“Aliens”. I wonder how many different pictures pop into people’s heads these days when they hear that word.
If I was pressured to guess, I suppose I’d say that the larger majority, at least in the American culture, would say that when they hear the word they think of beings from other planets.
Those who live in the border states, and especially border towns, or employees of Port Authorities might first think of people from Canada or Mexico or Cuba coming into the United States.
Anyone stopping to meditate on the word “aliens”, would eventually realize that an alien is not just someone who comes to America from a different country and a different citizenship. An alien is anyone who is in a place he does not necessarily belong; either legally, or due to vast social and cultural differences, or because of historical estrangement from the people who are there.
One example of aliens being something other than little green men, is in Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles”. People of Earth go to Mars to colonize in anticipation of Earth’s destruction with the use of nuclear weaponry, and on Mars, we (humans) are the aliens.
Now in case you haven’t noticed yet, the New American Standard version of the Bible, which I use both in my study and my preaching, does not use the word ‘aliens’ in Ephesians 2:12. The King James Version does, and a few others.
The reason I’m focusing on that word, even though my Bible of choice does not use it, is because it comes closer to expressing the thought being projected here by Paul. My NASB says, “...excluded from the commonwealth of Israel”. But the actual truth is much stronger than an exclusion.
In fact, the word ‘aliens’ does not quite do the job. The most appropriate word, used only by a few of the lesser used translations, is ‘alienated’.
“Alien”, denotes someone out of place. But when we say “alienated”, we generally think of someone who has been deliberately singled out as not belonging; not being welcome. Persona non grata.
That is what Paul says we were, so I want to use that word today, ‘alienated’, and ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate our understanding as to how desperate our situation was.
Alienation is a theme we see running through the entire history of mankind. Adam and Eve were alienated from God through sin.
Cain was alienated from society when he murdered his brother.
Abraham saw all kinds of alienation. He was an alien in a strange land, he was in a sense alienated from his nephew Lot when they had to divide their herds and go their separate ways, he suffered alienation from Hagar and his son Ishmael, when they had to be driven from the camp.
Jacob’s deceit alienated him from his brother, Esau
Moses was alienated from his own people by the circumstances God put him in, but then had to alienate himself from Pharaoh’s house in order to serve God as Israel’s deliverer.
David knew alienation all his life. The prophets too, from their own nation, because of their message.
And the beat goes on. Of course, the One who suffered the worst and most undeserved alienation was our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He was “despised and forsaken of men” (Isa. 53:3)
And I could bring it down to the present day, and say that most if not all of us know the sting of rejection and alienation; couldn’t I? It’s not an unfamiliar emotion to us at all.
So let’s just get right to the text now, and talk about;
WHAT THE “THEREFORE” IS THERE FOR
That’s got to be one of the oldest catch phrases in preaching. “Before we go on from verse 11, we have to look back at previous verses and see what the ‘therefore’ is there for”.
But worn out as it may be getting, it’s valid. Paul begins verse 11 with the word ‘therefore’, so we should glance back and remind ourselves of what has brought us to this point in the chapter.
Remember that Paul is writing to Ephesian believers. In fact, many Bible scholars question whether this letter was specifically addressed to the Ephesian church, or just the gentile churches in general, because verse one of chapter one, in many of the ancient manuscripts, does not contain the words ‘at Ephesus’.
One way or the other though, it is definitely written to gentile believers. That is well established for us in verse 11, having already been alluded to in chapter 1 verse 13 when he says “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth,...”; the ‘you also’ being an accepted reference to the gentile believers as a group.
So when he says in verse 11 “Therefore remember...”, he obviously wants them to remember something in the light of, and in contrast to, what he has told them in previous paragraphs of his letter.
He has said that God, being rich in mercy, great in love, surpassing in grace, has made them alive from the dead, and has established them with Christ in the heavenly places; actually ‘seated’ them there, which in the first century Asian mind, denoted a fixed, solid position.
That’s why in the letter to the Hebrews we’re told that after accomplishing His atoning work, and the sprinkling of His blood on the mercy seat in Heaven, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. His work was done, and His rightful place is established there at the Father’s right hand. He has received the divine invitation, to “sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet”.
And Paul says that we are seated there with Him, in Christ Jesus.
Paul has said that this right standing we have before the Father of glory is entirely by His grace through faith, and He has placed us there and declared us justified, so that forever and without end we will be the living testimony of His kindness and mercy and grace.
He assures us that we are the workmanship of God, and with that in mind we should remember that when God finishes all His works of creation He looks at it and declares it to be good, and this work He has done is to create us, brand new, in Christ Jesus.
And what was His purpose in this new creation? That we might walk in the good works He prepared for us beforehand.
Now I want you to consider that last part of verse 10. It’s important.
“...which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
This is important, because, if you look at verse 12, Paul is saying, “remember that you were at that time. And if we ask, ‘at what time?’ ‘what time is Paul referring to here?’, we see that it can only refer back to the term, ‘beforehand’.
So that’s what the ‘therefore’ is there for. God created us in Christ Jesus, having prepared good works for us beforehand, that we should walk in them.
“Therefore remember....(skip to verse 12)...that at the time he prepared these good works for you to do, even then, you were separate from Christ...etc”
This harks back to a theme I have preached often over the past couple of years my brothers and sisters in Christ.
How could our salvation,... how could our acceptance; our right standing with God be any more secure and sure, than to see that He was working and establishing even our future eternal goals and functions in Him, while we were still separate from Christ ~ and worse... alienated from God?
ALIENATED FROM WHOM?
Now I want to talk about who we are actually alienated from. Because if you read verse 12, the word ‘excluded’, or ‘aliens’, or ‘alienated’, whatever your translation says, it is specifically in reference to citizenship, or the commonwealth of, Israel.
And if we look at that phrase standing by itself, we might say, ‘So? I never presumed, or even desired to be a citizen of Israel! So what’s the big deal?’ But there’s much more to it than that, so let’s clarify some things.
It really was an important thing for Paul to bring to their attention, and even to our attention now, that they were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. We’ll talk about that more in a few minutes.
But I don’t want to move on too quickly and chance our failing to notice that our alienation went much deeper and had a much more profound significance than just not being granted citizenship in Israel.
If you will turn over to Ephesians 4 for just a moment, you will see that in Paul’s thinking, to be alienated from the commonwealth of Israel was synonymous with alienation from God, Himself. (start reading at verse 17)
“This I say and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;...”
That word, ‘excluded’, of course, being the same word used in verse 12 of our text.
Paul repeats this theme in Colossians 1:21, when he asserts again that we were formerly “...alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds...”, and we understand that alienation to be from God and His Christ, who “...has now reconciled (us) in His fleshly body through death, in order to present (us) before Him (the Father) holy and blameless and beyond reproach...”
It is a truth that is well-established throughout scripture and we could cite many proof texts. You who were in our Romans study, or who have studied Romans at any time, will remember that Paul spent most of the first three chapters of that letter establishing that all of mankind was alienated, lost to God, through sin.
Excluded from the life of God. All of mankind. But here in Ephesians, he is addressing the Gentile specifically, to make a point that we were in double trouble; being alienated from God, and excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.
They were first of all, as all men, alienated from the life of God through sin. Romans 5:12 says, “...just as through one man” meaning Adam “ sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
But secondly, they were further alienated because they weren’t recipients of the blessings of Israel as a nation. Listen to Romans 9:4,5
“...who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen.”
We really owe a lot to the Jews, friends. Through them came specific revelation of God and His laws, and our Lord Himself.
So let’s talk about being:
STRANGERS TO THE COVENANTS OF PROMISE
In Genesis 12 we read of God’s calling of Abram. God promises to make him a great nation. He promises to make Abram’s name great, in that he will be a blessing. He promises to protect him and honor him, and then He says something very astounding.
“And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”.
If you give this some thought, you will come to the inevitable conclusion that there is only one way that all the families of the earth could possibly be blessed in one man. They would all have to be recipients of some benefit that comes from or through that one man.
If you think about the diversity of human kind, and all of the various needs and cultural distinctives; the differences in their habitats and their philosophical conclusions about life... all the things that make us different, there is really only one thing that commonly effects all of mankind without exception. It is sin.
So if all the families of the earth are to be blessed in one man, then it stands to reason in my own mind that the blessing would have to be the fulfillment of the promise God had already made to Adam and Eve in the garden. The promise of a Redeemer.
Of course we could say that hind sight is always 20/20, but we know Abram believed the promise related to a Redeemer. The Holy Spirit confirms this for us in Romans 4:1-5 Reading verses 3-5, “For what does the Scripture say? ’AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS’. Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.”
Abraham believed in a promise, and that promise related to a redeemer, and that faith justified him before God.
Abraham became the first Jew; but we might even say he became the first Christian.
He believed in the Redeemer, and he believed, we read in Romans 4:17, that God gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. We are saved by the same faith that saved Abraham.
He looked forward to the coming of the promise; we look back to the fulfilling.
Now that promise of a Redeemer was reiterated to Jacob (Gen 28:14), and to David (2 Sam 7:8-13).
It was a promise to the Jews. In fact, if you read 2 Samuel 7, you will see that when God repeated the promise to David He included the assurance that He would establish and preserve Israel as a nation, and through David raise up a kingdom that would not end.
We, the gentiles, were strangers to the covenants of promise. These promises were made to Abraham and the nation that came from him. The gentiles, if they did believe in the one true God, only had a vague understanding of Him through general revelation. But they were strangers to the promises. So were we all.
WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD
Without God in the world? Is Paul saying that all gentiles were lost and had no access to God at all? I don’t think so. It is apparent in scripture that there have always been men and women who knew God by faith. Melchizedek was not a Jew, but he is referred to as priest of the Most High God, and if he was a priest, he must have served believers. What their level of understanding was is not addressed.
There were believers in the generations of Adam all the way down to Noah and after the flood. That is made very clear in the scriptures. And they were not Jews.
So we have to accept that Paul is not saying here that there was no coming to God apart from being a Jew. But those who did have some knowledge and understanding of God were certainly the exception.
For the most part, ~ and this is evident in all of history ~ the gentile nations were ignorant of the one true God, and either made idol gods for themselves or had no god at all. They were without God in the world.
Now if Paul is indeed writing to the Ephesians, they were certainly not godless. They had the largest shrine to a god in the world, right there in Ephesus, built to Artemis. I’m sure there were also other temples, and that they were very religious people. Nevertheless, they were without God in the world.
Friends, there are hundreds of millions of people all over this planet, right now, today, who are very, very religious. Some even to the point of fanaticism. But they are without God in the world. And while they carefully perform their rituals and religious exercises, and adhere faithfully to the tenants of their belief system, and strive daily to live an exemplary existence, they are sadly without hope, and without God in the world.
And they will stay that way until and unless they are brought near by the blood of Christ.
I’m beginning here to tread on verse 13, and I’d prefer to cover that next week. But I couldn’t sleep tonight if I left you dangling over the precipice of verse 12.
I want you to consider how very significant these two words are in light of what has been said about us here. “But now”.
The Jews, the Circumcision, those to whom all these things were entrusted, and who should have been using them to draw all men to God, instead, looked down upon us because we were not of the Circumcision. That’s what Paul is telling us in verse 11. Sounds a little like some Baptist churches we’ve seen, huh? We weren’t like them, so they shut us out. We were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel.
Without hope. What a terrible thing. Without hope. Hopeless.
“But now“. Is Paul a great encourager, or what? He’s so great at drawing these dark, bleak images of defeat and hopelessness and uselessness, and bringing the reader right to the edge of utter despair, and then like opening the blinds to a beautiful mountain view, or flicking on the light to dispel what was complete darkness, he says “But now”.
Oh, boy. This gives me a ray of hope. What is he going to say now? We were without hope, and without God... But now... and our heads lift a little and we strain to hear what comes next, because we sense that relief is on the way.
And what relief, indeed!
“...you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
We’ve been brought near. Doesn’t that almost just sound too simple? “But now...brought near”.
Christ went to Calvary’s cross for us, while we were far off...without hope...without God...excluded...alienated...
He shed His blood there. He poured it out as an offering for sin. He died there, while we were all these negative things, and by so doing, brought us near.
Near to God. Near to the throne. Near to the promises. Near to the commonwealth of Israel; partakers of all the blessings granted to her.
Oh, how... I don’t understand... how can men who call themselves preachers of God’s Word; leaders of churches that go by the name Christian... how can they neglect the preaching of the blood of Christ?
How can they say that God has called them to their vocation, when they are ashamed of the gospel message?
They are aliens to me. I don’t understand their words or their intents. I don’t recognize their very form. They cannot have originated from the same One I call ‘Father’.
Because all that I am and ever will be I owe to the blood that brought me near from far off. The blood that washed away all my sin. All my hopelessness. That gives me cause to sing, “Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand’ring from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, bought me with His precious blood.”
Friend, if you’re here today (or reading this sermon later) and have never surrendered yourself to Jesus Christ, I want to tell you that you don’t have to understand the value of Christ’s blood to bring you near to God. It is God’s estimate of the blood that matters. He simply calls you to come in simple faith, recognizing that you are lost to Him, without hope and alienated from the life of God because of sin, and simply believe that Christ, by His blood, is able to bring you near. To give you full citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven, and full and free access to the very Throne of the Father; immediately and forever.
Do not despise or reject the blood of Jesus. He shed it for you on the cross, even while you were a stranger and an alien. And it has the power to draw you near. Appropriate it to your life today; be cleansed in it. Washed whiter than snow ~ and made right to stand in the presence of God forever. Brought near.
And you who know that you have been brought near to God by His blood, you who have the settled conviction that you are a believer, justified and heaven-bound; let your rejoicing be made brand new today, as you contemplate anew what His blood has done for you. Don’t ever let the message get old. Don’t ever let yourself begin to take it for granted.
Consider how far off you were, and repeat to yourself, “But now”, and whether you do it with your mouth or not, let your heart sing His praises and lift you into His very presence; because you’re welcome there. You’re not aliens anymore. You are fellow citizens with the saints, and you are of God’s household, brought near by the blood of Christ. Rejoice.
