. Here he does not want the church as a physical building but as the group of the faithful, as a spiritual building. In this building, you the people of Ephesus, “also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the (Holy) Spirit”.
Through Baptism, Chrism and Eucharist you become spiritual stones in the new building whose organs are well organized by the Holy Spirit. You will also grow everyday in the divine spirit that you took in Baptism. Each one of you shall get the grace of adoption by God, and your group as the sons of God is a result of Jesus’ embracing.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “المسيح سلامنا” – 7.11.2010-Raiati no45
