SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/6/2019
8:26 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Peace with God and His People”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Eph. 2:14-17
Message of the verses: “14 For He Himself
is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier
of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in
His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained
in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus
establishing peace, 16 and might
reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death
the enmity. 17 AND HE CAME AND PREACHED
PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR;”
We
ended our last SD with a story from John MacArthur about how a baby stopped a
battle during WW II. There was peace in
the battle field for a few moments but Jesus Christ has made peace for us
through the blood of His Cross. The
peace that He made for us is not a temporary peace, but a permanent peace. Jesus made peace for both Jews and Gentiles
as He made them one body in Him. The
Jews are those who are “near” and the Gentiles are those who were “far off.” He made them “into one, and broke down the
barrier of the dividing wall.”
Her
is the rub and that is that Jewish believers in many cases since the church era
began do not want to be a part of a group that is comprised of mostly Gentiles
even though they are all one in Christ.
The fact that since 70 A. D. since the Jewish temple was destroyed that religious
Judaism has been destroyed because there is not temple to make sacrifices in. John MacArthur adds that “all the
genealogical records on which priestly descent was based” was also
destroyed. In the case of the Gentiles
who many times worshiped idols is also gone because they too are in Christ with
all of the rest of the believers who are also “in Christ.” So for all of those who are “in Christ” the
only identity that really matters is their identity in Him. All believers are one in Christ and that is
the way that God wanted things to operate inside the church. Paul describes the church as a “body” and
when you think about a human physical body all the parts of it must work well
for the human body to function correctly, same as the church, but this is not
really the case in our world today, and probably never has.
John
MacArthur writes “The barrier of the dividing wall’ alludes to the separation
of the Court of the Gentiles from the rest of the Temple. Between that court and the Court of the
Israelites was a sign that read, ‘No Gentile may enter within the barricade
which surrounds the sanctuary and enclosure.
Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his ensuing
death.’” There were actually guards
there to prevent Gentiles to enter, and yet in the book of Acts when Paul came
from his third missionary journey to worship at the temple he was arrested
because someone said that he brought a Gentile into the court of the
Israelites. This would have truly been
impossible as stated that there were guards there to prevent this from
happening and death was the penalty.
In
our next SD will look at verses which tell us that originally God had separated
Jews from Gentiles.
Answer from yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jerusalem” (Revelation 21:2).
Today’s Bible question: “To whose house did Peter go after being
released from prison?
Answer in our next SD.
1/6/2019 8:47 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment