Exclusive Inclusion
Notes
Transcript
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders:
If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man, by what means he was healed,
let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing here before you healthy.
This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone.
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—
not from works, so that no one can boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands.
At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh,
he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.
He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.
He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.
In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.