Ephesians 2:11-22

2. The unification of Jew and Gentile into this one elect Church, 11-22.

Thus far St. Paul has vividly imaged the elect Church as a unit. One God, one Christ, one faith, one glory. His picture is completed; and he has now time to remember (Ephesians 2:11) that his real, present, flesh-and-blood Ephesian Church is ethnically that is, by race a dual Church. Both sections, indeed, belong to the great Caucasian family. But one has come down through Shem, and Heber, and Abraham to the present hour. They have been religiously proud of so divine a descent. For it has come along down a line of heroes, kings, saints, and prophets. The other, starting from the same Noah, has come down through Japhet and Elishah, (Genesis 10:4,) and has thence been called Hellenic, or Greek. And these are proud of their genius, civilization, arts, and philosophy. The apostle now comes in with his Christ to wipe out and abolish this distinction, and to fuse them into one blessed Christian Church. There is but one Christ, one Spirit, one holy building, which is one temple inhabited by the Spirit.

This paragraph, like the preceding one, presents two contrasted pictures, a dark and a bright the Ephesians of the past and the Ephesians of the present. Ephesians 2:11-12 correspond to 1-3; and Ephesians 2:13-22 correspond to 4-10. As we have elsewhere remarked, (note on Romans 8:39,) it is the apostle’s style to begin in gloom and end in glory.