Ephesians
Chapter 2
From Death to Life
You were dead because of your faults and sins.
Once, you lived according to this world and followed the ruler who reigns between heaven and earth, and who continues to work in the disobedient.
All of us once belonged to them, and we followed human greed; we obeyed our natural urges and consented to their desires. By ourselves, we headed straight for judgment like the rest of humankind.
But God, who is rich in mercy, showed his great love.
As we were dead in our sins, he made us alive with Christ. By grace, you have been saved!
And he raised us up with Christ, giving us a place with him in heaven.
In demonstrating such kindness in Christ Jesus, God intended to reveal and unfold in the coming ages the extraordinary riches of his grace.
By God’s grace, you are saved through faith. This is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift.
This was not the result of your efforts, so you should not feel proud.
Our identity is God’s work. He created us in Christ Jesus for the good works he prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
Unity Through Christ
Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth were called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who called themselves ‘circumcised’ (because of a surgical circumcision).
And at that time, you were without Christ; you did not belong to the community of Israel. The covenant of God and his promises were not for you; you had no hope and were without God in this world.
But now, in Christ Jesus, and through his blood, you, who were once far away, have been brought near.
For Christ is our peace; he who has made the two people one;
destroying, in his own flesh, the wall—the hatred—that separated us. He abolished the law with its commands and precepts. He created peace by uniting the two groups within him, forming a new humanity from the two.
He destroyed hatred and reconciled us both to God through the cross, making the two one body.
He came to proclaim peace; peace to those who were far away, peace to the Jews who were near.
Through him, we—the two people—approach the Father in one Spirit.
Now you are no longer strangers or guests, but fellow citizens of the holy people; you are of God’s household. You are the house,
whose foundations are the apostles and prophets, and whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus.
In him, the entire structure is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
In him, you too are being built to become a dwelling place for God.
Commentaries
From Death to Life.
Paul explains to the Ephesians that their belonging to the Church as members of the body of Christ has meant transitioning from a “reality of death” to a “reality of life,” as if it were a new creation. When reading this, we must consider the strong militant identity of the small communities that offered an alternative life to the widespread corruption into which the Empire had fallen and an alternative faith to Jewish law. They therefore had to defend themselves against the pagans and Jews who threatened their identity.
Unity Through Christ.
This passage is the foundational statement of unity and reconciliation, a matter of utmost urgency and relevance for Christians today as well. If no one previously had a monopoly on sin, since we were all stuck in the same mess, no one now has a monopoly on salvation, because it does not depend on rites, laws, privileges of blood or race, or personal merits, but is a gift from God. Paul views this new humanity in the Church as the community of those who know, believe, live, and proclaim to the nations the Good News that the world has been and is being saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.