The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)
The word which God sent unto the children of Israel. The apostle, though addressing a company of Gentiles, and about to proclaim Christ and salvation to them, will have them distinctly to know that to the Jews first the word of salvation was sent, even as the facts of it took place on the special theater of the ancient economy.
Preaching peace by Jesus Christ. This is the sum of all Gospel truth (see Isaiah 52:7; Isaiah 57:19; Ephesians 2:17; Colossians 1:20), and standing as it does at the outset of all that the apostle was to say about Christ and His errand into the world, it clearly shows what it was that he thought it most important that men so new to the glad tidings should first of all lay hold of.
(He is Lord of all) - Gentiles as well as Jews; q.d., 'I have said that the glad tidings were first sent unto the children of Israel; but not for them only was the word of this salvation designed, for this Jesus hath God exalted to embrace under the canopy of His peace the Gentile and the Jew alike, whom the blood of His cross hath cemented into one reconciled and accepted family' (Ephesians 2:13-18).