Brought Near by the Blood

Remember. That is where I began when I wrote these words: "Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh… were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:11-12). I had just told them how God made them alive when they were dead in trespasses, saved by grace and not by works. Now I ask them to look back — not to wallow in the old grave, but to feel the weight of what they were rescued from. A soul that forgets where it was does not know what it has. So remember.

And it is a bleak list I set before you. Separated from Christ. Alienated — outsiders to the people God had chosen, foreigners to the promises. And then those five words that fall like a stone: "having no hope and without God in the world." I do not soften that. There was a time when the nations stood outside the door, with no covenant to claim, no promise to plead, nothing sure to hope in, and no God near them in all the wide world. That was the far country. That was the distance.

But now hear the turn. I love this turn more than I can say. "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). Not brought near by trying harder. Not brought near because you finally reached across the distance — you could not reach it. Brought near by his blood. The cross did what all your climbing never could. The distance was not a few steps; it was infinite, and only God bleeding could close it. If you are in Christ, you did not inch your way home. You were carried the whole way by his death.

Then I say why. "For he himself is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14). Not that Christ makes peace, as though peace were some cargo he delivers and then departs. He himself is our peace. The peace is a person. Between Jew and Gentile there had stood a "dividing wall of hostility," and he "has broken down in his flesh" that wall (Ephesians 2:14). Think of what that meant. Two peoples, with centuries of suspicion between them, the law itself standing like a fence marking the one off from the other — and Christ, in his own flesh, tears the fence out of the ground. Why? "That he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace" (Ephesians 2:15). Not Gentiles turned into Jews, nor Jews turned into Gentiles, but something wholly new: one new man, one new humanity, made in him.

And he does not stop at reconciling us to one another. He reconciles "us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility" (Ephesians 2:16). See how the cross works in every direction. It kills the hostility between man and man, and it kills the hostility between man and God, and it does both in the same blood. You cannot have the one peace without the other. A heart truly reconciled to God cannot go on nursing walls against a brother, for the very cross that brought you near tore down the wall between you and him too.

"And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near" (Ephesians 2:17). He came, and he preached — the far and the near hearing the same good word. And here is the fruit of it, as sweet a sentence as I have ever written: "For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father" (Ephesians 2:18). Look at the whole of God in that little verse — the Father we come to, the Son through whom we come, the one Spirit in whom we come. You who had no God in the world now have access to the Father himself. The door that was shut stands open, and the way in is a Person, and the power to walk in is the Spirit. Do you feel how far you have been carried? From "without God in the world" to standing before the Father as one welcomed home.

Then I gather it up in a great "so then." "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19). Weigh those words against the ones I began with. You were alienated — now you are fellow citizens. You were strangers to the covenants — now you belong to the household. Not a guest tolerated at the edge of the room, but a child of the house, with a chair at the table and a name in the family. If you have believed in Christ, this is your standing today, whatever your feelings tell you.

And it grows. I change the picture from a family to a building, and even the building is alive. You are "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:20) — you rest on the Word God gave through his messengers, and the whole thing is squared and held by Christ, the cornerstone that sets every line true. "In whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:21-22). Once there was a temple made with hands, and the nations were kept outside its wall. Now the temple is the people, Jew and Gentile fitted together stone by living stone, and God himself comes to dwell — not in a house of stone but in a house of souls, by his Spirit.

So let me bring it home to you, whoever you are reading this. If you are new to Christ, or still standing outside wondering whether there is room for one like you — hear that the far off are exactly the ones he came and preached peace to. You do not close the distance. His blood already has, and he holds out his hand.

If you have believed long, do not let this become old to you. Remember what you were, so that "brought near" never grows small in your mouth. And take the peace he purchased and spend it: you cannot be at war with a brother whom the same cross has reconciled. Tear down your own dividing walls, for Christ has already pulled up their foundations. You are not a stranger. You are not a lone stone in the field. You are being built, with all the saints, into the place where God is pleased to dwell. Live today as one who belongs to that house — because in Christ, you do.

Grace and peace to you.