Exegetical Report

Greek III
Brooke T.
9.26.07

Text:
Ephesians 2:19 “…so then no longer are you a stranger and alien, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…”

Words like ‘but’ and ‘no longer’ signify a difference to what was previously, a negation of past comments or a past state of being. It does the same here, indicating, obviously, that this is how it is, but it wasn’t always this way.

Through the last chapter, Paul has been setting forth the facts of our dire state. In the immediate context of verse 19, this has been centered around our alienation to Israel – we weren’t any where in that picture - “…estranged from the commonwealth of Israel and strange to the covenant of the promises having no hope and without God in the world…” – could it state any clearer the mess we were in? Burst forth then the glorious words of vs. 13 “BUT GOD.” From that point until here, Paul explains how Jesus broke down the separation between Israel and we the godless Gentiles. We are no longer stranger, for Jesus through His amazing act of grace and love took us from our hopeless state, right into the very household of God.


For me personally, being very familiar with the Jesus’ saving work on the cross, it is extremely easy for me to forget what my position was like before the before the ‘no longer’. Hopeless, godless, alone, and alienated. God had no obligation to free us from that state. There was nothing special in the very least about us that should be particularly attractive to Him: after all, we were His enemies. But He took us to Himself just the same. That is the awesomeness of God’s love: not that He loved us because we were special but that He loved us because He chose to - for His glory and spectacular plan. May God help me never to cease remembering that He saved me from an impossible condition, and that I am in that condition no longer.