One of the most frustrating things

Stupidly, I made the mistake of interrupting her litany of out of context passages taken from Paul's epistles. "You can't do that!" I exclaimed. "That's not what the context of the passage is saying!"

At that, she went ballistic and the dialog broke down rapidly from there.

Among the many passages taken out of context from the Pauline writings, the passage quoted above in Ephesians is one of the favorite, since it is often used to establish that the Law is now "abolished." [After saying that, if this IS the case, then Paul is in direct opposition to Jesus, since He said in Matthew 5: " ¹⁷ "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸ "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."]

Context, Context, Context

In order to understand a passage, one needs to read BEFORE and AFTER that passage. They need to understand WHO the writer is writing to, what the cultural background of that group of people was, and, lastly, the grammatical structure of that passage.

Dr. Martin said, "Text, without context, is pretext."

This is very true, expecially in regards to using the Apostle Paul's writings to defend an "anti-Nomian (anti-Law)" position - and particularly, in regards to the passage in Ephesians 2.

The Wall of Partition (The M'Chitzah)

In Orthodox Judaism today, this device still exists! It is the "wall of partition" used to separate the men from the women in the synagogue! It is a man-made device that causes separation! It was not commanded to be built in the Torah. It was there to prevent contact between one group of people (men) from another (women).

In like manner, found in Herod's Temple, a man-made barrier wall also existed - not only to separate the men from the women, but also to separate the Gentile from the Jew. It, too, was a man-made device. It was not commanded to be built in the Torah. It was there to prevent contact between one group of people from another.

Evidence of such a wall is found in archaeological remains. Several remains of Herod's stately temple have by recent explorations been brought to light. It had two courts, one intended for the Israelites only, and the other, a large outer court, called "the court of the Gentiles," intended for the use of strangers (gerim - not pagan worshippers) of all nations. These two courts were separated by a low wall, as Josephus states, some 4 1/2 feet high, with thirteen openings.

"In building the temple Herod the Great had enclosed a large area to form the various courts. The temple itself consisted of the two divisions, the Holy Place, entered by the priests every day, and the Holy of Holies into which the high priest entered alone once every year. Immediately outside the temple there was the Court of the Priests, and in it was placed the great altar of burnt offering. Outside of this again was the Court of the Sons of Israel, and beyond this the Court of the Women. The site of the temple itself and the space occupied by the various courts already mentioned formed a raised plateau or platform. "From it you descended at various points down 5 steps and through gates in a lofty wall, to find yourself overlooking another large court--the outer court to which Gentiles, who desired to see something of the glories of the temple and to offer gifts and sacrifices to the God of the Jews, were freely admitted. Farther in than this court they were forbidden, on pain of death, to go. The actual boundary line was not the high wall with its gates, but a low stone barrier about 5 ft. in height, which ran round at the bottom of 14 more steps" (J. Armitage Robinson, D.D., Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, 59; see also Edersheim, The Temple, Its Ministry and Services as They Were at the Time of Jesus Christ, 46).

The Court of the Gentiles:

"The Court of the Gentiles formed the lowest and the outermost enclosure of all the courts of the sanctuary. It was paved with the finest variegated marble. Its name signified that it was open to all, Jews or Gentiles alike. It was very large, and is said by Jewish tradition to have formed a square of 750 ft. It was in this court that the oxen and sheep and the doves for the sacrifices were sold as in a market. It was in this court too that there were the tables of the money-changers, which Christ Himself overthrew when He drove out the sheep and oxen and them that bought and sold in His Father's house. The multitudes assembling in this court must have been very great, especially on occasions such as the Passover and Pentecost and at the other great feasts, and the din of voices must oftentimes have been most disturbing. As already seen, beyond this court no Gentile might go." (John Rutherfurd, copyright 2005, Bible.org - NETBible.org)

Along the top of this dividing wall, at regular intervals, were placed pillars bearing in Greek an inscription to the effect that no stranger was, on the pain of death, to pass from the court of the Gentiles into that of the Jews. At the entrance to a graveyard at the northwestern angle of the Haram wall, a stone was discovered by M. Ganneau in 1871, built into the wall, bearing the following inscription in Greek capitals: "No stranger is to enter within the partition wall and enclosure around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will be responsible to himself for his death, which will ensue." There can be no doubt that the stone thus discovered was one of those originally placed on the boundary wall which separated the Jews from the Gentiles, of which Josephus speaks.

"While Paul was writing the Epistle to the Ephesians at Rome, this barrier in the temple at Jerusalem was still standing, yet the chained prisoner of Jesus Christ was not afraid to write that Christ had broken down the middle wall of partition, and had thus admitted Gentiles who were far off, strangers and foreigners, to all the privileges of access to God in ancient times possessed by Israel alone; that separation between Jew and Gentile was done away with forever in Christ." (John Rutherfurd, copyright 2005, Bible.org - NETBible.org)

The Throwing Down of the Barrier:

"If Paul wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians in 60 or 61 AD, then the actual barrier of stone remained in its position in the Court of the Gentiles not more than some 10 years, for it was thrown down in the burning of the temple by the Roman army. And out of those ruins a fragment has been excavated in our own day, containing the very inscription threatening death to the Gentile intruder, and reminding us that it is only in Christ Jesus that we now draw nigh unto God, and that we are thus one body in Christ, one new man. Christ has broken down the middle wall of partition, for He, in His own person, is our peace." (John Rutherfurd, copyright 2005, Bible.org - NETBible.org)

Peter's Vision

In this passage, we see the Lord giving Peter a vision in which unclean things of every type (See Leviticus 11), were brought down in a large sheet. He said to Peter, "Get up Peter, kill and eat." (10:13) Three times Peter protests this, saying, "By no means, Lord! I have never eaten anything unholy or unclean!" (10:14) The Lord then says to him, "Stop treating as unclean what God has made clean." (10:15)

At this time, the men sent by Cornelius knocked on the door of the house where Peter was staying, seeking Peter to ask him to come with them to their master Cornelius' house.

Peter was puzzled and perplexed by the vision, and did not understand its meaning. So, the Lord says to him, "Three men are looking for you. Get up and go downstairs, and have no misgivings about going with them, because I myself have sent them" (10:19-20).

So Peter goes with them to Cornelius' house (10:25).

Upon arrival, Peter gets up to speak. By then, God had shown him the meaning of the vision:

Acts 10:28 - "And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and {yet} God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean."

This passage has absolutely NOTHING to do with abolishing the dietary (kosher) laws! It has EVERYTHING to do with how the non-Jews that God is bringing into the Body of Messiah are to be regarded by their Jewish brethren.

The ONLY interpretation to this passage is verse 28: "God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean."

With that, the "unlawful" association that Peter was talking about to Cornelius' and his household - the man-made "wall of partition" - was broken down.

This is what Paul is alluding to in his writing to the Ephesians in Chapter 2.

Dr. David Stern, in his Jewish New Testament Commentary writes, "Sha'uls point is that Gentiles are no longer separated but can now join the Jewish people and be one with them as God's people through faith in the Jewish Messiah Yeshua. The partition is down, the Gentiles can join us! The critics understand it the other way round: the partition is down, so that once Jews believe in their own Messiah they no longer have the right to maintain their Jewish identity but must conform to Gentile patterns. Amazing! And certainly not what Sha'ul himself did (Ac 13:9&N)."(Dr. David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, copyright 1996, David H. Stern, page 584)

"In this framework of thought one could understand the passage to be saying that for His Body, the Messianic Community, Yeshua abolished not the Torah in its entirety, but the takkanot (rabbinic ordinances) relating to the separation of Jews and Gentiles spiritually. The middle wall of the spiritual temple is done away with forever." (Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, page 588.)

It was not the Torah that divided Jew and Gentile, it was the man-made rules, the takkanot, that separated them. They are what Paul said was the barrier of the dividing wall. They were what Peter had understood to be the "unlawful" intercourse with Gentiles that was forbidden to him.

What God was showing him, and by extension, ALL Messianic Jews, was that there were no longer to be walls between Jew & non-Jew - and this is what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 2!

So, Now that the Dividing Wall is Broken Down...

Jews AND Non-Jews can enter all the way into the Holy Place to worship the Father!

"Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer {any} offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since {we have} a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled {clean} from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water."Hebrews 10:18-22

Using the Temple typography of Ephesians 2 - The Implication is that non-Jews are free to enter into the Temple (in the spiritual sense) - not flee away from it! Hence, non-Jews are free to come into a MORE BIBLICAL and more complete form of worship - not a separate, pagan-originated one distinctive from their Jewish brethren!

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For further reading: "The Dividing Wall in Ephesians 2:14, What is it? Who Made it?, How Was It Broken Down?" Tim Hegg, copyright 1996.

This article is the viewpoint of Bruce R. Booker and does not necessarily represent the views of all the members of Beth Yeshua Messianic Congregation.