Albert Barnes Commentary Ephesians 2:14

"For he is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition," — Ephesians 2:14 (ASV)

For he is our peace. There is an evident allusion here to Isaiah 57:19. See Barnes on Isaiah 57:19.

The peace referred to here is that by which a union in worship and in feeling has been produced between the Jews and the Gentiles. Formerly, they were alienated and separate. They had different objects of worship; different religious rites; different views and feelings. The Jews regarded the Gentiles with hatred, and the Gentiles the Jews with scorn.

Now, says the apostle, they are at peace. They worship the same God. They have the same Saviour. They depend on the same atonement. They have the same hope. They look forward to the same heaven. They belong to the same redeemed family. Reconciliation has not only taken place with God, but with each other.

The best way to produce peace between alienated minds is to bring them to the same Saviour. That will do more to silence contentions, and to heal alienations, than any or all other means. Bring people around the same cross, fill them with love for the same Redeemer, and give them the same hope of heaven, and you put an end to alienation and strife.

The love of Christ is so absorbing, and dependence on his blood so entire, that they will lay aside these alienations, and cease their contentions. The work of the atonement is thus designed not only to produce peace with God, but peace between alienated and contending minds. The feeling that we are redeemed by the same blood, and that we have the same Saviour, will unite the rich and the poor, the enslaved and the free, the high and the low, in the ties of brotherhood, and make them feel that they are one. This great work of the atonement is thus designed to produce peace in alienated minds everywhere and to spread widely the feeling of universal brotherhood.

Who hath made both one. Both Gentiles and Jews. He has united them in one society.

Having broken down the middle wall. There is undoubtedly an allusion here to the wall of partition in the temple, by which the court of the Gentiles was separated from that of the Jews. See Barnes on Matthew 21:12.

The idea here is that it was now broken down, and that the Gentiles had the same access to the temple as the Jews. The sense is that by virtue of the sacrifice of the Redeemer, they were admitted to the same privileges and hopes.