# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S9
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1906. 9

raised from the dead, set at His right hand and put all things under His feet, to be head over all things to the congregation [Gemeinde]. This congregation he then calls Christ's body, the fulness, pleroma, of Him that filleth all in all; that is, from the Head, Christ, life, the Spirit, goes through the whole body and fills all the individual members completely and in every respect. V. 22, 23.

Here, then, the thought of the body is given and what is meant by the image is finely explained. That it is only one body goes without saying, by its nature. It is not yet specially expressed. In the second part of the second chapter the Apostle points more closely to this thought. After he had set forth in vv. 1–10 how Christians are incorporated into Christ through faith, he goes on in v. 11 to say that the Ephesians share in this blessing just like the Jews. He therefore speaks first of the dissension that existed between the Jews and the rest of the world. "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." One hears in the first words a rebuke by the Apostle directed against the externalized Judaism that calls the Gentiles "uncircumcision." They have no reason at all to turn up their noses at the Gentiles. But the dissension exists also between the Gentiles and the true Church of Israel. In what follows the Apostle even calls it an enmity and says that it was set up and maintained by the law of commandments in ordinances. Therefore he calls this a fence, indeed the enmity itself, vv. 14, 15. And this is to be understood in a twofold way. This law, which made demands in many individual commandments, brought about first of all an outward separation between those who held to it and the others. It set Israel apart from the whole rest of the world. But it also divided Israel inwardly, in that, in its external conception of the law, it prided itself somewhat on its belonging to the law and despised the others. This dissension Christ has now abolished. "But now ye are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law . . ., for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby," vv. 13–16. By Christ's fulfilling the law and reconciling all men with God, He has abolished the separation which the law brings about. Thereby He has made of the two, the separated, one new man, the