Charles Hodge on Ephesians 2:12

V. 12. The sentence begun in verse 11 is here resumed. Remember, ὅτι ἦτε τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ χωρὶς Χριστοῦ, that at that time ye were without Christ. This means more than that they were as heathen, destitute of the knowledge and expectation of the Messiah. As Christ is the only redeemer of men, and the only mediator between God and man, to be without Christ, was to be without redemption and without access to God. To possess Christ, to be in Him, is the sum of all blessedness; to be without Christ includes all evil.

What follows is a confirmation of what precedes. They were without Christ because aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. The idea of separation and estrangement is strongly expressed by the word ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι. They stood as ἄλλοι, as others, distinguished as a separate class from the people of God. The word πολιτεία means—1. Citizenship. 2. The order or constitution of the state. 3. The community or state itself. The last signification best suits the connection. Ἰσραήλ means the theocratical people; and πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ is that community or commonwealth which was Israel. This includes the other senses, for in being aliens from the community of God’s people, they were of course destitute of citizenship among them, and outside of the theocratical constitution.

And strangers from the covenants of promise, καὶ ξένοι τῶν διαθηκῶν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας. The word covenants is in the plural because God entered repeatedly into covenant with his people. It is called a covenant of promise, or rather of the promise, because the promise of redemption was connected therewith. That the promise meant is that great promise of a redeemer made to Abraham, and so often afterwards repeated, is plain not only from the context, but from other passages of Scripture. "The promise made to the fathers," says the apostle, in Acts 13, 32, "hath God fulfilled in that lie hath raised up Jesus." Comp. Rom. 4, 14-16. Gal. 3, 16. As the heathen were not included in the covenant God made with his people, they had no interest. in the promise, the execution of which that covenant secured. Their condition was therefore most deplorable. They were without hope—ἐλπίδα μὴ ἔχοντες, not having hope. They had nothing to hope, because shut out of the covenant of promise. The promise of God is the only foundation of hope, and therefore those to whom there is no promise, have no hope. And having no hope of redemption, the great blessing promised, they were, in the widest sense of the word, hopeless. They were moreover without God, ἄθεοι. This may mean that they were atheists, in so far that they were destitute of the knowledge of the true God, and served those who by nature were no gods. Jehovah was not their God; they had no interest in him, they were without him. This includes the idea that they were forsaken of him—he had left them in the world. They stood outside of that community which belonged to God, who knew and worshipped him, to whom his promises were made, and in the midst of whom he dwelt. In every point, therefore, their condition as heathen afforded a melancholy contrast to that of the true people of God, and to that into which they had been introduced by the Gospel. Their alienation from the theocracy or church involved in it, or implied, a like alienation from God and his covenant.