In
1989 the Berlin wall fell.
It was a literal wall between East and West Germans.
Families had been separated for thirty years and the East German and Soviet
guards simply walked away. My last trip to Berlin was in 1985. I saw the wall
separating East and West every day for a month. My imagination has not yet
caught up with reality.
Families had been separated for thirty years and the East German and Soviet
guards simply walked away. My last trip to Berlin was in 1985. I saw the wall
separating East and West every day for a month. My imagination has not yet
caught up with reality.
God
tore down the barrier between Gentiles and Jews two millennia ago.
The bigger picture is that God is bringing all people and peoples
together so that there is no separation.
It’s done. Yet
imagining this as a reality, as a completed reality, is hard isn’t it?
I
like the word “proleptic”, a description of something that is already a done
deal but not yet a reality in our lived world.
Scripture often describes the world in proleptic terms.
God has already made peace between Himself and us , between Jews and
Gentiles, between enemies.
Our
job is to believe and to “live into an already accomplished reality”.
That’s different to creating that reality on my own steam.
Here’s how the apostle Paul put it.
“ Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to
be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were
proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not
their hearts. In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were
excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the
covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and
without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far
away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of
Christ.
“For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.
He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.
Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us” Ephesians 2:11-18 (NLT)
“For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.
He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.
Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us” Ephesians 2:11-18 (NLT)
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