He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall. 
– Ephesians 2:14 

Before the book of Ephesians became a beloved portion of the New Testament, it was a piece of smudged parchment circulating through the wealthy, commercial city of Ephesus in ancient Greece. The believers there would read it or would hear it read, then they would pass it along to others, perhaps even to other churches in neighboring cities.

And at each reading, these first-century Christians realized they were being asked to do something, to believe something, to support something that everyone knew was impossible—utterly, totally impossible. The writer of this letter, Paul the apostle, said that Jews and Gentiles—age-old enemies in every conceivable aspect of the word—were no longer to consider themselves as existing on opposite cultural planets. By virtue of the gospel, the two of them had now become a “mystery” race (Eph 3:3-4) known as the body of Christ, a unity of believers designed to show the world that if God could do this, if He could bridge this cultural breach, He most certainly could do anything.

The idea of Jews and Gentiles getting along, respecting each other, cooperating together—no one had ever talked this way before. No one could see this happening. The fissures ran too deep. The haughtiness and hostility were too ingrained. They hated the ground the other walked on. Their aims and desires were mutually exclusive. By a country mile.

Yet as impossible as it sounded for this long-standing feud to finally end in a truce, Paul declared this their new reality. God had already done it. Beyond merely wishing these sworn rivals could sit down and figure out a way to play nice together, God just went ahead and “tore down the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14 CSB)—the one that had stood there for dozens and dozens of long, gray-haired generations. He wasn’t appealing for peace; He was proclaiming peace—”peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near” (Eph 2:17). Through the life and death of His Son Jesus, it was done.

Jesus changed everything. 

He still changes everything. 

Wherever people are estranged and distant, unity in Jesus can bring them back into fellowship. Wherever families are broken and splintered apart, humble surrender to Jesus can begin putting things back together. Wherever the rift seems too wide and too complicated to repair, Jesus has already done what needs to be done to fix it.

Now it’s time for us to believe it. And go live like it. 

The only thing left for the early church to do, once they’d heard this news, was to begin accepting by faith that what God had already accomplished, they could actually apply—not because of their power but because of His. And if God was able to do that—the ultimate impossibility in most of their minds—would anything else remain that He couldn’t do? For them? Or for you? 

No. Not then. Not now. Not ever.

Things that are impossible with people are possible with God. 
– Luke 18:27