"Out of Darkness"

In this portion of our study in Ephesians, Paul is going to confront us with yet another metaphor to describe our condition apart from Christ, our past life before we joined our life to His. Here, Paul looks back upon who we were as pre-Christians, as pagans (“Gentiles” is the word he uses), and he reminds us of our previous condition of darkness and ignorance.

Read Ephesians 2:11-13

In this passage the apostle deals with the difference between Jews and Gentiles. He identifies the Gentiles for us: those called "uncircumcised" by Jews, who are circumcised. Paul indicates that circumcision is the distinguishing mark of the Jews, and he has a good reason for doing so. He says, "You Gentiles are uncircumcised. The Jews are the circumcised people." Circumcision marked the Jews as a special people, uniquely belonging to God. So when Paul said the Jews were circumcised, he was symbolizing the advantages of the Jew over the Gentile.

Circumcision is very important in the Scriptures. It is referred to throughout the Old Testament and the New. The practice began with Abraham, who circumcised his son Isaac at God's command, signifying a special relationship to Him. The Gentiles did not circumcise. The symbol of circumcision, like all scriptural symbols, has a special meaning. Why in the world do you think God chose this particular sign? And why on this part of the male anatomy?

The answer is that our sexuality is a basic part of our humanity. The Scriptures teach this very plainly. The church has often been squeamish about teaching the plain biblical truth of our sexuality. We have often behaved in the church as if our human bodies ended at the waist, and we needn't be concerned with those so-called "unmentionable" parts of us. But sex and sexuality are not unmentionable to God. He created our sexuality, and He knows it is not extraneous to our existence--it is fundamental! God's Word deals with sexual matters in a forthright, honest way that accepts the fact that our sexuality is an integral part of our humanity.

Most important of all, the Bible places our sexual nature in a spiritual context. The Scriptures teach us plainly that we are to respect our bodies and treat our sexuality as a holy gift from God. So circumcision is the recognition on God's part that what we think about sex reveals what we think of ourselves, of self-image, our identity.

The Gentile, pagan world was called "uncircumcised" because it was characterized by two elements:

1.   Sexual immorality. Like the pagans in our own society, many of the pagans in Paul's day were highly educated--what we call "civilized." But mingled with their civilization was a terrible sexual degeneracy--which I'm sure sounds very familiar to you. When you visit the ancient temples of Rome and Greece, you find a tremendous emphasis on sex symbols. The Greek philosophers, who are regarded as such advanced thinkers that in many ways they have never been surpassed, were quite sexually degraded. Homosexuality was widespread and widely accepted, along with other degrading sexual practices. So the pagan world of Paul's day revealed its lack of understanding and respect for its own humanity by its degraded sexual practices.

2.   Religious ignorance. The Scriptures teach that you can never truly know yourself until you know God. It is knowledge of God that reveals you to yourself. Those who have come to a knowledge of God are always growing in self-understanding and the understanding of others.

All of this is implied in the classification of the pagan world as uncircumcised. It is sexually aberrant and ignorant of God. Yet Paul gives us a hint in verse 11 that the Jews, despite their many advantages, were often hypocritical. They failed to take hold of those advantages, claiming to possess what they did not actually possess. Paul explains: "Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called 'uncircumcised' by those who call themselves 'the circumcision' (that done in the body by the hands of men)."

Paul's suggestion here is that while the Jews were called "circumcised," they didn't always live like circumcised people. You say, "So what? How does this affect me today? That was then and this is now! The first century world has nothing in common with the world today!" If that's what you believe, you are very much mistaken. Beneath the styles and technological trappings of our era, we are very much the same kind of people as those in the first century, facing the same moral issues and temptations that they face.

Paganism is rampant in our day, and it is no different from the paganism of Paul's day. Many of us believe we live in a Christian nation, but the fact is that America today is in the grip of pagan beliefs and practices. Those of us who truly adhere to biblical ideals and morality are the minority in America today. There is no "moral majority," only a narrow slice of true, faithful Christians and the much larger pagan world.

We, as faithful Christians in America, are in much the same position as the Jews of Paul's day--even if we are Gentiles by race. We have been exposed to a great deal of truth. We have many advantages, just as the Jews had. The Jews of Paul's time had the Scriptures and traditions that should have resulted in a humble, faithful, trusting relationship with God--yet many of them did not know God at all. A lot of us, as churchgoing Americans, are in that same condition today.

Many of us in churches today have come out of a pagan environment, such as Paul describes here. We know that the pagan mindset is much the same now as then, whether that pagan is a first century cloth merchant or a twenty-first century stockbroker. So we should listen carefully as Paul describes the pagan condition, because his words are as applicable today as they were 2,000 years ago. If anything, the world is a more pagan place today than ever before, as our culture rapidly sheds its veneer of Christian influence and tradition, and becomes openly idolatrous, immoral, and self-centered. Paul writes in verse 12: "Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world."

That is paganism. The one thing that can be said of all pagans, no matter what their background, is that they are separated from Christ. Those who haven't yet come to Christ, are pagans. They may have been brought up in a religious home. They may be highly educated. They may be witty, intelligent, artistic, successful, well-read, educated, and urbane--in every worldly aspect an admirable person. But the one great fact remains: they are separated from Christ.

Without Christ there is no life from God. We may accept the fact that some Supreme Intelligence exists, but that belief does not lead to worship or friendship with the one true, living God. There were pagans in Paul's day who believed in God. They had turned from the gods of the Greek and Roman pantheons, and they accepted the Jewish creed of a one true God, the Maker of heaven and earth. But they didn't know Him. They had no personal relationship with Him. And that is so true of many today.

What a tragic thing to be separated from Christ. Many today know the stories about Christ, they love His teaching, they admire His courage and compassion--but have not trusted Him for salvation. They don't know Him in a personal way. There is a gap of separation between them and Jesus. That gap is a death-gap. They are still dead in transgressions and sins, in bondage to the evil prince of this world, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, a child of wrath. That is what it means to be a pagan.

But for many it is much worse. Paul goes on to describe those who are "excluded from citizenship in Israel." Here Paul contrasts the position of the Gentiles with that of the Jews. The Jews had a nation over which God ruled--and that meant they had a national, cultural sense of destiny, a sense of God's protection and oversight.

But the pagans did not have this. They were excluded from the citizenship of the Jews. The pagan world worshiped a pantheon of gods. The Greeks had their list of gods, the Romans had theirs, the Persians had theirs, and the barbarians to the north had theirs. The pagan gods were as irritable and undependable as people are. Pagans lived in a world in which they were exposed to powers they recognized as being greater than themselves, but in which there was no love, no compassion, no mercy, no justice, or consistency. Pagans never thought of their gods as loving them, nor did they have any reason to love their gods. They felt no sense of belonging to the gods--and that is why they had no hope.

Paul goes on: Pagans, he said, were "foreigners to the covenants of the promise." These covenants were the agreements God made with Abraham, Jacob, and Moses--agreements that bound God to do certain things. God bound himself to obey certain provisions, if His people would respond to them. So every Israelite had a hope, if he would only be obedient to it. The Scriptures show that they frequently strayed from that hope, but the covenant of God was dependable, if the people would only respond to it.

There were, for instance, promises that had to do with sacrifices. Every Israelite knew that if he were burdened with guilt, there was something he could do about it. He could bring a sacrifice, and if an animal was sacrificed under proper conditions, then the conscience of that individual would be eased.

There were promises that had to do with the Messiah. Every Israelite knew that no matter how bad things got, one day God was going to send a Messiah. And even though the nation forgot God and turned away completely, God would not cut them off. He would send a Messiah who would one day restore the people.

The pagans had no such hope--and that is the contrast between the Jews and Gentiles. Pagans, in their darkness, had no hope. Their lives were ruled by the chaotic whims of unreliable, unpredictable, irritable gods. They had no solution to the problem of sin and shame. They were subject to violence, cruelty, and warfare which obsessed the pagan world. They were strangers in the world, with no hope for the future.

So Paul sums up their ultimate condition with these words: "without hope and without God in the world." An inscription on a tomb in Thessalonica read: “After death, no reviving, after the grave, no meeting again.” Another said: “I was not, I became, I am not, I care not." How heartbreaking! Imagine living your entire life with no hope! Imagine going to your death, to that eternal night, with no hope!

The pagans looked out into the future and saw absolutely nothing significant. Their writings reveal the utter darkness, emptiness, and hopelessness of pagan life.

Remember the words of Pontius Pilate just before he washed his hands of the Lord Jesus? Our Lord had just told Pilate that He had come into the world to declare the truth. And Pilate responded, "What is truth?" (John 18:38). That is the hopeless cynicism of an agnostic educated Roman pagan.

We think of the ancient Romans and Greeks as worshipers of many gods. Certainly, people did worship those gods. But the truth is that many Romans and Greeks were atheists and agnostics. They worshiped nothing. They didn't believe in the old gods anymore. They went through the rituals of worshiping, just as people often do in churches today, but they didn't believe in the gods. Doesn't that sound just like many of the agnostic pagans you and I know so well? Doesn't that sound like so many people around us, in our neighborhood, on our job, in our schools, and even in our own churches?

The Greek and Roman thinkers, the scientists and philosophers, the statesmen and leaders of the day, looked out upon the universe and saw nothing but an enormous cosmic loneliness--a cruel and heartless universe without a molecule of pity or compassion for the strugglings of human beings. Doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound like someone you know? Perhaps someone you've been praying for and witnessing to?

We hear that the ancient world was a beautiful place, filled with great architectural achievements, works of art, drama, literature, and philosophy. Sometimes the pagan world is portrayed as an idyllic paradise-a place of exotic beauty and fascinating culture. Superficially, outwardly, this may be so, but inwardly, every pagan was in the grip of fear, hostility, hatred, superstition, and emptiness.

A South American tribesman who was led to Christ by a missionary said, "When I lived in the jungle, I was always afraid. When we woke up in the morning, I was afraid. When I went out of my house, I was afraid. When I walked along the river, I was afraid. I saw an evil spirit in every stone and tree and waterfall. And when night fell, fear came into my hut and slept with me all night long."

That is the inner life of a pagan. And that is what the world is returning to. All around us, on every side, as Christian truth begins to fade, as the nation becomes secularized and humanized, this pagan darkness settles upon the land once again.

But that is not the end of the story. Paul goes on to tell us in verse 13: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ." Notice that Paul does not merely say that we were brought near through the death of Christ, but through the blood of Christ. I believe Paul chose his words with care.

Death, of course, is not always bloody. You can die without losing your blood. The Scriptures sometimes speak of the death of Christ, and more often of the cross of Christ. But most often of all, the Scriptures speak of the blood of Christ. Why does God place such an emphasis on blood?

For obvious reasons, many people don't like to hear about the blood of Jesus. But God underscores it. He wants us to think about it, because blood is always a sign of violence. It is extremely important that we remember that Jesus did not simply pass away quietly in his sleep one day. He died a painful, violent, bloody, gory, ugly, revolting death. He was tortured and beaten, then His writhing body was nailed to a rough wooden cross. The blood of Jesus streamed down His face, His arms, His sides, staining the cross and the ground beneath him.

God wants us to remember the violent death of Jesus, because violence is the ultimate result of godlessness and paganism. It is the final expression of a godless society. Cruelty arises immediately when love and truth disappear from society. God wants humanity to see that when we have done our worst, sunk to our lowest, expressed our most violent hatred and sadistic cruelty, when we have tortured and impaled Innocence personified--God is there, reaching out in love, ready to forgive. He calls to us who are far off from Him, and draws us to Himself through the blood of Jesus.

This is the wonder of God's grace. In the midst of our violence and hatred, He sends His mercy and love. In the midst of our sin, He sends His purity and innocence. In the midst of our darkness, He sends His light. In the midst of our death and corruption, He sends His resurrection and life.

Here is one of the great and beautiful paradoxes of our faith: We who were dead now live because of the death of His Son. His blood makes us clean.

We are no longer strangers in darkness. We are children of the light.