Ephesians 2:15

The body of Jesus sacrificed on the cross terminated the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. It did so in the sense that when Jesus Christ died He fulfilled all the demands of the Mosaic Law. When He did that, God ended the Mosaic Law as His rule of life for the Jews. The word "abolished" (Gr. kataresas) means "rendered inoperative." The Mosaic Law ceased to be God’s standard for regulating the life of His people (Romans 10:4; et al.). The Mosaic Law had been the cause of the enmity between Jews and Gentiles. Its dietary distinctions and laws requiring separation, in particular, created hostility between Jews and Gentiles. The NASB translation implies that the law was the barrier. Really it was the cause of the barrier between Jews and Gentiles. Jesus Christ destroyed the barrier and the hostility that resulted from it by terminating the Mosaic Law. [Note: See Hal Harless, "The Cessation of the Mosaic Covenant," Bibliotheca Sacra 160:639 (July-September 2003):349-66.]

Jesus Christ had two purposes in ending Jewish Gentile hostility. First, He wanted to "create" one new man, the church (Ephesians 2:6), out of the two former groups, Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:11). Here the "new man" is not the individual believer but the church, the body of Christ (cf. Ephesians 1:22-23; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Colossians 3:10-11; Hebrews 12:23). In the church God does not deal with Gentiles as He did with Jews, nor does He deal with Jews as He did Gentiles. Jews do not become Gentiles nor do Gentiles become Jews. Rather God has created a whole new (Gr. kainon, fresh) entity, the church. In it believing Jews become Christians, and believing Gentiles become Christians. God deals with both believing Jews and believing Gentiles now equally as Christians. [Note: See Fruchtenbaum, p. 118.]