Compare Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul’s earlier description of the Gentile past of the addressees, with Ephesians 2:11, 12. What does he accent in his fresh description of their past?

 Gentiles who were now believers in Christ and members of His “body,” the church, were once totally separated from Israel and the salvation God offered. Paul judges it important for them to “remember” (Eph. 2:11) this past. They were then “without Christ,” the Anointed One, the Messiah of Israel. They were “aliens from the commonwealth [the state or people] of Israel.” And they were “strangers from the covenants of promise,” oblivious to the promises of salvation God had offered down through salvation history. The alienation from Israel and the salvation offered through it meant that they once had “no hope” and were “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12, NKJV).

 Also, in their past existence, Gentiles were caught up in a grand feud between themselves and the Jews. Paul gives a sense of this entrenched hatred by referring to one symptom of it, name-calling. Jews referred to Gentiles with derision as “the uncircumcision” and Gentiles referred to Jews with equal disdain as “the circumcision” (Eph. 2:11).

 Ephesians 2:13, however, points to something radically different now. Paul wrote: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (NKJV).

 When Paul describes Gentile believers as once “far off,” he borrows from Isaiah 57:19: “ ‘Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,’ says the LORD, ‘and I will heal him’ ” (ESV; compare Eph. 2:17, 18). In Christ and through His cross, Gentile believers had been brought near to all from which they were separated — God, hope, and their Jewish brothers and sisters. Here is the powerfully good news implied by Paul’s description: that the cross of Christ can heal the wide rift between Jews and Gentiles means that all of our feuds and divisions can be resolved there. This good news invites us to consider the divisions that exist in our own lives and in the church and to ponder the power of the cross to supersede them.