Broadly speaking, there were at that time but two classified divisions of men—­Jews and Gentiles.  Jesus predicted that his sheep from both sections should be brought together into one flock.  In the second chapter of Ephesians, Paul tells us how this was accomplished.  Although “in times past” the Gentiles were “strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world,” in Christ they were “made nigh by the blood.”  “For he is our peace, who hath made both [Jews and Gentiles] ONE, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us ... that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross” (verses 12-16).  Since this glorious reunion through Christ, the Gentiles “are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”  They also “are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ... in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (verses 19-22).

On account of the high standard of unity set forth in his epistles, Paul has been branded an idealist.  But what shall we say of Christ who prayed for such visible unity and died for it?  An idealist is one who forms picturesque fancies, one given to romantic expectations impossible of accomplishment.  The idealist usually has but few practical results.  But Paul accomplished things.  He broke away from his Jewish prejudices, which brought down upon his head the wrath of his fellows.  He went into the synagogs of the Jews and brought out those who were willing to become disciples of Jesus.  To build up the work of the Lord he labored night and day with tears; he laid broad and deep the very foundations of the Christian faith in heathen lands.  Within a very few years he established Christian churches in four provinces of the Roman Empire—­churches in which Jew and Gentile met together in common fellowship, in one body.  If this is idealism, Lord, give us many more such idealists.

[Sidenote:  The burden of Paul’s ministry]

But the unity described by Paul in the epistles which he wrote late in life is not given as a mere ideal standard for the future toward which men should strive.  It is given as the record of a historic fact, the accomplishment of which lay at the very foundation of Paul’s call to the ministry.

In the second chapter of Ephesians, already quoted, Paul declares that both Jews and Gentiles were reconciled to God in one body by the cross.  In the next chapter he shows his part in the accomplishment of that end.  First, he was called of God as the apostle of the Gentiles; then by revelation was made known unto him “the mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men ... that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and OF THE SAME BODY, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. 3:4-6).  The promise referred to was doubtless the “promise