Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 2:12

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

12. at that time ] Strictly, at that occasion. The Gr. word habitually marks limited periods; though this must not always be pressed. Here possibly there is a suggestion of the transient period of exclusion, opposed to the long eternity of acceptance.

without Christ ] Apart from Christ; out of connexion with the Messiah. Here no Pharisaic prejudice is in view, but the mysterious fact that only through the great prophesied Redeemer is there life and acceptance for man, and that in order to contact with Him there needs “preaching,” “hearing,” “believing” (Rom 10:13; Rom 10:15). Scripture does not present this fact without any relief; but all relief leaves it a phenomenon of Revelation as mysterious as it is solid.

being aliens ] Lit., having been alienated (the same word as Eph 4:18; Col 1:21); as if they had once been otherwise. So, in idea, they had been. Every human soul is (occasionally) viewed in Scripture as having been originally unfallen, and, if unfallen, then in a covenant of peace with God of which the covenant of Israel was but a type. Such a view is wholly ideal, referring not to the actual history of the individual soul, but to the Nature of which the individual is a specimen. Such popular phrases as, “we are fallen creatures,” have this truth below them. Historically, we begin prostrate; ideally, we began upright, and have fallen.

the commonwealth of Israel ] Perhaps, “ the citizenship.” The Gr. word occurs elsewhere, in N. T., Act 22:28 only (A. V., “this freedom; ” the Roman citizenship). But the A. V. here (and so R. V.) is favoured by the word “ alienated.” It is rather more natural to say “made aliens from a state,” than “made aliens from state-rights.” The two interpretations, however, perfectly coincide practically. “ Israel,” (the Covenant-People with its special name of sacred dignity; see Trench, N. T. Synonyms, 39;) is viewed as an ordered commonwealth or empire under its Divine King; and to be free of its rights is the one way to have connexion with Him. By “Israel” the Apostle here doubtless means the inner Israel, of which the outer was as it were the husk; see Rom 9:6. But he does not emphasize a distinction. Under the Old Covenant, it was generally necessary to belong, in some sense, to the outer Israel in order to be one of the inner.

strangers ] The Gr. is a word familiar in civic connexions; non-members of a state or city.

the covenants of promise ] Lit., and better, of the Promise, the great Promise of Messiah, according to which those who “are of the Messiah, are Abraham’s seed, and heirs by promise” (Gal 3:29). In the light of Gal 3:18, we may say that the Promise is more specially of Justification, Acceptance, (as in Abraham’s case,) through faith, securing vital connexion with the Messiah.

“ Covenants: ” for the plural cp. Rom 9:4. The reference is to the many Compacts, as with Abraham, Moses, Levi, David, Joshua; and perhaps to the New Covenant itself, as of course “connected with” the Promise. The Promise indicated, from the first, blessings for the world, “all the families of the earth”; but these blessings were to be found only “in Abraham and his seed” (Gen 12:3; Gen 22:18); and thus to those not yet connected with Abraham and the Messiah there was no actual portion yet in the “covenants.”

having no hope ] The Gr. just indicates (by its special negative particle) that this was not only so, but felt by the Gentiles to be so; “having, as you knew, no hope.” (So, precisely, 1Th 4:13.) The deep truth of this is fully attested by classical and other heathen literature, old or modern. Aspiration and conjecture there often was, but no hope, in the Scripture sense; no expectation on a firm basis. A profound uncertainty about the unseen and eternal underlies many of the strongest expressions of the classical poets and philosophers. And in the special reference of “hope” here, hope of a Redeemer and a redeemed inheritance, there was (and is) a total blank, apart from revelation. “In Hellas, at the epoch of Alexander the Great, it was a current saying, and one profoundly felt by all the best men, that the best thing of all was not to be born, and the next best to die.” (Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, Eng. transl. Vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 586). See the thought still earlier, Sophocles, d. Col. 1224 (Dindorf).

without God ] Lit., Godless; without true knowledge of the true God. “Gods many” were indeed, in some sense, popularly believed in; and large schools of thought recognized a One Supreme, though often with the very faintest views of personality. But this recognition, at its best and highest, lacked some essentials in the Idea of the True God, above all, the union in Him of supreme Love and awful Purity. And for the average mind of ancient heathenism He “was not, in all the thoughts,” as truly as the impersonal Brahm “is not” in the average Hindoo mind. See further, Appendix D.

in the world ] Words which complete the dark picture. “In the world” of fallen humanity, with its dreadful realities of evil, they did not “know the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom He had sent” (Joh 17:3), and so lacked the one possible preservative and spiritual life-power.

D. “WITHOUT GOD.” (Ch. Eph 2:12.)

“The vulgar believed in many Gods, the philosopher believed in a Universal Cause; but neither believed in God. The philosopher only regarded the Universal Cause as the spring of the Universal machine, which was necessary to the working of all the parts, but was not thereby raised to a separate order of being from them. Theism was discussed as a philosophical not as a religious question, as no more affecting practice than any great scientific hypothesis does now Nothing would have astonished [the philosopher] more than, when he had proved in his lecture hall the existence of a God, to have been told to worship Him. ‘Worship whom?’ he would have exclaimed, ‘worship what? worship how?’ ”

Mozley, Lectures on Miracles, Lect. iv.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Ye were without Christ – You were without the knowledge of the Messiah. You had not heard of him; of course you had not embraced him. You were living without any of the hopes and consolations which you now have, from having embraced him. The object of the apostle is to remind them of the deplorable condition in which they were by nature; and nothing would better express it than to say they were without Christ, or that they had no knowledge of a Saviour. They knew of no atonement for sin. They had no assurance of pardon. They had no well-founded hope of eternal life. They were in a state of darkness and condemnation, from which nothing but a knowledge of Christ could deliver them. All Christians may in like manner be reminded of the fact that, before their conversion, they were without Christ. Though they had heard of him, and were constantly under the instruction which reminded them of him, yet they were without any true knowledge of him, and without any of the hopes which result from having embraced him. Many were infidels. Many were scoffers. Many were profane, sensual, corrupt. Many rejected Christ with scorn; many, by simple neglect. All were without any true knowledge of him; all were destitute of the peace and hope which result from a saving acquaintance with him. We may add, that there is no more affecting description of the state of man by nature than to say, he is without a Saviour. Sad would be the condition of the world without a Redeemer – sad is the state of that portion of mankind who reject him. Reader, are you without Christ?

Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel – This is the second characteristic of their state before their conversion to Christianity. This means more than that they were not Jews. It means that they were strangers to that polity – politeia – or arrangement by which the worship of the true God had been kept up in the world, and of course were strangers to the true religion The arrangements for the public worship of Yahweh were made among the Jews. They had his law, his temple, his sabbaths, and the ordinances of his religion; see the notes at Rom 3:2. To all these the pagans had been strangers, and of course they were deprived of all the privileges which resulted from having the true religion. The word rendered here as commonwealth – politeia – means properly citizenship, or the right of citizenship, and then a community, or state. It means here that arrangement or organization by which the worship of the true God was maintained. The word aliens – apellotriomenoi – here means merely that they were strangers to. It does not denote, of necessity, that they were hostile to it; but that they were ignorant of it, and were, therefore, deprived of the benefits which they might have derived from it, if they had been acquainted with it.

And strangers – This word – xenos – means properly a guest, or a stranger, who is hospitably entertained; then a foreigner, or one from a distant country; and here means that they did not belong to the community where the covenants of promise were enjoyed; that is, they were strangers to the privileges of the people of God.

The covenants of promise – see the notes at Rom 9:4. The covenants of promise were those various arrangements which God made with his people, by which he promised them future blessings, and especially by which he promised that the Messiah should come. To be in possession of them was regarded as a high honor and privilege; and Paul refers to it here to show that, though the Ephesians had been by nature without these, yet they had now been brought to enjoy all the benefits of them. On the word covenant, see the notes on Gal 3:15. It may be remarked, that Walton (Polyglott) and Rosenmuller unite the word promise here with the word hope – having no hope of the promise. But the more obvious and usual interpretation is that in our common version, meaning that they were not by nature favored with the covenants made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., by which there was a promise of future blessings under the Messiah.

Having no hope – The apostle does not mean to affirm that they did not cherish any hope, for this is scarcely true of any man; but that they were without any proper ground of hope. It is true of perhaps nearly all people that they cherish some hope of future happiness. But the ground on which they do this is not well understood by themselves, nor do they in general regard it as a matter worth particular inquiry. Some rely on morality; some on forms of religion; some on the doctrine of universal salvation; all who are impenitent believe that they do not deserve eternal death, and expect to be saved by justice. Such hopes, however, must be unfounded. No hope of life in a future world can be founded on a proper basis which does not rest on some promise of God, or some assurance that he will save us; and these hopes, therefore, which people take up they know not why, are delusive and vain.

And without God in the world – Greek atheoi – atheists; that is, those who had no knowledge of the true God. This is the last specification of their miserable condition before they were converted; and it is an appropriate crowning of the climax. What an expression! To be without God – without God in his own world, and where he is all around us! To have no evidence of his favor, no assurance of his love, no hope of dwelling with him! The meaning, as applied to the pagan Ephesians, was, that they had no knowledge of the true God. This was true of the pagan, and in an important sense also it is true of all impenitent sinners, and was once true of all who are now Christians. They had no God. They did not worship him, or love him, or serve him, or seek his favors, or act with reference to him and his glory. Nothing can be a more appropriate and striking description of a sinner now than to say that he is without God in the world.

He lives, and feels, and acts, as if there were no God. He neither worships him in secret, nor in his family, nor in public. He acts with no reference to his will. He puts no confidence in his promises, and fears not when he threatens; and were it announced to him that there is no God, it would produce no change in his plan of life, or in his emotions. The announcement that the emperor of China, or the king of Siam, or the sultan of Constantinople, was dead, would produce some emotion, and might change some of his commercial arrangements; but the announcement that there is no God would interfere with none of his plans, and demand no change of life. And, if so, what is man in this beautiful world without a God? A traveler to eternity without a God! Standing over the grave without a God! An immortal being without a God! A man – fallen, sunk, ruined, with no God to praise, to love, to confide in; with no altar, no sacrifice, no worship, no hope; with no Father in trial, no counselor in perplexity, no support in death! Such is the state of man by nature. Such are the effects of sin.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Eph 2:12

Without Christ.

Spiritual misery

1. The head of all spiritual misery is to be without Christ.

(1) Numbers are still in this miserable condition.

(2) If you would have Him, you must take Him as Gods free gift.

2. A second degree of misery, is to be barred from communion and fellowship with the Church of God.

3. Naturally, we hate the means of salvation.

4. It is a great misery to be without the doctrine of the covenant of God.

5. The Lord left the Gentiles without the means of calling them to salvation.

6. It is a great misery to be without hope. (Paul Bayne.)

Life without Christ

The greatest event by far in the history of our world was the visit of Christ. From that moment, everything upon this earth measures itself by its relation to the Cross. Could it be otherwise? For he was the Son of God. What must that man be to God the Father, who treats that death of His dear Son as he would treat a mere matter of business? We may say of the man who is without Christ, that that man stands before God just as he is in himself, and nothing else. There is nothing to better him; there is nothing to excuse him. There is nothing to palliate or extenuate a fault. There is nothing to add any righteousness to amend. There can be no heaven for him except there be fitness; and there can be no pardon except there be a claim. Now, how would the best of us like to be dealt with on that principle? To stand before God in your own real individual character! No Intercessor to plead for you! No refuge to fly to! And consider this. A man without Christ has no motive, no motive sufficient to rule his life. The motive, the only secure and effective motive of life, is love. But you cannot love God unless you believe that God has pardoned you. You cannot love an angry God. But there is no pardon out of Christ. But, out of Christ, there can be no love because there is no forgiveness. So Christ makes the motive of life; and a man without Christ must be motiveless. Let me add another thing. All nature looks out for sympathy. Sympathy, in a degree, God has given to every man; but perfect sympathy belongs to Christ. It is His unapproachable prerogative. Therefore, if you do not know Christ, really know Him, as a believer knows Him, you do not yet know what sympathy can mean; for the rest is all very well, but it will stand you in very little stead in some dark hour. But that sympathy is perfect. You cannot find anyone else who has been, and who can be, touched with the feeling of your infirmity: always tender; always capable; always wise; true to every fibre of your being; matching all its cravings. That is not given to any creature upon earth. That is Jesus. And if you are without Jesus, you are without sympathy. And when that lonely passage comes, which is to take you out into the unknown, we must all die alone. What, if there be no arm–no companionship–no sweet voice to say, I am with you! No finished work! No Jesus in the valley! What will it be to die without Christ? An awful thing! And the more awful, the less you feel it! (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

The Christless state

I. The misery of our past estate.

1. The man who is without Christ is without any of those spiritual blessings which only Christ can bestow. Christ is the life of the believer, but the man who is without Christ is dead in trespasses and sins. So, too, Christ is the light of the world. Without Christ there is no light of true spiritual knowledge, no light of true spiritual enjoyment, no light in which the brightness of truth can be seen, or the warmth of fellowship proved. Without Christ there is no peace, no rest, no safety, no hope.

2. Without Christ, beloved, remember that all the religious acts of men are vanity. What are they but mere air bags, having nothing in them whatever that God can accept? There is the semblance of worship–the altar, the victim, the wood laid in order–and the votaries bow the knee or prostrate their bodies, but Christ alone can send the fire of heavens acceptance.

3. Without Christ implies, of course, that you are without the benefit of all those gracious offices of Christ, which are so necessary to the sons of men, you have no true prophet. Without Christ truth itself will prove a terror to you. Like Balaam, your eyes may be open while your life is alienated. Without Christ you have no priest to atone or to intercede on your behalf. Without Christ you are without a Saviour; how will you do? and without a friend in heaven you must needs be if you are without Christ. Without Christ, though you be rich as Croesus, and famous as Alexander, and wise as Socrates, yet are you naked and poor and miserable, for you lack Him by whom are all things, and for whom are all things, and who is Himself all in all.

II. The great deliverance which God has wrought for us. We are not without Christ now, but let me ask you, who are believers, where you would have been now without Christ. I think the Indians picture is a very fair one of where we should have been without Christ. When asked what Christ had done for him, he picked up a worm, put it on the ground, and made a ring of straw and wood round it, which he set alight. As the wood began to glow the poor worm began to twist and wriggle in agony, whereupon he stooped down, took it gently up with his finger, and said, That is what Jesus did for me; I was surrounded, without power to help myself, by a ring of dreadful fire that must have been my ruin, but His pierced hand lifted me out of the burning. Think of that, Christians, and as your hearts melt, come to His table, and praise Him that you are not now without Christ.

1. Then think what His blood has done for you. Take only one thing out of a thousand. It has put away your many, many sins.

2. Bethink you, too, now that you have Christ, of the way in which He came and made you partaker of Himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Without Christ

I. When it can be said of a man, that he is without Christ.

1. When he has no head knowledge of Him. The heathen, of course, who never yet heard the gospel, come first under this description. But unhappily they do not stand alone. There are thousands of people dying in England at this very day, who have hardly any clearer ideas about Christ than the very heathen.

2. When he has no heart faith in Him as his Saviour. Many know every article of the Belief, but make no practical use of their knowledge. They put their trust in something which is not Christ.

3. When the Holy Spirits work cannot be seen in his life. Who can avoid seeing, if he uses his eyes, that myriads of professing Christians know nothing of inward conversion of heart?

II. The actual condition of a man without Christ.

1. To be without Christ is to be without God. St. Paul told the Ephesians as much as this in plain words. He ends the famous sentence which begins, Ye were without Christ, by saying, Ye were without God in the world. And who that thinks can wonder? That man can have very low ideas of God who does not conceive Him a most pure, and holy, and glorious, and spiritual Being. How then can such a worm as man draw near to God with comfort?

2. To be without Christ is to be without peace. Every man has a conscience within him, which must be satisfied before he can be truly happy. There is only one thing can give peace to the conscience, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ sprinkled on it.

3. To be without Christ is to be without hope. Hope of some sort or other almost every one thinks he possesses. There is but one hope that has roots, life, strength, and solidity, and that is the hope which is built on the great rock of Christs work and office as Redeemer.

4. To be without Christ is to be without heaven. In saying this I do not merely mean that there is no entrance into heaven, but that without Christ there could be no happiness in being there. A man without a Saviour and Redeemer could never feel at home in heaven. He would feel that he had no lawful fight or title to be there; boldness and confidence and ease of heart would be impossible. (Bishop Ryle.)

Without Christ

It is not long since that a prominent business man, when closely pressed by his pastor, who had lately come to the church, replied with a calm force which was meant to put an end to further pertinacity, I am interested in all religious matters; I am always glad to see the ministers when they call; but I have in the years past thought the subject over long and carefully, and I have come to the decision deliberately that I have no need of Jesus Christ as a Saviour in the sense you preach. Only two weeks from this interview the same man was suddenly prostrated with disease; the illness was of such a character as to forbid his conversing with anyone, and the interdict from speaking was continued until he was within an hour of death, A solemn moment was that in which a question was put to him, intimating that he might talk now if he could–nothing would harm him. The last thing, the only thing, he said, was in a melancholy and frightened whisper, Who will carry me over the fiver?

Having no hope.—

Hope abandoned

Over the huge hideous iron gates of the Prison de la Roquette, in Paris, which is set apart for criminals that are condemned to death, there is an inscription, which sends a thrill of horror through those who read it–Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!

Hopes for eternity, what they rest on

When John Wesley lay on an expected death bed (though God spared him some years longer to the world and the Church) his attendants asked him what were his hopes for eternity? And something like this was his reply–For fifty years, amid scorn and hardship, I have been wandering up and down this world, to preach Jesus Christ; and I have done what in me lay to serve my blessed Master! What he had done his life and works attest. They are recorded in his Churchs history, and shine in the crown he wears so bright with a blaze of jewels–sinners saved through his agency. Yet thus he spake,

My hope for eternity–my hopes rest only on Christ–

I the chief of sinners am But Jesus died for me.

(T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Mournful ignorance

I have seen a child in ignorance of its great loss totter across the floor to its mothers coffin, and, caught by their glitter, seize the handles, to look round and smile as it rattled them on the hollow sides. I have seen a boy, forgetting his sorrow in his dress, survey himself with evident satisfaction as he followed the bier that bore his father to the grave. And however painful such spectacles, as jarring our feelings, and out of all harmony with such sad and sombre scenes, they excite no surprise nor indignation. We only pity those who, through ignorance of their loss or inability to appreciate it, find pleasure in what should move their grief. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Having no hope

I have read of a tribe of savages that bury their dead in secret, by the hands of unconcerned officials. No grassy mound, no memorial stone guides the poor mothers steps to the quiet corner where her infant lies. The grave is levelled with the soil; and afterwards a herd of cattle is driven over and over the ground, till every trace of the burial has been obliterated by their hoofs. Anxious to forget death and its inconsolable griefs, these heathen resent any allusion to the dead. You may not speak of them. In a mothers hearing, name, however tenderly, her lost one, recall a dead father to the memory of his son, and there is no injury which they feel more deeply. From the thought of the dead their hearts recoil. How strange! How unnatural! No, not unnatural. Benighted heathen, their grief has none of the alleviations which are balm to our wounds, none of the hopes that bear us up beneath a weight of sorrows. Their dead are sweet flowers withered, never to revive; joys gone, never to return. To remember them is to keep open a rankling wound, and preserve the memory of a loss which was bitter to feel and still is bitter to think of: a loss which brought only grief to the living, and no gain to the dead. To me, says Paul, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. They know nothing of this; nothing of the hopes that associate our dead in Christ with sinless souls, and sunny skies, and shining angels, and songs seraphic, and crowns of glory, and harps of gold. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Hopefulness and steadfastness

A good Methodist in a prayer meeting said that when, many years since, he crossed old ocean he was much in the habit of looking over the ships side, particularly near the prow, and watching the vessel as she steadily ploughed her way through the waves. Just under the bowsprit was the image of a human face. This face to him came to be invested with a wondrous interest. Whatever the hour, whether by night or by day; whatever the weather, whether in sunshine or in storm, that face seemed ever steadfastly looking forward to port. Sometimes tempests would prevail. Great surges would rise, and for a time completely submerge the face of his friend. But as soon as the vessel recovered from its lurch, on looking again over the ships side, there the placid face of his friend was to be seen, still faithfully, steadfastly looking out for port. And so, he exclaimed, his countenance radiant with the light of the Christians hope, I humbly trust it is in my own case. Yea, whatever the trials of the past, notwithstanding all the toils and disappointments of the present, by the grace of God I am still looking out for port, and not long hence I am anticipating a joyful, triumphant, abundant entrance therein. Without God.

I am told to believe that there is no God; but, before doing so, I want to look on the world in the light of this solemn denial In giving up this idea, several sacrifices are involved. Let us see what they are.

1. I shall have to part with the most inspiring and ennobling books in my library.

2. I shall have to banish the earliest and tenderest memories which have gladdened my days.

3. I shall have to give up the hope that in the long run right will be vindicated and wrong be put to eternal shame.

4. I shall have to sacrifice my reason, my conscience–in a word, myself. My whole life is built upon the holy doctrine of Gods existence. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)

Practical atheism

It is not speculative atheism that I lay to your charge; I am far from asserting or supposing that you are intellectually without God. But of practical atheism, of being virtually without God, I must and do accuse mankind and some of you. By practical atheism I mean the believing that there is a God, and yet thinking and feeling and acting just as if there were none.

1. I adduce forgetfulness of God as a proof, or rather as one form of practical atheism.

2. As an evidence of practical atheism, a neglect to worship Him and to maintain friendly and filial intercourse with Him.

3. I state as another evidence of practical atheism, the general conduct of mankind under the various dispensations of Divine providence. Does not the rich man say in his heart, My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth? Or, if he cannot ascribe it altogether to his own industry and prudence, he divides the credit of it with fortune, and speaks of the lucky throw, the fortunate speculation, or the prosperous voyage, to the success of which many things conspired, but He whom the winds and waves obey is not supposed to have contributed anything.

4. As another proof of practical atheism, that men are in the habit of forming their plans and purposes, without respect to their dependence on God for the accomplishment of them, and without consulting Him. They resolve with themselves where they will go, what they will do, how much they will accomplish, just as if they had life in themselves, and were independent in wisdom and power.

5. The conduct of many, in seasons of affliction, evinces that they are without God in the world.

6. Finally, mankind, in their pursuit of happiness, evince their practical atheism. Whither should a creature in quest of joy go to obtain it, but straight to Him, who made, and who sustains both that which enjoys and that which is enjoyed, his Maker and Preserver, and the worlds? Yet men fly from God for happiness. Whence have you your joys and comforts now?–from your family?–it shall be broken up; from your business?–it shall be discontinued, and you shall leave the world, and the world itself shall be consumed, and nothing will be left but the soul and God. You cannot be happy in anything else; and, if you love Him not, you cannot be happy in Him. (W. Nevins, D. D.)

Without God

Three ways a man may be said to be without God.

1. By profane atheism.

2. By false worship.

3. By want of spiritual worship.

Great is the misery of those who are without God. God is a fountain of life; whoso is far from Him must perish. (Paul Bayne.)

The misery of being without God

The misery of such as have not God for their God, in how sad a condition are they, when an hour of distress comes! This was Sauls case: I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and the Lord has departed from me. A wicked man, in time of trouble, is like a vessel tossed on the sea without an anchor, it falls on rocks or sands; a sinner not having God to be his God, though he makes a shift while health and estate last, yet, when these crutches, which he leaned upon, are broken, his heart sinks. It is with a wicked man as with the old world, when the flood came; the waters at first came to the valleys, but then the people would get to the hills and mountains, but when the waters came to the mountains, then there might be some trees on the high hills, and they would climb up to them; ay, but then the waters did rise up to the tops of the trees; now all hopes of being saved were gone, their hearts failed them. So it is with a man that hath not God to be his God; if one comfort be taken away, he hath another; if he lose a child, he hath an estate; ay, but when the waters rise higher, death comes and takes away all; now he hath nothing to help himself with, no God to go to, he must needs die despairing. (T. Watson.)

Without God in the world

Without God in the world. Think!–what a description!–and applicable to individuals without number! If it had been without friends, shelter, or food, that would have been a gloomy sound. But without God! without Him (that is, in no happy relation to Him), who is the very origin, support, and life of all things; without Him who can make good flow to His creatures from an infinity of sources; without Him whose favour possessed is the best, the sublimest, of all delights, all triumphs, all glories. What do those under so sad a destitution value and seek instead of Him? What will anything, or all things, be worth in His absence? It may be instructive to consider a little to what states of mind this description is applicable; and what a wrong and, calamitous thing the condition is in all of them. We need not dwell on that condition of humanity in which there is no notion of Deity at all–some outcast, savage tribes–souls destitute of the very ideal Not one idea exalted anti resplendent above the rest casting a glory sometimes across the little intellectual field! It is as if, in the outward world of nature, they had no visible heaven–the spirit nothing to go out to, beyond its clay tenement, but the immediately surrounding elements and other creatures of the same order. The adorers of false gods may just be named as coming under the description. There is, almost throughout the race, a feeling in mens minds that belongs to the Divinity; but think how all manner of objects, real and imaginary, have been supplicated to accept and absorb this feeling, that the true God might not take it! It is too obvious almost to be worth noting, how plainly the description applies itself to those who persuade themselves that there is no God. The Divine Spirit and all spirit abolished, he is left amidst masses and systems of matter without a first cause–ruled by chance, or by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; and, as a little composition of atoms, he is himself to take his chance for a few moments of conscious being, and then be no more forever! And yet, in this infinite prostration of all things, he feels an elation of intellectual pride! But we have to consider the text in an application much more important to us, and to men in general; for, with a most settled belief of the Divine existence, they may be without God in the world. This is too truly and sadly the applicable description when this belief and its object do not maintain habitually the ascendant influence over us–over the whole system of our thoughts, feelings, purposes, and actions. Can we glance over the earth, and into the wilderness of worlds in infinite space, without the solemn thought that all this is but the sign and proof of something infinitely more glorious than itself? Are we not reminded–This is a production of His almighty power–that is an adjustment of His all-comprehending intelligence and foresight–there is a glimmer, a ray of His beauty, His glory–there an emanation of His benignity–but for Him all this would never have been; and if, for a moment, His pervading energy were by His will restrained or suspended, what would it all be then? Not to have some such perceptions and thoughts, accompanied by devout sentiments, is, so far, to be without God in the world. Again, the text is applicable to those who have no solemn recognition of Gods all-disposing government and providence–who have no thought of the course of things but as just going on–going on some way or other, just as it canto whom it appears abandoned to a strife and competition of various mortal powers; or surrendered to something they call general laws, and then blended with chance; who have, perhaps, a crude Epicurean notion of exempting the Divine Being from the infinite toil and care of such a charge. The text is a description of those who have but a slight sense of universal accountableness to God as the supreme authority who have not a conscience constantly looking and listening to Him, and testifying for Him; who proceed as if this world were a, province absolved from the strictness of His dominion and His laws; who will not apprehend that there is His will and warning affixed to everything; who will not submissively ask, What dost Thou pronounce on this? To be insensible to the Divine character as Lawgiver, rightful Authority, and Judge, is truly to be without God in the world, for thus every emotion of the soul and action of the life assumes that He is absent or does not exist. This insensibility of accountableness exists almost entire (a stupefaction of conscience) in very many minds. But in many others there is a disturbed yet inefficacious feeling; and might not some of these be disposed to say, We are not without God in the world, as an awful Authority and Judge; for we are followed, and harassed, and persecuted, sometimes quite to misery, by the thought of Him in this character. We cannot go on peacefully in the way our inclinations lead; a portentous sound alarms us, a formidable spectre encounters us, though we still persist. The cause here is that men wish to be without God in the world–would, in preference to any other prayer, implore Him to Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of His ways. They would be willing to resume the enterprise of the rebellious angels, if there were any hope. Oh, that He, with His judgment and laws, were far away! To be thus with God is in the most emphatical sense to be without Him–without Him as a friend, approver, and patron; each thought of Him tells the soul who it is that it is without, and who it is that in a very fearful sense it never can be without. The description belongs to that state of mind in which there is no communion with God maintained or even sought with cordial aspiration–no devout, ennobling converse held with Him–no conscious reception of delightful impressions, sacred influences, suggested sentiments–no pouring out of the soul in fervent desires for His illuminations, His compassion, His forgiveness, His transforming operations–no earnest, penitential, hopeful pleading in the name of the gracious Intercessor–no solemn, affectionate dedication of the whole being–no animation and vigour obtained for the labours and warfare of a Christian life. But how lamentable to be without God! Consider it in one single view only–that of the loneliness of a human soul in this destitution. All other beings are necessarily (shall we express it so?) extraneous to the soul; they may communicate with it, but they are still separate and without it; an intermediate vacancy keeps them forever asunder, so that the soul must be, in a sense, in an inseparable and eternal solitude–that is, as to all creatures. But God, on the contrary, has an all-pervading power–can interfuse, as it were, His very essence through the being of His creatures–can cause Himself to be apprehended and felt as absolutely in the soul–such an inter-communion as is, by the nature of things, impossible between created beings; and thus the interior central loneliness–the solitude of the soul–is banished by a perfectly intimate presence, which imparts the most affecting sense of society–a society, a communion, which imparts life and joy, and may continue in perpetuity. To men completely immersed in the world this might appear a very abstracted and enthusiastic notion of felicity; but to those who have in any measure attained it, the idea of its loss would give the most emphatic sense of the expression, Without God in the world. The terms are a true description also of the state of mind in which there is no habitual anticipation of the great event of going at length into the presence of God–absence of the thought of being with Him in another world–of being with Him in judgment, and whither to be with Him forever; not considering that He awaits us somewhere, that the whole movement of life is absolutely towards Him, that the course of life is deciding in what manner we shall appear in His presence; not thinking what manner of fact that will be, what experience, what consciousness, what emotion; not regarding it as the grand purpose of our present state of existence that we may attain a final dwelling in His presence. One more, and the last application we would make of the description is to those who, while professing to retain God in their thoughts with a religious regard, frame the religion in which they are to acknowledge Him according to their own speculation and fancy. Thus many rejecters of Divine revelation have professed, nevertheless, a reverential homage to the Deity; but the God of their faith was to be such as their sovereign reason chose to feign, and therefore the mode of their religion entirely arbitrary. But, if revelation be true, the simple question is, Will the Almighty acknowledge your feigned God for Himself?–and admit your religion to be equivalent to that which He has declared and defined? If He should not, you are without God in the world. (John Foster.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. That at that time ye were without Christ] Not only were not Christians, but had no knowledge of the Christ or Messiah, and no title to the blessings which were to proceed from him.

Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel] Ye were by your birth, idolatry, c., alienated from the commonwealth of Israel-from the civil and religious privileges of the Jewish people.

Strangers from the covenants of promise] Having no part in the promise of the covenant made with Abraham, whether considered as relating to his natural or spiritual seed and no part in that of the covenant made at Horeb with the Israelites, when a holy law was given them, and God condescended to dwell among them, and to lead them to the promised land.

Having no hope] Either of the pardon of sin or of the resurrection of the body, nor indeed of the immortality of the soul. Of all these things the Gentiles had no rational or well-grounded hope.

Without God in the world] They had gods many, and lords many; but in no Gentile nation was the true God known: nor indeed had they any correct notion of the Divine nature. Their idols were by nature no gods-they could neither do evil nor good, and therefore they were properly without God, having no true object of worship, and no source of comfort. He who has neither God nor Christ is in a most deplorable state; he has neither a God to worship, nor a Christ to justify him. And this is the state of every man who is living without the grace and Spirit of Christ. All such, whatever they may profess, are no better than practical atheists.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

That at that time ye were without Christ; i.e. without knowledge of him, or interest in him. This is the foundation of all other miseries, as Christ is the foundation of all saving good, and therefore the apostle begins with this.

Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; the church of God, confined formerly to the Israelites: their church and state was the same body, and God the founder of and lawgiver to them in both respects.

And strangers from the covenants of promise; those covenants in which the great promise of Christ and salvation by him was made. The covenants were several, as that with Abraham, and that by Moses, and differ in some accidents, but the promise in them was one and the same, which was the substance of each.

Having no hope; viz. beyond this life; as they could not but be who were without Christ, and without the promises.

And without God; not without some general knowledge of a God, but without any saving knowledge of him, as not knowing him in Christ: or they lived as without God, neglecting him, and being neglected by him, and suffered to walk in their own ways.

In the world; which is the congregation of the wicked, and is here opposed to the church.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

12. without ChristGreek,“separate from Christ”; having no part in Him; farfrom Him. A different Greek word (aneu) would berequired to express, “Christ was not present with you”[TITTMANN].

aliensGreek,“alienated from,” not merely “separated from.”The Israelites were cut off from the commonwealth of God, but it wasas being self-righteous, indolent, and unworthy, not as aliensand strangers [CHRYSOSTOM].The expression, “alienated from,” takes it for granted thatthe Gentiles, before they had apostatized from the primitive truth,had been sharers in light and life (compare Eph 4:18;Eph 4:23). The hope of redemptionthrough the Messiah, on their subsequent apostasy, was embodied intoa definite “commonwealth” or polity, namely, that”of Israel,” from which the Gentiles were alienated.Contrast Eph 2:13; Eph 3:6;Eph 4:4; Eph 4:5;Psa 147:20.

covenants of promiserather,”. . . of the promise,” namely, “to thee andthy seed will I give this land” (Rom 9:4;Gal 3:16). The plural implies theseveral renewals of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, andwith the whole people at Sinai [ALFORD].”The promise” is singular, to signify that the covenant, inreality, and substantially, is one and the same at all times, butonly different in its accidents and external circumstances (compareHeb 1:1, “at sundry timesand in divers manners”).

having no . . . hopebeyondthis life (1Co 15:19). TheCONJECTURES of heathenphilosophers as to a future life were at best vague and utterlyunsatisfactory. They had no divine “promise,” and thereforeno sure ground of “hope.” Epicurus and Aristotle did notbelieve in it at all. The Platonists believed the soul passed throughperpetual changes, now happy, and then again miserable; the Stoics,that it existed no longer than till the time of the general burningup of all things.

without GodGreek,“atheists,” that is, they had not “God” in thesense we use the word, the Eternal Being who made and governs allthings (compare Ac 14:15,”Turn from these vanities unto the living God who madeheaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things therein”),whereas the Jews had distinct ideas of God and immortality. Comparealso Ga 4:8, “Ye knew notGod . . . ye did service unto them which are no gods” (1Th4:5). So also pantheists are atheists, for an impersonal God isNO GOD, and an idealimmortality no immortality [THOLUCK].

in the worldincontrast to belonging to “the commonwealth of Israel.”Having their portion and their all in this godless vain world (Ps17:14), from which Christ delivers His people (Joh 15:19;Joh 17:14; Gal 1:4).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

That at that time ye were without Christ,…. Or separate from him: they were chosen in him and were preserved in him, and were redeemed by him before; but they were without any knowledge of him, faith in him, love to him, communion with him, or subjection to him, his Gospel, government, laws, and ordinances; and particularly they were without any promises of him, or prophecies concerning him, which were peculiar to the Jews; hence the Messiah is called , “the Christ of Israel” w, and who as he was promised, so he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house, of Israel: hence it follows,

being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; both from their civil and church state; the Gentiles might not dwell among them, nor have any dealings with them in things civil, unless they conformed to certain laws; nor might the Jews go into any, nor eat or converse with any, that were uncircumcised; so great an alienation and distance were there between these two people; and much less might they eat the passover and join with them in religious worship; the word for “commonwealth” here used, Harpocratian says x, is commonly used by Greek writers for a “democracy” though the original constitution of the Israelites was properly a “theocracy”:

strangers to the covenants of promise; to the covenant of circumcision given to Abraham; and to the covenant at Mount Sinai, made with Israel; and to the dispensation of the covenant of grace to that people, sometimes called the first covenant and the old covenant, and which peculiarly belonged to them, Ro 9:4 one copy reads, “strangers to the promises of the covenant”; which is natural enough; the Vulgate Latin version joins the word “promise” to the next clause, and reads,

having no hope of the promise of the promised Messiah: “having no hope”; of the Messiah and salvation by him, of the resurrection of the dead, of a future state, and of eternal life; none that is sure and steadfast, that is purifying, and makes not ashamed; or which is a good hope through grace, is the gift of God, the fruit of his love, and the effect of his power; and this is to be in a miserable condition: Philo, the Jew y, observes, that

“the Chaldeans call a man Enos, as if he only was truly a man that expects good things, and supports himself with good hopes; and adds, hence it is manifest that one without hope is not reckoned a man, but a beast in an human form; since he is destitute of hope, which is the property of the human soul;”

and without God in the world; without the knowledge of God in Christ; without the image of God, which was defaced by sin; without the grace and fear of God; and without communion with him, and the worship of him; and while they were so they were in the world, among the men of it, and were a part of it, not being yet called out of it: the word signifies “atheists”: so some of the Gentiles were in “theory”, as they all were in practice; and they were by the Jews reckoned no other than “atheists”; it is a common saying with them z that

“he that dwells without the land (of Israel) is like one

, “who has no God”:”

w Targum in Isa. xvi. 1. 5. x Lex. Decem Orator. p. 246. y De Abrahamo, p. 350, 351. z T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 110. 2. Zohar in Exod. fol. 33. 1. Cosri, par. 2. sect. 22. fol. 85. 2. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 129. 4. & 135. 2. & 153. 3. & 168. 3.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Separate from Christ ( ). Ablative case with adverbial preposition , describing their former condition as heathen.

Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel ( ). Perfect passive participle of , for which see Col 1:21. Here followed by ablative case , old word from , to be a citizen (Php 1:27) from and that from (city). Only twice in N.T., here as commonwealth (the spiritual Israel or Kingdom of God) and Ac 22:28 as citizenship.

Strangers from the covenants of the promise ( ). For (Latin hospes), as stranger see Matt 25:35; Matt 25:38; Matt 25:43, as guest-friend see Ro 16:23. Here it is followed by the ablative case .

Having no hope ( ). No hope of any kind. In Ga 4:8 (strong negative) occurs with , but here gives a more subjective picture (1Th 4:5).

Without God (). Old Greek word, not in LXX, only here in N.T. Atheists in the original sense of being without God and also in the sense of hostility to God from failure to worship him. See Paul’s words in Ro 1:18-32. “In the world” ( ) goes with both phrases. It is a terrible picture that Paul gives, but a true one.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Being aliens [] . Rev., better, giving the force of the verb, alienated. As they had once been otherwise. Paul speaks ideally of a spiritual commonwealth in which Jew and Gentile were together at peace with God, and of which the commonwealth of Israel is a type.

Israel. Selecting the most honorable title to describe the Jew. See on Act 3:12. The reference is to the spiritual rather than to the national distinction. In being separated from Christ, they were separated from that commonwealth in which, according to the promise, Christ would have been to them, as to the faithful Israelites, the object of their faith and the ground of their salvation.

Covenants. The several renewals of God ‘s covenant with the patriarchs.

Of promise [ ] . Better, the promise. The messianic promise, which was the basis of all the covenants.

Without God [] . God – forsaken. It might also mean godless or impious. The gentile gods were no gods.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “That at that time ye were without Christ” (hoti ete to kairo ekeimo choris christou) “That ye were at that time without Christ.” This refers to their pre-Christian days of life. The Greek term choris” means without, in the sense of “apart from” or separated from or having no spiritual union with Christ, Rom 8:9; Joh 15:5.

2) “Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel” (apellotriomenoi tes politeias tou Israel) “Having been alienated from the commonwealth of Israel.” Without any part, as Gentiles, in the theocratic rule of Israel, Eph 4:18; Col 1:21.

3) “And strangers from the covenants of promise” (kai ksenoi ton diathekon tes epaanglias) “And strangers off-from the covenants of promise.” The idea is that of having no part in, no share in the covenants of promise that regarded natural Israel, to whom and through whom the Messiah was to come and did come. They were also left out of the covenants regarding the possession of the promised land, Gen 13:15-17; Gen 15:18; Gen 17:8.

4) “Having no hope” (elpida me echontes) “Having or holding not a hope.” Ignorant of a knowledge of the promised Savior, the Gentile brethren had once been, of all men, most miserable, holding or possessing no hope for salvation.

5) “And without God in the world” (kai athesi en to kosmo) “And godless in the world.” To have and to hold allegiance to heathen gods, false gods, is to be without help or hope in the true God; See Psa 115:4-9; Gal 4:8.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

12. That at that time ye were without Christ. He now declares that the Ephesians had been excluded, not only from the outward badge, but from everything necessary to the salvation and happiness of men. As Christ is the foundation of hope and of all the promises, he mentions, first of all, that they were without Christ. But for him that is without Christ, there remains nothing but destruction. On Him the commonwealth of Israel was founded; and in whom, but in Himself, could the people of God be collected into one holy society?

A similar observation might be made as to the tables of the promise On one great promise made to Abraham all the others hang, and without it they lose all their value:

“

In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Gen 22:18.)

Hence our apostle says elsewhere,

“

All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.” (2Co 1:20.)

Take away the covenant of salvation, and there remains no hope. I have translated τῶν διαθηκῶν by the tables, or, in ordinary legal phrase, the instruments. By solemn ritual did God sanction His covenant with Abraham and his posterity, that he would be their God for ever and ever. (Gen 15:9.) Tables of this covenant were ratified by the hand of Moses, and intrusted, as a peculiar treasure, to the people of Israel, to whom, and not to the Gentiles, “pertain the covenants.” (Rom 9:4.)

And without God in the world. But at no period were the Ephesians, or any other Gentiles, destitute of all religion. Why, then, are they styled ( ἄθεοι) Atheists? for ( ἄθεος) an Atheist, strictly speaking, is one who does not believe, and who absolutely ridicules, the being of a God. That appellation, certainly, is not usually given to superstitious persons, but to those who have no feeling of religion, and who desire to see it utterly destroyed. I answer, Paul was right in giving them this name, for he treated all the notions entertained respecting false gods as nothing; and with the utmost propriety do godly persons regard all idols as “nothing in the world.” (1Co 8:4.) Those who do not worship the true God, whatever may be the variety of their worship, or the multitude of laborious ceremonies which they perform, are without God: they adore what they know not. (Act 17:23.) Let it be carefully observed, that the Ephesians are not charged with ( ἀθεϊσμὸς) Atheism, in the same degree as Diagoras, and others of the same stamp, who were subjected to that reproach. Persons who imagined themselves to be very religious are charged with that crime; for an idol is a forgery, an imposition, not a Divinity.

From what has been said, the conclusion will be easily drawn, that out of Christ there are none but idols. Those who were formerly declared to be without Christ, are now declared to be without God; (125) as John says,

“

Whosoever hath not the Son, hath not the Father,” (1Jo 2:23😉

and again,

“

Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.” (2Jo 1:9.)

Let us know, therefore, that all who do not keep this way wander from the true God. We shall next be asked, Did God never reveal himself to any of the Gentiles? I answer, no manifestation of God without Christ was ever made among the Gentiles, any more than among the Jews. It is not to one age only, or to one nation, that the saying of our Lord applies,

“

I am the way;” for he adds, “no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” (Joh 14:6.)

(125) “They either knew him not, or did not worship him as God; they had not avouched, or solemnly owned, or taken him for their God; and, in consequence, were not avouched, were not owned, and blessed, and accepted by him as his peculiar people. This was their condition as Gentiles born.” — Chandler.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(12) This verse gives a dark and terrible picture of the former heathen condition of the Ephesians, intentionally contrasted in every point with the description of Christian privilege in Eph. 2:19-20. That condition is first summed up in one expression. They were separate from Christ. Then from this are drawn two gloomy consequences: first (1), that they had no part in Gods special covenant, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and so strangers to the (often repeated) covenants of the promise of the Messiah; next (2), that, thus left in the world, they had no hope of spiritual life and immortality, and were godless in thought and act. For Christ is at once the end and substance of the covenant of Israel, and the Revealer of God, and therefore of spiritual life in man, to all mankind. To be without Him is to lose both covenant and light. On (1) it is to be noted that the word used is not aliens, but alienated. implyingwhat is again and again declared to usthat the covenant with Israel, as it was held in trust for the blessing of all families of the earth, so also was simply the true birthright of humanity, from which mankind had fallen. The first covenant in scripture (Gen. 9:8-17) is with the whole of the post-diluvian race, and is expressly connected with the reality of the image of God in man (Gen. 9:6). The succeeding covenants (as with Abraham, Moses, and David) all contain a promise concerning the whole race of man. Hence the Gentiles (as the utterances of prophecy showed more and more clearly while the ages rolled on) were exiles from what should have been their home; and their call into the Church of Christ was a restoration of Gods wandering children. In relation to (2) it is impossible not to observe, even in the highest forms of heathen philosophy, how their comparative godlessnessthe absence of any clear notion of a real spiritual tie of nature between God and manmade their hope of life and immortality, though still cherished, shadowy and uncertain, always stronger in itself than in its grounds. But St. Pauls description ought to be applied strictly, not to heathen life in its nobler and purer forms, but to the heathen life of Asia Minor in his days. What that was in moral degradation and in loss of all spiritual religion, ill compensated by the inevitable proneness to various superstitions, all contemporary literature testifies. From it came, as the Romans declared, the corruption which overspread the whole empire, and which St. Paul describes so terribly in Rom. 1:18-32.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. Without Christ This description of their heathen condition differs from that in Eph 2:1-3, in that the latter details dark, active wickedness, exciting abhorrence; whilst this presents details of destitution and unhappiness, touching the heart with pity. Without Christ, they were without every other blessedness; without holy citizenship, without the covenants, without hope, and without God only in the world.

Aliens Israel Literally, Foreigners from the polity of Israel. They had no rights in the spiritual realm; no citizenship in the city of God, in the Jerusalem below, or the Jerusalem above.

Strangers promise In those blessed covenants in the archives of the holy city they, as unnaturalized foreigners, had no share and no knowledge. The Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, and including both, Christ’s covenant of promise, conditioned on faith, had no promise for them.

No hope There was in those covenants a blessed hope of pardon of sin, of immortality, and eternal life; but no hope therefrom for them. Dim hopes from nature there were, but nothing that Christianity could call a hope.

Without God There was a God in Israel, revealed in the covenants, incarnate in Christ; but no God for them. They had a great fancy goddess. Artemis, (Diana;) but she was nothing but a many-breasted pantheistic conception. Notes, Act 19:22-28. They were without God in all the world. They were solitaires, orphans, godless, and wanderers in the world, that was full of a father God. But the precise meaning of the clause in the world, (which has been something of a puzzle to commentators,) may be best seen by reversing the order of the clauses: In the world, without God, without hope. Its emphasis may thus appear; without hope, without God, yet in the world! In an existence rendered by sin worse than non-existence!

Such is the picture, drawn with deep pathos by a tender yet true hand, of unregenerate heathendom! Well may Meyer query whether such a picture makes any allowance for the salvable heathen. It supposes no Socrates, Plato, or Aristides. But doubtless, in fact, there were among the pagan converts from Artemis too few such relieving exceptions to suggest any brightening of the picture. See notes, Act 18:19. Perhaps he would have drawn a milder portraiture of the barbarians of Melita. Act 28:1-6. Notes, Rom 2:14-15.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Eph 2:12. Thatye were without Christ, &c. “Without any knowledge of the Messiah, or any expectation of deliverance or salvation by him.” Though the covenant, for substance, was one and the same, the Apostle speaks of it in the plural number, covenants, as it was delivered at several times, with various explications and enlargements, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and afterwards to the whole body of the Israelites: and as the promises which it contained centered in the great promise of the Messiah, and of salvation by him, St. Paul therefore speaks of them inthe singular number, as but one promise; which is agreeable to the Scripture style in other places. Some propose to render this passage, Strangers from the covenants,having no hope of the promise. The Gentiles were without God in the world, as they neither knew nor served the true God. It is in this sense that they are here called , without God, for there were few of them Atheists in our sense of the word; that is to say, deniers of a superior power; and many of them acknowledged one supreme eternal God: but as St. Paul says, Rom 1:21. Even when they knew God, they glorified him not as God: they owned not him alone; but turned from the invisible God to the worship of images and the false gods of their countries. It has been observed upon the clause of this verse, having no hope, that though a general knowledge and uncertain idea of a future state prevailed among the heathens, yet it is certain that they reasoned very weakly upon the subject; that they had no well-grounded hope of future happiness, and that they were but very little impressed with it: so that they had no deity to which they prayed for eternal life, as the fathers often remonstrate; and by far the greater part of their most learned philosophers either expressly denied, in private lectures to their pupils, the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, or taught principles quite inconsistent with it.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Eph 2:12 . As regards the construction, see on Eph 2:11 .

] takes the place of the , Eph 2:11 , and means the pre-Christian, heathen period of the readers. On the dative of time without , see Winer, p. 195 f. [E. T. 273 f.].

] aloof from connection with Christ ; for “ ad subjectum, quod ab objecto sejunctum est, refertur,” Tittmann, Synon . p. 94. It is dependent on as its first sad predicate, and does not belong, as a more precise definition, to the subject (“when ye were as yet without Christ,” Bleek), in which case it would in fact be entirely self-evident and superfluous. In how far the readers as Gentiles were without Christ, we are told in the sequel. They stood afar off and aloof from the theocratic bond, in which Christ would have been to them, in accordance with the promise, the object of their faith and ground of their salvation. If Paul had wished to express merely the negation of the Christian relation (ye were without knowledge of Christ; comp. Anselm, Calovius, Flatt), how tame and idle would this in itself have been! and, moreover, not in keeping with the connection of that which follows, according to which, as is already clear from Eph 2:11 , Paul wishes to bring out the disadvantage at which the readers, as Gentiles, had been placed in contradistinction to the Jews . Hence Grotius rightly indicates the relation as to contrast of Eph 2:12 to Eph 2:13 : “Nunc eum (Christum) non minus possidetis vos quam ii, quibus promissus fuerat .” Rckert refers . to the activity of Christ under the O. T. previous to His incarnation , with an appeal to 1Co 10:4 . Comp. Olshausen (“the immanence of Christ as regards His divinity in Israel”). But , in fact, applies to the pre-Christian lifetime of the readers , and thus comprises a time which was subsequent to the incarnation . means the historical Christ , so far as He was the very promised Messiah. The relation is described from the standpoint of the apostle , for whom the bond with the Messiah was the bond with Christ .

The charge that the author here makes an un-Pauline concession to Judaism (Schwegler, i.e. p. 388 f.) is incorrect, since the concession concerns only the pre-Christian relation. Comp. Rom 9:4-5 . A superiority of Judaism, in respect of the pre-Christian relation to Christianity, Paul could not but necessarily teach (comp. Act 3:25 f.; Rom 1:16 ; Rom 3:1 f.; Gal 3:13 f.); but that Christianity as to its essential contents was Judaism itself, merely extended through the death of Christ to the Gentiles also, he has not taught either here or elsewhere; in fact, the doing away of the law taught by him in this very passage is the very opposite thereof (in opposition to Baur, Paulus , p. 545; Christenth. der drei ersten Jahrh . p. 107).

. . .] Comp. on , Dem. 255, 3; Polyb. i. 79. 6, i. 82. 9; often in the LXX. (Schleusner, Thesaur. I. p. 325) and Josephus, Krebs, Obss. p. 326. The notion of alien does not here (comp. also Eph 6:18 ; Col 1:21 ) presuppose the existence of an earlier fellowship, but it was their status ethnicus itself , [146] by which the readers were at one time placed apart from connection with the , i.e. whereby this took place. The opposite: , , (Eph 2:19 ). signifies as well political constitution (Thuc. ii. 36; Plato, Polit . vii p. 520 B; Legg. iv. p. 712 E; Arist. Polit . iii. 4. 1; Isoc. Evag . viii. 10; Xen. Ages . i. 37; 2Ma 4:11 ; 2Ma 8:17 ) as right of citizenship (Herod, ix. 34; Dem. 161, 11; Thuc. vi. 104. 3; Diod. Sic. xii. 51; 3Ma 3:21 ; Act 22:28 ; Joseph. Antt. xii. 3. 1). The latter signification is assumed by Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Bullinger, Michaelis, and others. But the idea of right of citizenship was for the apostle, himself a Roman citizen, as well as for the readers, a secular privilege, and one therefore foreign to the connection of our passage, where everything points to the theocracy , and this was the political constitution of the Israelites.

] The divine name of Jacob (Gen 32:28 ; Gen 35:10 ) is, according to the traditionally hallowed usage of the O. T., the theocratic name of his posterity, the Jewish people, Rom 9:6 ; 1Co 10:18 ; Gal 6:16 , al. The genitive , however, is not to be explained like (Harless); for is the people, which has the polity.

.] and foreign to the covenants of the promise (not belonging thereto); these words are to be taken together (in opposition to Ambrosiaster, Cornelius a Lapide, Morus, Rosenmller, and others, who attach . to what follows); for only thus do the two elements belonging to each other and connected by , which serve for the elucidation of , stand in harmonious symmetry; only in this way, likewise, is similar justice done to the two last particulars connected by ,

which in their very generality and brevity carry the description of the Gentile misery to the uttermost point; only in this way, lastly, does acquire the characteristic colouring which it needs, in order not to appear tame after . . . . . , for precisely in the characteristic . lies the sad significance of the being apart from the . The covenants of the promise , i.e. the covenants with which the promise , namely, that of the Messianic salvation (Rom 9:4 ; Gal 3 ), was connected, are the covenants made with Abraham (Gen 12:2 f., Gen 12:7 , Gen 13:15 , Gen 15:18 , Gen 17:20 , Gen 22:17 ff.) and repeated with the other patriarchs (Gen 26:2 ff; Gen 28:13 ff.), as also the covenant formed with the people through Moses. The latter is here (it is otherwise at Rom 9:4 , where there specially follows ) neither excluded (Rckert, Harless, Olshausen, and others), seeing that this covenant also had the promise of Messianic life ( , Gal 3:12 ), nor exclusively meant (Elsner and Wolf, as was already suggested by Beza). Either is arbitrary, and against the latter there may be urged specially the plural, as well as the eminent importance which Paul must have attributed to the patriarchal covenants in particular. On with a genitive (Khner, II. p. 163), comp. Xen. Cyr. vi. 2. 1; Soph. Oed. R . 219; Plato, Apol . p. 17 D, al.

. . .] consequence of the preceding . . , and in what a tragic climax! The very generality of the expressions, inasmuch as it is not merely a definite hope (Paul did not write ) and a definite relation to God that are denied, renders these last traits of the picture so dark!

] Bengel: “Si promissionem habuissent, spem habuissent illi respondentem.” But in this way Paul must have written . No, those shut out from the promise are for the apostle men without hope at all ; they have nothing to hope for, just because they have not to hope for the promised salvation . Comp. 1Th 4:13 . Every explanation of a definite hope (of the resurrection and life everlasting, Bullinger, Grotius, and many; of the promised blessings, Estius; of deliverance, Harless; comp. Erasmus and others) conflicts with the absence of the article, and weakens the force of the picture.

] is not to be explained from the dependence of the thought on what immediately precedes (“foreign to the covenants of the promise, without having hope ,” as Harless would take it), by which the independence of the element . . would be sacrificed to the injury of the symmetry and force of the passage; but the subjectivity of the negation results from , , in accordance with which is a fact now conceived in the recollection of the readers (comp. Khner, II. 715, 3). The refers the . . to the conception of the subject of the governing verbum sentiendi ( ).

] the lowest stage of Gentile misery. We may explain the word (see, generally, Diog. Laert. vii. 119; Sturz in the Comm. soc. phil. Lips. II. p. 65 ff.; Meier in the Hall. Encykl . I. 24, p. 466 ff.), which occurs only here in the N.T., and not at all in the LXX. or Apocrypha, either: not believing in God , atheists (Plato, Apol . p. 26 C; Lucian, Alex . 25; Aelian, V. H . ii. 31; comp. Ignat. ad Trall. 10: , ), or godless, impii , reprobate (Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 E; Xen. Anab. ii. 5. 39; Pindar, Pyth . iv. 288), or: without God, sine Deo (Vulgate), i.e. without divine help , without the protection and assistance of God (Soph. Oed. R . 633: , , comp. 254). The last-mentioned sense, as yielding the saddest closing predicate (comp. , Hom. Od. xviii. 352; Mosch. ii. 148), is here to be preferred. The Gentiles had gods, which, however, were no gods (Act 19:26 ; Act 14:15 ; Gal 4:8 ); but, on the contrary, what they worshipped and honoured as divinities, since the forsaking of the natural knowledge of God (Rom 1:19 ff.), were demons (1Co 10:20 ); so that for them with all their (Act 17:22 ) God was really wanting , and they apart from connection with God’s grace and help lived on in a God-forsaken state. Paul might have written , as at Rom 1:30 , but he continues in the stream of negative designations, which gives to his picture an elegiac colouring.

] is referred by Calovius and Koppe to the preceding elements as a whole. But in this way it would have something of a dragging effect, whereas it attaches itself with force and suggestiveness to the bare , whose tragical effect it serves to deepen. Only it must not be explained, even when so connected, with Koppe: “ inter ceteros homines, in his terris ,” in which sense it would be devoid of significance. Nay rather, profane humanity (observe the contrast to the ), the Gentile world , was the unhallowed domain, in which the readers in former time existed without God. It adds to the ungodly How the ungodly Where . Olshausen explains: “in this evil world, in which one has such urgent need of a sure hope, a fast hold to the living God;” but this is imported , since no predicate stands beside . According to Rckert, it is to form a contrast to , and that in the sense: “in the world, of which the earth is a part, and which stands under God’s government.” [147] But Paul must have said this, if he had meant it (by , or something similar). Oecumenius and Meier: , etc. This would be expressed by .

The question, we may add, whether the applies to all Gentiles, not even a Socrates or a Plato excepted, is, in the view of the apostle, to be answered affirmatively, at all events in general (Rom 3:10 ff; Rom 11:16 ff.; 1Co 1:19 ff.), but has only an indirect application here, since the apostle is speaking of his readers , whom he describes as to their category . That, if the subject of his discourse had called for it, he would have known how to set limitations to his general judgment, may be assumed of itself, and in accordance with Rom 2:14 f. Comp. Act 17:28 .

[146] Not, as Grotius would have it (whom Rosenmller follows): the diversity of political institutions: “In illa republica a Deo instituta non modo honores non poteratis capere, sed nec pro civibus haberi; adeo distabant instituta .”

[147] So in substance also Grotius: “per omnes terrarum oras verum Deum, mundi sc. opificem , aut ignorabatis, aut certe non colebatis, sed pro eo Deos ab hominibus fictos.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2100
THE STATES OF THE REGENERATE AND THE UNREGENERATE CONTRASTED

Eph 2:12-13. Ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

THERE is scarcely any thing which has a greater tendency to impress our minds with exalted views of the grace of God, than to compare the guilt and misery of an unconverted state, with the purity and happiness into which we are brought by the Gospel of Christ. As a shipwrecked person, viewing the tempest from a rock on which he has been cast, feels a solemn and grateful sense of the mercy vouchsafed unto him; so surely must every one, who looks unto the rock whence he has been hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence he has been digged, stand amazed at the Divine goodness, and be quickened to pour out his soul in grateful adorations. To produce this frame, is the scope of the whole preceding part of this epistle, wherein the Apostle extols and magnifies the grace of God, as manifested to his redeemed people. Having shewn what their state had been previous to conversion, and contrasted it with that to which they are introduced by the Gospel, he exhorts them to bear it in remembrance: Wherefore remember; remember what ye were, that ye may be thankful for what ye are [Note: ver. 11. with the text.].

We propose to shew,

I.

The state of unregenerate men

The state of the Jews and Gentiles represented in a very lively manner the conditions of persons under the Gospel: the external privileges of the Jews, typifying the internal and spiritual privileges of the regenerate; and the abhorred state of the Gentiles marking with equal clearness the ignorance and misery of the unregenerate. In this view, what the Apostle says of the Ephesians, previous to their conversion to Christianity, may be considered as applicable to all at this day, who are not truly and savingly converted:

1.

They are without Christ

[The Gentiles, of course, had no knowledge of, nor any interest in, the Lord Jesus Christ. And thus it is with the unregenerate amongst ourselves: they are without Christ [Note: . Comp. Joh 15:5.]; they are separated from him as branches cut off from the vine: they do not depend upon him, or receive sap and nutriment from him. They indeed call themselves Christians; but they have no union with Christ, nor any communications from him.]

2.

They are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel

[Israel are called a commonwealth, because they were governed by laws different from all other people, and possessed privileges unknown to the rest of the world. Thus the true Israel at this day may be considered in the same light; because they, and they only, acknowledge Christ as their governor: they alone yield obedience to his laws, and they alone enjoy the privileges of his people. Now as the Gentiles were aliens from the commonwealth of the Jews, so are all unconverted men aliens from the commonwealth of the converted. They are governed by different laws; following the customs, fashions, and erroneous maxims of the world: they are separated from them in heart and affection; and though, from necessity, they must sometimes have intercourse with the godly, they never unite with them as one people, or desire to have one lot together with them.]

3.

They are strangers from the covenants of promise

[There is, strictly speaking, but one covenant of grace: but the Apostle speaks of it in the plural number; because it was given at different times, and always with increasing fulness and perspicuity. Whether given to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, or to Moses, it was always the same: only the promises annexed to it were more copious and explicit. It is called the covenant of promise, to distinguish it from the covenant of works, which consisted only in requirements; whereas this consists chiefly in promises: under the covenant of works, men were to do all; under the covenant of grace they were to receive all.

It is obvious that the Gentiles were strangers to this covenant: and though it is not alike obvious, it is equally true, that the unconverted are strangers to it also. We confess they are admitted into the external bond of it in their baptism: but they do not become partakers of the promised blessings till they sue for them in the excercise of faith and prayer. And we will venture to appeal to the generality of baptized persons, Whether they are not as much strangers to the covenant of promise, as if no such covenant existed? Do they rest upon the promises? Do they treasure them up in their minds? Do they plead them in prayer before God? Do they found all their hopes of happiness upon them? Alas! they have little acquaintance with the nature of the covenant, and no submission to its terms: and consequently they are utter strangers to the covenant, and to the promises contained in it.]

4.

They are without hope

[The Gentile world are always represented as in a hopeless state; and though we presume not to say, that God will not extend uncovenanted mercy to any, yet we have no warrant to affirm that he will. If indeed they perfectly fulfilled the law-written in their hearts, there is reason to think God would have mercy on them [Note: Rom 2:26-27.]: but who amongst them does perfectly fulfil that law? But, waving this, there is an absolute certainty that the state of unconverted men under the Gospel is hopeless: no mercy can possibly be extended to them, if they continue unconverted: they must inevitably and eternally perish. For, how should they have any hope, when they are without Christ (who is the Head of all vital influence), and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel (to which alone any saving blessings are communicated), and strangers from the covenant of promise (which is the only channel by which those blessings are conveyed to us)? From whence then can they derive any hope? or what foundation can they have for it?]

5.

They are without God in the world

[The gods of the heathen were no gods: therefore they to whom the God of Israel was unknown, were without God in the world. And thus it is with the unconverted amongst ourselves: for though they acknowledge the being of a God, they know not what a just and holy God he is; nor do they glorify him as God, by a conformity to his revealed will. They love not to hear of him: they endeavour to blot out the remembrance of him from their minds; their whole conduct accords with that of Pharaoh, when he said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go [Note: Exo 5:2.]. In a word, the language of their hearts is like that of the fool whom David speaks of, No God; there is no God to controul or punish me; or, if there be, I wish there were none [Note: Psa 14:1.].]

But that all do not continue in that deplorable condition, will appear by considering,

II.

The state to which they are introduced by the Gospel

Every living man once was in the state above described; but in conversion, men who were sometimes afar off, are made nigh to God
[In what the nearness of converted men to God consists, will appear by the very same considerations as have already been used to illustrate their distance from him in their unconverted state. The Gentiles had no liberty of access to God among the Jews: they had an outer court assigned them; and it would have been at the peril of their lives, if they had presumed to enter the place appropriated to the Jews. But on conversion to Judaism, they were admitted to a participation of all the rights and privileges of the Jews themselves. Thus persons truly converted to God have liberty to approach, the Majesty of heaven; yea, since the vail of the temple was rent in twain, a new and living way is opened for them into the holiest of all: they may go even to the throne of God, and draw nigh to him as their reconciled God and Father. As soon as ever they are in Christ Jesus, united to him by faith, and interested in his merits, they have every privilege which the most eminent saints enjoy: their sins are pardoned; they have peace with God; and, though they may not be so full of joy as others, yet they have the same grounds of joy, inasmuch as their Beloved is theirs, and they are his.]
To this happy state they are brought by the blood of Christ
[It was the blood of the sacrifice that availed for the restoration of sinners to the Divine favour under the law: and in the same manner it is the blood of Christ, and that only, that can avail for us. But as in the former case, so also in this, two things are necessary: the blood must be shed as an atonement for sin; and it must be sprinkled on the offender himself, to intimate his entire affiance in it. Now the shedding of Christs blood was effected on Calvary, many hundred years ago: and that one offering is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world. Nothing more therefore is wanting to reconcile us to the Deity. But the sprinkling of his blood upon our hearts and consciences must be done by every one for himself: we must, as it were, dip the hyssop in the blood, and apply it to our own souls: or, in other words, we must exercise faith on the atonement of Christ as the only ground of our acceptance before God. In this way, and in this only, are we ever brought to a state of favour with God, and of fellowship with his people.]

This subject being mentioned as that which was deserving of continual remembrance, we would call upon you to remember it
1.

As a criterion whereby to judge of your state

[It is evident, that, if once we were afar off from God, and now we are nigh to him, there must have been a transition from the one state to the other, or, as the Scripture expresses it, a passing from death unto life. Has this transition then ever taken place in your souls? It is not necessary that you should be able to trace the precise time when it began, and the various steps by which it was accomplished: but there is an impossibility for it to have taken place, without your having sought it humbly, and laboured for it diligently. Have you then this evidence at least that it has been accomplished? If not, you can have no reason to think that you have ever yet experienced the change, which characterizes all who are made heirs of salvation.]

2.

As a ground of humiliation

[If you were the most eminent saint that ever lived, it would be well to bear in mind what you once were, and what you would still have been, if Divine grace had not wrought a change within you. Look then at those who are afar off; and, when you see their alienation from God, their enmity against his people, their distance from even a hope of salvation, behold your own image, and be confounded on account of your past abominations: yea, walk softly also before God all the days of your life, in the recollection, that, as that once was your state, so it would be again, if the grace that originally interposed to change you, do not continually maintain that change in your souls.]

3.

As a source of gratitude and joy

[It is scarcely needful to say, that they who have experienced a restoration to Gods favour, should bless and magnify their Benefactor and Redeemer. But have not those also, who are at the greatest distance from God, reason to rejoice and sing? Yes surely; for they may look at those who are now in heaven, and say, The blood which availed to bring them nigh to God will also avail for me. O joyful thought! Ponder it in your hearts, ye careless sinners: consider what the Lord Jesus Christ is both able and willing to do for you. Every saint, whether on earth or in heaven, was once in your state; and if you will seek remission through the blood of Christ, you shall be partakers of their privileges, both in this world and in the world to come.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

Ver. 12. Strangers from the covenant ] The saints only are heirs to the promises; but the devil sweeps all the wicked, as being out of the covenant. They stuff themselves with promises, till they have made them a pillow for sin, Deu 29:19 . Sed praesumendo sperant, et sperando pereunt.

Having no hope ] But such as will one day hop headless; such as will serve them as Absalom’s mule served her master, when she left him hanging by the head between heaven and earth, as rejected of both.

Without God in the world ] Because without a teaching priest, and without law,2Ch 15:32Ch 15:3 . As it is said of the poor Brazilians at this day, that they are sine fide, sine rege, sine lege, without faith, without a king, without law. This was the case of our pagan predecessors.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12 .] that ye were (the takes up again the in Eph 2:11 , after the relative clause, and the . takes up the there. It is not a broken construction, but only a repetition; ‘that, I say.’) at that time (when ye were, not , which ye are now, and which is carefully divided from above by , but that which is implied in , heathens, before your conversion to Christ. On the dative of time without the preposition , see Khner, vol. ii. 569, and remarks on its difference from the genitive and accusative) without Christ (separate from, having no part in, the promised Messiah. That this is the sense, is evident from Eph 2:13 : see below. The words . . are not a defining clause to ., as Lachmann points them, and De W. and Eadie render: ‘that ye were, being without Christ, &c.’ The arrangement would thus be harsh and clumsy beyond all precedent) alienated from ( , , . , , . , , , Chr. Gentiles and Jews were once united in the hope of redemption this was constituted, on the apostasy of the nations, into a definite for the Jews, from which and its blessings the Gentiles were alienated) the commonwealth ( is both polity, state (objective), , Aristot. Polit. iii. 1, and right of citizenship , ref. Acts. The former appears best here, on account of ., which seems to require as its reference an objective external reality) of Israel (either as synonymous genitive, ‘that commonwealth which is designated by the term Israel,’ or possessive (as Ellic.) ‘that commonwealth which Israel possessed.’ I prefer the former, as more simple) and strangers from (so Soph. d. Tyr. 219, , . The genitive may be explained either 1) as one of the quality, as in , , or as 2) one of privation = negative of possession, being resolved into . This latter is perhaps the best. See Bernhardy, p. 171 ff.; Khner, ii. 163) the covenants of the promise ( . . .; “ . . ,” . , Chrys. See note on Rom 9:4 . The meaning here, as there, has been mistaken (Calv. al.) to be ‘the two tables of the law.’ Cf. Wis 18:22 ; Sir 44:11 ), not having ( on account of the subjective colouring given to the whole sentence by . So in , Thuc. ii. 101: , , Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 7: , Plato, Rep. p. 486 B. See Winer, 55. 5; Khner, ii. 715. 3) hope (not ‘covenanted hope’ ( .), but ‘hope’ at all. The emphatic position of makes this the more necessary) and without God (this is the best rendering, as it leaves in its latitude of meaning. It may be taken either 1) actively, ‘ denying God,’ ‘atheist ,’ 2) in a neuter sense (see Ellic.) ‘ ignorant of God ’ ( , Thdrt.: see Gal 4:8 ; 1Th 4:5 , where the Gentiles are described as . ), or 3) passively, ‘ forsaken of God ’ (so Soph. d. Tyr. 661, : ib. 254, , ). This latter meaning is best here, on account of the passive character of the other descriptive clauses) in the world (contrast to the . “He subjoins to the godless ‘How,’ the godless ‘Where,’ ” Mey. Olsh. understands, ‘in this wicked world, in which we have so much need of divine guidance,’ which is hardly in the simple words: Rck., ‘in God’s world,’ contrast to . These words must not be separated, as some, from ).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Eph 2:12 . : that ye were at that time apart from Christ . The sentence interrupted by the description of those addressed as . . . is now resumed Remember, I say, that ye were . The , corresponding to the previous , refers to their pre-Christian days. In such phrases it is usual to insert (Donald., Greek Gram. , p. 487), and it is inserted by the TR (following [149] [150] [151] [152] , etc.). But time when is also often enough expressed by the simple dat. (Win.-Moult., pp. 273, 274), and the balance of evidence is largely against the presence of the prep. here. The is the predicate to , and is not a defining clause = “being at that time without Christ” (De Wette, Bleek). It describes their former condition as one in which they had no connection with Christ; in which respect they were in a position sadly inferior to that of the Jews whose attitude was one of hoping and waiting for Christ, the Messiah. Their apartness from Christ, their lack of all relation to Him this is the first stroke in the dark picture of their former heathen life, and the four to which the eye is directed in the subsequent clauses all follow from that. : alienated from the commonwealth of Israel . The alienation is expressed by , a strong verb, common enough in classical Greek (at least from Plato’s time), corresponding to the OT ( cf. Psa 58:4 ), and used again in Eph 4:18 ; Col 1:21 . It does not necessarily imply a lapse from a former condition of attachment or fellowship, but expresses generally the idea of being a stranger as contrasted with one who is at home with a person or an object. The term has two main senses a state or commonwealth ( e.g. , 2Ma 4:11 ; 2Ma 8:17 ), and citizenship or the rights of a citizen (Act 22:28 ). The first of these is most in harmony with the theocratic term , and so it is understood by most. These Ephesians, therefore, had no part in the theocracy, the OT constitution under which God made Himself known to the Jew and entered into relation with him. : and strangers from the covenants of the Promise . The is probably the gen. of separation or removal . That idea is usually expressed by a prep., but with verbs like , , , and with some adjectives, it is also expressed by the simple gen. (Win.-Moult., pp. 243, 244). The word , which has the particular meaning of one who is not a member of a state or city, is used here in the general sense of foreign to a thing, having no share in it. The are the covenants with Abraham and the patriarchs ( cf. Wis 18:22 ; 2Ma 8:15 ). It is obviously the covenants of Messianic significance that are in view. That the Mosaic Law or the Sinaitic Covenant is not in view seems to follow from the mention of the ; for that Covenant was not distinctively of the Promise, but is described by Paul as coming in after it and provisionally (Gal 3:17-19 ). The is the Promise, the one distinctively so called, the great Messianic Promise given to the fathers of the Hebrew people (Gen 13:15 ; Gen 15:18 ; Gen 17:8 , etc.). The defining is attached by some (Rosenmller, etc.) to the following . But the covenants and the promise are kindred ideas, and make one thought here. : having no hope . With participles the subjective negative is much more frequently used than . In cases like the present, where the participle does not belong to the class of those expressing command, purpose, condition or the like, the use of is due to the aspect in which the matter in question presents itself to the writer to the fact, e.g. , that he has a genus , not the individual, in view; cf. Ell. on 1Th 2:15 , and Win.-Moult., p. 606. The statement here is absolute , not . It is not only that they had not the hope, the Messianic hope which was one of the distinctions of the Israelite, but that they were utterly without hope. Ignorant of the Divine salvation and of Christ in whom it was found, they had nothing to hope for beyond this world. : and without God in the world . The last element in the darkness and misery of their former life. The adj. , which is never found in the LXX or in the Apocrypha, and only this once in the NT, in classical Greek means impious in the sense of denying or neglecting the gods of the State; but it is also used occasionally in the sense of knowing or worshipping no God (l., V. h., 2, 31), or in that of abandoned by God (Soph., d. R. , 633). Three renderings are possible here ignorant of God, denying God, forsaken of God. The third is preferred by many (Mey., Ell., etc.), who think that the darkest colour is given to the picture of their old heathen condition by this mention of the fact that they were without the help and protection of God. The first of the three senses, however, seems even more in harmony with the preceding negations. As they were without Christ, and without hope, so were they without God without the knowledge of the one true and living and thus destitute of any God. So in Gal 4:8 Paul speaks of Gentiles like these as knowing not God and doing service unto them which by nature are no gods . The clause is connected by some with the whole preceding description (Koppe, etc.); by others with the two last sentences in the description the and the (Abb.). But it rather makes one idea with the immediately preceding term . It is difficult to say in what particular sense the is used here whether in the simple, non-ethical sense, or in the deeper sense which it has in John and also at times in some degree in Paul (1Co 1:21 ; 1Co 6:2 ; 1Co 11:32 ; 2Co 7:10 ). Whichever is preferred whether “without God in the world of men,” or “without God in this evil world” an appropriate idea results. But the implied contrast with the previous leads most to decide for the latter. The domain of their life was this present evil world, and in it, alienated as it was from God, they had no God.

[149] Codex Alexandrinus (sc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).

[150] Codex Claromontanus (sc. vi.), a Grco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[151] Codex Augiensis (sc. ix.), a Grco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[152] Codex Boernerianus (sc. ix.), a Grco-Latin MS., at Dresden, edited by Matthi in 1791. Written by an Irish scribe, it once formed part of the same volume as Codex Sangallensis ( ) of the Gospels. The Latin text, g, is based on the O.L. translation.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

without = apart from.

being aliens = having been estranged from. Greek. apallotrioo. Only here; Eph 4:18. Col 1:21.

commonwealth = polity. Greek. politeia. Only here and Act 22:28.

Israel. In the Prison Epp. only here and Php 1:3, Php 1:5.

strangers. Greek. xenos. See Act 17:21.

promise = the promise

without God. Greek. atheos. Only here.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12.] that ye were (the takes up again the in Eph 2:11, after the relative clause,-and the . takes up the there. It is not a broken construction, but only a repetition; that, I say.) at that time (when ye were,-not , which ye are now, and which is carefully divided from above by ,-but that which is implied in ,-heathens, before your conversion to Christ. On the dative of time without the preposition , see Khner, vol. ii. 569, and remarks on its difference from the genitive and accusative) without Christ (separate from, having no part in, the promised Messiah. That this is the sense, is evident from Eph 2:13 : see below. The words . . are not a defining clause to ., as Lachmann points them, and De W. and Eadie render: that ye were, being without Christ, &c. The arrangement would thus be harsh and clumsy beyond all precedent) alienated from ( , , . , , . , , , Chr. Gentiles and Jews were once united in the hope of redemption-this was constituted, on the apostasy of the nations, into a definite for the Jews, from which and its blessings the Gentiles were alienated) the commonwealth ( is both polity, state (objective),- , Aristot. Polit. iii. 1,-and right of citizenship, ref. Acts. The former appears best here, on account of ., which seems to require as its reference an objective external reality) of Israel (either as synonymous genitive, that commonwealth which is designated by the term Israel, or possessive (as Ellic.) that commonwealth which Israel possessed. I prefer the former, as more simple) and strangers from (so Soph. d. Tyr. 219, , . The genitive may be explained either 1) as one of the quality, as in , ,-or as 2) one of privation = negative of possession, being resolved into . This latter is perhaps the best. See Bernhardy, p. 171 ff.; Khner, ii. 163) the covenants of the promise ( . . .; . . , . , Chrys. See note on Rom 9:4. The meaning here, as there, has been mistaken (Calv. al.) to be the two tables of the law. Cf. Wis 18:22; Sir 44:11), not having ( on account of the subjective colouring given to the whole sentence by . So in , Thuc. ii. 101: , , Xen. Cyr. i. 2. 7: , Plato, Rep. p. 486 B. See Winer, 55. 5; Khner, ii. 715. 3) hope (not covenanted hope ( .),-but hope at all. The emphatic position of makes this the more necessary) and without God (this is the best rendering, as it leaves in its latitude of meaning. It may be taken either 1) actively, denying God, atheist, 2) in a neuter sense (see Ellic.)-ignorant of God ( , Thdrt.: see Gal 4:8; 1Th 4:5, where the Gentiles are described as . ), or 3) passively, forsaken of God (so Soph. d. Tyr. 661, : ib. 254, , ). This latter meaning is best here, on account of the passive character of the other descriptive clauses) in the world (contrast to the . He subjoins to the godless How, the godless Where, Mey. Olsh. understands, in this wicked world, in which we have so much need of divine guidance, which is hardly in the simple words: Rck., in Gods world, contrast to . These words must not be separated, as some, from ).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Eph 2:12. , that) On this word, you were [Eph 2:12], and you are made [Eph 2:13], depend; but the particle is repeated from Eph 2:11.-, without) The antithesis is in Christ, Eph 2:13. Their misery is detailed under these three heads: without, and strangers-and without God [, atheists]: you were without Christ, without the Holy Spirit, without God; comp. Eph 2:18 and the following verses; ch. Eph 3:6, Eph 4:4-5, notes.- , without Christ) He proves this in the following clause, being alienated from (); nor does he say, aliens ():[27] comp. note at Eph 4:18.- , from the polity of Israel) The whole commonwealth of Israel had respect to Christ.- , and strangers) destitute of share in.- , the covenants of promise) God, the gift of Christ being presupposed, had above all promised the Holy Spirit; Eph 1:13; Gal 3:14, note; Luk 24:49; Acts 2; and the covenants had been subservient to that promise, Rom 9:4. This clause is proved by the following, having no hope; for if they had had a promise, they would have had the hope corresponding to it; but they had no hope; and therefore they had not even a promise.-, atheists) They had not come to the fixed opinion, that there were no gods; for they had even Diana and Jupiter, Act 19:35 : but, so far were they from having the true God, 1Th 4:5, they were even ignorant of Him, who He was. He says first, you were out of [without] Christ; afterwards he infers, you were without God.- , in the world) Paul proves the latter also, that they were without God; and he does so on the ground, that they wandered in the world, which is wide (2Co 1:12), and vain (Luk 12:30; Joh 1:10, at the end), serving the creatures, enjoying the things, that perish, removed far off [from God].

[27] Engl. Vers. loses this point by its rendering, aliens from.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Eph 2:12

Eph 2:12

that ye were at that time separate from Christ,-The condition of the Gentiles was deplorable. They had no knowledge of Christ, no interest in him, no life or blessing from him.

alienated from the commonwealth of Israel,-The Jews when out of Christ, before he came, were the citizens of the commonwealth of Israel.

and strangers from the covenants of the promise,-The Gentiles were separated from God, aliens, foreigners from the commonwealth, strangers to the promises and covenants made with Abraham. (Gen 12:2-3).

having no hope-The Gentiles could look forward with no hope beyond afflictions, sorrows, and sufferings of this present world, because they knew not God, and did not trust or honor him.

and without God in the world.-[They were unconnected with God; without any friendly and beneficial relation to him that would bring into their souls the fullness of God. The fivefold negative description of this verse has a cumulative effect; the situation becomes graver and more terrible, and the last clause is the climax.]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

world

kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield “Mat 4:8”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

without: Joh 10:16, Joh 15:5, Col 1:21

aliens: Eph 4:18, Ezr 4:3, Isa 61:5, Eze 13:9, Heb 11:34

the covenants: Gen 15:18, Gen 17:7-9, Exo 24:3-11, Num 18:19, Psa 89:3-18, Jer 31:31-34, Jer 33:20-26, Eze 37:26, Luk 1:72, Act 3:25, Rom 9:4, Rom 9:5, Rom 9:8, Gal 3:16, Gal 3:17

having: Jer 14:8, Jer 17:13, Joh 4:22, Act 28:20, Col 1:5, Col 1:27, 1Th 4:13, 2Th 2:16, 1Ti 1:1, Heb 6:18, 1Pe 1:3, 1Pe 1:21, 1Pe 3:15, 1Jo 3:3

without: 2Ch 15:3, Isa 44:6, Isa 45:20, Hos 3:4, Act 14:15, Act 14:16, Rom 1:28-32, 1Co 8:4-6, 1Co 10:19, 1Co 10:20, Gal 4:8, 1Th 4:5

Reciprocal: Exo 12:43 – There shall Exo 12:45 – General Lev 22:25 – because Num 9:10 – be unclean Num 23:9 – shall not Deu 4:7 – who hath Deu 5:15 – remember Deu 6:21 – General Deu 8:2 – remember Deu 15:15 – General Deu 23:8 – enter into Jos 5:9 – I rolled away Jos 6:23 – left them 1Sa 14:6 – uncircumcised 1Ch 22:2 – the strangers 2Ch 6:32 – the stranger Job 7:6 – without hope Psa 10:4 – God Psa 14:1 – no Psa 147:2 – he Psa 147:20 – not dealt so Pro 15:29 – far Son 8:8 – she hath Isa 14:1 – the strangers Isa 45:4 – though Isa 49:8 – to cause Isa 51:1 – look Isa 56:3 – the son Isa 63:19 – are thine Isa 65:1 – I am sought Eze 16:61 – when Eze 47:22 – and to the strangers Mat 3:9 – God Mat 15:26 – It is not Mat 20:7 – Because Mar 7:27 – Let Mar 7:28 – yet Act 17:23 – To Act 19:35 – Ye men Act 27:20 – all Rom 2:14 – which Rom 2:25 – circumcision Rom 9:30 – the Gentiles Rom 11:30 – as ye Rom 15:8 – truth 1Co 10:18 – Israel 1Co 12:2 – that Gal 2:15 – sinners Eph 1:13 – ye also Eph 1:18 – is Eph 2:13 – were Eph 2:19 – strangers Eph 5:8 – ye were Col 3:15 – the peace 1Pe 1:1 – the

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

(Eph 2:12.) -That at that same time ye were without Christ. The preposition is of doubtful authority, and is rejected by Lachmann and Tischendorf. Khner, 569; Winer, 31, 9, b. External authority, such as that of A, B, D1, F, G, is against it, though the Pauline usage, as found in Rom 3:26; Rom 11:5, 1Co 11:23, 2Co 8:13, etc., seems to be in its favour. The reference in the phrase-at that time, is to the period of previous Gentilism. The conjunction resumes the thought with which the preceding verse started, and points back to . The verb , as de Wette suggests, and as Lachmann points, may be connected with the participle -that at that time, being without Christ, ye were excluded from theocratic privileges. Ellicott and Alford call this construction harsh, and make a predicate. We will not contend for the construction, but we do not see such harshness in it. In this syntactic arrangement, would give the reason why they were aliens from the Hebrew commonwealth. corresponds to in Eph 2:13. But in what sense was the Gentile world without Christ? According to Anselm, Calovius, Flatt, and Baumgarten-Crusius, the phrase means-without the knowledge of Christ. Olshausen, Matthies, and Rckert connect with the words the idea of the actual manifestation and energy of the Son of God, who dwelt among the ancient people prior to His incarnation. Koppe, Meyer, and Meier give this thought prominence in their interpretation-without any connection with Christ,-an exegesis, in an enlarged form, adopted by Stier. De Wette rightly gives it-without the promise of Christ, and in this he has followed Calvin, Bucer, Bullinger, and Grotius. Harless takes it as a phrase concentrating in its two words the fuller exposition of itself given in the remaining clauses of the verse. Now it is to be borne in mind, that the apostle’s object is to describe the wretched state of Gentilism, especially in contrast with Hebrew theocratic privilege. The Jewish nation had Christ in some sense in which the Gentiles had Him not. It had the Messiah-not Jesus indeed-but the Christ in promise. He was the great subject-the one glowing, pervading promise of their inspired oracles. But the Gentiles were without Christ. No such hopes or promises were made known to them. No such predictions were given to them, so that they were in contrast to the chosen seed-without Christ. The rites, blessings, commonwealth, and covenants of old Israel had their origin in this promise of Messiah. On the other hand, the Gentiles being without Messiah, were of necessity destitute of such theocratic blessings and institutions. Such seems to be the contrast intended by the apostle. In this verse he says- , as was the official designation embalmed in promise; but he says in Eph 2:13 – , for the Messiah had appeared and had actually become Jesus.

-being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. The first thing to be examined is, what is meant by the . The conversatio (referring, it may be, to citizen-life) of the Vulgate, Jerome, Theophylact, Vatablus, and Estius, is not to be thought of. As Israel was the theocratic appellation of the people, the is so far defined in its meaning. It does not signify mere political right, as Grotius and Rosenmller secularize it; nor does it denote citizenship, or the right of citizenship, as Luther, Erasmus, Bullinger, Beza, and Michaelis understand it. Though Aristotle defines the word- , yet it often denotes the state or commonwealth itself, especially when followed, as here, by a possessive or synonymous genitive containing the people’s name. Polit. 3.1; Xenophon, Memorabilia, 2.1, 13; 2Ma 4:11; 2Ma 8:17, etc. The commonwealth of Israel is that government framed by God, in which religion and polity were so conjoined, that piety and loyalty were synonymous, and to fear God and honour the king were the same obligation. The nation was, at the same time, the only church of God, and the archives of the country were also the records of its faith. Civil and sacred were not distinguished; municipal immunity was identical with religious privilege; and a spiritual meaning was attached to dress and diet, as well as to altar and temple. And this entire arrangement had its origin and its form in the grand national characteristic-the promise of Messiah. The Gentiles had not the Messiah, and therefore were not included in such a commonwealth. This negation is expressed by the strong term . Eph 4:18; Col 1:21; Eze 14:7; Hos 9:10; Homberg, Parerga, p. 291; Krebs, Observat. p. 32 6. The contrast is in the 19th verse. The verb itself is used by Josephus to denote a sentence of expatriation or outlawry. Antiq. 11.4. May not the term imply a previous condition or privilege, from which there has been subsequent exclusion? Harless and Stier, led by Bengel in his note on Eph 4:18, hold this view. Historically, this interpretation cannot be maintained indeed, as the Gentiles never were united with the actual theocracy. But if the term be used in an ideal sense, as Rckert thinks, meaning eine wahrhaft gttliche Regierung-a true Divine government-then the exegesis may be adopted. Olshausen finds this notion in the form of the word itself, for the heathen are not simply but -men who had been excluded from the Hebrew commonwealth. Chrysostom notices the word, and ascribes to it . National distinction did not, indeed, exist in patriarchal times, but by the formation of the theocracy the other races of men were formally abalienated from Israel, and no doubt their own vices and idolatry justified their exclusion. And therefore they were destitute of religious privilege, knowledge of God, modes of accepted worship, enjoyment of Divine patronage and protection, oracle and prophet, priest and sacrifice. And still more awful-

-and strangers from the covenants of the promise-covenants having the promise as their distinctive possession, and characterized by it. The collocation of the words forbids the exegesis of Anselm, Ambrosiaster, a-Lapide, Estius, Wetstein, and Granville Penn, who join the two last terms to the following clause-having no hope of the promise. The term is used in the plural, not to show that there were distinct covenants, but to indicate covenants often renewed with the chosen people-the Mosaic covenant being a re-ratification of the Abrahamic. Rom 9:4. It is erroneous, then, either to say, with Elsner and Wolf, that the plural merely stands for the singular; or to affirm that the two tables of the law are referred to; or to suppose, with Harless and Olshausen, that the covenant made with the Jewish people by Moses is alone the point of allusion. The covenant founded with Abraham, their great progenitor, and repeated to his children and their offspring, was at length solemnly confirmed at Mount Sinai. That succeeds in Rom 9:4, is no argument against the idea that there was a covenant in the Mosaic law. Stier restricts the covenants to those made with the fathers, and denies that the transactions at Mount Sinai were of the nature of a covenant. But the covenant was bound up in the Sinaitic code, and ratified by the blood of sacrifice, when Moses formally sprinkled the book and all the people. The covenant was made with Abraham, Gen 12:3; Gen 22:18; with Isaac, Gen 26:3; with Jacob, Gen 28:13; with the people, Exo 24:8; and with David, 2Sa 7:12. See also Jer 31:31-34; Mal 3:1; Rom 11:27. The use of the plural was common. Sir 44:11; Wis 18:22; 2Ma 8:15. And when we look to this covenant in its numerous repetitions, we are at no loss to understand what is meant by the promise-the article being prefixed. The central promise here marked out by the article was the Messiah, and blessing by Him. That promise gave to these covenants all their beauty, appropriateness, and power. Covenants of the promise are therefore covenants containing that signal and specific announcement of an incarnate and triumphant Redeemer. To such covenants the heathen were strangers-. This adjective is followed by a genitive, not as one of quality, but as one of negative possession. Bernhardy, p. 171. Or see Matthiae, 337; Scheuerlein, 18, 3, a. Thus Sophocles, OEdip. Tyr. 219- . This second clause represents the effect of the condition noted in the former clause-not only gives a more special view of it, as Harless too restrictedly says, but it also depicts the result. Being aliens from the theocracy, they were, eo ipso, strangers to its glorious covenants and their unique promise. The various readings in the MSS. are futile efforts to solve apparent difficulties. Another feature was-

-not having hope. The subjective negative particle , so often employed with a participle, shows the dependence of this clause on those preceding it. Winer, 55, 5; Khner, 715; Hartung, vol. ii. pp. 105-130; Gayler. It is an erroneous and excessive restriction to confine this hope to that of the resurrection, as is done by Theophylact, from a slight resemblance to 1Th 4:13. Neither can we limit it to eternal blessing, with Bullinger, Grotius, and Meier; nor to promised good, with Estius; nor to the redemption, with Harless. , having the emphasis from its position and without the article, has the wide and usual significance which belongs to it in the Pauline epistles. Thus Wycliffe-not having hope of biheest. The Ephesians had no hope of any blessing which cheers and comforts, no hope of any good either to satisfy them here, or to yield them eternal happiness. They had hope of nothing a sinner should hope for, of nothing a fallen and guilty spirit writhes to get a glimpse of, of nothing which the Israel of God so confidently expected. Their future was a night without a star.

-and without God-not atheists in the modern sense of the term, for they held some belief in a superior power; nor yet antitheists, for many were feeling after the Lord, and their religion, even in its polytheism, was proof of an instinctive devotion. The word is indeed used of such as denied the gods of the state, by Cicero and by Plato-De Nat. Deor. 1.23; Opera, vol. ii. p. 311, ed. Bekker, Lond.; but it is also employed by the Greek tragedians as an epithet of impious, or, as we might say, godless men. It occurs also in the sense without God’s help, as in Sophocles, OEdipus Tyrannus, 661:

,

. . .

Since I wish to die godless, friendless, etc.

Perhaps the apostle uses the term in this last sense-not so much without belief in God, as without any help from Him. Though the apostle has proved the grovelling absurdity of polytheism and idolatry, and that the Gentiles sacrificed to demons and not to God, he never brands such blind worshippers as atheists. Act 17:23; Rom 1:20-25; 1Co 10:20. Theodoret understands by the phrase -devoid of the knowledge of God; and the apostle himself uses the phrase , Gal 4:8. Compare 1Th 4:5; 2Jn 1:9. The Gentile world were without God to counsel, befriend, guide, bless, and save them. In this sense they were godless, having no one to cry to, to trust in, to love, praise, and serve; whereas Jehovah, in His glory, unity, spirituality, condescension, wisdom, power, and grace, was ever present to the thinking mind and the pious heart in the Israelitish theocracy, and the idea of God combined itself with daily duty as well as with solemn and Sabbatic service.

-in the world. The connection of this clause has been variously understood. Koppe refers it to the entire verse; and the view of Calovius is similar. Such an interpretation is a mere nihility, and utters no additional idea. Storr (Opuscula Academica, iii. p. 304) paraphrases-In his terris versabamini; and Flatt renders-Ye were occupied with earthly things, and had mere earthly hopes. OEcumenius, Matthies, and Meier understand the clause-of an ungodly life. Olshausen and Stier explain-in this wicked world in which we have so pressing need of a sure hope, and of a firm hold on the living God. Rckert wanders far away in his ingenuity-In the world, of which the earth is a part, and which is under God’s government, ye lived without God, separated from God. Bloomfield takes the phrase as an aggravation of their offence-to live in a world made by God, and yet not to know Him. But we are inclined to take as a separate epithet, and we would not regard it simply as-inter caeteros homines pravos. According to Stier and Passavant, these terms crown the description with the blackness of darkness-the sin of sins, death in death, and they regard it as in apposition with . Schutze intensifies it by his translation-in perditorum hominum sentin. With Harless and Calovius, we regard as standing in contrast to the . The is the entire region beyond the , and, as such, is dark, hostile, and under Satan’s dominion, and, as the next verse mentions, it is far off. The phrase then may not qualify the clause immediately before it, but refer to the whole description, and mark out the sad position of ancient Heathendom, Eph 2:2. And all their miser y sprang from their being without Christ. Being Christless, they are described in regular gradation as being churchless, hopeless, godless, and homeless.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Eph 2:12. At that time means the time before the Gospel Dispensation was brought into the world. Without Christ because the Patriarchal Dispensation did not specifically show any connection with Him, even though the spiritual benefits which God bestowed upon the faithful members of that dispensation, were done in view of the part that Christ was to play in the salvation of any man in any age. The Gentiles were aliens or foreigners from the commonwealth, nation or government, of Israel or the Jews. Strangers is from XENOS which Thayer defines, “without knowledge of, without a share in.” Although the promises made to Abraham applied to the Gentiles (since Christ was to bless all nations), yet it was not known to them, hence in that sense they were strangers to the promise of Christ. Having no hope as far as the commonwealth or government of Israel was concerned. Without God is from ATHEOS; it is the origin of our English word “atheist.” The Gentiles were without God as far as the provisions of the law of Moses were concerned, in the same sense that they were without Christ as explained earlier in this paragraph.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Eph 2:12. That ye were at that time. This is what they should remember; Eph 2:11 being an explanation of ye. The emphasis rests on were; the fact that this was their condition being made more prominent by the added phrase at that time, which is stronger than once.

Apart from Christ, deprived of Him, the promised Messiah, separated from Him. This was the state of the Gentiles. What follows is an expansion of the meaning of this phrase, not something additional, or confirmatory.

Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. This part of the verse sets forth the two sides of their condition as Gentiles, separated from Christ. The external relation is first described, and in two clauses; then the internal relation (having no hope, etc.). Alienated is more exact than aliens, pointing to a previous nearness, for Paul in Rom 1:18, etc., states that there was such a process of alienation from God, and this alienation would be involved in that. The commonwealth of Israel may mean that commonwealth which was Israel, or which belonged to Israel. The latter is preferable and the reference is not to a civil constitution, or to citizenship, but rather to the theocratic spiritual privileges which the Jewish people possessed.

Strangers from the covenants of the promise. This is the second half of the external relation, corresponding closely to the previous clause. Covenants, as in Rom 9:4, points to the several renewals of the covenant with the patriarchs, all pertaining to the one promise of the Messiah. To these the Gentiles were strangers, having no part in them. The reference is not to the old and new covenants, or to the two tables of the law.

Having no hope. The internal phrase of their condition apart from Christ is now described. The Gentiles were not only without the Messianic hope but without any hope. This does not depend upon the previous clause, as the result of their being strangers, but points to the thoughts and feelings which these converted Gentiles could recall, and which are ex-pressed in the heathen writings of that age

Without God, in the world. This is the second part of the description of their internal condition, and is properly divided into two distinct yet related thoughts. Without God is an adjective in the original and may mean, (1.) opposed to God; (2.) ignorant of God; (3.) forsaken of God, without His help. The last (or passive) sense agrees best with the passive character of the entire description. This is not a weakening of the thought, since this is the darkest fact in the whole history of heathenism. In the world is not simply among men, or an unnecessary addition, but points to the depraved world as the place where they continued as forsaken of God. This view is sustained by the correspondence with the commonwealth of Israel. The whole verse asserts that they were, as Gentiles, deprived of Christ, and this meant, without church, without promise, hopeless, godless, homeless.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 12

Strangers from the covenants; not included in the covenants.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

This section reminds me of a mission policy in a church in which we were members. We were also missionaries on deputation. I was asked to assist on the missions committee so I jumped at the chance. The first item of business for me was to read their missions policy.

They had devised a grid system by which they determined whether a missionary could/would be supported by the church. As I read the policy there were many required items. Being a Baptist missionary, being with a Baptist mission etc. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the requirements, just that I fit nowhere in their criteria. We were with an independent mission and were not going to be working with Baptists and a bunch of other noncriteria items. The result was that we, as members of this church, could not be supported by the church in our missionary endeavor. We had so many marks against us that we had no possible hope of support.

Indeed, when we asked the church to be our sending church, they did agree to send us, but there would be no financial support. Not sure how you send someone without support, but that was their decision and we were glad to abide with it and continue to be members and serve on the missions committee.

As we had no chance of support, Paul is laying out a solid case to show that the lost gentile was totally out of luck when it came to heaven. There was no way that any Gentile was going to make it into heaven.

Remember what he told them in the last section – they were dead. Now he adds five more things that were against them as dead men. They are also without Christ, not Jews, not under the promise, they have no hope and they are without God. They were at a disadvantage I’d say.

Consider these points:

Spiritually dead

Without Christ

Not Jews

Not under the promise

Having no hope

Without God

Hey, we weren’t just up a creek without a paddle, but we didn’t even have a canoe. We had no hope of life, we were without a Savior, we couldn’t get in because we were Jews, we weren’t sojourners so we weren’t under the promise, and we had no hope for anything and worst of all we were without God. Not a chance to gain entrance into heaven, no matter how hard we scrambled to suggest we might.

Now, if this is God’s opinion of the lost, and it is, then how can any lost person logically think that they can do something nice enough to gain entrance into heaven? They do not realize where they are spiritually before God or they would not entertain such folly as to think their good works will gain them anything.

No one standing at the pearly gates, if there are pearly gates, will offer any of these excuses for not having Christ and be accepted into heaven. Only Christ and His shed blood will allow entrance into eternity.

It almost seems that Paul is countering some teaching that they might have been receiving. He is taking great pains to show that they were totally unequivocally without hope before Christ. That there was no chance for their salvation except by the grace of God. Since verses eight and nine are so clearly for grace and against works it would seem that someone was teaching that there was some good in man and that that good was going to help them gain acceptance with God.

I’ve mentioned my father before on his death bed talking of spiritual things for the first time on a serious level. We could see a Lutheran church across from his hospital room and we talked of what they believed. He remarked, “Well, I have always tried to do as much good as I could and hoped that I would do enough to get in.”

Do good he did, all his life, he did good, he would do for anyone that was in need, he would give of himself to do good, but this passage tells us that he could not do enough good to gain access to God. He was totally dead, without hope, without Christ, and without God unless he had accepted the gospel at some time earlier in his life. This was a slight possibility, as he attended a Methodist church back when the Biblical gospel had root in that movement.

I was able to share the simple plan of salvation with him, but only he and God know the results of that hearing of the Word.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

2:12 That at that time ye were {m} without Christ, being {n} aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

(m) He begins first with Christ, who was the end of all the promises.

(n) You had no right or title to the commonwealth of Israel.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Paul listed five privileges Gentile believers did not enjoy that Jewish believers did enjoy before the Cross. First, Gentile believers were separate from Christ, Messiah. They had no corporate national hope centered in a Messiah, as the Jews did. Second, God excluded them as a people from citizenship in Israel. Individual Gentiles could become members of the nation of Israel, but as a whole the Gentiles had no part in what God planned to do in and through Israel. The Gentiles were aliens from Israel in this sense. Third, they had no direct part in the promises of God to Israel contained in the biblical covenants (Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic). Morris, an amillennialist, believed the singular "promise" refers to "God’s promise to send his Messiah." [Note: Morris, p. 62.] Probably the singular "promise" simply stresses the promise element that is foundational to all the biblical covenants. Fourth, as a people the Gentiles had no corporate future promised by God to which they could look and in which they could hope, as Israel did. Fifth, they were separate from God. In contrast, God had reached out to Israel and drawn her to Himself.

"The Jew had an immense contempt for the Gentile. The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell. God, they said, loves only Israel of all the nations that he had made. The best of the serpents crush, they said, the best of the Gentiles kill. It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile mother in her hour of sorest need, for that would simply be to bring another Gentile into the world. Until Christ came, the Gentiles were an object of contempt to the Jews. The barrier between them was absolute. If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or if a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, the funeral of that Jewish boy or girl was carried out. Such contact with a Gentile was the equivalent of death." [Note: Barclay, p. 125. Cf. Jonah.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)