Alienated From the Commonwealth of Israel

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the cir­cumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Verses 11-12.

God chose Israel from the beginning that He might exemplify in the Israelites just how a people should be who live according to His will. He gave them Abraham as their father. He gave them the patriarchs and a great many prophets who, as God’s shepherds with their staves, kept God’s people in His will.

But Israel was a rebellious nation. It was not enough for them that they were delivered from the bondage of Egypt and drank from the Rock that followed them, which was Christ, nor were they satisfied when God gave them bread from heaven to eat. They wanted meat, and they wanted to go back to Egypt. They murmured in the wilderness and opposed Moses. They were cowardly when it came to believing God and conquering the land of Canaan with its mighty inhabitants.

When at long last they entered the land, they were not able to completely drive out the peoples that were already living there. A remnant of all these nations remained. God was Israel’s king, but that was not enough for them, for He was invisible. They wanted a king to rule over them like all the other nations had, even though God, with a strong and outstretched arm, had led them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and despite the fact that He had revealed His will to them for forty years in the wilderness. In spite of all this, they rejected God as their king in order to be like the Gentiles.

Stephen says: “Our fathers refused to obey [Christ], but thrust Him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who led as out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their hands. But God turned and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you offer to me slain beasts and sacrifices, forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? And you took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of the god Rephan, the fig­ures which you made to worship; and I will remove you beyond Babylon....’” Acts 7:39-43.

“‘You stiffnecked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered....’ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.” Acts 7:51-52, and 57-58.

Jesus said to them: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the proph­ets and stoning those who were sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” Matthew 23:37. Even though they were in a wretched state, they thought of themselves as “the circumcised,” as opposed to those “uncircumcised” Gentiles. Even, though they had not kept the law, they still had the law, the patri­archs, and the covenant in which they could boast. They were a re­bellious people, and yet they coveted the honor of being the children of Abraham. They boasted in that law which they trans­gressed daily, and they boasted of the fathers and prophets whom they had stoned. From these lofty heights (where they imagined themselves to be), they looked down on all the Gentiles, whom they regarded as “unclean beings.”

And yet God, who appointed Abraham as the father of many na­tions, had the solution for the Ephesians and thus every church from every nation. Therefore, the Apostle goes on to say, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ.” Verse 13.

Blessed blood! It opens the way for both Jews and Gentiles. In spite of the law, the patriarchs, and the covenants, the Jews car­ried about a body of sin just like the Gentiles. They were carried away by the lusts of their flesh, in direct opposition to the law. Therefore, God had to send His Son and carry out a spiritual oper­ation in the flesh, condemning sin in that flesh. Thus Jew and Gen­tile were put on equal footing. Now both have access to the Father in the same Spirit. The law was given on account of transgressions. Now that the flesh with the body of sin was destroyed, the law against transgressions disappeared quite naturally of itself. And with it disappeared the glory that made the Jews superior to the Gentiles, because it was the law they had boasted in.