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THE KING’S BUSINESS
blood, they had no part in the Christ. Fur ther still, they were “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel,” i.e., they had no part in the privileges and prospects of Israel. The form o f the verb translated “alienated” is a past participle and literally translated would be, “having been alien ated,” and implies that they had once had some part in it but lost it, and this is true. Every human soul, in its original unfallen state, was in a covenant of acceptance with God, o f which- the covenant o f Israel was but a reflection. The Gentile world alien ated itself, and each individual soul further alienates himself, from God by the choice o f igno'rance and sin (Rom. 1:21-28; Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21; Isa. 55:7). They were furthermore, , “ strangers (or foreigners) from the covenants o f the promise.” The Authorized Version says, “covenants of promise,” omitting the definite article “the,” but this misses part o f Paul’s point and is an inaccurate translation. In the Greek text there is a “the” and Paul’s point that they were strangers, is thus brought out/that they were strangers from the specific “cov enants o f the promise,” i. e., the promise made to Israel in these various covenants, and spécifie, definite promises. This cov enant o f the promise o f acceptance and blessing and resurrection belonged to Abra ham and his seed, and to them alone (Rom. 9 :4 ), though God hinted from the very first that all nations should afterwards be taken in, as they now have been, “in Christ” (cf. Gal. 3:8, 14, 29). Paul speaks not o f a covenant, but “covenants.” The reason for his sa speaking was because the coy- enant Was repeated over and over again to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, etc. Further still, at that time the Ephe sians and other Gentiles, including our selves, had “no hope.” The heathen world had “no hope.” Their literature shows there was longing and conjecture, but even that was hazy and uncertain, like the dreams o f immorality that one finds today in all other than Christian literature. Many of the most thoughtful heathen writers, as Aristotle and Epicurus, did not believe in immortality at all. The Platonists believed
that the soul passed. through perpetual changes, sometimes happy, sometimes mis erable. The Stoics taught that it only existed until the .time o f the burning up of all things. But “ hope” in a true sense o f a confident and intelligent expectation, founded upon the W ord o f God (cf. Titus 1 : 2 ), they had not at all, and no one out o f Christ has hope in that sense today. Further still, they were “without God (lit erally, Godless) in the world.” They had no real God, they had opinions, all false, o f gods, and some o f them entertained the opinion even o f one supreme, but largely impersonal being, like the god o f modern agnostics, and the god o f Christian Scient ists, but as to having God, a God who really existed, and 'really having Him for their own, and enjoying Him, they had no God, they were Godless (cf. Gal. 4:8). What a terrible depth o f wretchedness there is wrapped up in those words, “without God,” and in the additional words, “ in the world.” If I were “in the world” and “ without God” I would wish to die and cease to think, but with God, every day is glorious. Tuesday, July 2 . Eph. 2 : 13 . In verses 11 and 12 we have had a very dark picture o f what the Ephesians had been aforetime, but in the 13th verse we have a picture o f what they were “ mow ” “in Christ.” “ In Christ,” i. e .,/ through what He had done, and because o f their vital union with Him, they who aforetime were “afar off” were now “made nigh in the blood o f Christ.” In the former times they were “afar off” because they were Gentiles and outside o f Jewish promises and hopes (cf. v. 17; Acts 2:39; Isa. 57:19), but they were now “made nigh,” i. e., nigh to God and all the blessings o f Abraham and his seed (cf. Gal. 3:29). It was “ in the blood o f Christ” (R. V .) that they were “made nigh.” That blood had taken away both the guilt that separated them from God (Isa. 53:6; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13; Heb. 9:22; Matt. 26:28), and had taken away also the law that separated them from Israel (vs. 14, 15). Having come into the
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