In the Hebraic worldview of the apostle Paul, a Gentile was first and foremost a term denoting anyone who was not Jewish. In addition, it often carried negative moral overtones, much like the word ‘pagan’. In Ephesians 2:11-12, he has something important to say to non-Jews who have repented and been reconciled to God through faith in Jesus [Yeshua], the Jewish Messiah:

Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh […]

1. You were at that time separated from Christ [Messiah]
2. Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel
3. Strangers to the covenants of promise,
4. Having no hope
5. Without God in the world

If you are saying to yourself, “I don’t see how any of this matters,” you are not alone.

I understand. So much time has passed that we fail to see any relevance in his line of reasoning. But for the Jewish apostle to the non-Jewish world, it was crucial because salvation is of the Jews. Jesus said it himself to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:22). Yahweh is Israel’s God; they are His chosen people; and the Messiah is a Jewish concept.

So Paul chooses a Greek word (politeia) translated here as commonwealth or citizenship. Politeia is the word from which we get ‘politics,’ but Paul has much more in mind than “estranged from the national life of Israel” (David Stern, Jewish New Testament translation).

What we Gentiles are alienated from is the pious order of life ordained by the Torah of Moses.

Said another way, poloteia is a religious and moral concept more than a political one. It denotes how you walk, obediently, as dictated by God’s teaching in the Torah. You Gentiles, says Paul, had no relationship with the Messiah of Israel. The result, he says, is that you were not a part of the obedient way the Son walked in light of his Father’s Torah: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).

But there is good news. Even though we were separate from all of this, now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). We who were lost, who had no hope and were without God in the world, have been found!

• You now know the LORD God as Father
• You have His Word, both Testaments
• You have His Son as an example of the obedience of faith
• You have the indwelling Spirit to empower your living witness
• You have a place amidst the people of God: past, present, and future
• You have a call and ministry commensurate with all of the above

All of this is much more than an inheritance we have received to spend on ourselves or use as we will. It is a heritage we must guard and perpetuate, a legacy with incumbent responsibilities. When you are joined to a family, to God’s household of faith (Gal 6:10), you take on certain commitments.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far off [Gentiles] and peace to those who were near [Jews]. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:17-22).

With Kingdom privilege comes Kingdom responsibilities.

All of this is a necessary framework for benefitting from Paul’s “root and branch” metaphor in Romans 11. But before we turn back to that text, Paul has one more important thing for Gentiles to keep in mind from Ephesians 2: You were strangers to the covenants of promise.

Covenants here is plural, but the word promise is singular. Why? Because there are many covenants—with Abraham, Moses, and David, the New Covenant with Jesus—but they are based on the same promise: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Gen 12:1-3).

God has a promise and a purpose for a people, as Paul is fond of saying in Romans: “To the Jew first, then to the Gentiles.”

You, Gentiles, were strangers to these covenants of promise, to the Gospel of God. But not anymore!

By the way, please note that Paul understands quite well that the new covenant in Jeremiah 31 is Israel’s covenant. It does not belong to the nations. Jesus made us partakers of it in the new birth according to the promise God gave to Abraham and his offspring. In the Messiah, we are no longer strangers but kingdom citizens, children whose family members include faithful Israelites.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

From Paul’s point of view, everything under the sun takes place in the context of Israel and the Gentiles. He is Jewish, chosen by the Jewish Messiah and tasked with taking a uniquely Jewish message of salvation to the non-Jewish world. A world, he says, that is without hope because it is without God.

Like ours today, the world the Good News entered was characterized by despair. The peace of Rome (Pax Romana) that Caesar tried to promulgate was a lie. Caesar is Lord was imprinted on their coins, but it was all a fraud. To use the language of Karl Marx, the religions, of which there were many, were the opiates of the people to cover up this deep pain and despair.

Notice Paul did not say they were without “gods.” As he observes in 1 Cor 8:5: For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God. When Paul says people are hopeless without God, he very specifically means the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This is a particular God who calls a particular people to accomplish His universal purposes.

This is a God who sovereignly elects, and this is a God with whom you enter into a relationship that has moral responsibilities. Monotheism, yes. One God who has a right to order your life morally and hold you accountable—ethical monotheism. And, one God who sovereignly elects a people from among all people—elective monotheism. There is no other. The apostle is telling the story of YHWH, the Holy One of Israel, whom the Son taught us to call Abba (Rom 8:15): One God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist (1 Cor 8:6).

And we, like Paul, are partakers of and witnesses to these things.