A

a

Once.  Gentiles.  In flesh.  In world.

b

But Now.  Nigh.  One.

c

19-22.  Citizens

`But God'.  At times the interposition of grammatical and exegetical

features may appear to be an intrusion where worship seems called for rather

than exposition.  However, the truth has been channelled to us through words and

sentences, and their humble ministry is of first importance to us all.  `But' is

a word that should not be lightly passed over.  It is `a disjunctive

conjunction' which at first sounds like a contradiction in terms.  `It is a

conjunction in which the second sentence or clause is in opposition to the one

preceding it, and arrests an inference which that first sentence or clause would

else have suggested' (Bain).  The close of the last sentence was `children of

wrath, even as others'.  The word `but' does indeed most blessedly `arrest an

inference', for without God and His grace, the only inference that we could draw

from this state of things would be gloomy in the extreme.  An adversative

conjunction, however, is of itself of little value, and of no point.  The glory

of the change that is here manifested is only to be discovered when we say `But

God'.  The structure already given, shows that in verse 13 the same break is

made with the words `but now'.  In the one it is the intervention of God, Who is

rich in mercy; in the other it is the intervention of the Person and work of

Christ.  The original, instead of saying `God Who is rich', says ho de theos

plousios on, using a participle clause `God being rich'.  This gives the ground

of all that follows.

Instead of looking upon us in our sinful state with loathing, He looked

upon us in compassion and mercy.  Mercy looks upon wretchedness, grace upon

unworthiness.  Here mercy is to the fore; presently, when we come to salvation,

grace will dominate.  Misery rather than guilt is evidently uppermost in

Ephesians 2:2,3.  Eleos mercy, gives us eleeinos `miserable' (1 Cor. 15:19; Rev.

3:17) and must be distinguished from the word used by the publican when he cried

`God be merciful to me a sinner', for there the word is hilaskomai, a word

implying atonement.  If we take the epistle to the Romans as the repository of

fundamental doctrine, we shall discover that the word `mercy' does not enter

into the teaching of Romans 1 to 8  It is found in Romans 9, 11, 12 and 15, and

especially in connection with the dispensational position.

So we discover that even though the first part of Ephesians 2 is largely

doctrinal (sins, death, wrath, salvation, grace, faith, works) and the second

half largely dispensational (uncircumcision, distance, aliens, strangers, made

nigh, access), yet the whole of the doctrine of Ephesians is an instrument which

leads to the supernal glory of heavenly places, and so the dispensational word

`mercy' comes early in the record here.  God has riches of grace where

redemption is in view (Eph. 1:7), and riches of glory where the inheritance is

in view (Eph. 1:18), and exceeding riches of grace, when the ages to come are in

view (Eph. 2:7); but here, in the riches of His mercy, He stoops to lift the