Christ Our Peace: Jew and Gentile Made One

Paul asks Gentile believers to remember that they were once separated from Christ, alienated from Israel’s commonwealth, strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. Now, in Christ Jesus, those who were far off have been brought near by Christ’s blood. Christ himself is their peace: he creates one new humanity, reconciles both groups to God through the cross, kills the hostility, and gives both access to the Father by one Spirit.

Where this fits in the story: the covenants and the promise of blessing to the nations are not discarded. In Christ, Gentiles are brought into the reconciled people of God without being required to become ethnic Israel first. Isaiah’s language of peace to the far and near forms an important biblical backdrop.