In the winter of 62 a.d., damp Roman air drains the heat from iron chains and human bone. Paul dictates a letter from his cell to the citizens of Ephesus. He focuses his mind on a specific location 2,000 miles away in Jerusalem. A stone partition divides the great temple mount. Temple guards patrol a four-foot limestone barrier separating Jewish worshipers from Gentile outsiders. Engraved warning blocks promise death to any trespasser.
Temple masons had laid foundation stones weighing 600 tons to support this massive complex. The heavy stonework enforced a rigid legal code and kept hostile tribes apart. Paul writes to record the spiritual demolition of this great dividing wall. Christ Jesus tore the barrier down through his own flesh on the cross. The Master Architect reconciled opposing camps into one household and abolished the decrees that separated them. The Maker bypassed mortar mixed by human hands. The Builder laid himself as a new chief cornerstone to hold a living structure square against the wind.
A chief cornerstone bears the dead weight of intersecting walls and dictates the true angle of the entire building. Without this primary block of hewn rock, masonry shifts in the mud and vertical lines fail. Men erect physical fences and strict legal codes to protect their territory. They trust stone barriers to generate security. Any structure built on exclusivity eventually buckles under stress. Christ Jesus became the anchor stone and reduced the old spiritual partition to rubble. He leveled the ground to make room for a unified temple.
Mortar mixed with human sweat crumbles, but a stone anchored in grace holds the entire building plumb.
In 70 a.d., Roman legions reduced the physical Jerusalem temple to a field of scorched limestone and broken timber. The heavy warning blocks shattered into gravel. The rubble settled to reveal a permanent foundation where former enemies stood together on equal ground.