12 that ye were at that time without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now has it reconciled
But then indeed, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods;
(not in passionate desire, even as the nations who know not God,)
Thou hope of Israel, Jehovah! all that forsake thee shall be ashamed. They that depart from me shall be written in the earth; because they have forsaken Jehovah, the fountain of living waters.
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land of thy sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be a God to them. And God said to Abraham, And [as for] thee, thou shalt keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations.
I have made a covenant with mine elect, I have sworn unto David my servant: Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne from generation to generation. Selah. And the heavens shall celebrate thy wonders, O Jehovah, and thy faithfulness in the congregation of the saints. For who in the heaven can be compared to Jehovah? [who] among the sons of the mighty shall be likened to Jehovah? ùGod is greatly to be feared in the council of the saints, and terrible for all that are round about him. Jehovah, God of hosts, who is like unto thee, the strong Jah? And thy faithfulness is round about thee. *Thou* rulest the pride of the sea: when its waves arise, *thou* stillest them. Thou hast crushed Rahab as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with the arm of thy strength. Thine are the heavens, the earth also is thine; the world and its fulness, *thou* hast founded them. The north and the south, *thou* hast created them: Tabor and Hermon triumph in thy name. Thine is the arm of might: strong is thy hand, high is thy right hand. Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of thy throne; loving-kindness and truth go before thy face. Blessed is the people that know the shout of joy: they walk, O Jehovah, in the light of thy countenance. In thy name are they joyful all the day, and in thy righteousness are they exalted. For thou art the glory of their strength; and in thy favour our horn shall be exalted. For Jehovah is our shield, and the Holy One of Israel, our king.
I am the vine, ye [are] the branches. He that abides in me and I in him, *he* bears much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing.
For this cause therefore I have called you to [me] to see and to speak to you; for on account of the hope of Israel I have this chain about me.
But to Abraham were the promises addressed, and to his seed: he does not say, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed; which is Christ. Now I say this, A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which took place four hundred and thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.
being darkened in understanding, estranged from the life of God by reason of the ignorance which is in them, by reason of the hardness of their hearts,
Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through [the] resurrection of Jesus Christ from among [the] dead,
but sanctify [the] Lord the Christ in your hearts, and [be] always prepared to [give] an answer [to] every one that asks you to give an account of the hope that [is] in you, but with meekness and fear;
who by him do believe on God, who has raised him from among [the] dead and given him glory, that your faith and hope should be in God.
that by two unchangeable things, in which [it was] impossible that God should lie, we might have a strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us,
Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ, according to [the] command of God our Saviour, and of Christ Jesus our hope,
to whom God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you the hope of glory:
on account of the hope which [is] laid up for you in the heavens; of which ye heard before in the word of the truth of the glad tidings,
-- concerning then the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol [is] nothing in [the] world, and that there [is] no other God save one. For and if indeed there are [those] called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, (as there are gods many, and lords many,) yet to us [there is] one God, the Father, of whom all things, and *we* for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom [are] all things, and *we* by him.
And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words that Jehovah has said will we do! And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent the youths of the children of Israel, and they offered up burnt-offerings, and sacrificed sacrifices of peace-offering of bullocks to Jehovah. And Moses took half the blood, and put [it] in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read [it] in the ears of the people; and they said, All that Jehovah has said will we do, and obey! And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled [it] on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has made with you concerning all these words. And Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up; and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire, and as it were the form of heaven for clearness. And on the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: they saw God, and ate and drank.
All the heave-offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to Jehovah, have I given thee, and to thy sons and to thy daughters with thee, by an everlasting statute: it shall be an everlasting covenant of salt before Jehovah unto thee and thy seed with thee.
But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the chief fathers of Israel said to them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house to our God, but we alone will build to Jehovah the God of Israel, as king Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.
Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: I [am] the first, and I [am] the last, and beside me there is no God.
And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vinedressers.
Thou hope of Israel, its Saviour in the time of trouble, why wilt thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a traveller that turneth aside to stay a night?
Behold, days come, saith Jehovah, 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 of my taking them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
Thus saith Jehovah: If ye can break my covenant [in respect] of the day, and my covenant [in respect] of the night, so that there should not be day and night in their season, [then] shall also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers. As the host of the heavens cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. And the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah, saying, Hast thou not seen what this people have spoken, saying, The two families that Jehovah had chosen, he hath even cast them off? And they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith Jehovah: If my covenant of day and night [stand] not, if I have not appointed the ordinances of the heavens and the earth, [then] will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so as not to take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will turn their captivity, and will have mercy on them.
And my hand shall be against the prophets that see vanity and that divine lies: they shall not be in the council of my people, neither shall they be written in the register of the house of Israel, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I [am] the Lord Jehovah.
to fulfil mercy with our fathers and remember his holy covenant,
Ye worship ye know not what; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews.
*Ye* are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God appointed to our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
and saying, Men, why do ye these things? *We* also are men of like passions with you, preaching to you to turn from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them; who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways,
And according as they did not think good to have God in [their] knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to practise unseemly things; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil dispositions; whisperers, back-biters, hateful to God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, void of understanding, faithless, without natural affection, unmerciful; who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only practise them, but have fellow delight in those who do [them].
who are Israelites; whose [is] the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the service, and the promises; whose [are] the fathers; and of whom, as according to flesh, [is] the Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
That is, [they that are] the children of the flesh, these [are] not the children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned as 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,