That passage, like Paul’s present speech, goes on at once to indicate that since the One God has unveiled his ultimate covenant purpose in this Messiah—this unexpected, unwanted, and indeed scandalous crucified Jesus—then the nations are to be summoned into a new kind of community. His death has defeated the dark powers that kept the nations captive, so that the stigma of idolatry, uncleanness, and immorality, which formed the wall between Israel and the Gentiles, can be done away. They can now have “forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are made holy by their faith” in
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