that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Parallel Translations
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that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
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Remember I saye that ye were at that tyme with oute Christ and were reputed aliantes from the comen welth of Israel and were straugers from the testamentes of promes and had no hope and were with out god in this worlde.
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That ye were, I say, at that time without Christ, and were alients from the common wealth of Israel, and were strangers from the couenants of promise, and had no hope, and were without God in the world.
Cross-references (45)
Passages linked to Ephesians 2:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Galatians 4:8 However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.
- Colossians 1:21 You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds,
- 1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
- Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh. “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
- Ephesians 4:18 being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:13 But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
- Ezekiel 37:26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. I will place them, multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forever more.
- John 15:5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
- Hebrews 6:18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us.
- Genesis 17:7-9 I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you. I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God.” God said to Abraham, “As for you, you will keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.
- Galatians 3:16-17 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his offspring. He doesn’t say, “To descendants”, as of many, but as of one, “To your offspring”, which is Christ. Now I say this: A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.
- 1 Thessalonians 4:5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,
- 2 Chronicles 15:3 Now for a long time Israel was without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law.
- John 10:16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.
- Romans 9:8 That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as heirs.
- 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear,
- Genesis 15:18 In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I have given this land to your offspring, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:
- Psalms 89:3-18 “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant, ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build up your throne to all generations.’ ” The heavens will praise your wonders, Yahweh, your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the heavenly beings is like Yahweh, a very awesome God in the council of the holy ones, to be feared above all those who are around him? Yahweh, God of Armies, who is a mighty one, like you? Yah, your faithfulness is around you. You rule the pride of the sea. When its waves rise up, you calm them. You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours, the world and its fullness. You have founded them. You have created the north and the south. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name. You have a mighty arm. Your hand is strong, and your right hand is exalted. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before your face. Blessed are the people who learn to acclaim you. They walk in the light of your presence, Yahweh. In your name they rejoice all day. In your righteousness, they are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength. In your favor, our horn will be exalted. For our shield belongs to Yahweh, our king to the Holy One of Israel.
- Jeremiah 17:13 Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be disappointed. Those who depart from me will be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters.
- Acts 3:25 You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘All the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.’
- Acts 28:20 For this cause therefore I asked to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”
- Romans 9:4-5 who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
- 1 Corinthians 10:19-20 What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.
- Exodus 24:3-11 Moses came and told the people all Yahweh’s words, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which Yahweh has spoken will we do.” Moses wrote all Yahweh’s words, then rose up early in the morning and built an altar at the base of the mountain, with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of cattle to Yahweh. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “We will do all that Yahweh has said, and be obedient.” Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words.” Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness. He didn’t lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.
- Numbers 18:19 All the wave offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel offer to Yahweh, I have given you and your sons and your daughters with you, as a portion forever. It is a covenant of salt forever before Yahweh to you and to your offspring with you.”
- Ezra 4:3 But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel, said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves together will build to Yahweh, the God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
- Isaiah 44:6 This is what Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies, says: “I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.
- Isaiah 45:20 “Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.
- Jeremiah 14:8 You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?
- Jeremiah 33:20-26 “Yahweh says: ‘If you can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, so that there will not be day and night in their time; then may my covenant also be broken with David my servant, that he won’t have a son to reign on his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the army of the sky can’t be counted, and the sand of the sea can’t be measured; so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant and the Levites who minister to me.’ ” Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, saying, “Don’t consider what this people has spoken, saying, ‘Has Yahweh cast off the two families which he chose?’ Thus they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.” Yahweh says: “If my covenant of day and night fails, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then I will also cast away the offspring of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his offspring to be rulers over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to be reversed and will have mercy on them.”
- Ezekiel 13:9 “My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who utter lying divinations. They will not be in the council of my people, neither will they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither will they enter into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.”
- Hosea 3:4 For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.
- Luke 1:72 to show mercy toward our fathers, to remember his holy covenant,
- John 4:22 You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.
- Acts 14:15-16 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.
- Romans 1:28-32 Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.
- 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth; as there are many “gods” and many “lords”; yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.
- Colossians 1:5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Good News
- Colossians 1:27 to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
- 1 Timothy 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope;
- Hebrews 11:34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, grew mighty in war, and caused foreign armies to flee.
- 1 Peter 1:21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead, and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.
- 1 John 3:3 Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
- Isaiah 61:5 Strangers will stand and feed your flocks. Foreigners will work your fields and your vineyards.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (17 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 12. That at that time ye were without Christ.…
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:
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“In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 22:18.)
Hence our apostle says elsewhere,
“All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen.” (2 Corinthians 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. (Genesis 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.” (Romans 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.” (1 Corinthians 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. (Acts 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; as John says,
“Whosoever hath not the Son, hath not the Father,” (1 John 2:23;)
and again,
“Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.” (2 John 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.” (John 14:6.)
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He beginneth first with Christ, who was the end…
He beginneth first with Christ, who was the end of all the promises.
You had no right or title, to the common wealth of Israel.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 12 That at that time ye were without Christ,…
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.
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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 15:3. 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.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain That at that time ye were without Christ; i.e.…
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.
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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.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain That at that time ye were without Christ,.... Or…
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":
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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, Rom 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.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Were at that time without Christ - Having no…
Were at that time without Christ - Having no faith in, or knowledge of, him. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel - Both as to their temporal privileges and spiritual blessings. And strangers to the covenants of promise - The great promise in both the Jewish and Christian covenant was the Messiah. Having no hope - Because they had no promise whereon to ground their hope. And being without God - Wholly ignorant of the true God, and so in effect atheists. Such in truth are, more or less, all men, in all ages, till they know God by the teaching of his own Spirit. In the world - The wide, vain world, wherein ye wandered up and down, unholy and unhappy.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 12. That at that time ye were without…
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.
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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.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Ye were without Christ - You were without the…
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” - πολιτεία 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” - πολιτεία 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” - ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι apēllotriōmenoi - 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.
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And strangers - This word - ξένος 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 ἄθεοι 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.
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Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain without Christ--Greek, "separate from Christ"; having no part in…
without Christ--Greek, "separate from Christ"; having no part in Him; far from Him. A different Greek word (aneu) would be required to express, "Christ was not present with you" [TITTMANN].
aliens--Greek, "alienated from," not merely "separated from." The Israelites were cut off from the commonwealth of God, but it was as being self-righteous, indolent, and unworthy, not as aliens and strangers [CHRYSOSTOM]. The expression, "alienated from," takes it for granted that the 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 redemption through the Messiah, on their subsequent apostasy, was embodied into a definite "commonwealth" or polity, namely, that "of Israel," from which the Gentiles were alienated. Contrast Eph 2:13; Eph 3:6; Eph 4:4-5, with Psa 147:20.
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covenants of promise--rather, ". . . of the promise," namely, "to thee and thy seed will I give this land" (Rom 9:4; Gal 3:16). The plural implies the several renewals of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with the whole people at Sinai [ALFORD]. "The promise" is singular, to signify that the covenant, in reality, and substantially, is one and the same at all times, but only different in its accidents and external circumstances (compare Heb 1:1, "at sundry times and in divers manners").
having no . . . hope--beyond this life (Co1 15:19). The CONJECTURES of heathen philosophers as to a future life were at best vague and utterly unsatisfactory. They had no divine "promise," and therefore no sure ground of "hope." Epicurus and Aristotle did not believe in it at all. The Platonists believed the soul passed through perpetual changes, now happy, and then again miserable; the Stoics, that it existed no longer than till the time of the general burning up of all things.
without God--Greek, "atheists," that is, they had not "God" in the sense we use the word, the Eternal Being who made and governs all things (compare Act 14:15, "Turn from these vanities unto the living God who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things therein"), whereas the Jews had distinct ideas of God and immortality. Compare also Gal 4:8, "Ye knew not God . . . ye did service unto them which are no gods" (Th1 4:5). So also pantheists are atheists, for an impersonal God is NO GOD, and an ideal immortality no immortality [THOLUCK].
in the world--in contrast to belonging to "the commonwealth of Israel." Having their portion and their all in this godless vain world (Psa 17:14), from which Christ delivers His people (Joh 15:19; Joh 17:14; Gal 1:4).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 12. Without Christ—This description of their heathen condition differs…
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.
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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.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 12. at that time] Strictly, at that occasion. The…
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.
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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, Œd. 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.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (12) This verse gives a dark and terrible picture…
(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 God’s 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.” implying—what is again and again declared to us—that 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 God’s wandering children. In relation to (2) it is impossible not to observe, even in the highest forms of heathen philosophy, how their comparative “godlessness”—the absence of any clear notion of a real spiritual tie of nature between God and man—made their “hope” of life and immortality, though still cherished, shadowy and uncertain, always stronger in itself than in its grounds. But St. Paul’s 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.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain That at that time ye were without Christ. Very…
That at that time ye were without Christ. Very comprehensive description, having no knowledge of Christ, no interest in him, no life or blessing from him. Being aliens (or, alienated) from the commonwealth of Israel; the politeia, or citizenship condition, including a country, a constitution, a divinely appointed and divinely administered economy, rich in blessing. And strangers to the covenants of the promise. The promise of Christ, of which circumcision was the seal. The "covenants" (plural) substantially the same, but renewed to various persons and at various times in which God promised, "I will bless him that blesseth thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." In respect of these they were strangers, not embraced in their provisions, not, therefore, in a state of encouragement to expect a great blessing. Having no hope; no ground for looking forward to better times, no reasonable expectation of improvement in your religious condition. And without God in the world; aqeoi, atheists; but not in the active sense of denying God, rather in the passive sense of unconnected with God; without any friendly and beneficial relation to him, without any vital nexus that would bring into their soul the fullness of God. The words "in the world" intensify without God." It were bad enough to be without God (without his holy fellowship and blessed influence) anywhere, but it is worse to be without him in the world, in "this present evil world", (Gal_1:4) in a world dominated by so subtle and evil a god. (ver. 2 and 2Co_4:4) 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.
The religious position of the heathen.
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The apostle does not speak of the distinguished place of the heathen as to art and science, culture, and worldly civilization in which they far surpassed Israel but he describes the utter destitution of their religious life by contrast mainly with the privileged superiority of Judaism. The points of contrast are six in number.
I THEY WERE UNCIRCUMCISED were "Gentiles in the flesh." Circumcision, according to the apostle, might mean very little or very much. It might mean very much, in so far as it was a "seal of the righteousness of faith" (Rom_4:11) and was a spiritual thing circumcision of the heart", (Rom_2:29) involving the worship of God in the Spirit, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and having no confidence in the flesh". (Php_3:3) But it might mean "the circumcision in the letter," after the habit of those Jews who ascribed objective power to the mere external rite, regarding it as a channel of grace, irrespective of the subjective condition of the recipient. It was only in the spiritual sense of the rite that the Gentiles were disadvantaged by their want of it, not only because it meant the obligation of withdrawing all the relations of life from the dominion of nature, but because it implied a covenant union with God, involving the blessings of redemption itself.
II THEY WERE WITHOUT CHRIST. The Jews were not without him; for "salvation was of the Jews;" Abraham, the first Jew, saw the day of Christ afar off, "and was glad"; (Joh_8:56) the Jews drank, in the wilderness, of the "Rock which was Christ". (1Co_10:4) But the Gentiles were without him, because
(1) they had no knowledge of him;
(2) they had no faith in him;
(3) they had no union with him;
(4) they were therefore
Without pardon, life, grace, hope, and comfort. How dark and cheerless was heathenism even under its reign of culture! It had no experience of the threefold blessing of the gospel for us, Christ in us, Christ with us the grand totality of Christianity.
III THEY WERE ALIENS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF ISRAEL. They were so civilly as well as spiritually, for the Jews had no dealings with Gentiles.
1. The word aliens" points in the original to a lapse from a former unity or fellowship. Universalism characterized the first dispensation of the race of man: deliverance was to come through the Seed of the woman; but when the race took a direction contrary to the will of God and fundamentally wrong, the circle was narrowed into particularism, which in its turn tended toward a universalistic goal, for all nations of the earth are to be blessed in Abraham"s seed. Jew and Gentile thus stood apart for ages, till, in the fullness of times," they met at last round the cross of Christ in an act of supreme rebellion, only to be united in Christ forever in the future development of the kingdom of God.
2. Their estrangement from the Israelitish commonwealth was an immense spiritual loss; for to it belonged the oracles of God, (Rom_3:2) and the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises". (Rom_9:4) It was a privilege to belong to a people expecting nothing from their own power or wisdom, but everything from the interposition of their God. It is a great blessing to be born within the pale of the visible Church, so as to partake of her privileges. The Gentiles were outside the whole apparatus of religious instruction provided for the special guidance of the Jews.
IV THEY WERE STRANGERS TO THE COVENANTS OF PROMISE.
1. The plural reference is to the successive renewals of the covenant with the patriarchs. It was but the one covenant of promise promise made to the fathers" which God fulfilled in "raising up Jesus". (Act_13:32) The word covenant" occurs two hundred and thirty-six times in our English Bible, and in more than two hundred instances it is a Divine covenant. The covenant with Abraham was the Magna Charta of Israel; the covenant with David rests upon this earlier covenant, marking out mere clearly the line in which the Divine purpose of blessing would be fulfilled to Jews and eventually to all nations. The new covenant of the New Testament, which has in Christ a Mediator greater than Moses and is "established upon better promises," is no other than the ancient covenant made with Abraham. (Gal_3:14)
2. Thus we can see how the Gentiles were strangers to the covenant in all its historic developments. They had no national covenant with God, and no land of promise in the present world. As Gentiles, the covenant had never been revealed to them, and, except so far as they may have been included in the Israelitish commonwealth, it could bring them no blessing.
V THEY WERE WITHOUT HOPE. They had no covenanted hope no hope of the Messiah and of salvation by him, of a future state of eternal life. Such as are Christless must be hopeless; such as are without faith must needs be without hope; and such as are without the promise must necessarily be without faith; for the promise is the ground of faith, and faith is the ground of hope." It is a miserable state to be without hope. "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable." The future to the heathen was a night without a star. In the Roman catacombs hope is the commonest inscription. There is no such word on the tombs of the heathen dead.
VI THEY WERE WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD. This marks the climax of their misery. They were without God, though they were not atheists, for they had a thousand gods that were no gods. And they were not bold deniers of God, for many of them were "feeling after the Lord." But
(1) they were without the knowledge of the true God;
(2) they had no faith in him;
(3) they lived without relation to him; and
(4) they had no consciousness of his presence to bless and guide and comfort them.
They were without God "in the world in contrast with the position of the Jews entrenched within their commonwealth privileges and were thus homeless and forsaken in that world which had Satan for its prince. This is the picture of the heathen world given by the apostle without Christ, without Church, without covenant, without hope, without God. At the period to which he refers, religion had outlived itself, unbelief mocked at the superstitions of the vulgar, and skepticism gradually became the sole wisdom of the cultured classes. Along with the power of truth the power of morality was irrecoverably lost; and yet there was a deep yearning at the heart of paganism for the God unknown whom it was the high destiny of Christianity to make known to the Gentiles. They were without God, yet were not outcast from his favor, for those Ephesian Gentiles were in due time called by his grace. T.C.
Dark depths.
Step by step descending into darker and darker depths, St. Paul describes the awful condition out of which heathens had been rescued when they became Christians. Regarded from a Jewish point of view, this condition is seen to consist in the loss of all the high privileges of Israel, and the salvation of the Gentiles appears as an adoption into the circle of those privileges. But larger things of more general import are covered by the description, so that it applies virtually to all who are outside the pale of the gospel. Let us go through the descending and darkening series and observe the several woeful characteristics.
I CHRISTLESS. The Gentile world had no Messiah. Worldly interests business, pleasure, culture have their advantages; but they bring no Savior, no Physician of sick souls. As Christ is the Foundation-stone of the new temple, to be without Christ is to have nothing on which to erect subsequent Christian blessings. If we have the doctrine and discipline of the New Testament without the Christ, we have nothing of real profit. The dumb, pathetic helplessness of spiritual hunger in the finer inquiring and doubting minds of our day is a proof that to be without the light and life and love of Christ is as great a loss to us as it was to any in old times.
II CHURCHLESS. "Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel." The Church is now what Israel was in pro-Christian times the home and family of the people of God. Only it is not marked by the visible boundaries of any "Holy Land." The true Church, the fellowship of kindred followers of Christ, contains many a choice soul that has been accounted a schismatic and cut off from the organized communities of Christendom. Real excommunication comes not by the fulmination of an anathema, but by the breach of spiritual sympathy. Without the union that comes through our relation to Christ we voyage in solitude over lonely seas of thought.
III UNEVANGELIZED. "Strangers from the covenants of the promise." The Jew had a gospel in Messianic prophecy. The Christian has his in New Testament history. What covenant is there in science? What promise in art? What gospel in commerce? We may discover laws and hers of the universe, and create works of skill and beauty, and accumulate treasures of wealth. But still stricken souls cry, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" for all this brings no peace to the weary and the brokenhearted.
IV PESSIMIST. "Having no hope." Pagan Rome and Greece were verging towards pessimism in the days of St. Paul, when philosophers advised suicide and historians taught contempt of mankind. Pagan Europe now manifests the same tendency. Culture fails to convert the Philistine. Science dwarfs humanity before nature, and discovers no soul and no heaven. Business, politics, and society drive man to a weariness that sees no rest.
V ATHEISTIC. Speculative atheism is rare, if it ever exists. Practical atheism is more common and more disastrous. It is worse to believe in God and to live as if there were no God, than to doubt his existence. To be without God is not to look for his help nor to obey his will. This is death, since in God we live and move and have our being. Glorious must be the gospel that redeems us from such a depth of ruin. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Without Christ.
Eph_2:12
Without Christ.
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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.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 12. Without Christ. The past state of the Gentile…
12. Without Christ. The past state of the Gentile Christians is described when they had no knowledge of Christ. Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Not being of the race of Abraham, who were in covenant relation with God. Strangers from the covenants. The various covenants made with the patriarchs which contained the promise of Christ, of which they were ignorant, and hence not partakers of the hope.
Having no hope. No hope in the promise or in Christ. Without God. Walking without the knowledge of the true God.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
world
kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:12 Before their conversion, Gentiles had no part in…
2:12 Before their conversion, Gentiles had no part in God’s people or the covenant promises God had made to them; they were without God and without hope (see 4:18; Col 1:21).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.