The law's dividing wall and its abolition

“I will remove its fence and it will become plunder” (Isaiah 5:5)—that is, the security of the Spirit. What then is the dividing wall? The non-mixing with the Greeks. For Jews were prevented from mixing with Greeks, so that the Jews might not fall into idolatry—they who even without this were committing idolatry. And this is what David says: “God settles the solitary in a house” (Psalm 68:6). For the leaven had to become strong, so that in this way the whole world might be leavened.

He speaks of the law of the commandments that had been made customary, as from the Mosaic commandments. Having abolished it by his own decrees, among which are: “It is not what goes in that defiles a person” (Matthew 15:11)—this dissolved the rule “eat this, do not eat that”—and the not-giving of a bill of divorce—this was contrary to dismissing a wife for any cause—and “you observe days and months and seasons and years” (Galatians 4:10)—this was contrary to what Moses had given. And in general there are many such dogmatic teachings by which he abolished the law of the commandments, not the commandments as inappropriate, but the custom as no longer useful. For the commandments are honored even when they are not in force, but the law—that is, our being under the law of the commandments—was harmful after grace.

For Greeks, turning away from idolatry as impiety, and Jews, turning away from the law as no longer useful, are built up into another newness of piety. “Making peace” (Ephesians 2:15). For the law does not wish there to be peace. Why? So that bodily peace may not stir up war against piety. “He reconciles both to God” (Ephesians 2:16). Since the Greeks had gone astray, and the Jews had transgressed. “Having killed the hostility in himself” (Ephesians 2:16). The thought has breadth in the brevity of the phrase. For since the law was what separated Jews from Greeks, as was said before, and the law was going to cease—and it ceased in no other way than because the Lord rose from the dead, to whom the church had to be joined as to another husband after the law—he says that in his flesh he killed that hostility by putting an end to the law.

“And coming, he preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:17). This shows that he does not call the law of Moses impious in the way idolatry is. For he says that the idolaters are far off, and the Jews near. And “near” shows a part of piety, not the whole. For if they had the whole, they would not be near but in it. And if again they were opposed, they would not be near but far off with the Greeks.

Here he wishes to show that he did not dismiss them as strangers taught by others, but that, having been chosen as herald of the Gentiles, he owed them this demonstration too, and that as the Lord taught those around John, so also he taught me by revelation. And he hinted that he could have said something deeper, but he measured his teaching to what they could receive.

“So that it might now be made known to the rulers” (Ephesians 3:10). Reasonably so. For if it had been hidden in God, all the authorities would have been ignorant of it. For he says “now” not of the time of grace, but of the time from which the prophets began to reveal the things to come.

“In heaven,” he says, is the way of life of the righteous, and on earth that of all human beings. For the righteous are not stationed on earth with the living, but the generation of those devoted to God stands apart like some chosen race. And the generation of these is called heavenly as pure, while that of the rest is earthly as defiled.