Philip and Andrew had just brought word to Jesus that certain Greeks or Gentiles were seeking Him at the feast. He had ministered to other Gentiles, but this is the first time that the Gentiles came specifically to seek Him instead of what He could do. 

Apparently, this was an added signal to Jesus that His time had come and that He could no longer confine His ministry to only the Jews. He made statements about His death and glorification, that would break down the middle wall of partition between the Jew and the Gentile.

There was a physical wall of partition that symbolized this division in the Jerusalem temple. The Gentiles could come into a designated area of the temple known as the court of the Gentiles, but a stone wall, about five feet high, stopped them from going further. A sign standing before the wall stated, "No man of another nation is to enter, and whosoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death!"

Many regulations and rules separated Jews and Gentiles for centuries. Christ's work on the cross abolished that separation by removing the law and so removing the barrier between these two groups. Instead of changing the Gentiles into Jews or the Jews into Gentiles, God made a brand new creation.

In the New Testament church there is no such thing as Jew or Gentile, bond or free, for God has created something absolutely new. It's the "one new man," the new creation in Christ Jesus, the church, Christ's body, the fullness of Him, that filleth all in all (Ephesians 1:23). Remember who we are "in Him."