12 that you 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 the world.
You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works,
However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.
not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don't know God;
Yahweh, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be disappointed. Those who depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken Yahweh, the spring of living waters.
I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you. I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God." God said to Abraham, "As for you, you will keep my covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations.
"I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant, 'I will establish your seed forever, And build up your throne to all generations.'" Selah. The heavens will praise your wonders, Yahweh; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the heavenly beings is like Yahweh, A very awesome God in the council of the holy ones, To be feared above all those who are around him? Yahweh, God of hosts, who is a mighty one, like you? Yah, your faithfulness is around you. You rule the pride of the sea. When its waves rise up, you calm them. You have broken Rahab in pieces, like one of the slain. You have scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours; The world and its fullness. You have founded them. The north and the south, you have created them. Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name. You have a mighty arm. Your hand is strong, and your right hand is exalted. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before your face. Blessed are the people who learn to acclaim you. They walk in the light of your presence, Yahweh. In your name they rejoice all day. In your righteousness, they are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength. In your favor, our horn will be exalted. For our shield belongs to Yahweh; Our king to the Holy One of Israel.
I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
For this cause therefore I asked to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain."
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He doesn't say, "To seeds," as of many, but as of one, "To your seed," which is Christ. Now I say this. A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.
being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their hearts;
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy became our father again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
What am I saying then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don't desire that you would have communion with demons.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts; and always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear:
who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead, and gave him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God.
that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and Christ Jesus our hope;
to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory;
because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel,
Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For though there are things that are called "gods," whether in the heavens or on earth; as there are many "gods" and many "lords;" yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.
Moses came and told the people all the words of Yahweh, and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, "All the words which Yahweh has spoken will we do." Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace-offerings of oxen to Yahweh. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that Yahweh has spoken will we do, and be obedient." Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words." Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire{or, lapis lazuli} stone, like the skies for clearness. He didn't lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.
All the heave-offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to Yahweh, have I given you, and your sons and your daughters with you, as a portion forever: it is a covenant of salt forever before Yahweh to you and to your seed with you.
But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers' [houses] of Israel, said to them, You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves together will build to Yahweh, the God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.
Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.
Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers.
You hope of Israel, the Savior of it in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?
Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Yahweh. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yahweh; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Yahweh: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
Thus says Yahweh: If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there shall not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of the sky can't be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites who minister to me. The word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying, Don't you consider what this people has spoken, saying, The two families which Yahweh did choose, he has cast them off? thus do they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus says Yahweh: If my covenant of day and night fails, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so that I will not take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and will have mercy on them.
My hand shall be against the prophets who see false visions, and who divine lies: they shall not be in the council of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord Yahweh.
To show mercy towards our fathers, To remember his holy covenant,
You worship that which you don't know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.
You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'In your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.'
"Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them; who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.
Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.
who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as a seed.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ephesians 2
Commentary on Ephesians 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
This chapter contains an account,
The apostle endeavours to affect them with a due sense of the wonderful change which divine grace had wrought in them; and this is very applicable to that great change which the same grace works in all those who are brought into a state of grace. So that we have here a lively picture both of the misery of unregenerate men and of the happy condition of converted souls, enough to awaken and alarm those who are yet in their sins and to put them upon hastening out of that state, and to comfort and delight those whom God hath quickened, with a consideration of the mighty privileges with which they are invested.
Eph 2:1-3
The miserable condition of the Ephesians by nature is here in part described. Observed,
Eph 2:4-10
Here the apostle begins his account of the glorious change that was wrought in them by converting grace, where observe,
Eph 2:11-13
In these verses the apostle proceeds in his account of the miserable condition of these Ephesians by nature. Wherefore remember, etc., v. 11. As if he had said, "You should remember what you have been, and compare it with what you now are, in order to humble yourselves and to excite your love and thankfulness to God.' Note, Converted sinners ought frequently to reflect upon the sinfulness and misery of the state they were in by nature. Gentiles in the flesh, that is, living in the corruption of their natures, and being destitute of circumcision, the outward sign of an interest in the covenant of grace. Who are called uncircumcision by that, etc., that is, "You were reproached and upbraided for it by the formal Jews, who made an external profession, and who looked no further than the outward ordinance.' Note, Hypocritical professors are wont to value themselves chiefly on their external privileges, and to reproach and despise others who are destitute of them. The apostle describes the misery of their case in several particulars, v. 12. "At that time, while you were Gentiles, and in an unconverted state, you were,'
The apostle proceeds (v. 13) further to illustrate the happy change that was made in their state: But now, in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off, etc. They were far off from Christ, from his church, from the promises, from the Christian hope, and from God himself; and therefore from all good, like the prodigal son in the far country: this had been represented in the preceding verses. Unconverted sinners remove themselves at a distance from God, and God puts them at a distance: He beholds the proud afar off. "But now in Christ Jesus, etc., upon your conversion, by virtue of union with Christ, and interest in him by faith, you are made nigh.' They were brought home to God, received into the church, taken into the covenant, and possessed of all other privileges consequent upon these. Note, The saints are a people near to God. Salvation is far from the wicked; but God is a help at hand to his people; and this is by the blood of Christ, by the merit of his sufferings and death. Every believing sinner owes his nearness to God, and his interest in his favour, to the death and sacrifice of Christ.
Eph 2:14-22
We have now come to the last part of the chapter, which contains an account of the great and mighty privileges that converted Jews and Gentiles both receive from Christ. The apostle here shows that those who were in a state of enmity are reconciled. Between the Jews and the Gentiles there had been a great enmity; so there is between God and every unregenerate man. Now Jesus Christ is our peace, v. 14. He made peace by the sacrifice of himself; and came to reconcile,