Bite 43: Abolished in Ephesians 2:11-22

Utilizing Translations

Do you have a favorite pair of jeans? They are the jeans that you know and love. They are comfortable, predictable, known. Bible translations are like that too. Except that if we only use the one translation, we are potentially missing out on the scholarship of some of the others.

Today we will read in the Lexham English Bible. Since we have read the ESV so often to keep ourselves in the context, we practically have it memorized. Remembering that the art of translation is not a word-for-word code, when we see a variant between scholarly texts it can alert us that there may be something difficult to translate succinctly.

¹¹ Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, the so-called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, ¹² that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you, the ones who once were far away, have become near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of the partition, the enmity, in his flesh, ¹⁵ invalidating the law of commandments in ordinances, in order that he might create the two in himself into one new man, thus* making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, killing the enmity in himself.^{d 17} And coming, he proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to the ones who were near, ¹⁸ because through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ Consequently, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,^{e 21} in whom the whole building, joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, ²² in whom you also are built up together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.^f 

Harris, W. H., III, Ritzema, E., Brannan, R., Mangum, D., Dunham, J., Reimer, J. A., & Wierenga, M. (Eds.). (2012). The Lexham English Bible (Eph 2:11–22). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Choosing the Direction of Study

As I was thinking about our last Bite, it doesn’t seem like I was very helpful with how much I shared nuts and bolts. Not a lot of how-to’s. Much more content about what I did than how I did. I apologize for that. Especially sorrowful if you felt left hanging.

In the past, we’ve discussed that there is little chance we will be able to study everything that there is in a particular passage of scripture. Since that is our reality, having a means of deciding where to focus can be helpful.

In the case of Bite 41 (if you missed it, it’s here), partly I chose the verses dealing with Jesus’ blood because it was first on my list. Partly I chose it because blood is an important component starting all the way back in the beginning. There is a theme of blood flowing through the OT and it culminates at Jesus. Therefore learning more about it seemed like a good idea.

Today, as I look at this list, questions arise in my mind about abolishing the law of commandments. Do you have questions as you stop and think about that for a minute? Not only do we potentially have questions about this, so does the universal Church. Congregations are fractured and denominations formed over misunderstandings swirling around this topic.

If we have questions, we don’t need to be skittish about it. Scripture is sturdy and tolerates, even embraces, scrutiny. Let’s study it. I bet there are answers that we can find.

A Word of Caution

My Bible Study Notes

When I study, I write notes all over the place. Stickies are my favorite. Before I’m done with a passage, I have them lined up all over my desk to help me remember where I’ve been, what I’ve learned, and where I’d like to go. Additionally, they are where I organize thoughts into coherent questions. Questions that end up with a direction rather than a bewildered expression on my face.

More Questions

As I start to move forward on this question, more questions arise in my head in rapid succession and no particular order.

1. What is the Greek word behind the English word abolished?
2. Where else is this word used in scripture?
3. How do other translators translate this word?
4. Why does it seem like there is a pile up of legal terms as Paul tries to express himself in Ephesians 2:14? (law, commandments, ordinances)
5. What exactly is it that Jesus did with regard to the law?

Just to put words to a few of my questions. We may not get to all of these, but direction is good.

My Process

Like I mentioned earlier, using multiple scholarly translations help to define a word I have questions about without even opening a lexicon. Let’s compare a few together from this screenshot of my Logos Bible Software.

Now we have three words the translators have used to try and convey meaning to us English speakers. Do you see on my blue sticky note that in the NET there was a note that I wanted to go back and read more carefully? You may go look at it in its natural habitat here, and I brought a screenshot from the NET on the ‘net over as well. (Aren’t words fun?)

Well, what do you know? The translators have a hard time defining this word. What I gather from this translator note is that I want to go read in my BDAG for more information (and the other dictionaries I use). Plus, as always, I want to try to understand the authorial intent. This note indicates that there is an “author’s legal mindset.” If Paul is in a legal mindset, I want to hear his words with that filter.

To Do List

Translation

Cross Reference: 2 Timothy 1:10

In 2 Timothy, Paul is writing to his close friend Timothy about how he himself is doing. Paul is suffering for the sake of the gospel and wanted to convey to Tim that he doesn’t need to shrink from that possibility. As Paul faces death in prison, he reminds Timothy that God saved and called them because of who God is and for his own purpose, “which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”¹

Important to interpreting scripture is remembering authorial intent. Paul states that death is abolished here. Is this letter to his beloved friend a science document intended to convey how life and death works in the human body or is this potentially the last time Paul will share his heart, his worship, his very soul with this young pastor? If we can put ourselves in Paul’s place, he is facing a real death and is admirably consumed with worship for the Savior who saved him. And who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

In his letter to Tim, in one sense death is abolished. In another sense, it is quite obviously not. What does this Greek word behind abolished mean?

Seeming Contradictions

Before we go to the dictionaries, I would like to look at this verse that in the words themselves look like they say the law is still in effect.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

By no means!

On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Romans 3:31 (ESV)

How can the law both be abolished and upheld?

Romans is a hefty tome to skim for context. But I did just that for the first 5 or so chapters. Considering our concentric circles (which you can read about here), Paul wrote both Ephesians and Romans. He didn’t write them for the same mail carrier like Ephesians and Colossians, but scholars do think he wrote them within 3 years of each other.

Noticing some repeated words and concepts in both epistles, I took some notes while I skimmed:

I share those because they are literally my line of thinking. Thinking with a pencil, a pad of stickies, and the text, I am trying to reconcile the abolished and the upheld. They are not only in the same book (the Bible), they are written by the same human author (Paul). My epistemology (world view) is that Paul’s not nuts and that the Bible is one cohesive unit, so how do they go together?

Organizing those chicken scratches up there on the light green stickies, I pulled out words that I see in both Romans and our passage in Ephesians. I will show you my Bible study notes below on the blue stickies as well as type out the list.

What I see from this exercise is that it isn’t the law that is the issue when it comes to being justified. It’s faith. Faith in Christ (✝︎) is what God (△) uses as the deciding factor in salvation according to this section of scripture.

How can the law be both abolished and upheld? What does this Greek word behind abolished mean?

Dictionaries

As you’re studying alongside me, are you getting an idea about what the Greek word behind abolished means? Or more pertinent to our study is the question, what does it mean that Jesus abolished the law of commandments? Did he make the law no longer in effect? Are there still rules for how a Christian behaves? If there aren’t, how can there be no more rules? What is going on?

Great questions. Without losing heart and making sure our backpacks are left at the door, let’s keep investigating by looking the Greek word up in our dictionaries.

The Greek word is καταργέω; katargéō, transliterated, in case you are wondering. That way you’ll be able to recognize it when you look at the entries in your dictionaries.

Our first stop will be in BDAG, like NET Bible mentioned in its translator note.

BDAG

• ② to cause someth. to lose its power or effectiveness, invalidate, make powerless
• τὸν νόμον make the law invalid Eph 2:15; cp. Ro 3:31²

That dictionary confirms what we already had learned. Good. Next one.

TDNTA

• Religiously Paul uses it for “to make inoperative.”
  • a. When God or Christ is the subject, the effect is beneficial. In Eph. 2:15 he “destroys” the law of commandments; Christ’s work frees us from the legalistic requirements of the law (while not invalidating its ethical demands; cf. Rom. 3:31).³

In this one, that distinction between the legalistic aspect and the ethical is particularly useful.

Mounce

καταργέω katargeō 27× …to render null, to abrogate, cancel, Rom. 3:3, 31; Eph. 2:15;⁴

I didn’t know what abrogate meant so I looked it up. With this formal term’s meaning “to do away with a formal law or agreement,” that makes sense in the context of our passage. Especially in light of TDNTA’s distinction between legal and ethical. Formal law would have to do with the legal aspect.

Shall we assemble our data in a list?

Abolishing the Law

• Nullified the law (NET)
• To render the law inoperative (tn NET)
• Invalidating the law (LEB)
• To cause something to lose its power or effectiveness (BDAG)
• To make inoperative (TDNTA)
• To abrogate (Mounce)

All of that makes perfect sense until we throw Romans 3:31 back into the mix, doesn’t it? How is the law both rendered inoperative AND upheld? Let’s discuss it.

Reflection

Did you skim Romans too? If you did, you may have seen a 25¢ word in Romans 3:25: propitiation. It means “atoning sacrifice”). Let’s include a couple of verses before it. If you’ve been in church even for a little while, you may recognize one of these verses.

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 3:23–25 (ESV)

How is the law both abolished and upheld? The law is upheld no matter what position you are in with regard to salvation, redemption, justification. The law is still in effect. The huge however is that if you have received the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice (Jesus’ death on the cross) by faith, you have been justified. Apart from the law.

Law abolished.

Law nullified.

Law rendered inoperative.

Law invalidated.

When we see how the law is abolished does it make Paul’s statement “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”⁵ make more sense? What about these verses from our passage?

¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Ephesians 2:15–16 (ESV)

Remember

There was hostility between the circumcision and the uncircumcision previously, remember? The circumcision thought they had all the cool stuff: they had God, they had the law from Moses, they had promises. The uncircumcision were dogs. And not the fur-baby kind of dogs. Do you recall from this article here, when we learned about remembering, how the Jews viewed the Gentiles? They were not worth anything in their eyes.

But now in Christ Jesus.

Jesus changed everything. One of the things he changed was that the formal law, which the Jews thought was their particular access to God, became inoperative. Through faith in Jesus and his death on the cross, everyone has access to God apart from the law. If both those near and far have access, are in one body (the body of Christ, the Church, the one new man in place of the two) then the hostility is killed.

Everyone approaches God the same way: through faith in Jesus. Which means there is no opportunity for swagger when someone approaches God, washed by the blood of Jesus.

But How?

How is the law both abolished and upheld? If we look in the OT, we can see that before Jesus, the Jews had to get clean in order to have any type of access to God. Even if that access was through a priest entering the Holy of Holies once a year. He had to ceremonially wash in order to enter in.

But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. This is a salvation experience. As pre-believers, they didn’t have access. They didn’t belong because they were separated from Christ. But now in Christ Jesus they are near, they are at peace, they are reconciled to God, they have access, they are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Since we practice good study habits, we have been reading through the book in its entirety with regularity. Beginning in Ephesians 4, Paul transitions from teaching how God relates to man to teaching how man should respond to God in light of what God has done. After singing praises of our God in a doxology at the end of chapter 3, Paul says “therefore walk in a manner worthy of the calling” (Eph 4:1).

Because you have been saved apart from the law by grace as a gift through the blood of Jesus, behave this way. We are not going to explore that right now, but we will when we get to chapter 4.

It is in this way that the law is abolished (the legal requirements for salvation) and the law is upheld (ethics are the correct response to salvation).

Wrap Up

Recognizing this was a pretty big Bite, I will keep our Bible Study Bite small. Review, in fact.

One of the handy-dandy tools in our study toolbox is the ability to look at multiple translations. Scholarly ones will help us get a better understanding of the text. Keep in mind that looking at multiple translations isn’t for the purpose of deciding which one we “like best.” But instead, deciphering better what the author’s meaning was in using the Greek word he used.

Since the text isn’t about us and how we feel about it, we actually don’t care what we “like best,” we care what the author said. And what he meant when he said it. Comparing various translations is a helpful tool in our effort to discern the authorial intent.

1. 2 Timothy 1:10 (ESV)
2. Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 525). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3. Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 76). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
4. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1184). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
5. Romans 5:1 (ESV)