Transformed In Christ - Once Separated Now Reconciled

We live in a world that is fractured, deeply fragmented, and defined by the walls we build between one another. If you look closely at the landscape of human history and our modern society, you will find that we are a people obsessed with drawing lines in the sand. We live in a world of intense and often bitter rivalries: Republican versus Democrat, the political North versus the South, PC versus Mac, and even Coke versus Pepsi. In the realm of collegiate sports, Auburn fans vehemently oppose Alabama, Michigan battles Ohio State, Duke clashes with North Carolina, and the University of Kentucky rivals Louisville.

While some of these rivalries seem trivial or purely recreational, they point to a much darker, underlying reality of the human condition. In a profound and deeply moving sermon delivered at Grace Gospel Church, Pastor Sam Merigala illustrated this deeply ingrained human tendency by sharing a personal story of his friend's childhood. He recounted how, as a nine-year-old boy in the 1960s, his father instilled in him a fervent love for the Detroit Tigers and a sickening disgust for the New York Yankees, who frequently defeated Detroit in those days. One day he returned home from a town fair with a Yankees helmet he had won at a fast-pitch game, his father met him at the door, yanked the helmet off his head, hurled it into the yard, and vehemently insisted he march back to town to trade it for anything else. The young boy obeyed, ultimately trading it for a Blue Jays helmet, because in his father's eyes, absolutely any team was acceptable as long as it was not the despised Yankees.

This lighthearted illustration from Pastor Merigala’s sermon brilliantly unmasks a tragic spiritual truth: humanity is fundamentally alienated, not just in sports, but in ways that result in violent cultural, national, and racial hostilities where people literally kill one another. It is this exact condition of profound alienation that the Apostle Paul addresses in Ephesians 2:11-22, a passage that Pastor Merigala rightly calls one of the most significant passages on the nature of the church in the entire New Testament. In his sermon series "Transformed in Christ," Pastor Merigala preached a message titled "Once Separated Now Reconciled," teaching us that the purpose of Christ’s work for human salvation is not limited merely to giving new life to individual men and women, but extends to bringing fiercely divided individuals into perfect unity within the people of God.

Let us journey together through this masterful sermon and unpack the deeply theological and pastoral implications of our past alienation and our present reconciliation. My goal is to share the foundational biblical principles of unity, atonement, and the new creation that Pastor Merigala preached to all, so that we might gaze upon the peacemaking Christ and be utterly transformed.

The Anatomy of Alienation: Remembering Who We Once Were

The Apostle Paul begins this incredible section of Scripture with a command: “Therefore remember…” (Ephesians 2:11). Paul urges the church to remember their past so that they might be stirred to a profound love and an overflowing gratitude toward God. If we continually remember the pit from which we were dug, we will live with constant gratitude toward God and an unyielding love toward His people.

To understand the magnitude of the grace of God, we must first confront the portrait of an alienated humanity. Pastor Merigala’s sermon takes us back to the history of the ancient world to show us that none of our modern social distinctions, racial barriers, narrow nationalisms, or iron curtains can even compare to the exclusive and unrelenting separation between Jews and Gentiles in biblical times.

The Greek word used for "Gentiles" in Ephesians 2:11 is ethna, referring to non-Jewish ethnicities. The hostility between the Jew and the Gentile was monumental. It was a deeply religious rivalry, as the Gentiles did not know the God of Israel. It was a cultural rivalry, as the Jews possessed divine rituals, feasts, and ceremonies that visibly distinguished them from the pagan nations. Furthermore, it was a fiercely racial rivalry, as the Jews boasted that the sacred blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob flowed in their veins.

This bred an environment of absolute toxicity and hatred. The Jews of that era genuinely believed that the Gentiles were created by God for the sole purpose of fueling the fires of Hell. In common Jewish parlance, the Gentiles were referred to as "dogs". Conversely, the Gentiles possessed their own parochial hatreds, viewing the Jews as homicidal enemies of the human race. This exclusivity was not limited to the Jewish perspective; Pastor Merigala reminds us that even the great philosopher Plato declared that "barbarians" (which simply meant anyone who was non-Greek) were his enemies by nature. The Greeks despised those living outside their city-states, disparagingly calling them pagans or ethnē.

Because of this superficial and unspiritual way of thinking - a mindset rooted "in the flesh"- the Jews failed to see the nations as people with whom they should share the glorious knowledge of God, as they were originally commanded in Genesis and Isaiah. Instead, they proudly judged the Gentiles, reducing them to a derogatory label: "the uncircumcision". They flaunted their own title as "the circumcision," viewing it as the ultimate mark of God's covenant, even though, from the perspective of one who is truly in Christ, this physical mark was merely something made in the flesh by human hands.

Pastor Merigala’s sermon brilliantly exposits how the Apostle Paul addresses this physical difference in verse 11. Paul highlights the reality of this physical distinction only to powerfully demonstrate that, through the finished work of Jesus Christ, external physical differences are of absolutely no ultimate significance. The kingdom of God is not about the outward state of our skin; it is entirely about the inward state of our heart. By emphasizing that this circumcision was "done in the flesh by human hands," Paul consigns this judgmental attitude to the old, obsolete order of Judaism. As Pastor Merigala teaches, the Apostle Paul did not disparage the historical institution of circumcision, as it was indeed a God-given covenantal sign. However, if that outward sign was not accompanied by an inward faith and a life of obedience, it became utterly worthless- a mere work of the flesh. What truly matters to God is a "spiritual circumcision," which is the putting off of sin and the surrender of the heart in obedience to Christ, resulting in a completely new creation (Galatians 6:15).

The Fivefold Tragedy of the Gentile Past

Why was this historical alienation so severe? Pastor Merigala’s sermon reveals that the root cause was not merely social or cultural, but deeply spiritual. We suffer from a double alienation: vertical alienation from God our Creator, and horizontal alienation from our fellow creatures. Nothing is more dehumanizing than the breakdown of these fundamental relationships, which turns us into strangers and aliens in a world where we were designed to feel at home. The Greek verb Paul uses is apallotrioō, meaning to estrange, exclude, or alienate, pointing to both our alienation from the life of God and our alienation from the commonwealth of Israel.

In Ephesians 2:12, Paul paints a terrifyingly dark picture of what life apart from Christ truly involves, detailing a fivefold tragedy of the pre-Christian Gentile condition. Let us examine these five bleak realities as outlined in Pastor Merigala's sermon.

1. Christless (Without the Messiah) First and foremost, the Gentiles were separated from Christ. This is perhaps the foundational deficit upon which all the others depend. They were entirely completely cut off from the Messianic hope of Israel. While many Jews were also personally separated from Christ in a salvific sense, they at least possessed the Scriptures that prophesied the coming Messiah. The Jewish people were entrusted with the adoption, the glory, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, and the patriarchs, from whose lineage the Christ would come according to the flesh (Romans 9:4-5). The Gentiles were absolute foreigners to these glorious realities. To be personally separated from the salvation of Christ is to be completely excluded from the life of God, darkened in understanding due to a hard heart (Ephesians 4:18). As Pastor Merigala poignantly asks, "Is there anything more terrible than this?".

2. Foreigners (Stateless) Secondly, the Gentiles were excluded from the citizenship of Israel. Israel was a theocracy, a divine commonwealth and a nation directly under the rulership of God. The Gentiles were on the outside looking in, entirely cut off from the spiritual fellowship and privileges enjoyed by those who genuinely called themselves the people of God. They were stateless outcasts in the grand spiritual economy of the Creator.

3. Strangers to the Covenants of Promise Thirdly, they were not part of God’s covenant people. The term "covenants" refers to the magnificent series of divine promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the nation of Israel through Moses, and King David. These sacred covenants brought Israel into a unique relationship of grace with the Almighty, providing them with the hope of divine deliverance and future glory. Because the Gentiles were outside these covenants, they missed out on the specific promises concerning the coming Messiah. Up until the intervention of Christ, the Gentiles had simply not been included.

4. Hopeless Fourthly, because they were ignorant of the promises, they were entirely destitute of hope. This was an undeniably evident characteristic of the pagan Gentile world during the time of Jesus' incarnation. Pastor Merigala’s sermon offers a profound historical insight here: the people of that era had absolutely no prospect for the future and no assurance of eternal life beyond the grave. The Greeks, in their philosophy, either looked backward to a mythical "golden age" in the past, or they adopted a depressing, cyclical view of history. There was no glorious goal to which the universe was moving, and this tragic lack of hope was most acutely and painfully visible in how they viewed death.

5. Without God (Godless) Finally, Paul declares that they were "without God in the world". The Greek word used here is atheoi. Pastor Merigala clarifies that this does not mean the Gentiles were atheists in the modern sense of refusing to believe in deities; in fact, they possessed a vast pantheon of false idols and worshiped many "gods" and "lords". However, these gods existed in name only. To be atheoi meant they lacked any real, saving knowledge of the One True God. By suppressing the truth revealed in creation, they traded the glory of God for worthless idols. Consequently, they had to navigate the profound trials, sorrows, and perplexities of this broken world completely confined to the limitations of worldly things, devoid of the knowledge of God that is required to interpret the meaning of human existence.

Before we placed our faith in Jesus Christ, every single one of us was in this exact same tragic, hopeless position. We were alienated from God and completely separated from gospel community. We must continually remember this reality!

The Peacemaking Christ and the Power of the Blood

The trajectory of human history, and the eternal destiny of our souls, pivots on a single, glorious transition found in Ephesians 2:13. Pastor Merigala calls this another of the Apostle Paul's great "but" statements: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.".

A dramatic, cosmos-altering change has occurred. For those who were once hopelessly separated from Christ, everything is now completely different because they have come to find their very life "in Christ Jesus". The unbridgeable gulf that divided us from God and from His covenant people has been permanently crossed, not by our own religious efforts, but solely by the blood of the Messiah.

In his sermon, Pastor Merigala beautifully distinguishes between the historical, theological, and experiential realities of the cross. Historically, the death of Jesus Christ was a brutally public and visible event. It did not happen in a hidden corner or on a mystical hill far removed from the sight of humanity; as the sermon notes, crucifying Jesus in the ancient world was as public as executing someone in the middle of a modern shopping mall. Theologically, Christ died as a substitute on behalf of vile sinners. He bore the crushing weight of divine punishment, taking our rightful place on that wretched tree so that we, the guilty, might be declared entirely righteous before a holy God. Experientially, we encounter the life-giving effects of this cross through our spiritual union with Christ in the present. The historic, past event of the cross guarantees our present peace with God and with our fellow man today.

The basic, underlying disease that causes all human estrangement is sin. Jesus Christ willingly gave Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Because of His substitutionary death, the sins of both the Jew and the Gentile can be completely forgiven, bringing both parties intimately near to God, and consequently, intimately near to one another. Human divisions are never truly overcome by one side approaching or tolerating the other; true reconciliation only happens when Christ Himself comes down and makes peace for both sides through His blood.

Therefore, the cross of Jesus Christ must remain absolutely central to our theology and our teaching. Pastor Merigala addresses a critical issue in the modern church: there are many today who are deeply uncomfortable with the "blood language" found throughout the Scriptures. They mistakenly believe that evangelicals are far too "atonement-centered" or that the cross is excessively violent. Pastor Merigala quotes a modern writer who tragically claims that the theory of penal substitution is a "great distortion of God" that relies on a belief in the "redemptive power of violence," suggesting that the church should be embarrassed by the claim of substitutionary atonement.

What a dangerous and unbiblical heresy! According to the Apostle Paul, the cross of the crucified Christ is the absolute main thing we have to offer a dying world (1 Corinthians 2:2). Pastor Merigala points to the wisdom of C.J. Mahaney in his profound book Living the Cross-Centered Life, where Mahaney writes that his ultimate hope for his young son is the truth that Jesus, the perfect and righteous Son of God, died in his place for his sins. Jesus willingly absorbed all the punishment and received all the holy wrath of God as He hung on that cross, so that wretched sinners could be completely and totally forgiven.

The blood of Jesus is not something to be embarrassed about; it is our only lifeline. The blood reminds us of the incomprehensible gravity of our sin, and simultaneously, the unfathomable depth of God's great love for us. As the old hymn beautifully declares, "It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished". We must stand in awe of the wretchedness of our rebellion and the amazing, matchless grace of our blood-soaked, yet now miraculously risen and reigning, Savior!

Tearing Down the Dividing Wall of Hostility

Having established the absolute necessity of the blood of Christ, the Apostle Paul shifts his language from "you" to "we" and "our," demonstrating that both Jew and Gentile now share the exact same hope: the atoning death of Jesus. In Ephesians 2:14-16, Paul outlines exactly what the Savior achieved through His reconciling work.

First, Christ has brought us peace. Jesus is not merely a teacher of peace; He Himself is our peace. True peace is found exclusively in the person of Jesus. When deeply divided men and women - regardless of their race, color, class, or creed - are brought to live in Him, they find perfect peace with God and an authentic meeting place of concord with one another. This magnificent peace was prophesied in the Old Testament, affirmed throughout the Gospels, and beautifully explained in the Epistles.

Second, Christ has made us one by tearing down the dividing wall of hostility. Pastor Merigala’s sermon provides vital historical context here. When Paul penned this letter, there was a literal, physical wall standing in the Jewish temple that strictly excluded the Gentiles from entering the inner courts. The historian Josephus records that attached to this barrier were warning signs written in Greek and Latin, explicitly threatening any Gentile who dared to proceed further with death. While the Roman army physically destroyed that temple in AD 70, Jesus Christ spiritually obliterated that wall of hostility around AD 33 when He yielded up His spirit on the cross.

While Paul certainly had that physical temple wall in mind, Pastor Merigala teaches that Paul is pointing to a much more profound spiritual barrier: the ceremonial law, described as "the law of commandments expressed in ordinances" (Ephesians 2:15). These were the strict regulations concerning physical circumcision, dietary restrictions about food and drink, and rigorous rules regarding festivals, new moons, and the Sabbath (Colossians 2:11, 16-21). These ceremonial commandments erected a colossal, insurmountable wall of pride and division between the Jew and the Gentile.

Jesus Christ completely set all of this aside by dying on the cross. At Calvary, Jesus perfectly fulfilled every shadow, type, and symbol of the Old Testament ceremonial system. Furthermore, by His death, Jesus abolished the law as a means of achieving salvation. He erased the certificate of debt and its impossible obligations that stood violently opposed to us, triumphantly nailing it to His cross (Colossians 2:14). Because Jesus completely abolished both the divisive regulations of the ceremonial law and the crushing condemnation of the moral law, a person is now accepted by God solely through the finished work of Christ, and never through their own pathetic attempts at righteous works.

The Creation of One New Humanity

The destruction of the old order made way for something spectacularly unprecedented. Jesus did not just abolish something old; He created something entirely new. Ephesians 2:15 declares that Christ acted "that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace".

Pastor Merigala’s sermon provides a breathtaking illustration of this theological concept. In Christ, a brand new corporate entity exists: the global Church. God did not simply take the Gentiles and transform them into Jews, nor did He take the Jews and transform them into Gentiles. They did not merely become one identical blob; they became something vastly superior. Pastor Merigala likens this to taking a statue made of silver and a statue made of lead, throwing them both into a blazing forge, and pulling out a magnificent statue of pure gold. This is the mystery of the universe and a vital part of God’s ultimate plan to sum up all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10; 3:10).

Because of this glorious reality, the implications for the modern church are staggering. We live in a society that loves to build fences and categorize people by their earthly identities. But the cross of Jesus Christ demands total unity. As Pastor Merigala forcefully asserts in his sermon, racism among believers cannot be justified under any circumstances; it must be vehemently and actively resisted. The Scriptures are abundantly clear: "There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). In the kingdom of God, "Christ is all and in all" (Colossians 3:11).

The beautiful, multifaceted diversity we see in the true Church today is not a social experiment; it is a glorious, living demonstration of the supernatural work of Christ. It ought to be joyously celebrated, for it paints a vivid picture of the eternal realities of heaven. It is the ultimate manifestation of the "one new man".

A Pastoral Call to Live in the Reality of the Cross

In closing, we must recognize that the Apostle Paul speaks of a double reconciliation that has taken place. By reconciling both groups to God in one body through the cross, Jesus has permanently put the hostility to death. At the cross, God poured out His righteous wrath upon His own Son, turning away that wrath from us. When we truly open our eyes to see the sheer magnitude of His great love displayed in this bloody sacrifice, it melts our hard hearts, causing us to turn away our own petty wrath and hostilities toward one another. The death of Jesus has conclusively ended the hostility.

Therefore, my friends, because we have experienced such a profound reconciliation, we are commanded to be a people characterized by radical forgiveness. We are to forgive one another solely because of the immense forgiveness we have received from Christ (Ephesians 4:32). This is exactly why Jesus instructed us to pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12).

Are you harboring bitterness toward a brother or sister? Are you allowing the political, racial, or cultural rivalries of this fallen world to dictate how you view fellow image-bearers of God? Hear the pastoral wisdom of Pastor Sam Merigala's sermon: The absolute best antidote to disunity and hostility among believers is a fresh, overwhelming comprehension of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Let us constantly remember the desperate, hopeless alienation of our past. Let us never lose our sense of absolute wonder at the bloody, substitutionary sacrifice of the Savior who tore down the walls that divided us. And let us walk boldly in the magnificent unity of the one new man, proving to a fractured, warring world that Jesus Christ alone is our peace. Amen.