Commentaries:
Paul is speaking about Jew and Gentile—two different ways of life—being brought together under the auspices of the work of reconciliation Jesus Christ Himself did. God and Christ began the process of reconciliation through Christ's sacrifice. They actually laid the groundwork a long time before that, but Christ's sacrifice got the ball rolling for the whole process.
That sacrifice destroyed the enmity between God and man. It also destroyed the wall, division, or partition that separated men from other men. In Ephesians 2, Paul focuses on the division between Jew and Gentile, but it could also be black and white, man and woman, or slave and free. It could be whatever separates one person from another. Christ's sacrifice did the work to break down all those walls. Once we accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, those human divisions—those demographics—mean nothing spiritually.
Our demographic is now "Christian," follower of Christ, and the way of life that we live is Christian. It is not Jewish, not Gentile, not male, not female, not black, not white. Our life is Christ's life. Our identification is as His disciples or as God's children or His elect. So, those physical differences between us should fade into the background. They should fade away for all time once the resurrection comes—because we will then be fully spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ, all part of the same God Family. The way Paul phrases it in Ephesians 2:21-22 is that we are now part of the same building—"a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." God wants to live in us. We are now being built into one Temple, each of us a brick in its wall, so to speak.
We are now all one Body. We are all cells in that one Body, that is, Jesus Christ's Body. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:4, "There is one body." If there are disagreements between the cells of that one Body, then the Body is in danger of becoming divided. But the Body cannot be divided because it is one Body.
That is why reconciliation between brethren is so essential! If reconciliation does not occur, then something will happen in that Body—and it is not good. One or the other, or both, will be ejected from the Body if it does not get resolved—because the Body cannot function properly with internal strife. The Body must grow together into unity! The middle section of Ephesians 4 speaks to this: "The whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies . . ." (verse 16).
Thus, there cannot be schisms between true members of the true church. This is why it is so vital for brethren to be reconciled to one another: because it is crucial to the growth of the church that we learn to get along and to put these "things that offend" behind us.
Perhaps now these often-read verses will have more meaning:
John 15:11-13 "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one that this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."
John 15:17 "These things I command you, that you love one another."
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Cost of Reconciliation
In verse 15, Paul says that God "create[s] in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace." The apostle defines what these "two" are in verse 11: "Therefore, remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh - who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands. . . ." The two, Gentiles and Israelites, share one Spirit in Christ, "who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of division between us" (verse 14). Whether physically Gentile or Israelite, those who have "put on the new man" have one Spirit, God's Holy Spirit.
Charles Whitaker
Choosing the New Man (Part Two)
The death of Jesus Christ does not do away with law but with enmity. The enmity of the law concerns the penalties that come with the law, for a law always has penalties. The enmity of the law can also be considered those prejudicial things that were expressed in prohibitions that separated Israel from other peoples and nations. However, because we believe in Christ and therefore have Him in common, the enmities and prejudices that have kept us separated begin to break down.
The end of verse 15 is interesting: ". . . so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace." It is easy to be drawn into thinking that, when He calls the unconverted person, or when He calls, say, a Gentile, and brings him in contact with the Israelite, that the Gentile will be brought up to speed, brought up to the same level as the Israelite. That is not what Paul is saying here.
He is saying this: Christ is bringing the Israelite and the Gentile together, and He does this by melting them both down and putting them together into one. That is an altogether different picture! Notice, he writes, ". . . to create in Himself one new man from the two." From two, He makes one. He melts them down and mixes them together because neither one of them is any good.
We must begin to approach our relationships with one another from that standpoint. The Israelite should have an advantage because of his introduction to God, at least in terms of having available the Word of God, the covenants of God, and so forth. But "to whom much is given, from him much will be required" (Luke 12:48), and the Israelites squandered their advantage (Amos 3:2). So the Israelite is no better.
God is melting them both down and creating a new man, one new man. Notice Paul's use of "create." A Master Craftsman, an Artisan, is at work on all of us. He instructs us, chastens us, does whatever is necessary to blend us all together into what? Into the image of the one that we have in common—Jesus Christ. He is creating us, not into an image of an Israelite, not into an image of a Gentile, but into the image is of Jesus Christ. That is the direction we are headed.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Truth (Part 4)
God creates the "new man." Paul makes this clear when he tells us that God "create[d] in Himself one new man from the two" (Ephesians 2:15). Writing about reconciliation, he defines these two men in verse 11: physical Israelites (the "Circumcision") and Gentiles (the "Uncircumcision"). Just two chapters later, he reiterates that God created the new man; he commands Christians to "put on the new man which was created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4:24). Finally, this time in his letter to the Colossian and Laodicean Christians, Paul makes the same point; he tells us to "put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of [God] who created him" (Colossians 3:10).
Clearly, God creates the new man in His own image. This is an important starting-point in understanding what Paul means by the term new man for two reasons:
It strongly argues against the false doctrine that Christians are "born again" when they "accept" Christ. While various denominations hold somewhat different beliefs, a common thread is that the new man, as well as the inward (II Corinthians 4:16) and inner men (Ephesians 3:16), are metaphoric designations for the same thing, a spiritual entitywhich resides within Christians. This entity, they submit, is an invisible, ethereal, eternal being that is the product of the spiritual birth Christ mentions in John 3:3-8. In short, Protestants believe that the new man is born within Christians at the time they are "born again."
A twig this is not! It is a misunderstanding of a major truth in God's Word. It leads those who subscribe to it into one error after another. Notice how Protestant theologians use this misunderstanding to support another lie—that heaven is the reward of the saved. They interpret Christ's statement to Nicodemus that "[N]o man has ascended to heaven" (John 3:13) to mean that no natural man (I Corinthians 2:14) or old man (Romans 6:6) has done so. While they correctly understand these two men to represent the unconverted person, they incorrectly believe Christ was not speaking of the new man. They believe that the new man, whom they confidently proclaim resides within them as a separate spiritual entity, ascends to heaven when they die, there "to be with the Lord." In other words, they understand Christ's words in John 3:13 to refer to the "old man" only.
This simply does not square with Paul's teaching. He sees the new man as created, not born. In fact, not even once does he refer to the new man as born—much less "born again"! The Greek verb translated "create" or "created" in Ephesians 2:15; 4:24; and Colossians 3:10 is ktizo, not gennao. Ktizo can mean "to create" (or as a noun, "creator"), "to form," "to make," "to found," or "to fabricate." New Testament writers use ktizo only fourteen times, and never does it refer to or even imply birth or conception. The idea that the new man is born is not consonant with the Scriptures as a whole.
However, God's use of ktizo tells us something vitalabout the new man. The most specific sense of this Greek verb is "to found originally." Ktizo, whose stated or understood subject in Scripture is always God, refers to "the founding of a place, a city or colony" (Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
Consider this nuance of meaning as it relates to the new man. A newly founded city or colony is almost always small. If it matures, it will be through the continued efforts of its founder and its rank-and-file citizens over many years. The imagery is important: The new man, when first established in us by God, is immature and inexperienced. As we will see later, we have a responsibility to cooperate with God, the new man's founder, to ensure that he grows and matures.
The fact that God creates the new man is important for a second reason: It argues that the term new man is synonymous with new creation(KJV, "new creature"). Paul uses this term in Galatians 6:15 and II Corinthians 5:17.
Once created in us by God, how does the new man mature and grow? Remember, Paul refers to the new man in Colossians 3:10 as a man "renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him." "Renewed," translated here in the passive voice, comes from the Greek verb anakainoo. It means "to make new" in the sense of "to make different." The new man is different from the old one in that he bears the image of God!
Paul uses a similar verb in Ephesians 4:22-23, where he asks that "you . . . be renewed in the spirit of your mind." That Greek verb, ananeoo, again translated in the passive voice, means "to renew" or "to renovate." Through years of living Satan's way of life before conversion, our mind grows corrupt; even the best parts of it become "like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).
The apostle provides more details about this renewal process in Romans 12:1-2. Here, he uses the same phraseology—the renewal of a person's mind—in a context that makes his meaning crystal clear: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
The noun "renewing" (anakainosis) is related to the verb anakainoo. Like anakainoo, it carries the sense of renovation to a different, rather than a younger, state. This attests again that the new man is different from the old.
Charles Whitaker
Choosing the New Man (Part One)
In Galatians 6:12-16; Ephesians 2:10-18; and Colossians 3:9-11, Paul broaches the subject of circumcision. He often connects the new man with circumcision because he understands the symbolism behind circumcision, and so should we.
When practiced according to God's law, the ritual of circumcision pertains to men, that is, males, taking place on the eighth day after parturition. Eight is the number of "new beginnings," the idea being that seven is the number of perfection, and seven plus one - eight - restarts the cycle. Thus, the eighth day of the week is Sunday, in reality the beginning of the new week. The Last Great Day, which occurs eight days after the Feast of Tabernacles begins, looks forward to the day when God will make all things new. This is the important symbolic message behind physical circumcision: The boy - the man - circumcised on the eighth day is a "new man."
However, the new man of whom Paul speaks is not new because of physical circumcision. He is new because he has obeyed God's command to "circumcise the foreskin of [his] heart, and be stiff-necked no longer" (Deuteronomy 10:16, see Jeremiah 4:4). Paul, understanding this, claims that "circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit." "Heart," of course, refers to mind. The new man is new because he is "renewed in the spirit of [his] mind" (Ephesians 4:23). By definition, the new man is spiritually circumcised - circumcised in his mind.
Charles Whitaker
Choosing the New Man (Part Two)
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Ephesians 2:15:
Matthew 5:9
1 Corinthians 16:1-3
Galatians 6:12-16
Ephesians 2:10-18
Colossians 3:9-11
