Ephesians 2:11

Wherefore remember, that once ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision, in the flesh, made by hands; that ye 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 this world.

There is a progression in these two verses describing the pre-Christian state of Gentile Christians. "Physically they lacked the ancient sign of the covenant; politically they had no part in Israel's national or religious life, and spiritually they had no knowledge of the true God."[36] Also in Ephesians 2:12 (beginning after the words "made by hands") "there is a fivefold negative description with a cumulative effect, the situation becoming graver and more terrible; and the last clause is the climax."[37]

Wherefore remember ... It might be good for any Christian to pause now and then and look up to God and remember the way it was with himself before he began to follow Christ. Few indeed are they who remember nothing for which they feel strong emotions to praise God and thank him for all his benefits.

Uncircumcision ... Circumcision ... Circumcision was the sign of God's covenant with the children of Israel; but instead of accepting their responsibility of teaching all nations of the true God, they usurped for themselves alone the privileges of the true knowledge of God and became exclusive, arrogant, proud and conceited, looking down upon Gentiles with the utmost contempt and detestation. No modern person can fully appreciate the exclusiveness of ancient Israel; but the following paragraph from Barclay provides some suggestion of what it was like:

The Jew said that God created Gentiles as fuel for the fires of hell, that of all the nations God made, he loved Israel alone, that the best of serpents crush and the best of Gentiles kill, that it was not even lawful to aid a Gentile women in labor because it would only bring into the world another Gentile. The barrier was absolute. If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, a funeral for that boy was carried out. Even setting foot in a Gentile's house defiled a Jew![38]

Most of the "glorying" Paul had in mind in his letters regarded such inordinate conceit as that depicted by Barclay above. Paul, having himself been a participant in such thinking, understood it completely and totally rejected, repudiated and forsook it; and, when something of the same arrogant pride, conceit, and vain-glory which once pertained to Israel began to rear its serpentine head among Gentile Christians, Paul struck a blow against it, much of the book of Romans having that as the objective.

Separate from Christ ... Gentiles, prior to Christianity, had no longing for a Messiah, as did the Jews.

Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel ... The use of this expression shows that Paul was already thinking of the commonwealth of the new Israel, the spiritual Israel, which is the church, which is not exclusively the possession of any race or class of people, but for "whomsoever will." All nations, races and divisions of human beings are invited to membership in the new commonwealth. By bringing into view in these verses the Jews and Gentiles (Circumcision and Uncircumcision), Paul indicated that all other similar distinctions are likewise abrogated in Christ. The Jewish exclusiveness was actually hardly worse than that of the educated Greeks who divided the whole world as "Greeks and barbarians," or that of the Romans who classified all people as either "citizens or non-citizens." Summarized, any of these classifications actually meant, "We vs. all other people on earth"!

Strangers from the covenant of the promise ... All of the great and precious promises of the Old Testament, looking to the blessing of "all kindreds of the earth," were literally unknown by the Gentiles. The Jews knew, or should have known, that God also had plans for their salvation, but no evangelical message ever went out from Jerusalem under the old covenant.

Having no hope ... The pessimism of the entire pre-Christian Gentile world is one of the saddest and most wretched chapters of human history. In the vanity of his own intellectual conceit, ancient man rejected the knowledge of God, which at one time he most certainly did have; and the story of what then followed is recounted in the first two chapters of Romans. Every man should read it as a prophecy of what will surely happen to "modern man" when he has finished with removing God from his thoughts.

Without God ... translates a single word in the Greek (atheists), the same being the only New Testament occurrence of it. This word was commonly used by Christians to describe the pagans.

When Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, was led into the arena before a howling multitude clamoring for his death, the Roman Procurator took pity on his gray hairs and invited him to save his life by renouncing Christ and saying, "Away with the atheists." (The pagans called the Christians atheists.) But Polycarp waved his hands toward the bloodthirsty throng in the arena, and cried, "Away with the atheists!" thus turning the word back upon those who used it.[39]

For full discussion of the godlessness of the pre-Christian Gentiles, see the first two chapters of Romans, with comments in this series.

[36] George E. Harper, A New Testament Commentary, Ephesians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 463.

[37] W. G. Blaikie, op. cit., p. 63.

[38] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 125.

[39] Francis W. Beare, op. cit., p. 653.