One Spirit, One People

By his Death and Resurrection, Jesus formed one covenant community - One New Man - based on faith in him – Ephesians 2:11-22.

The Apostle Paul is adamant. There no longer can be “Jew or Gentile” for disciples of Jesus. The old distinctions are inappropriate among the One People of God. By his shed blood, he “dismantled the middle wall of partition” that separated Jews and Gentiles so “he might reconcile them both in one body for God through the Cross.” God is building both into one building, one habitation of God in the Spirit founded on Jesus.

Having nullified the “law of the commands in ordinances” on the Cross that once divided them, God is “creating in himself One New Man.” Before Calvary, Gentiles were alienated from the citizenship of Israel, “strangers from the covenants of promise,” and without hope in the world.

[Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash]

Because of his Death and Resurrection, the followers of Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles, have been “circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands.” Though previously “dead in our trespasses and uncircumcised flesh,” we have been made alive together with Jesus who forgave our sins. “Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross” – (Colossians 2:11-14).

Those men and women “afar off” are being “brought near…by the blood of the Messiah” and made members of his ONE covenant community. Jewish and Gentile believers access the same Father through the “one Spirit” they all received. Having believed the “word of the truth,” they have been “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” - (Ephesians 1:13, 2:18-22).

The implications of Paul’s words are profound. Gentile followers of Jesus participate fully in the Abrahamic Covenant. Circumcised or not, they inherit the same promises regardless of nationality. Gentiles become “fellow citizens and members of the household of God…having been built together into the habitation of God in Spirit.”

Similarly, Paul wrote to the Galatians, “But now that the faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian, for you are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek. There can be neither bond nor free. There can be no male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus. And if you are of Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise” - (Galatians 3:25-29).

No longer are his disciples under the custodianship of the Mosaic Legislation, including its ordinance of circumcision. Whether Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, all members now constitute One People through one baptism and the “faith of Christ Jesus.”

We must not forget how fundamental circumcision was to Ancient Israel’s identification, and rightly so under the ordinances of the Mosaic Legislation, and thus how radical such New Testament declarations were at the time.

Justification before God and membership in His people are not dependent on gender, circumcision, or biological descent from Abraham. Repentance, faith in Jesus, baptism, and the Gift of the Spirit determine inclusion in His People.

• “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all” - (Ephesians 4:4-6).

CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM

Gentile believers are “grafted into the root,” and that “root” is Abraham. The “wild branches” are grafted in by God’s Spirit faith, not the deeds and rites required by the Law. However, unbelieving Jews, though they are the “natural branches” and possess the Torah, are cut off if they continue in “unbelief” by rejecting the Messiah - (Romans 11:11-24).

When God confirmed His Covenant with Abraham, He promised to make him the “father of a multitude of nations.” The “nations” or Gentiles were always included in the promises. Yahweh promised to “establish my covenant between me and you, and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant.” This raises the question - Who is the Seed of Abraham?

Paul provides the answer. The “Seed of Abraham” is Jesus, therefore, the group known as the “children of Abraham” includes all men and women who have exercised faith in him regardless of their race or place of origin - (Galatians 3:7-9).

The Abrahamic Covenant always envisioned the inclusion of the Gentiles, and the formation of Israel from the loins of the Patriarch was an initial stage in God’s larger plan of redemption for humanity, for the “nations of the Earth.”

God summoned Israel to become his “very own possession,” a priestly kingdom tasked with mediating His light to the nations. “All the earth” was His, not just the nation of Israel or the territory of Canaan. Israel was called to bring the “nations” to Yahweh, not alienate them from Him – (Exodus 19:5).

In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter applied this very passage to the largely Gentile congregations of “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia”:

• “But you yourselves are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who were no-people, but now are the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” – (1 Peter 2:5-10).

The calling of Israel has fallen to the “Body of Christ” composed of those who have been “sealed by the Holy Spirit.” Inclusion is based on the “faith of Jesus,” his faithful act of “obedience unto death,” and our faith in him and what God has achieved through him.

In contrast, unbelief and disobedience result in exclusion from the covenant community and the loss of the promised inheritance.

God did not abandon His promises to Abraham or replace them with something entirely new. He is fulfilling His covenant in His Son and through His Spirit as He brings Jews and Gentiles together into His Kingdom. He is making salvation available to all men for the asking, and on the same basis for all, the “faith of Jesus Christ.”

There is no room for the old ethnic and social divisions in the community founded on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. There is only one Spirit and one People of God.

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RELATED POSTS:

• Rebuilding Walls - (The final paragraph of Chapter 3 in his Letter to the Galatians is pivotal to Paul’s argument. It stresses the oneness of God’s people)

• Heirs in Jesus - (The followers of Jesus are heirs to the Abrahamic covenant promises regardless of their nationality or ethnicity)

• The Assembly of God - (The Christian use of the term church or ekklésia is derived from the assembly of Yahweh gathered for worship in the Hebrew Bible)