Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace. (Eph 2:15)
Recently, a Reformed online critic of LDS theology has used this verse as evidence against Latter-day Saint soteriology. His “reasoning” is that, as Paul states that the Christ event resulted in the abolishment of “ordinances,” ipso facto, LDS theology is wrong for teaching the salvific efficacy of “ordinances.” There are many problems with such.
Firstly, the critic is guilty of a common logical fallacy—equivocation. The “ordinances” Paul speaks about refers to one of the three divisions of the Law of Moses. For a fuller discussion, see
As one Protestant commentator noted about Eph 2:15:
15. The phrase (v. 15a) about the rendering ineffective of the Law again evinces AE’s love of a succession of similar words (Percy, 189). ὁ νόμος is not law in general but, as the context indicates, the Jewish Torah; AE only uses the word here but since he shows indebtedness to Paul’s teaching on justification (2:8–10) we can assume that he rejects any idea of salvation through the Law. ἐντολή is used again in 6:2 of one of the ten commandments, implying that these continue to have value for AE. In contrast to ὁ νόμος the plural refers to the individual prescriptions of the Law (cf Sellin). ἐν δόγμασιν, though omitted by 𝔓46 vgms, fits AE’s style too well for it to be a gloss; it could easily have been dropped as apparently redundant.44. Col 2:14, a passage not unrelated to ours, also uses the noun, and both there and here it probably means ‘legal decrees or regulations’ (possibly a usage of the Pauline school for it is not used by Paul) and its meaning is then similar to ἐντολή. As often in Ephesians it is impossible to differentiate fully between almost synonymous words coming in sequence. There is no reason to see a reference either to a new law given by Christ or to Christian doctrine (cf Chrysostom; Harless has a long discussion of all the possibilities) as rendering the Jewish Law ineffective. Nothing AE writes suggests that he would differ from Paul in seeing the Law as abrogated by anything other than the cross; the whole context of 2:14–18 has that death in view. The two nouns AE has put in the plural suggest that he envisages here the actual regulations of the Law which showed up the differences between Jews and Gentiles and created hostility. There is nothing in the context to suggest AE is thinking only of circumcision and regulations about purity and food (so many commentators). It can be argued that Col 2:14–22 relates to ritual laws (cf Faust, 117) but if so that limitation arises out of the context of Colossians and cannot determine the meaning here. The distinction between moral and ritual laws is by no means hard and fast and is not one which the Law itself drew; the law of retaliation is not ritual yet it is abrogated (Matt 5:38–42). It is therefore better to regard the whole law as at issue here.
As for καταργήσας the verb appears only here in Ephesians but is found regularly in the genuine Paulines, sometimes in relation to law (Rom 3:31; 7:2, 6). Presumably AE and his readers were aware of this usage. If in 6:2 AE quotes approvingly from the Decalogue and if he himself sets down moral rules in 4:1ff, it is unlikely that he would regard law as such as abolished or destroyed; yet it can no longer be a means of salvation (see 2:8–10) and used to enforce the separation of Jew and Gentile. AE thus expresses in his own way what Paul says about the ending of the Law through Christ (Rom 7:4; 10:4; Gal 3:13), but unlike Paul he makes no attempt to defend the Law or claim that it is good (cf Rom 3:31; 7:12, 14; 13:8–10). Has the Law then no continuing function? The Law as the duty of love remains and binds both Jews and Gentiles. Lastly in view of the horizontal—vertical ambivalence of the passage it may be that AE thinks at this point of the Law as separating Jew from Gentile and also both from God.
The three participial clauses are now succeeded by two final clauses (vv. 15b, 16) giving the purpose for the removal of the wall and the making of Law of no effect. To what are they to be attached? For their basis they require something more important than v. 15a which is itself either subordinate to v. 14bc or in apposition to it (Mussner notes the absence of any introductory particle). They cannot depend directly on v. 14b since v. 15b expresses the same basic thought as v. 14b. The intervention of v. 15a makes direct dependence on v. 14c improbable and in any case v. 14b and v. 14c are tied together. Probably then vv. 15b, 16 relate to the whole of vv. 14–15a since the same concepts, peace, enmity, two, one, making (creating), he (in his flesh, in himself), run through both sets of clauses; vv. 15b, 16 give them a new context. In scripture creation is normally the prerogative of God (so in 2:10) but here Christ creates, as also in Col 1:16; Jn 1:3. (Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998], 259-61)
Such is not how Latter-day Saints use the term “ordinance.” "Ordinances" in Latter-day Saint terminology are not the Jewish ceremonial laws and other elements of the Torah that were abrogated with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Instead, they are rites or ceremonies essential to salvation and exaltation (e.g., baptism; the sacrament/Eucharist; temple endowment).
Secondly, if our Reformed critic were consistent, he would have to conclude that Paul, whom Protestants love to wrench out of context, was under his own condemnation, for in Rom 6, among other key soteriological texts, Paul explicitly taught baptismal regeneration:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. (Rom 6:1-5, NASB)
Even Jesus would not avoid such an eisegetical reading of Eph 2:15, for he taught baptismal regeneration in John 3:3-5. While such is contested by Reformed Protestants, for an exegetical defense of this reading of the pericope, see:
Lest our Reformed apologist is tempted to argue that Jesus’ words in John 19:30 (“It is finished” [τετελεσται]) supports his contention, one should read the following:
Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30
Indeed, even in Ephesians itself, Paul explicitly taught baptismal regeneration. Note the following from J.C. Kirby, Ephesians Baptism and Pentecost: An Inquiry into the Structure and Purpose of the Epistle to the Ephesians (London: SPCK, 1968):
Indeed, even in Ephesians itself, Paul explicitly taught baptismal regeneration. Note the following from J.C. Kirby, Ephesians Baptism and Pentecost: An Inquiry into the Structure and Purpose of the Epistle to the Ephesians (London: SPCK, 1968):
Eph 4:4-6
[T]he inclusion of baptism in this formula is an indication of its importance in the mind of our author, for in some ways it is the key word around which all the others are grouped. It is by one Spirit that we are baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12.13), it is at baptism that confession of faith in the Lord is made (Rom. 10.9), and it is the fact of our baptism which gives us the right to call God our Father. (Rom. 8.15: “we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” is probably a reference to liturgical prayer, which could not be shared by the unbaptized.) The connection between baptism and unity is found in Galatians 3.27-28 and 1 Corinthians 12.12-13. (p. 151)
Eph 5:25-27
It has been argued that the phrase “having cleansed her y the washing of water with the word”, refers to a ceremonial bath taken by a bride before her marriage, but the majority of commentators hold that it refers to baptism, and that “the word” is either a baptismal formula pronounced over the candidate or a confession of faith made by him. In all probability the latter is the right interpretation, for there is no evidence in any of the early liturgies of a sacred form said by the minister of the sacrament while the candidate is immersed in the water. In Hippolytus, for example, the candidate is given a threefold interrogation: “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty? And in Jesus Christ . . . ? And in the Holy Spirit in the Holy Church?” To each of the questions he answers, “I believe”, and he is immersed after each answer.
In attempting to bring out the full meaning of baptism the author is not consistent in his use of imagery. Christ as the bridegroom administers the sacramental washing of baptism to the Church and at the same time acts as the one who presents the bride to her husband. The analogy breaks down towards the end of the passage (v. 32), for here Christ and the Church together constitute the new Adam, the bride has become the body.
The experience of the individual candidate in baptism is, in this passage, transferred to the life of the Church as a whole. She passed through death with Christ when he died on the cross for her (cf. 2.16), and the individual member’s baptism is an acceptance of that fact. It is also an eschatological fact. (pp. 151-52)
The References to “the seal of the Spirit”
“In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (1.13-14). “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (4.30). Though the word “baptism” does not occur here, both these passages must refer to baptism. The combination of “hearing”, “believing”, and “baptism” is a frequent one in Acts (8.12; 16.14-15; 18.8); in Ephesians, “sealing” takes the place of “baptism”, but that it means the same thing can be shown from the total context of the first passage; presumably therefore the second reference would carry the same meaning. The metaphor of sealing must have been a well-known one or more explanation of it would have been given.
The whole sentence from which the first passage comes is an expansion of one of the phrases found at the beginning of it: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (I.3). These “spiritual blessings” are election (v. 4), sonship (v. 5), redemption (v. 7), knowledge (v. 9), the Spirit (v. 13), and the inheritance (v. 14). These blessings were all given to those addressed when they heard, believed, and were sealed Since the last three verbs are all aorists, they must refer to events at a definite point of time in the past. Now Paul uses the word “seal” of circumcision in Romans 4.11, where he says of Abraham that “he received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised”. Here he is using a Jewish metaphor, not coining one of his own. It is found in the berakah that was said at circumcision: “Blessed art though . . . who didst sanctify Isaac the well-beloved . . . and seal his offspring with the sign of the holy covenant.” From this Jewish usage the metaphor passed over into Christianity and was widely used as a synonym for baptism. Whether it was made to refer to the actual immersion itself or to an anointing which took place afterwards it is impossible to say, for the evidence can be read both ways. It could not have been a cross marked on the forehead with water, for the method of baptism would make this superfluous, but even if it were an anointing with oil, the metaphor is an inappropriate one, since no visible mark would be left. We do not know who was the first to use it, but it was probably Paul, for he refers to baptism as a kind of circumcision in Colossians 2.11; a simple extension of the metaphor would have led him to think of baptism as a sealing. The same metaphor is found in 2 Corinthians I.22, where it is used in an eschatological context and where the word “anointing” is also used. Since the word “anointing” is applied only to Christ in the rest of the New Testament, and in Acts 10.38 is definitely associated with his baptism, we may reasonably conclude that in the text of Corinthians Paul had baptism in mind. The association of the same ideas in Ephesians leads to the same conclusion. The second passage (4.30) is even more eschatological in tone. In the Spirit believers have been marked as God’s very own, so that they will be recognized as such on the day of the final deliverance. Again the aorist marks a definite point in the past, when the invisible presence of “the Holy Spirit of God”—we may note in passing the solemn liturgical phrasing—was given to the believer. (pp. 154-55)
Elsewhere in his letters, Paul commanded, based on oral tradition originating from Jesus himself(!), that believers are to partake of the Eucharist (“sacrament”) as often as they meet with one another:
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. (1 Cor 11:23-30, NASB)
Such is another instance of where, as if often the case, a Reformed apologist’s “arguments” against the LDS Church, when examined carefully, not only are blown out of the water with logic and exegesis, but would be, if taken logically, an attack on the explicit teachings of the biblical authors (here, among others, the apostle Paul and Jesus himself!)
Even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. What had been metaphorically understood by the word wall is now more plainly expressed. The ceremonies, by which the distinction was declared, have been abolished through Christ. What were circumcision, sacrifices, washings, and abstaining from certain kinds of food, but symbols of sanctification, reminding the Jews that their lot was different from that of other nations; just as the white and the red cross distinguish the French of the present day from the inhabitants of Burgundy. Paul declares not only that the Gentiles are equally with the Jews admitted to the fellowship of grace, so that they no longer differ from each other, but that the mark of difference has been taken away; for ceremonies have been abolished. If two contending nations were brought under the dominion of one prince, he would not only desire that they should live in harmony, but would remove the badges and marks of their former enmity. When an obligation is discharged, the handwriting is destroyed, —a metaphor which Paul employs on this very subject in another Epistle. (Col 2:14).