2:14
Christ is our peace. Why does Paul go on about this? It is because given half a chance we will look for some other means of resolving an issue. We will focus on racial hatred as the cause, or something else. We will try and paint one group as the victim, and the other as the oppressors. Now there is racial hatred, people do oppress others, but the root cause is our sin against God, and unless that is resolved there will be no progress, no peace. Christ has resolved the Jew-Gentile divide by making one people. We are united in Christ. Christ destroyed the wall of hostility. Note that there is no attempt to diminish the seriousness of the division, but in Christ it is destroyed.
2:15
When we read comments about the Law in the New Testament we need to be very careful to read them in context. For instance, Jesus said in Matt 5:18 that not one jot or tittle would pass away from the Law. So on that basis alone you might think we had to follow all the rules and regulations. Then you have verses such as this which say “by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands ...”, and if that was the only statement we were going to take into consideration we would say that the Law no longer has any relevance whatsoever. Here Paul is looking purely at the way in which the Law separated out the Israelites from all other nations (which was one of the prime purposes of the food and similar laws). The Law was fulfilled in Christ, and the purpose was to create a new humanity encompassing both Jews and Gentiles. This principle of unity is vital. It was important then, it is important now with the concept of victimhood and identity politics seeming to be the most prominent in society today.
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