The Church Together
Ephesians 2:19-22
Main Idea: The church has been brought together as citizens and family and built together as God’s new temple.
I. Citizens in God’s Kingdom (2:19a)
The Gentiles, who were ‘strangers’ and ‘aliens’ in Christ are now fellow citizens and saints. Citizenship in the Roman Empire was a big deal, as only citizens experienced full protection, right, and privileges.
We do not live on a passport in the Kingdom of God but on a birth certificate (Martyn Lloyd-Jones); we have a born-again birth certificate with all the rights & privileges that come with it. There are no “second-class” citizens in this Kingdom, and it is the only one Kingdom that has no end (Luke 1:33) and whose citizenship is eternal (Phil. 3:20).
Implication: Our highest allegiance in the church of Jesus Christ must be to King Jesus & the Kingdom of God. We are to live as ambassadors of our King, with local churches being embassies and outposts of this Kingdom.
II. Members in God’s Family (2:19b)
The church is primarily described in the New Testament as the family of God or the “household of faith” (Gal. 6:10; 1 Tim. 3:15). Christians are called ‘brothers and sisters’ more than any other designation. This familial relationship between Jews and Gentiles in the church was simultaneously challenging and revolutionary.
Both Jews and Gentiles have been welcomed into the life of the Trinitarian God in the church; they have both been adopted by God the Father (1:5), both are brothers with Jesus (Heb. 2:11), and both have access to God through the indwelling Spirit (2:18). The church is a family not bonded by the blood of biology but by the blood of the cross.
“By their simple and repeated use of the term brothers and sisters, the writers of the Epistles underscore that the people in the pews around us are in, in fact, our family. Like the members of our biological family, we haven’t chosen them for ourselves, but they have been chosen for us, and we are therefore inseparably bound to them. Because we are allied with Christ, we are allied with his family.” ~ Megan Hill
Implication: We are called to live together as a true family, opening up our lives and our homes to one another. We are to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2) and seek to know and to be known in the household of faith.
III. Stones in God’s Temple (2:20-22)
Each picture Paul uses builds in intimacy & intensity both vertically with God and horizontally with one another.
Vertically: Jesus is our King (citizens), God is our Father (family members), and the Holy Spirit indwells within us as God’s temple.
Horizontally:
“You are united to other citizens through a social contract. You’re united to other brothers and sisters in a family even more tightly than you are to your neighbor or your fellow citizen, because genetics and shared historical [and] lived experience attach you to your brothers and sisters. But when it comes to the idea of the building, if Christians are like the blocks in a building, they’re cemented together. I don’t know how much closer you could get than that.” ~ Tim Keller
This ‘new temple’ is described in great detail in these verses:
The Foundation (2:20a): The ‘apostles and prophets’ are shorthand for Scripture; their authoritative teaching and writing is the basis for the Word of God.
The Cornerstone (2:20b): Christ himself is the ‘cornerstone.’ This was the most important ‘stone’ in the building, as it dictates the shape of the entire structure. The rest of the foundation and walls are oriented to the cornerstone, not the other way around.
“Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us... I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Building (2:21-22): We are individual stones in this building, being built together and formed to the cornerstone. We are to be a ‘holy temple’ as we are sanctified by Christ.
1 Peter 2:4–5: As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Implication: The church is to be the meeting place between God and man, being built up in love and holiness.
“It would be hard to exaggerate the grandeur of this vision. The new society God has brought into being is nothing short of a new creation, a new human race, whose characteristic is no longer alienation but reconciliation, no longer division and hostility but unity and peace. This new society God rules and loves and lives in.” ~ John Stott
