Those Who Belong To God Are Aliens In This World

At that time, while you were Gentiles, and in an unconverted state, you were, In a Christless condition, without the knowledge of the Messiah, and without any saving interest in him or relation to him." It is true of all unconverted sinners, all those who are destitute of faith, that they have no saving interest in Christ and it must be a sad and deplorable thing for a soul to be without a Christ. Being without Christ, they were, Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel they did not belong to Christ's church, and had no communion with it, that being confined to the Israelitish nation. It is no small privilege to be placed in the church of Christ, and to share with the members of it in the advantages peculiar to it.

They are strangers from the covenants of promise. The covenant of grace has ever been the same for substance, though, having undergone various additions and improvements in the several ages of the church, it is called covenants and the covenants of promise, because it is made up of promises, and particularly contains the great promise of the Messiah, and of eternal life through him. Now the Ephesians, in their gentilism, were strangers to this covenant, having never had any information nor overture of it and all unregenerate sinners are strangers to it, as they have no interest in it. Those who are without Christ, and so have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant, have none in the promises of the covenant.

They had no hope, that is, beyond this life--no well-grounded hope in God, no hope of spiritual and eternal blessings. Those who are with out Christ, and strangers from the covenant, can have no good hope for Christ and the covenant are the ground and foundation of all the Christian's hopes. They were in a state of distance and estrangement from God: Without God in the world not without some general knowledge of a deity, for they worshiped idols, but living without any due regard to him, any acknowledged dependence on him, and any special interest in him. The words are, atheists in the world for, though they worshiped many gods, yet they were without the true God. - Matthew Henry