You asked

how does this 'new humanity' concept challenge contemporary social divisions?

Adds the setting and its conversation across both testaments.

Ephesians 2:14-16

“For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in the flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.”

The Apostle Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus, a major Roman city, likely in the mid-1st century CE. He is reminding a diverse community, composed of both Jewish and Gentile converts, of their shared identity and access to God through Christ, emphasizing that their former divisions have been overcome.

What old 'dividing walls' in your own context might this passage encourage you to see as already broken down?

Then — the setting

Paul wrote Ephesians from prison, likely in Rome, around 60-62 CE. His audience in Ephesus was a mix of Jewish and Gentile believers who were navigating what it meant to form a single community. Historically, the 'dividing wall' refers metaphorically to the strict social and religious barriers between Jews and Gentiles, particularly regarding access to the Temple's inner courts, where Gentiles were forbidden to enter past a certain point under penalty of death, as well as the 'Law of commandments' that distinguished Jewish identity. This passage addressed the very real tension and alienation between these groups, who now found themselves united in a new religious movement.

Across the Testaments

This passage, from the New Testament, declares a radical fulfillment of Old Testament promises of blessing to all nations (e.g., Genesis 12:3). While the Old Testament established Israel as a distinct people with a unique covenant and laws that set them apart, the New Testament here proclaims that through Christ, the 'hostility' created by these distinctions has been 'killed.' This doesn't abolish the Old Testament's value but reinterprets its purpose, showing how its boundaries, once essential for identity, are now superseded by an inclusive 'new man' where all who believe are united, fulfilling rather than discarding God's universal redemptive plan.

Keep thinking

Read alongside it

Galatians 3:28
This verse states that in Christ 'there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female,' echoing the theme of unity beyond social distinctions.
Colossians 3:10-11
It speaks of being 'clothed with the new man' where 'there is no Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman,' reinforcing the radical inclusivity of this new identity.

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