Ephesians 2:15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances… 1. As God's people, in covenant with Him, ought to be highly incensed against and averse from any voluntary entire fellowship with those who neglect and contemn the ordinances of worship prescribed by God in His Word; so those who are without the Church, yea, and all unregenerate men, do look upon the ordinances of God's worship as base, ridiculous, and contemptible, and carry a kind of hatred and disdain to all such as make conscience of them: for so the ancient worship, prescribed in the ceremonial law, was the occasion of hatred and enmity betwixt the Gentile, who contemned it, and the Jew, who made conscience of it. And, therefore, is here called the "enmity"; "having abolished the enmity." 2. As the moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments, was no part of that mid-wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, seeing some of the drafts and lineaments of that law are upon the hearts of all by nature (Romans 2:15); so there was no necessity to abrogate this law at Christ's death, in order to the uniting of Jew and Gentile, neither was it at all abolished; for the law abolished was the law, not simply, but "the law of commandments," and these not all, but such commandments as were "contained in ordinances," to wit, the ceremonial law; "even the law of commandments contained in ordinances," saith he. 3. As God only hath power and liberty to prescribe what manner of worship He will be served by, so He did once give a most observable evidence of this His power and liberty, by changing that external way of worship which was prescribed by Himself, under the Old Testament, unto another under the New; although the internals of His worship, to wit, the graces of faith, love, hope, joy in God, do remain the same in both (Matthew 22:37, 39); for He "did abolish the law of commandments contained in ordinances," even all the ancient worship consisting in rites and ceremonies, sensibly and fleshly observations, which God did then prescribe, not as simply delighted in them, but as accommodating Himself to the childish condition of the Church in those times; and hath now appointed a more spiritual way of worship, as more suitable to the grown age of the Church (John 4:21, 23). 4. It was Christ's sufferings and death which put an end to the law of ceremonies, and made the binding power thereof to cease; for seeing His sufferings were the body and substance of all those shadows, they neither did nor could evanish until Christ had suffered, but then they did; it being impossible that a shadow, and the body, whereof it is a shadow, can consist in one and the same place; "Having abolished in His flesh the law of commandments contained in ordinances." (James Fergusson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; |
    |