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<p>We have now come to the last part of the chapter, which contains an account of the great and mighty privileges that converted Jews and Gentiles both receive from Christ. The apostle here shows that those who were in a state of enmity are reconciled. Between the Jews and the Gentiles there had been a great enmity; so there is between God and every unregenerate man. Now Jesus Christ is our peace, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.2.14" href="/passage/?search=Eph.2.14">Eph. 2:14</a>. He made peace by the sacrifice of himself; and came to reconcile, 1. Jews and Gentiles to each other. He <i>made both one</i>, by reconciling these two divisions of men, who were wont to malign, to hate, and to reproach each other before. He <i>broke down the middle wall of partition</i>, the ceremonial law, that made the great feud, and was the badge of the Jews’ peculiarity, called <i>the partition-wall</i> by way of allusion to the partition in the temple, which separated the court of the Gentiles from that into which the Jews only had liberty to enter. Thus <i>he abolished in his flesh the enmity</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.2.15" href="/passage/?search=Eph.2.15">Eph. 2:15</a>. By his sufferings in the flesh, to took away the binding power of the ceremonial law (so removing that cause of enmity and distance between them), which is here called <i>the law of commandments contained in ordinances</i>, because it enjoined a multitude of external rites and ceremonies, and consisted of many institutions and appointments about the outward parts of divine worship. <i>The legal ceremonies were abrogated by Christ, having their accomplishment in him</i>. By taking these out of the way, he formed one church of believers, whether they had been Jews or Gentiles. Thus he made <i>in himself of twain one new man</i>. He framed both these parties into one new society, or body of God’s people, uniting them to himself as their common head, they being renewed by the Holy Ghost, and now concurring in a new way of gospel worship, <i>so making peace</i> between these two parties, who were so much at variance before. 2. There is an enmity between God and sinners, whether Jews and Gentiles; and Christ came to slay that enmity, and to reconcile them both to God, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.2.16" href="/passage/?search=Eph.2.16">Eph. 2:16</a>. Sin breeds a quarrel between God and men. Christ came to take up the quarrel, and to bring it to an end, by reconciling both Jew and Gentile, now collected and gathered into one body, to a provoked and an offended God: and this <i>by the cross</i>, or by the sacrifice of himself upon the cross, <i>having slain the enmity thereby</i>. He, being slain or sacrificed, slew the enmity that there was between God and poor sinners. The apostle proceeds to illustrate the great advantages which both parties gain by the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ, <a class="bibleref" title="Eph.2.17" href="/passage/?search=Eph.2.17">Eph. 2:17</a>. Christ, who purchased peace on the cross, came, partly in his own person, as to the Jews, who are here said to have been nigh, and partly in his apostles, whom he commissioned to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, who are said to have been afar off, in the sense that has been given before. <i>And preached peace</i>, or published the terms of reconciliation with God and of eternal life. Note here, When the messengers of Christ deliver his truths, it is in effect the same as if he did it immediately himself. He is said to preach by them, insomuch that he who receiveth them receiveth him, and he who despiseth them (acting by virtue of his commission, and delivering his message) despiseth and rejecteth Christ himself. Now the effect of this peace is the free access which both Jews and Gentiles have unto God (<a class="bibleref" title="Eph.2.18" href="/passage/?search=Eph.2.18">Eph. 2:18</a>): <i>For through him</i>, in his name and by virtue of his mediation, <i>we both have access</i> or admission into the presence of God, who has become the common reconciled Father of both: the throne of grac
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