Formerly Again, Eph, 2:11-13
Ephesians 2:11-13 · Vern Peterman · Jul 25, 2004
Ephesians & Colossians, No. 28
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262310285121

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, now into our passage here this morning. This passage that Hal read for us is just a wonderful passage, and it's got some really neat things that are actually brought out afresh in this book. I mean, Ephesians has continued to pour new discoveries, fresh truths, and the thing that just amazes me as I read through it, it's like Paul's pen is gushing Every time he's writing with marvelous things, and he is stretching the limits of human language to describe the ways in which we have been blessed.

All the things that God has done. And have you noticed as we've gone through this, there isn't anything yet that says, you better do this. Okay? But instead, it's all accounting here and the next, and the next thing of this is what God has done. This is what God has done. This is how He acted. This is how he is going to act. This is how he is acting. And this carries on that same kind of message that Paul's had here.

Ephesians 2.11-13 rhymes with what we've studied before in chapter 2, verses 1 and 3.

Both of them describe the condition of things, of people, before coming to a place of believing in Christ. Both of them have this Greek word, pate, and it has nothing to do with chopped liver, okay? It's formerly, in the King James here in this passage, it's time past or sometimes were, but the idea is it's formerly. This word is used not consistently, but I'll say persistently throughout the New Testament to describe the condition of people before they came to a place of knowledge of the Lord.

Both passages kind of turn a corner, by using this but. That is, right after the description of the individual as they were dead in trespasses and sins, it starts off in verse 4, but God. Here it says, but as well. There's a turning the corner, okay? And there it goes, but now in this passage. Both passages describe a situation where only God's intervention will make the needed change. We were helpless to change the situation. After all, what did He say in verse 1 of chapter 2? What was our circumstance? We were in trespasses and sins.

Sitting in them. Now, I'd like to tell you that I had this job once. This was when I was going to college, but not quite done. And it was measuring sewage flow rates and leakage in the sewage system in Ukiah, California. To do that, I had to really get into my work. And that's what he's done here.

He has described something, this was a bad situation, and God came in and acted in what was a horrible situation. There's also a contrast between Ephesians 2, 1-3 and these verses 11-13 we're looking at this morning. Each of them describe the conditions of those who don't believe. The first passage is more the situation of individuals and the world as a whole. This describes the situation particularly of the Gentiles. Ephesians 2, 11-3 is describing the Gentiles and the Jews, not so much describing the Jews' situation as being bad, but making the Gentiles in contrast with them, until both came to a position of faith, because God's doing something different, as we'll see here. Ephesians 2, 1-3 is looking on the spiritual condition of unsaved individuals. This next focus in 11-13 is a focus upon Gentiles didn't have before coming to faith in Christ.

They were on the outs. Okay, the reason that Paul is having to write about this is because, as we've mentioned in time past, about 200 years before the New Testament era, one of the monarchs took a whole bunch of Jews, about 2,000 Jewish families from the area around Babylon, and relocated them into the area around Ephesus and Colossae and in that general vicinity. So it means that though there were a minority of people who were Jews in the area of Ephesus, it was still a significant minority and the minority created a conflict. The Jews were in conflict, as we'll see. He uses this word pate formerly. King James and time has passed. This is the situation you were in.

He wants the people to understand that the Jew-Gentile distinction that was so important to who they were before, now suddenly becomes of no import when we step into the church. And he's going to explain why as we go into subsequent verses here. Paul and his Gentile brother, Dr. Luke, routinely referred to the Jews as the circumcision. We see that in Acts 10 and 11, where Dr. Luke is writing the history of things there. And then in Paul's letters from Romans to Titus, he brings up several times the description of the Jews as the circumcision. Now, I've got to ask a somewhat personal question. How did everybody know whether or not a man was circumcised? I mean, that's a rather personal thing, right? So, boy, we've got a tough question to answer. All right, so let's look at that.

The Jews were different in their clothing, grooming, and hygiene. They didn't marry the Gentiles, except for two reasons. If a Gentile became a convert to Judaism, they could, or if the Jews decided, you know, I'm just going to violate the law. Example, Timothy's father was Greek, And from what we can tell, he didn't see to get Timothy circumcised, so he wasn't a convert. So that was probably a marriage that was in violation of the law.

They ate foods that were different and prepared them differently. You not only don't eat this food and that food, but you don't mix certain ones. They, for example, weren't to have milk and meat within six hours of each other. Not only not on the same meal, but not even within six hours of each other.

They enjoyed special exemptions from Roman laws, and that caused some consternation. One example that I'll give is that the Jews would, unlike the rest of the population, be exempted from having to do their worship of the emperor at the emperor's temple. The Jews got an exemption for that. They didn't have to do that. There were other exemptions that they got.

And the rest of the population didn't care for that. that just caused a lot of consternation. They tended to stay amongst themselves unless there was some business reason why they had to have contact. In other words, if I don't have to sell you something, I don't have to talk to you. And so there was this sort of attraction-tension in their interpersonal reactions.

The attraction was business, the tension was everything else. They worshipped one God at the exclusion of all others, whereas all the rest of the people at Ephesus said the more the merrier. I don't want to offend any one of the gods, so I'll worship a bunch of them. About 50 is as many as we've been able to catalog so far for the Gentiles at Ephesus. The Jews, but one. There's another reason. Are you ready for this? I want to make sure that you're ready for this. Are you ready? Don't blink. You don't want to miss this. Are you ready? Okay.

There was a latrine at Ephesus, a public latrine. The latrine had no dividers. This is it. And so when men went to the restroom, it was a matter of public knowledge, well, you have this particular skin alteration or not. And they made big note of it. In fact, the Jews were rather proud that they were different.

So that's another one of the reasons why they would know whether someone was circumcised or not. and they would call someone according to what they noticed there in the latrine area. Tensions between the Jews and Gentiles would oftentimes get severe. The Jews had groups that made strategic attacks toward the Romans. Oftentimes, in order to avoid getting themselves in trouble, their attacks would be directed toward somebody who cooperated with the Romans. If there was a Jew, for example, that cooperated with the Romans and the Romans' power, they would attack them, sometimes covertly. They were what we would call Jewish terrorists. And that was it.

Now, you say, well, where does that show up? One of the disciples, Simon the Zealot, was one of these. Imagine, it would be an irony if you were to be able to find out that Matthew, the tax collector for the Romans, and Simon the Zealot were paired up as the Lord sent them out two by two.

The Jews also, as we mentioned, received these special exemptions. That caused some tension. Here's a temple, for example, during the time of John the Apostle that was there for Domitian. The Jews, unlike everybody else, got an exemption. They didn't have to go in and do a worship of the emperor. Now, the Jews differed from the Gentiles in circumcision, clothing, personal hygiene, language, food, religion.

All these areas were different. They were noticeably different. Each group had nicknames for the other group, and I'm not talking about Sweetie Pie and Honey Bunches. Their nicknames were derogatory. One of the things that the Jews would call the Gentiles is the dogs, and they didn't use the word for pet dogs. They would use the word that we studied in Philippians, which is wild pack dogs, scavenger dogs. The Jews were primarily distributed in what you see in this red circle here in those areas that are marked in purple.

And of course that included Ephesus. They would be included in this area. Now the Roman Empire included what you see outlined here in the green. We're going to kind of pace our way through it and your handout does the same thing. 38 AD, this was just five years or so after the crucifixion and the ascension of Christ.

Down in Alexandria, Egypt, Jews were slaughtered and persecuted with Roman approval. I mean, not just calling them names, we're talking killing a number of them, cutting them in pieces in the public arena. And the Romans said, yeah, that's a good thing. 49 AD, the Jews were expelled by Emperor Claudius from Rome.

That's recorded in Acts 18.12. Same year in Achaia, which is the area around the Jews were driven off after making accusations against Paul. Why were they driven off? They were preparing to make a presentation before a large group of people, and as soon as they recognized they were Jews, they said, no, we don't want to hear it. 52 AD, here's Gentile rejection of Jews in a major public dispute. Now, the Romans were defeated in Jerusalem in 70 AD.

That was after this letter was written. But just to give you an idea, what the sentiment was like. This gets the idea. You see this area that's in the yellow rectangle there? That's where the temple was located according to this little artist's rendering of the Roman attack. And what we're going to do is take a closer look at that.

Off the edge of that temple mount, this is the rubble that the Romans dumped off the edge. Some of it has been cleaned up, but you'll see this area along back in here. and along in here, the Romans took all the stones of the temple and just dumped the whole thing off, all the stones, every last one, so that there was none left, everything was dumped and piled on the edge. Among that rubble from the temple, they found this. It was this inscription that was a warning to the Gentiles, don't go beyond this area of the temple, or you'll have yourself to blame if you die.

That's the warning. So it again underscored the separation between the Jews and the Gentiles. You can come here, but no further. And you'll find Acts 21, 26-33 records an account that supports exactly that separation of the Jews and the Gentiles. Now, here's what Paul is saying here. Remember that you were at that time. He's pointing to the past. You Gentiles," he's writing there in Ephesus, you were at that time separate from Christ, you were at that time excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel, you were at that time strangers to the covenants of promise, you were at that time having no hope, at that time without God in the world, and at that time far off, distant. Now, let's go through each one of these.

Now, I want to make a point far off is actually kind of borrowed from the next verse, but it's a description again of what the Gentiles were like and what their position was, what they lacked. In contrast, Paul writes in Romans 9, 3 through 5, a listing of Israel's privileges.

So what is he doing here in this passage? He is listing the things that are Israel's privileges that the Gentiles just simply are not a part of. That's what it is. This is the flip side of Israel's privileges. It's the Gentiles' lack of privilege. It's the Gentiles' lack of position. That's what he's underscoring. So let's look here in verse 12 and the things that are laid out there, including this one drawn out of verse 14. Formerly, we're far off. Added to the list.

You were at that time separate from Christ. See, the Gentiles actually had a triple separation from Christ. They were spiritually separate from Christ. There was certainly no lineage connection. Not only that, notice this from the time of the ministry of Christ. A lot of Christians will overlook the fact that what you see in the Gospels is in great part focused on Israel, and in some cases very explicitly towards Israel. Look at this.

Matthew 10, 5 through 6, Jesus is sending out the Twelve. to go about in the cities, two by two, and what does He do? He instructs them, do not go in the way of the Gentiles. Your ministry is not to be among them. Do not enter any city of the Samaritans, but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. At this stage of the disciples' training, they are explicitly sent to Israel, not saying, that's where you're to go, alone. But do not go to the Gentiles. That's not where you're headed right now.

That is not where our ministry is. Many people overlook this kind of statement. What you see in the Gospels is really the end of the Old Testament, and not the beginning of the Church yet. Okay. A few chapters later, what does he say? He is asked by a woman who is a Gentile, can you please help me? And his response is, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. How about that?

There is a direct focus there in the Gospels, zeroed in on Israel. That's where the focus is to be. Until, until, at the end of the Gospels, the beginning of Acts, you finally see into all the world. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

Separate from Christ also in the Jewish sacrificial system. The Jews had the sacrificial system and they had animals being sacrificed and all kinds of sacrifices, all of those sacrifices were pointing ahead to God's Lamb, God's sacrifice. The Gentiles had nothing of the sort. The Gentiles had sacrifices often to some pagan god, but not this one, not the god.

The book of Hebrews, whom a number of you had the privilege to study the last couple of quarters in our electives, makes that point very directly and explicitly, very clearly. Separate from Christ in that the Jews were without hope of the coming Messiah. No idea. Is the Messiah coming? And the Messiah was coming, as the Jews saw it, for Israel, not for the Gentiles. They were without the hope of the Messiah.

There's a three-page listing on the cabinet as you depart from this room. Feel free to take one up if you'd like one. It lists a number of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah and the passages that those are given in and you can feel free to have one of those for your own study if you'd like.

They were at that time excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel. One of the things we need to look at, this word translated Commonwealth, is Politeia. We have a related word where we get our words politics, okay, political. Policy, those words are related to this word for citizenship.

Essentially, you lacked any citizenship in Israel. You don't have a right, a set of rights that go along with all the rights that Israel had. You just were on the outside. And the way this is written, you not only are separated from it, But the way the Greek comes across is, you are separated from the rights that belong to Israel.

Israel's got it. You're on the outs. That's the message that he's got. It's abundantly clear. He's saying, you are separate from it. You're excluded from the citizenship that is in Israel. And those in Israel definitely have that citizenship with all the rights that go along with it. Here's this word excluded from, okay?

Apalotria'o. Okay, and this word here, is used in the Greek Old Testament, and it quite often refers to an absolute spiritual separation. The word allotriao by itself already means alien. Apo means from. It's like, boy, you're really apart. And so it's not in every case, but most often used of a spiritual separation that is absolute and total.

It's a perfect passive verb. Remember what we've said about perfect verbs in the past, it's a completed past action with ongoing results in the future, unless there's something in the context to change it. And that's why Paul can write, but now. See that? But now. That changes the perfect tense, which otherwise implies permanence. God intervenes, and so we see the but now. That keeps the perfect tense from being a locked-in future Strangers to the covenants of promise.

Strangers were those on the outside. It was interesting as I was looking through this, the word that is used for strangers here is the word used in the Greek Old Testament in the book of Ruth. Ruth is talking to Boaz, and she is coming humbly before him, and she says, I am a stranger. And those of you who have taken the Greek class, or might want to, She says, ego emi, I of identity am. I am most certainly a stranger. She was very struck and very honest and humble about the fact that she was outside and coming in.

It was this stranger that became in the lineage of David and in the lineage of our Lord. These Xenos were those who were allowed to be in the country but remained without the rights and privileges. This also lacks the definite article here, which as we pointed out in the past, if you don't have the definite article in the Greek, the general indication from that is that it points to the character. That is, these people are by character and by nature strangers to the covenants of promise. It's not some accident or exclusion. They just, by their very nature, are excluded from these covenants.

So what are these covenants of promise, we need to ask. We have the Abrahamic covenant, and it begins in Genesis chapter 12. It basically says there's land, seed, and blessing. We won't have the time to go into all that now, but the Abrahamic covenant is spelled out to Abraham in Genesis 12 and repeated to him. and actually repeated to his descendants in the next few generations there.

And what we find here in Romans 9.4 focus on the Israelites have and one of the things that they have is the covenants. There's also the land covenant. This is the covenant given to Israel before Israel proceeds into the land to take over and we were talking this morning in the Bible history and culture class in the Bible backgrounds about how the Jews went in and the first place they took off after was Jericho. The land covenant tells the Jews, here are the circumstances under which you're going to take the land.

It even tells them thousands of years in advance that you're going to be taken out of the land, but you'll be brought back. You'll be brought back in the last days. And we're seeing that now in our lifetime. Further details you can read in Deuteronomy and these other passages that are given in Ezekiel and Genesis 15. During the millennium, here is all the land that is promised to Israel. Look how far it goes over to the rivers in Iraq. A whole lot bigger than what you see now. It basically takes up almost all of Jordan. It encompasses several countries that are now not Israel's at all.

The Davidic Covenant, another one that we mentioned here in the Bible history class, 2 Samuel 7. The three elements are a house, a throne, and a kingdom promised to David. And that same promise was confirmed a thousand years later to Mary when the angel told her that she would bear a son. And what we find in Luke 1, 30-33 is, you shall have a son and you shall call his name Jesus and the fulfillment of the promise to David, that Davidic covenant, a house, a throne, and a kingdom. Those three things are involved in what the angel brought to Mary as well.

And the last one, the new covenant, the law within them, the key passage there in Jeremiah 31. The covenant was made with Israel and Judah, okay, implemented with the Jews in the millennial kingdom. Its promise is a future time, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36 and 37 are the key passages that focus on that.

Why do we bring all these up? It's because as we look at these passages here, we see these are the covenants that the Gentiles aren't included in. Okay? You've got all these covenants. The Gentiles are not a part of those. Those covenants are made and with respect to the Jews, even the new covenant, which is important to keep in mind. Okay, having no hope.

Now that's big. Have you noticed that hope is an important thing in people? Hope is exceedingly important. Paul often speaks as he writes of hope as an absolute hope, a certain hope. It's specific. It's not a general vague thing. It's not even hoping for some outcome like it may or may not happen, but I sure hope it happens on the right side, on the positive side. Paul speaks of a specific and certain hope when he writes quite often.

What he says here, he says, the Gentiles don't even have not just some hope, they've got no hope. None. Hopeless. Hopeless people. They have no hope whatsoever. You are at that time without God in the world. That's real interesting. This Greek word here, without God, is atheos. It's the root word for our word for atheist, or atheism, is the Greek word. Now, the people, ironically, of Ephesus had lots of gods, plenty of gods, lots of them. You could pick from dozens, whichever one you like. Paul's point is not that they were without gods, but they were without, and it's the definite article again, the god.

You are without The God, okay? The one who loves them, because none of the gods they have loved them. None of the gods they had blessed them. They were without the God that saves by grace everyone who believes. None of the gods that they had were like that. Now, this is an ah-ah-ah. Are you ready for the ah-ah-ah? Okay, here we go. We get our prefix for the negative case in English from the Greek. If we say something and we want to put the negation in front of it, we use the a prefix.

So, that's where we get in English, atheist doesn't believe in God. The theist believes in God, the atheist doesn't believe in God. The agnostic doesn't know about God. Gnostic means no. Agnostic doesn't know. He says, I don't know about God. Now, Romans has something to say about that. No one is truly an agnostic, but that's what they claim. However, we also get a lot of words from Latin, okay? And it's real interesting.

In Latin, you don't use the ah as a prefix to indicate the negation. So in Latin, an agnostic is known as an ignoramus. Now, by saying that, I would certainly not recommend that if you know somebody who's an agnostic, that you tell them this, okay? Please don't. It's funny to laugh at the quirks of language. But the real point here is Paul is making a statement.

He says, you who had lots of gods, okay? You who had lots of gods were without the one God that you needed. You who had lots of gods were without the God who's saved by grace. You have lots of gods, worship gods that were powerless to do anything. That's his point here. Without God in the world, they didn't know THE Lord. So Paul introduced them to THE God, the one who was unlike any of them that they had ever known.

Their world was a scary place to live, and that's something we don't necessarily come away with. One of the things we're studying in this elective before this is the history and culture. Let me just tell you, the people of Ephesus were constantly in dread fear of all the things that might happen and the things that controlled them. Dread fear. What are the stars going to do to me today? What will the gods do to me and to my family today that I haven't got a clue and it might be either random or capricious or vindictive? Constantly in fear for things that happen.

For Paul to introduce to them a God that loved them, the God that says, I've already blessed you and to be saved you don't have to do a thing, believe. That was phenomenal. to place good works in front of them as these are works that God prepared. Instead of works in front of them, you do this or else you're going to get in trouble. That was a phenomenal difference. You were without the God that you needed. Plenty of gods, but you lacked this one. You were at that time far off, distant.

We have this little quirky thing in our modern culture. We have these little mirrors on the right side. You've seen those, of course, where they say objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. You know, you may have even seen the one that shows a helicopter, attack helicopter in the mirror. But anyway, we have this little thing. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Paul's telling them the opposite, OK?

I need to tell you that you are way far off, way out there, OK? The Greek Old Testament describes repeatedly the Gentiles as being far off. And we have several passages there, Deuteronomy, 1 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah. Repeatedly, the Gentiles are said to be way out there, far off and distant. In contrast, Paul comes and uses this to describe not just physical distance, but spiritual distance. Way out there, the Gentiles were. You were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, without God in the world, and far off.

So, the question is, what's God going to do about this problem? What's the solution? What's the answer? Now, God didn't just leave things the way they were. He didn't say, well, tough deal, huh? Something else you may be glad for, maybe not, He didn't make us all Jewish, alright? But, so in verse 13, that's where he starts with the but now. But now in Christ you who formerly were false have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

This but now, that's nuni de, and what we say is this phrase is used dozens of times in the Greek Old Testament. for describing something that was past and then describing the future. Formerly this, but now this. Contrast between the past condition and the present. But now, and where is that change taking place? Why is it different now?

In Christ Jesus. Paul has been telling the people at Ephesus repeatedly, those who are saints are in Christ. Again, and again, and again. And this is only a sampling, by the way. Again, and again, and again. He tells them that they are in Christ. Then in verse 13, he says, have been brought near.

Psalm 148.14 says that Israel is near to God. It uses a related form of the same word in the Greek Old Testament that Paul uses here. He's saying Israel was near. He says, you Gentiles were far off, but now you've been You've been brought near.

You've been brought into relationship. But notice he didn't do that just by saying, well, we'll make you guys Jews too. What did he do? He did something quite different. Instead, he made believing Gentiles and Jews into one new people, the church. He gave the Gentiles from creation, Israel with Jacob and his sons into the present time, from the time post-cross, and to be explicit, Acts 2, the church continuing up until the time of the rapture. The Gentiles are a group that continues. The church is a group, however, different from the Gentiles in Israel that continue. The church is a separate group made up ethnically of Gentiles and Jews, but a different people. Remember in the passage we saw last week, we have been created in Christ Jesus. a new creation, not just new sequentially, but new in kind.

And that's the point that he's got here. Think of what the Lord has done here. He's brought together people that, you know, we're places and backgrounds. Why should we be together in this room this morning? There's nothing about coming into this room that does anything magic. We gather together in this room because of the body that He has created. The one that He has made. We are a part of this church which is a unique creation. We're not here to replace Israel. We're not here to replace the Gentiles. We're a new creation, entirely different.

A different people, bringing together people who were previously without privilege, but because of God's doing of marvelous privilege brought near. Brought near. As we look in the passage and as we'll go into it in the weeks ahead, we'll be seeing more description of what that means, what's taking place. But what a marvelous thing the Lord has done.

He has not only changed us, as Paul has already laid out, individually, radically, to the place where we are in awe of God's grace for eternity. But He has also made us corporately, together, into a people that has never been before. Not Gentiles anymore, not Jews anymore. The Church, a unique body for which He will come and take to be with Himself, the Bride of Christ.

What a wonderful and marvelous thing. Let's pray. Lord, you have done a fantastic thing, something like grace that takes forever for us to understand and to be revealed. You have created a body of believers, Lord, who have a position with you that will indeed be equally unfathomable. And Lord, you have revealed some tremendous things to us, and we'll see those things in the weeks ahead here. But Lord, how awesome a thing You have done. We are created anew, a new body, a new group, because of Your love and Your marvelous grace. In Jesus' name, Amen.