What Does Ephesians 2:15 Mean?
Having made idle the hostility in his flesh and the instruction of the commandments in decrees, so that in himself he might create the two into one new human, making wholeness.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;THE KEY
The verse locates unity in his flesh, where hostility and its dividing decrees are abolished and the two become one new humanity.
THE MEANING
Hostility and the law of commandments expressed in decrees are abolished in his flesh. The two are made into one new humanity in him, and wholeness takes shape in that making.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that division between peoples is permanent: the verse names the hostility and the decrees alongside it as abolished.
THE ROOT
ἔχθραν
echthran
GROWS FROM
ἔχθρα
echthra
Hostility, hatred; the state of being an enemy.
“hostility” in this verse is echthran. The word’s family connects enmity with both the enemy and the act of being hostile. Here that antagonism is abolished in his flesh as the two become one.
ALSO GROWS
echthros: Enemy; hostile.
ἐχθρός
The noun makes visible the people enmity turns into enemies.
echthrainō: To hate or be hostile.
ἐχθραίνω
This verb names hostility as an active relation, the very relation the verse says is abolished.
καινὸν
kainon
GROWS FROM
καινός
kainos
New, fresh; new in character or quality.
The result is named as new humanity, not simply two groups counted together. The word presents their unity as a newly formed reality.
ALSO GROWS
kainoō: To make new or renew.
καινόω
This verb shows the shared word family can describe newness as something brought into being.
kainotēs: Newness.
καινότης
The related noun makes the quality of this one new humanity explicit.
εἰρήνην
eirēnēn
GROWS FROM
εἰρήνη
eirēnē
Peace, concord, wholeness.
“making wholeness” in this verse is eirēnēn. The verse describes peace as something being made: it joins the act of making one new humanity with the resulting wholeness. Peace here is the shared coherence of those brought together.
ALSO GROWS
eirēneuō: To live in peace or make peace.
εἰρηνεύω
This verb shows peace as a lived relation, not only the end of open conflict.
eirēnopoios: Peacemaker.
εἰρηνοποιός
This related word names the one who makes peace, echoing the verse’s active making of wholeness.
THE PATTERN
God’s wholeness gathers divided peoples by ending hostility and making them one.
Whom the LORD of hosts will bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may lean its full weight on the fact that you sent me.After this I see, and look, a great crowd that no one can number, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wrapped in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.THE THREAD
And I will set opposition between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.The Greek Septuagint of Genesis uses ἔχθραν (echthran), the same word for “enmity” used here. Genesis names enmity between the serpent and the woman; Ephesians names enmity as what is abolished in his flesh as the two become one.
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