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-          Transcendence: the Mystery of Nationless Corporate Identity 

There is another view of what Paul means by one new man. In this view, Christ has created an entirely new body for himself based on His own resurrected transcendence above all that is inherited from all fleshly Jewish lineage. This is the "transcendent" view of one new body of Christ. 

 

In this view, when Paul speaks of the Law of commandments contained in ordinances as the abolished point of enmity between Jews and gentiles, he is speaking representatively of the entirety of Jewish heritage. He is telling all the world--Jew and Gentile alike--that since Christ, nothing about Jewish culture may be used anymore to factor into our access to or worship of God or in our defining of our union as His people. This view is supported by Paul's statements elsewhere that dismiss the value and importance of Jewish "traditions" and "genealogies," indeed of his own natural heritage in its entirety (see Col. 2:8,16,20-22 [Gal. 4:10]; I Tim. 1:4; 4:7; [Tit. 3:9]; Phil. 3:8; [compare also I Pt. 1:18]). 

 

This then not only means that aligning with Old Testament Mosaic Law may not be used as a rallying point for finding favor with God or for manifesting the universal body of Christ, but that nothing about fleshly Jewish culture and heritage may legitimately be used to perpetuate distinction so as to become a point of issue for defining or manifesting the union of the one new body in Christ.

 

 

         Enmity Through Fleshly Distinction

 

Here in Ephesians, Paul discusses the "enmity" produced by the Law of Moses and which was destroyed through the cross. The first application is the enmity between God and the gentiles. There is no more hostility* toward the gentiles on account of their being outside God's original covenant with Israel. On this all agree.

 

But in the transcendent view, that is not the only enmity Paul is talking about. He is also talking about the direct enmity between Jews and gentiles due to their natural difference in heritages. This enmity is the same word he uses as "hatred" to describe a work of the flesh in Galatians 5. Christ destroyed racial prejudice arising from the mere fact of fleshly distinction between people of natural Jewish heritage and those of non-Jewish heritage. The transcendent view argues that distinction in the fleshly heritage itself is the root of human enmity (and is what to this day drives the world toward conflagration.)

 

[*Note: Paul's earlier admission in Romans that in practice, the Jews are still at "enmity" with the predominantly Gentile church is only talking about the Jewish response based in unbelief. He is not justifying that enmity. Here in Ephesians, he's talking about what Christ actually accomplished in positionally destroying all heritage-based enmity.]

 

Part 8





Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

05/06



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