Enmity Abolished Through Christ

April 15, 2021

having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace

and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

~Ephesians 2:15-16~

In the beginning when Adam and Eve walked the earth God put them to the test and they decided to disobey and listen to the cunning serpent. After their great fall, God began to speak his curse out to satan and His children. He sent them out of the garden into the sin filled world they brought to themselves by listening to the lies of the enemy.

Enmity (hate) occurs as the translation of ebhah in Genesis 3:15; "And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

God was speaking to satan of course but also to the serpent itself. Kind of interesting as most women tend to squeel at the very thought of snakes. Anywho, the snake itself has dark symbolism behind it throughout the bible from here on. In Job the serpent is mentioned under God's sovereignty and defeat above evil; "By His Spirit He adorned the heavens; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent." (Job 26:13)

In Isaiah, the fleeing serpent was known as Leviathan, a wicked reptile in the sea; "In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong, Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea."

(Isaiah 27:1)

In Jeremiah, the Lord warns of His great punishment by sending serpents to bite;

“For behold, I will send serpents among you, Vipers which cannot be charmed, And they shall bite you,” says the Lord ."

(Jeremiah 8:17)

We also see a familiar story when the Lord sends serpents to bite the israelites as a result of their own sin; "Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people." (Numbers 21:7)

Fast forward to Jesus' words which deals directly with this same enmity between us and the serpents yet the victory He is giving us over them if we choose to follow Him;

"Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19)

This enmity can be between us and God if we choose this as well; "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

(James 4:4)

A lot of the times we can take our walk with God a little too losely and begin to let the world creep in little by little thinking that it is "harmless" to do so, but here you have James' warning claiming very plain as day that when we choose to make friends with the world we choose to be an enemy with God. It is very simple. We must hate evil and have enmity with only the things not of God.

"You who love the Lord , hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked."

(Psalms 97:10)

In this verse of today we see how Paul explains the complete demolition of enmity through Christ's own flesh on the cross. Jesus took His own Body and put to death sin, the law in which contained ordinances, the enmity between us and God and the enmity between gentile and Jew. "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified." (Galatians 2:16)

All can now come together only through Christ and be saved. There is no longer a "us not them" attitude, Jesus became peace for all men and women to accept. The enmity was abolished and we can choose His peace!

There no longer has to be discord amongst people, there can be unity through Christ. The serpent of old wants us to believe one is right and the other is wrong but truely if we are having faith in the One who died on that cross none of us have any right to harbor hate towards another. Christ reconciled us to God through One Body and the only enmity we may still feel is towards that very serpent of old who deceives many today into thinking there is any other enmity aside from that towards him. The distraction method of people vs people the devil plays with make us forget who we are really at war with. Jesus brought peace and victory to those who choose to follow Him and stand for Him. Jesus put to death the enmity, it is up to us whether we decide to listen to the cunning serpent twist up God's word to us as he did to Eve in the garden or to receive the peace God has given us and unite together to crush the only one who we should truely hate.

"And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen."

(Romans 16:20)

Prayer:

Father God Almighty, thank you for the amazing gift of abolishing the enmity between You and me and between me and others. I welcome in Your true peace that can only come from Your Son. It is because of Him that I am a new creation and that I have the authority to trample on the very serpent who caused sin to enter to begin with. Lord, please show me any area in my life where I may choose to be friends of the world and teach me how to get rid of it. I do not wish to be an enemy of You, rather a piece of You in this spiritual war. I praise You for putting to death the enmity and being made a curse for me. I am free through Your Blood and I wash myself in it daily as I strive to do Your work only. May all glory and honor be given to You, our Prince of Peace, the One who destroyed the works of the serpent, Jesus Christ. Amen.