RSV renders these verses as follows: “For he is our peace who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”
This passage has been much discussed, especially the exact nature of the dividing wall of hostility. Here is how several Bible scholars have dealt with one or both of the two issues involved: the metaphoric allusion to the wall and its exact meaning. And the two are intertwined with one another, as you will see below.
The reference is to the wall within the temple
“Here the immediate allusion seems to be the barrier placed in the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple to prevent them from penetrating further within...Two copies of the actual inscription forbidding any foreigner.., on pain of death , to 'enter within the barricade which surrounds the temple and enclosure' have been found in the neighborhood – one in 1871 and the other in 1935.” (Simpson)
Comfort: “Commentators frequently identify the 'wall' with the barrier in the Temple dividing the Court of the Gentiles from the Court of the Women. This barrier, beyond which no Gentile was to venture on pain of death, has been figuratively torn down in Christ.”
A dissenting voice comes from Hoehner, who cites four reasons why this is an unlikely reference:
“1. There is no reference to the Jerusalem wall in this context;
the Jerusalem wall is never called by the designation in the present context...;
the wall in Jerusalem was still standing when Paul wrote this letter; and
it was probably unfamiliar to the average person in the churches around Ephesus.”
Some scholars take issue with this last reason since they feel that the problem Paul had when he was accused of sneaking Gentiles into the Temple would have been well known to the Ephesian church.
The wall inside the temple represents the Law
This is the theory favored by Hoehner, who explains: “Some rabbis thought of the wall as the 'fence' around the law. However, that spoke more about the protection around the law than the hostility mentioned in this context. Nevertheless, in later rabbinics, rather than the law itself which protected Israel from pagan practices...the law, which many have included many minute scribal additions, was to be strictly observed by the Jews, and was at the same time offensive to the Gentiles, thus causing hostility between Jews and Gentiles. Consequently, it makes good sense to consider that the 'wall of partition' was not a literal wall but a metaphorical wall that divided Jews and Gentiles.”
“Ephesians 2:14-15 is the one other place [besides Galatians] in the Pauline corpus where the Law is cast as an enemy, and it is the only place where Christ is said to have 'destroyed' (katargeo) the Law or rendered it powerless (cf. Rom 3:31). The Law is here likened to a 'barrier' or 'dividing wall of hostility,' a reference to the role of the Law in forming a barrier of racial and ethnic hostility (Eph 2:14,16) between Jews and Gentiles...Commentators frequently find an allusion here to the balustrade in the Jerusalem Temple, a wall that separated the court of the Gentiles from the inner courts of Israel. But this Temple wall, part of a microcosmic representation of Israel's view of the world...was a Torah-inspired spatial representation of the distinction between Israel and the nations...This dividing wall, the 'law of commandments and regulations,' Christ 'destroyed' (Eph 2:15)...” (Reid)
The wall is the Mosaic Law
The following commentators identify the law as what Paul is talking about, without connecting it to the barrier in the temple:
Beale and Gladd say, “Though many have debated the precise identification of Paul's metaphor, it is likely that he is referring to the Old Testament law. For in Ephesians 2:15 he expands on the previous verse by explaining how Christ made both groups into one body...”
Witherington says, “For Paul the removal of the Mosaic Law as a means of right-standing with God, as a way of being saved or working out one's salvation, had broken down the barrier between Jew and Gentile.”
J.B. Green concurs by saying that “the Law appears as a barrier separating Jew and Gentile; there the death of Christ abolished this 'dividing wall.”
The wall represents several kinds of barriers
“(kata)lyo means to break down. It also occurs several times in the New Testament of the destruction of the temple or the law. A dividing wall “is a wall that prevents certain persons from entering a house or a city (cf. 2:19).., a mark of hostility (2:14,16)...Each of these terms [wall, enmity, law] throws light on the others; the author wants them to be considered as synonyms.” (M. Barth)
“Paul's quarrel is with the imposition of old and temporary structures upon the new eschatological age of reconciliation – structures who purpose was to condemn sin and to sequester the Jews from the Gentiles (cf. Eph 2:14-18).” (Thielman)
“Paul employs a metaphor probably drawn from the wall in the Jerusalem Temple, or the Temple itself, which prevented Gentiles from proceeding into the inner courts. This was reinforced by the Law of commandments, condemning in its requirements.” (Porter)
The wall represents two kinds of separation
Hillyer explains, “The wording of Eph. 2:14 presupposes a conception of phragmos [barrier] which calls for the image of the cross as its counterpart. Paul's text in fact assumes a double phragmos, one that separates Jew from Gentile, and the other that separates the world below from the world above...Christ restores unity, therefore, in a double sense. He destroys both the vertical wall separating Jew from Gentile, and the horizontal wall separating man from God. He does this by the cross, representing the double work of Christ extending both vertically and horizontally.”
Metzger: “Christ has not only broken down the...hostility between Jew and Gentile (made us both one), but has reconciled both to God in one body, the church.”
Marcus Barth says, “Christ is praised here not primarily for the peace he brings to individual souls; rather the peace he brings is a social and political event...While the 'enmity' mentioned at the end of vs. 16 is the one-sided enmity of man against God, the 'enmity' of vs. 14 is mutual among men.”
“Christ's work of reconciliation also [i.e. in addition to bringing peace between man and God] included putting an end to the age-old hostility between Jew and Gentile (Eph 2:14-16). This was accomplished by nullifying the Mosaic Law, which historically, set Jews apart from their pagan neighbors ('the dividing wall of hostility [echthra].),' Eph 2:14], thus 'making peace' (Eph 2:15) between Jew and Gentile.” (Belleville)
The wall refers to the barrier between ascending souls and God
Yamauchi refutes this idea in saying, “Some scholars have interpreted the 'dividing wall' of Ephesians 2:14-16 as the opposition of the hostile powers to the ascent of the souls in the divine pleroma [i.e. fullness] of Gnosticism. But the simplest explanation would be a reference to the barrier keeping out Gentiles from the inner precincts of the Jerusalem Temple.”
Hoehner provides two specific reasons for rejecting this interpretation: “This is unlikely because the separation is not between the celestial and the terrestrial but between Jews and Gentiles. Furthermore, [the] sources for his [Schlier's] theory are too late and postdate Paul (second or third century A.D.)...”
The wall refers to the curtain in the Temple between the holy place and the holy of holies.
Hoehner rejects this proposal, saying that “this is untenable because it was a curtain and not a wall, and because the curtain separated all men, including the Jews, except the high priest who entered once a year into the holy of holies. The wall in the present context separated Jews and Gentiles.”
The probable reason for this suggestion in the first place is that upon Christ's death, that curtain was ripped in two. Thus, it serves as another powerful supporting argument for those who, rightly in my mind, state that Christ's death simultaneously broke down the barriers separating Jews from Gentiles and mankind from God.
Conclusion
One final piece of evidence has yet to be taken into account – the literary structure of the passage. Although these verses appear in a mainly prose composition, that may not apply to this particular passage, as several commentators have noted.
Arnold, for example, says that “a possible hymnic fragment appears in Ephesians 2:14-18...The formal characteristics of the passage – the unique words, the use of participles, the intensely christological content, the parallelism of the lines, the 'we' style that interrupts the 'you' style – lead most scholars to conclude that it is indeed hymnic.”
Wu seconds this proposal: “In the Pauline corpus, passages such as Philippians 2:6-11, Colossians 1:15-20; Ephesians 2:14-16, 5:14 and 1 Timothy 3:16 are generally acknowledged as hymnic materials.”
Concentrating on just one of these factors, parallelism of the lines, yields the following graphical representation:
Literary Structure of Ephesians 2:14-18
A. For he is our peace (14a)
B. who has made us both one (14b)
C. and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility (14c)
D. in his flesh (14d)
C'. the law of commandments and ordinances having abolished (15a)
D'. that he might in himself (15b)
B'. create one new man in place of two (15c)
A'. so making peace (15d)
B''. and might reconcile us both to God (16a)
D''. through the cross (16b)
C''. thereby bringing the hostility to an end (16c)
D''''. in himself (16d)
A''. and coming preached peace (17a)
B'''. to those far and near (17b)
D'''''. because through him (18a)
B''''. we both by one Spirit have access to the Father (18b)
From this poetic organization, one can see that verses 14-15c clearly refer to the law as the wall of hostility dividing Jew and Gentile while 16a-18 introduce the subject of mankind's reconciliation to God. Verse 15d thus serves two functions, as conclusion to 14-15 as well as beginning the verses ending with v. 18. And the means by which both of these were accomplished is emphasized in the five “D” sections as Christ's atoning death on the cross.
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