Bible Truth #185 - Ephesians 2:11-12

Ephesians 2:11-12

11  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)-

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.

Here in verse 12 the NIV reads without hope. The KJV reads these people have NO HOPE. Why is that? Because about the time to which Paul is referring God had not yet acted on His sovereign choice. The choice He made before the foundation of the world of choosing the Elect (Ephesians 1:4). Twice he is telling them to remember that time, to remember they were separate from Christ, to remember they were excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, to remember they were without hope and without God. Again, who is he writing to? He is writing to the Gentile believers in Ephesus who have since been saved.

Paul writes that they were among the rest of the lost and had NO HOPE, not because they simply do not have Jesus. Ohhh it’s far more serious than that. Like the rest of the lost in Ephesus, they literally had NO HOPE, they didn’t have a prayer! Speaking about the spiritual condition of the rest of the lost in Ephesus - unless they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world they have NO HOPE of getting saved, period! Just as the Elect have a guaranteed passage into the Kingdom of God because God loved us and chose us in Christ before we were even born (Ephesians 1:4), those whose names are NOT written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from the foundation of the world (Revelation 17:8) HAVE NO HOPE!

They have no hope of getting saved, they have no hope of believing, they have no hope of coming into the Light, they have no hope of repenting, they have no hope of pleasing God, they have no hope of understanding. They don’t have the proverbial “snowball’s chance in the Lake of Fire” of getting saved.

I know the Arminian will say “No, they have no hope in their present condition but if they will believe in Jesus, repent of their sins, and accept the free gift of salvation then they have hope.” What? Please show me the Scripture that indicates in any way a lost man has the ability to believe. Show me the Scripture that indicates in any way a lost man has the ability to repent of his sins. Show me the Scripture that indicates in any way a lost man can accept Jesus. As a matter of fact, show me in the Bible the idea of a lost person “accepting” Jesus to be saved. A lost man can do NONE of those things because any one of them would be pleasing to God, and they that are in the flesh CAN NOT please God (Romans 8:8), hence a lost man can’t believe, repent, or “accept” Jesus. Only a man whose dead spirit God has quickened can believe, repent, respond to the Holy Spirit, and “accept” Jesus. Those actions are the RESULT of salvation, not the cause of it.

Someone not chosen by God has no hope of getting saved. We become children of God NOT by human decision. (John 1:13)