Why does Paul mention ordinances in Ephesians 2:15? The Holy Spirit must have impressed him that the biggest thing that would divide the New Testament believers from one another would be ordinances. In chapter 85 of the Life-study of Ephesians Witness Lee shares that ever since the time of Babel fallen man has been divided by ordinances. This damage was so bad, that God had to start over with the called race from Abraham's descendants, and from him eventually came the children of Israel.
It's quite evident when you read through the Old Testament that the Jews and the Gentiles were constantly at enmity with each other. God didn’t intend that mankind would always be separated from one another, and the only cure was for Christ to come like Ephesians 2:15 says and take all the separating ordinances and nail them to the cross through His death.
It's quite evident when you read through the Old Testament that the Jews and the Gentiles were constantly at enmity with each other. God didn’t intend that mankind would always be separated from one another, and the only cure was for Christ to come like Ephesians 2:15 says and take all the separating ordinances and nail them to the cross through His death.
What do these ordinances look like? In chapters 85-88 brother Lee points out they’re things like loud versus quiet worship, piano versus tambourines, baptism by immersion versus sprinkling, etc. Using the scriptures he states that unless something is divisive, sinful, or heretical, the believers should all receive one another (see Romans 14). In order to get this reality on the earth, the Lord has been recovering the truths in the word. I liked the way he shared about what the Lord is recovering today in the Life Study of Ephesians Chapter 89 on pages 743-744:
Today the Lord is seeking to recover His church by bringing His people out of divisions. To be brought out of divisions is to be brought out of ordinances as the source of division. Therefore, in order to recover the church, the Lord must cause His people to set aside the ordinances that have been the cause of division...No ground whatever can be given to the insistence on any practice. For the building up of the church we must be willing to drop all ordinances (Lee, Witness. Life Study of Ephesians. Anaheim; Living stream Ministry, 1973, Print).
The word recover mentioned in the above excerpt may leave you a bit puzzled. I've heard brother Lee share many times that the Lord began His recovery of neglected and lost truths Bible beginning with Martin Luther who from his reading of the book of Romans in the monastery saw that justification is by faith not by works. I read his biography many years ago, and it touched me how he took a stand for the word of God, and he suffered a lot of persecution from the Catholic church. God filled him with the deep burden to translate the Bible out of Latin and into the German language so his countrymen could read it. Later Johann Guttenberg's printing press (completed in 1450s) made the mass production of the German Bible easy. William Tyndale followed by translating the Bible into English (finished in 1531), and the translation of the Bible into other languages is still going on! My husband and I have really appreciated and enjoyed reading the Recovery Version of the Bible because it brings out in the footnotes all the light passed down from Martin Luther to the present. Rhema Book Distributors makes available for free the translation of the New Testament Recovery Version in 25 languages! If you have friends from other countries, they're a perfect resource.
Once the Bible was put into the hands of the people, God could continue to recover more and more truths. The Lord used the Moravian Brethren to recover many truths concerning the gathering of the believers. Then God gave Watchman Nee further revelation from the word concerning the ground of the church, which is one church in each city, and this is clearly seen throughout the New Testament. In Revelation 1:11 John wrote, "Saying, What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Symrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatria and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea." He doesn't list Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic. but seven cities! Through Watchman Nee's sharing this truth, churches sprang up all over China.Later when Witness Lee joined him, he saw and eventually carried this vision out of China when the Communist took over. When I read the book The Ground of the Church, I learned that this church is composed of believers who meet in oneness on the ground of the city they live in (See Acts 14:23). I truly appreciate Witness Lee's references to church history in all of his writings.
You can listen to excerpts of these Ephesians Life Study messages on Life Study of the Bible with Witness Lee.
Other blog posts on the Life Study of Ephesians:
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