Ephesians 2:14–18; 4:1–6

Jesus reconciled us to God—and, get this, He reconciled us to one another.

Paul says that Christ Himself “is our peace.” By His cross He tore down the wall of hostility and created “one new man” from those who had been divided. The hostility between Jew and Gentile was not simply ignored, negotiated, or managed. At the cross, Jesus put it to death.

The reach of that reconciliation goes even further. The cross confronts the hostility between Jew and Gentile, Gentile and Jew, Gentile and Gentile, and Jew and Jew. In Christ, the old boundaries that determined who belonged and who did not have lost their authority. Strangers and foreigners have become “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19).

Jesus did not merely save individuals; He created a family.

That means reconciliation is not only something we have received; it is something we are called to live forward.

That is why Paul moves from the reconciliation of Ephesians 2 to the appeal of Ephesians 4: “Walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” What will it take to worthy walk? Lowliness. Gentleness. Patience. Bearing with one another in love. Making every effort “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Notice that Paul does not tell us to create unity. Christ has already done that. We are called to maintain what Christ created.

There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of us all. The Church possesses a God-given singularity that our preferences, personalities, backgrounds, traditions, and opinions are not permitted to undermine.

So, when we introduce hostility and division into the family Jesus created, we are not simply having a disagreement. We are working against something accomplished by the cross.

When preference becomes more important than peace, when my way becomes more important than being reconciled, when our group becomes more important than His body, or when personal desire is allowed to usurp the lordship of Jesus, we begin to imitate the spirit of the world from which Christ rescued us.

Jesus said that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Division belongs to the logic of the kingdom He came to overthrow. Reconciliation belongs to the kingdom He came to establish.

The cross therefore asks more of us than, “Are you reconciled to God?” It also asks, “Are you living reconciled with the family He created?”

We cannot celebrate at the foot of a cross that put hostility to death while continually resurrecting hostility among ourselves.

Christ made peace. Our calling is to live that peace forward.