Daily Manna · Day 67 · March 8
Made Near
“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
In the Jerusalem temple there was a low stone barrier around the inner courts with notices fixed to it in Greek and Latin. Two of those notices have been dug up. They warn that any foreigner passing beyond the barrier has himself to blame for the death that follows. Paul had been accused of taking a Gentile past it, which is why the riot happened that led to the custody he is writing from.
That is the wall in this passage, and it explains the sentence. Paul does not begin with reassurance; he begins with an audit of the distance, and it is brutal. Without Christ. Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Strangers from the covenants of promise. Having no hope. Without God in the world. Five clauses, no softening, no suggestion that the far-off were secretly nearer than they looked.
Against all of that, two words: but now. And a mechanism, named without decoration, by the blood of Christ. Not by improvement, not by effort, not by getting religious. Made nigh, passive, done to them.
Read one verse further and the geometry gets more interesting, because the nearness runs sideways as well as up. He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. The same blood that brought you near God took down a barrier between people who had every reason to want it standing. You cannot accept the vertical half and decline the horizontal one; Paul has them in a single sentence.
Somebody came to mind while you read that. Sit down with them this week, or at minimum say their name to God with no commentary attached. Then look around for whoever is standing where you used to stand, outside the barrier, unsure they are allowed in, and go over there.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 67 is The Rest That Did Not Come (Mark 6:31).