The United Community Created by Grace
TRUE UNITY IS IMPOSSIBLE APART FROM CHRIST
In Eph 2:11-22, Paul reminds the Ephesian church that when they were saved by grace and raised up with Christ, they entered into a new life with a new people. When they became united to Christ by faith, they became united with everyone else who's become united to Christ by faith - regardless of how different, divided from, or at odds with they might have been before. God saves us as individuals into a community - a people, a body, a family of God made up of all those who have been brought near to God through the cross of Christ in the power of the Spirit. There's no way to be a Christian apart from belonging to this family. There's no way to have peace with God apart from walking in peace with each other. In the Church, God holds out to the world a true end to the hostility we have toward one another, because in his cross, Jesus Christ took our hostility upon himself in order to kill the hostility between us.