In 1984 the Marantha! Singers released He Is Our Peace, based on Ephesians 2:14 and 1 Peter 5:7.[1] I suspect some of you are humming it even now! It’s a tender melody but predicated on the brutal death of Jesus the Messiah. That is why we cannot understand Jesus being our peace, our shalom, without reference to His atoning death in Ephesians 2:13. God’s healing shalom is anything but sentimentality and wishful thinking. Redemptive, healing shalom flows from the price Jesus the Messiah paid on the Cross. When Paul wrote of the work of the Messiah, he always thought in terms of fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture.[2]
Two passages from Isaiah immediately come to mind when reflecting on the shalom found in the Messiah. First, Isaiah 9:6 further reveals the nature of the “Son of God” prophesied in Isaiah 7:14. His nature is expressed as “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” As the “Prince of Peace,” the Messiah died upon the Cross. The fruit of, or the results of, His death on the Cross, are described in various terms in the remainder of Ephesians 2. The second Isaiah passage is Isaiah 57:19 which uses terms that Paul used in Ephesians 2:13 and continued to reflect upon in 2:14.[3]
For the sake of visual clarity here are the verses:
Isaiah 57:19 (NKJV): “I (the Lord) create the fruit of the lips: ‘Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will heal him.’”
Ephesians 2:13, 14 (NKJV): “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation. . ..”
God’s perfect peace in the death of the Messiah provides the healing, atonement, and reconciliation desperately needed between sinful humanity and Holy God, and the divisions between among broken humanity.
The New King James accurately picks up the Greek emphasis of Ephesians 2:14 with, “For He Himself is our peace.” IPHC theologian Noel Brooks emphasized the importance of “He Himself” by quoting three commentators:
Vincent comments, “Christ is thus not merely our peacemaker, but our very peace itself” (Word Studies in the New Testament, p. 852). Alford writes, “He did not make our peace and then retire, leaving us to enjoy that peace, but is Himself its medium and its substance” (Greek Testament, Vol. 3, p. 93). Wesley says, “Christ is our peace not only as He purchased it, but as He is the very bond and center of union (Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, p. 708).[4]
The effects of Jesus shed blood are expressed in Ephesians 2:14, Jesus “has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation.” Who are the both that Paul referenced? They are Jews and Gentiles. In God’s eyes humanity is not separated by skin color, national identity, social class, age, or gender. We are separated as Jews, who have received the promises of God for the sake of the world, and as Gentiles outside those promises. But in Christ Jesus Jews and Gentiles have become “a single new man.”[5] This new identity is “in Christ” and not in anything else that is part of our existence on earth. This identity is truly God breaking into the divisions among humanity caused by sin. When we discern that we, individually, and corporately as redeemed by the Messiah’s blood, are “in Christ,” it is a demonstration of “Thy kingdom come!” from Matthew 6:10 and Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17.
Two other terms in Ephesians 2:14 need clarification: a) “broken down” and b) the middle wall of separation.”
First, the word translated “broken down” is an aorist tense form of the verb luo. Many beginning Greek students know luo as a verb used to memorize Greek conjugations. Its primary meaning is to loose. Brooks wrote about the tense in 2:14, “the word is in the aorist tense, signifying a definite, single action, and no doubt looking back to the death of Christ.”[6] Thus, to loosen something, once and for all, is to remove it.
Second, the “middle wall of separation” likely referred to the partition in the Jerusalem Temple that kept Gentiles from entering fully into the Temple. Brooks explained it “as a reference to the barricade in the Temple which separated the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts to which only Jews had access. Josephus makes reference to this, saying that there was a notice there prohibiting foreigners from entering (Antiquities XV, 11:5; Wars V, 11:5). An archaeological inscription confirming this was found by a Frenchman in 1871. It is interesting that Paul was arrested and almost killed as a result of an alleged violation of this law (Acts 21:27-30).”[7]
As we will see in the next verse, the “middle wall of separation,” while a real partition in Jerusalem in Paul’s day, was a metaphor that Paul used to further describe what Christ had accomplished related to the Law of Moses.
Ephesians 2:15 in the NKJV reads, “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.”[8] Notice that Paul returned to the person of Jesus in the expression “in His flesh.” Consistent with Paul’s focus on the death and blood of Jesus in the context, this phrase refers to the crucifixion of Jesus. The “enmity” is further defined as “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.”
In other words, the Law of Moses became more than a source of division between Jew and Gentile. It became an enemy of bringing healing. It is important that we remember that Paul in Romans, as well as in all of Scripture, makes it clear that the Law is holy, just, and good (Psalm 19:7; Romans 7:7-16). But the Law does not bring about the righteousness of faith that was evidenced in the father of the Jews, Abraham. The Apostle Paul is clear to not call the Law, the Torah, sinful or from some spiritual entity other than God. The Law given to Moses was designed to create a people as priests to God in the world whose living according to God’s Word would be a witness and blessing to the Gentile world. But because of sin, Israel failed to live by the Spirit of the law and allowed the law to become a source of enmity between Jew and Gentile through pride and legalism.
So, what are “the law of commandments contained in ordinances?” John Wesley and John Calvin limited the meaning to the ceremonial law and not the moral law found in the Ten Commandments and other parts of the Torah.[9] Some commentators believe it refers even to the moral dimension of the Law of Moses. However, we reject that interpretation because no where in the Bible is God’s moral law overturned. Christ came to fulfill the law, not to destroy it (Matthew 5:17).
Brooks provides a clarifying paragraph regarding “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” “What, then, is Paul saying? Either that Christ has abolished the Old Testament system of ceremonial law and ritual, or that He has abolished the weak and ineffectual ‘letter’ in which the moral law was expressed, in order that it might be replaced by the higher ‘law of Christ’ which is accompanied by the moral and spiritual dynamic of the indwelling Holy Spirit.”[10]
We should also add that at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:20, that the Jewish elders of the church focused on moral dimensions of the law of Moses for Gentile converts to the Body of Christ so that Jew and Gentile could worship and fellowship together as “one body.”
The final phrases of Ephesians 2:15 reveal the ultimate purpose of what was accomplished by the death of Jesus, “so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.” Notice again that Paul emphasized that it was in Jesus “in Himself” this new humanity. It is not an idea, ideal, philosophy, or something made by human effort. The healing of humankind from the curse of sin is found in Jesus Himself. It cannot be made outside of Jesus.
What Jesus did was a new creation! Jesus has brought Jew and Gentile together in Himself, something new on the earth. This is more than individualism. It is His Body manifested through redeemed people. The word “new” in this text is kainos and refers to a new quality. It is important to understand that divine promises and purposes through and for the Jews has not been negated, abandoned, or revoked by God. Paul affirms this in Romans 9-11 and acknowledges the mystery of it. But it does mean that God’s ultimate purpose of healing for the nations is found in a unity of Jew and Gentile in Jesus the Messiah. This healing, which at times is manifested on earth, is awaiting its full manifestation in the future.
This is why the closing phrase of Ephesians 2:15, though not the entire sentence, reads, “thus making peace.” It emphasized again what was accomplished through the blood of Jesus the Messiah. The Body of Christ is God’s visible testimony of divine shalom as a witness to the world of God’s redeeming love. This is why the remaining verses of Ephesians 2 continued to reveal the meaning of the phrase He Is Our Peace!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf-D3Ysigz8
[2] See the phrase “according to the Scriptures” in 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4.
[3] See https://iphc.org/gso/2025/04/03/nearer-my-god-to-thee-ephesians-213/ for review of Isaiah 57:19 in relation to Ephesians 2:13.
[4] Noel Brooks, Ephesians Outlined and Unfolded, p. 82.
[5] Markus Barth translation, Anchor Bible Commentary cited in earlier essays, Volume 1, p. 263 referring to similar usage in Ephesians 2:15. Barth’s commentary was published in 1974 before gender sensitive language became influential. Today Barth would likely have written “a single new person or identity,” with that identity being “in Christ.”
[6] Brooks, p. 84. Barth showed that this same Greek verb is used in Ezekiel 13:14 where “God announces, ‘I will break down the wall.’” It is also used “to describe the destruction of the temple” in the New Testament (Barth, p. 263)
[7] Brooks, pp. 83, 84.
[8] Some translations include “the enmity” in verse 14 tying it to the “middle wall of separation.”
[9] Brooks, p. 85.
[10] Brooks, p. 86, bold is from Brooks.
