Wherefore remember that *ye*, once nations in [the] flesh, who [are] called uncircumcision by that called circumcision in [the] flesh done with the hand;
Paul has just carried his readers to the heights: saved by grace, seated in the heavenly places. At verse 11 he turns them around. He tells them to look back at what they once were — outsiders, tagged with a name the Jews used with scorn.
The letter has been climbing. Here it tells the reader to look back instead. One writer separates that from a kind of looking inward that only does harm.
How striking that the apostle should tell the saints to look down in verse 11! Verse 7 carries us very high and shows our place as sitting in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now we are told to remember what we were. There is an important difference between being taken up with yourself and remembering our ruined state. The first leads to doubt and fear; the second to humility and a deeper appreciation of grace.
The opening of the chapter had put Jew and Gentile on the same footing: dead, and children of wrath. Verse 11 looks at them from a different angle.
Here we are on totally different ground. It is no longer "children of wrath" — people who were by nature one as bad and as dead as the other. Here men fall into two groups on earth — the uncircumcision on one side, and the circumcision on the other. So you are on earthly ground. This is the ground of God's dealings in history, where He separates one part of mankind from another by His own will. He does it not because the one was better than the other, but to display His own wisdom and purpose.
The word was not a neutral description. It was what one group called the other, and it carried the sting of exclusion.
In their Gentile state, the Ephesians were called uncircumcision. It was a term of great reproach (1 Samuel 14:6; 1 Samuel 31:4). Circumcision was the sign of relationship with God, and more besides. To be uncircumcised meant being completely outside the circle of relationship and privilege… Earlier in the chapter the apostle sets out what is true of Jew and Gentile alike. Here he stresses what was true of the Gentiles in particular.
The gap between the two groups was not a human invention. It stood until the cross.
The Apostle is about to set out the present position of believers in Christ. First he contrasts the former position of Gentiles in the flesh with their new place. The church is not the sum of all believers from the beginning of the world. In times past — the times before the cross — God had appointed a distinction between Jew and Gentile. As long as that distinction stood, the church could not exist.
Notice Paul's careful wording for the other side. He does not write "the circumcision," but what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands. After the cross, that badge has no standing left.
"The circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands" (Ephesians 2:11) is now simply Judaism. To go back in spirit to Judaism is to reject the cross of Christ. That cross has written for ever the sentence of death on man in the flesh… God judges man in the flesh, whether Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, as past recovery. In Christ, risen from the dead, there is new creation.
Remembering is not nostalgia or self-punishment. It has a target: the pride that grows in people God has blessed.
Grace alone has taken us out of a completely desolate condition. So we must guard against a natural and shameful tendency: to glory in flesh because the blessing God has given us is so great. Israel fell because they were proud of being blessed by God. Gentiles are now taking the same attitude (Romans 11:18-23). Gentiles had none of the advantages Israel had.
- Remember — the letter that seats you in the heavenly places also tells you to look down at where you started. The memory of ruin breeds humility. Endless self-inspection breeds only fear.
- Remember your name — "uncircumcision" was a label of contempt. It marked you as outside the circle of relationship and privilege.
- Remember the barrier — God appointed the Jew/Gentile divide; men did not invent it. While it stood, the church could not exist.
- Remember the flesh — Paul calls the other side's badge what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands. The cross has passed sentence on man in the flesh, circumcised or not.
- Remember, and stop boasting — Israel fell through pride in being blessed. The greater the blessing, the more the Gentile must recall the desolate state grace lifted him from.
that ye were at that time without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world
After describing what God has done for believers, Paul turns them round to look back at what they once were. It lists five things the Gentile world lacked, and asks why a letter so full of blessing dwells on an empty past.
The apostle does not start with the list. He starts with a command to remember it.
Our souls rejoice not only in the intrinsic blessedness of these various aspects of our salvation, but also in contrasting them with the condition in which our lack of them once left us. And God would have us view matters in this way as we learn to estimate His grace towards us, as we read: "remember that you were at that time… having no hope and without God in the world." The more clearly we see all this, the higher the view of His grace we will rejoice in.
The list opens with Christ Himself. Where older translations read "without Christ," the ESV has "separated from Christ."
But then we were "without Christ." Without, that is, the only One who could bring in any way of salvation from our lost condition.
There is also a narrower sense. It turns on the place God gave Israel among the nations.
Such was their condition as Gentiles, in contrast with that of Israel. The beginning of the chapter shows that the Jews were by nature children of wrath just as much as the Gentiles. Yet as a people on the earth, chosen in God's sovereignty, they had advantages the Gentiles had no title or claim to. So they — the Gentiles — were without Christ; the Messiah as such was never promised to them.
"Commonwealth" describes a settled national order — citizenship, laws, worship — and Israel had one. The Gentiles stood outside the whole arrangement.
In God's ways on earth the Jew enjoyed a national place of outward privilege, and the Gentiles were complete strangers to it. Israel formed an earthly commonwealth, with promises and hopes for this world, and stood in outward relationship with God. God's ordinances regulated their religious worship, their political organisation and their social relations. Everything from the highest act of worship to the smallest detail of life came under them… It was not that the Jews were any better than the Gentiles, for in the sight of God the great mass of the Jews were as bad as the Gentiles, and some even worse.
Israel had promises to rest on. The nations had none, and one writer notes what people put in that empty space.
We have a right to nothing. We have not the smallest claim on God. God never gave us the settled place He gave Israel through the promises… The Gentiles had no hope. They were not expecting God to step in and rescue them on the earth. They might dream what people still dream — that man can become perfect on the earth.
The Greek word here is the one behind our word "atheist," and it did not mean then what it means now.
The Greek word is ἄθεος (atheos), which literally means "without God," and Ephesians 2:12 translates it that way. It describes Gentiles as they are by nature. It was true of the whole pagan world in their ignorance of God. It does not carry the sense the word has today: someone who chooses to refuse to acknowledge God's existence.
It was never a shortage of religion. It was a shortage of God, and the same holds today.
Lastly they were "without God in the world." Idols they had without number, and the modern world has them too, though in a different form. God was, and is, unknown.
The list does not stand alone. Verse 13 sets a second description against it, phrase for phrase.
These are very solemn words. "Having no hope, and without God in the world" is how the Spirit of God describes the condition and position of Gentiles in the flesh, dead in trespasses and sins. The contrast is just as striking: "In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." On one side it is "no hope" and "without God". On the other side it is "in Christ Jesus" — "brought near by the blood of Christ."
- Remember — The verse commands a backward look. Grace looks as large as the emptiness it filled.
- Without Christ — The root loss. The Messiah was never promised to the nations, and He was the only One who could bring any way of salvation.
- Without privilege — Israel had a commonwealth, promises and ordinances for all of life. The Gentiles had no claim on any of it.
- Without hope — With no promises, there was nothing to expect from God. Into that empty space comes the dream that man can become perfect on the earth.
- But now — Verse 13 answers every "without": Christ's blood brings the far off near.
but now in Christ Jesus *ye* who once were afar off are become nigh by the blood of the Christ.
Two words open this verse and turn everything around: "But now." From there, everything hangs on two short phrases — "in Christ Jesus" and "by the blood of Christ."
This turn is not the first in the chapter. One writer links it to an earlier one.
"But now" (v.13) connects with "But God" (v.4). A divine work, fully accomplished, has established us "in Christ Jesus." Though at one time "far off," we are brought near to God by the blood of Christ. That precious blood satisfies all the requirements of the righteous throne of God. So He is delighted to have near Him everyone that blood has redeemed.
The verse sets a new position against an old one. One writer weighs what the old position meant for Jew and Gentile alike.
This new position of believers no longer views them as in the flesh, but in Christ. So the Apostle begins to speak of this new position with the words, "But now in Christ…". He then draws a contrast with the former position in the flesh. In the flesh, the Gentile was outwardly far off from God. The Jew was outwardly near, but inwardly he was as far off as the Gentile.
The verse names one cause and no other, and states it as something already done.
The ground of all this blessing is the blood of Christ — "brought near by the blood of Christ." Not our efforts, our devotion, our achievements, but the blood of Christ. It is something already done. We may not know it, may fail to grasp it, may not enjoy it. Still, it is done: you "HAVE BEEN brought near by the blood of Christ." Without the death of the Son of God, we must for ever have remained far off from Him, still in our sins and guilt.
The verse gives no measure, so writers measure it by the two ends of the sentence — where we were, and where the blood has put us.
But now in Christ Jesus, and by His precious blood, we who were far off have been brought near. How near? "In Christ Jesus." Farther away we could not have been, nearer we could not be brought. We were as far off as our fallen condition and our hostility toward God could place us. Now we are as near as our acceptance in the Beloved can bring us.
What kind of nearness is it? One writer points first to Christ Himself, then to the blood.
This is not a mere outward nearness through ceremonies. It is a living nearness, seen in Christ Himself, risen from the dead and appearing before the face of God for us. The blood of Christ declares how great the sin was that demanded such a price to take it away. It proclaims a holiness in God that nothing less could satisfy. And it reveals the love that could pay the price. It is not only that the believer can draw near to God, but that in Christ he is "brought near".
In prayer, people often quote the second half of this verse and drop the opening words.
This is only part of the truth, and a most weighty part has been left out. "But now," says the apostle, "in Christ Jesus you who once were far off." So the apostle speaks not only of what the blood accomplishes, but also of the place of the Christian before God — in Christ Jesus. There are the two things: our being in Christ, and our being brought near by His blood. The teaching of this letter never separates the two; "in Christ" is, if we may call it so, its keynote.
Bringing the far-off near did not leave the old arrangement standing.
Once far off, we are brought near by His blood, and through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. So all special privileges of the one class over the other come to an end. This did not happen by lowering the Jew to the Gentile's outward place, nor by raising the Gentile to the privileged platform on which the Jew had been put. It happened by forming in Christ one new man out of the two, and by reconciling both to God in one body through the cross.
- Far — There were two distances: the Gentile was outwardly far off, and the Jew, though outwardly near, was as far off inwardly.
- But — The turn is God's, matching the "But God" of verse 4. A divine work, already complete, has put us in Christ Jesus.
- Blood — The one stated ground of nearness. Not effort, devotion or attainment. And the verse states it as done: you have been brought near.
- Near — As far as sin could push us, so near acceptance in Christ has brought us. The believer does not merely gain permission to approach; God brings him near.
- In Christ — Quote the blood and drop the opening words, and half the verse is gone. Nearness and place in Christ belong together, and together they end the old privilege.