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What was the position, dispensationally, of those who are now members of the Body?
This passage bids us remember that we were once:
a | Gentiles in the flesh.
b | Without Christ.
c | Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
c | Strangers from the covenants of the promise.
b | Having no hope.
a | Godless in the world.
There was nothing personally wrong in being a Gentile, but being born a Gentile
carried with it great dispensational disabilities.
"He sheweth His word unto Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel. He
hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for His judgments, they have not known them"
(Psa. 147: 19, 20; see also Amos 3: 2; Rom. 3: 2).
We observe in Eph. 2: 11, 12 that the sphere of Gentile disability is "in the flesh"; so
also is the sphere of Israel's privileges. Some of these privileges are set out by the
apostle in Rom. 9: 3-5:
A | According to the flesh . . . . . Brethren.
B | Israelites.
C | Adoption (placing as sons).
D | Glory.
E | Covenants.
E | Law.
D | Service.
C | Promises.
B | Fathers.
A | According to the flesh . . . . . Christ.
In the flesh, the Gentile is without Christ. He can only reach Christ "in Spirit"; in the
flesh he is without hope, for it was of Israel according to the flesh that Christ came. Thus
the words en pneumati (Eph. 3: 5) really preface the threefold fellowship of the Mystery
detailed in verse 6, of which more when we reach that passage.
At the close of the dark list of Gentile hopelessness are the words "in the world". The
world is at the present time an abandoned evil, the enemy of God and of truth. Its prince
is the devil, for the Saviour's kingdom is not of this world. The whole world lieth in
wickedness, and its rudiments are antagonistic to Christ. It is totally oblivious of the
work and witness of the Spirit. Its elements hold the Gentiles in bondage. Nothing but
utter hopelessness, therefore, can be the condition of those who are "in the flesh" and "in
the world".
From this pit of corruption and from this Godless, Christless, hopeless wilderness,
God, in His rich mercy, stooped and saved those whose destiny is to be blessed with all
spiritual blessings in the heavenly place in Christ.