EPHESIANS 2:15

“by abolishing in His flesh the hostility, which is the Law composed of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two one new person, in this way establishing peace;”

Have you ever driven a manual transmission vehicle? You know, a stick shift. I grew up driving my dad’s three-on-the-column manual transmission pickup. I loved that truck and wanted to buy it from him, but he sold it to someone else. Occasionally that truck would get stuck in neutral. You’d be driving down the road and shift from first to second or from third to second and the mechanism that control the shift would get stuck in neutral. All you could do is coast to the side of the road, get out, raise the hood, yank on the mechanism to loosen it and then start off again. Vehicles in neutral won’t go anywhere. They have been made idle.

The Greek word translated as “abolished” is katargeó, which means to “idle down, rendering something inert (‘completely inoperative’); i.e. being of no effect (totally without force, completely brought down)” (HELPS Word Studies). When Christ came, He rendered the law as powerless. The source of all the hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles now had no power to cause that enmity. They were now one in Christ.

APPLICATION

Over in Romans 6:6, Paul tells us the same thing happens to our sin nature. “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;” When will we realize that sin has no power over us any longer? We can’t use the excuse that we just couldn’t help ourselves. Yes, we can.

1 Corinthians 15:26 says that death will be neutralized one day. “The last enemy that will be abolished is death.” One day there will be no more death. Christ will rule and reign in a New Kingdom here on earth. As believers in Christ, we will be right there with Him. There is no fear in physical death for a believer because we know that our life is really in the hands of the Master.

I am not saying we should sit around in neutral. No! We have work to do until He comes. There are souls to save. There is kingdom work to do. But don’t let the law, don’t let sin rule and reign over you. They are powerless. Christ has rendered both neutral. Now just shift gears with Jesus.

I am thankful that my power does not come from anywhere but You, Lord.