エフェソの信徒への手紙2:11-13 Ephesians 2:11-13,
また、そのころは、キリストとかかわりなく、イスラエルの民に属さず、約束を含む契約と関係なく、この世の中で希望を持たず、神を知らずに生きていました。 （エフェソ2:12）
「約束を含む契約と関係なく」とは、神様が神の民の先祖であるアブラハムと結んでくださった契約や、預言者エレミヤが預言した罪の赦しを与える「新しい契約」と関係がなかったということでしょう。アブラハムに与えられた契約は、アブラハムの子孫にカナンの土地を約束するものでした。しかし、ガラテヤの信徒への手紙の解き明かしでお話ししましたように、この契約はキリストを信じる人々に天国の財産を約束することを指し示していたものでした。そして、預言者エレミヤが預言した罪の赦しを与える「新しい契約」は、イエス・キリストによって実現した契約でした。神の民として神様との契約関係の中に生きている人は、神様によって罪を赦され、義と認められ、永遠の命を受け継ぐという救いを確信して生きることができます。しかし、神様との契約関係の中にいない異邦人は、何を土台とし何を目標として生きるかわからないままに、空しい楽しみを求めてさまようしかありませんでした。
そのような異邦人の空しい歩みを、パウロは12節の最後で「この世の中で希望を持たず、神を知らずに生きていました」と述べています。これを読むと「そんなことはない」と思われる方もおられるでしょう。この世界にはユダヤ人でなく、クリスチャンでもない人々が大勢います。「ユダヤ人でもクリスチャンでもない人々でも、その人々の希望を持って生きているではないか」と反論されるかもしれません。たとえば、個人の人生について言えば、成功して豊かになり幸福な家庭をつくるという希望もあるでしょう。社会全体について言えば、科学技術の進歩によって便利で豊かなで平等な社会が到来するという希望もあるでしょう。しかし、それらの希望は一時的にある程度達成されるかもしれませんが、いつまでも存続する永遠の希望ではありません。この世における個人や社会の希望は、一時的にある程度達成された後で、達成されたことが壊れて、失われていくものなのです。それは、人間に罪があり人間の命に限りがあることから必然的に来る結果です。絶えず移り変わっていくこの世界での満足を希望して追い求めるならば、その行き着くところは空しさです。旧約聖書のコヘレトと呼ばれる集会の指導者は、この世の人生における満足を追い求め「なんという空しさ／なんという空しさ、すべては空しい。太陽の下、人は労苦するが／すべての労苦も何になろう」（コヘレト1:2-3）と言いました。 （3月2日の説教より）
The Bible describes the various sufferings of human beings. For example, the literary work in the Old Testament, the Book of Job, boldly expresses the inner cries of human hearts by depicting the sufferings of a righteous man named Job. There was a righteous man called Job who believed in God. Job was a blessed man who had been given many children and a lot of wealth by God. However, Satan approached God with the words, “Does Job fear God for no reason?” (1:9) and made a nasty suggestion, “Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (1:11). To our surprise, God accepted Satan’s proposal, saying, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand” (1:12). As a result, through various disasters, Job lost all his possessions and all his children died. However, even in the face of such disasters, Job did not curse God, but instead praised God, saying, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (1:21). However, Satan did not give up, and suggested that God should give him another test, saying, “Stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face” (2:5). To our surprise, God accepted Satan’s proposal again, with the condition that he must spare his life (2:6). Then, Job was stricken with a terrible skin disease all over his body, and he began to scratch himself with a piece of broken pottery. Job’s wife said something terrible to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die” (2:9). Job then said, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (2:10), and he remained faithful to God.
However, even this faithful and admirable man Job was unable to bear the pain of his body, and he said, “Let the day perish on which I was born” (3:3). In other words, he wished he had never been born. He also lamented, “Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?” (3:11). And he said that if he had died soon after he was born, “I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest” (3:13), expressing his longing for the rest that comes with death. Not only that, but he also asked God, “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures (3:20-21).
You may be surprised to find such serious words in the Bible, such as “I wish I had never been born,” or ’Why does God let me live and suffer?” But Job is speaking these serious words in the presence of God. That is, he is speaking these words in faith, believing that there is God who will listen to him. In other words, Job is having a frank conversation with God, who gave him life, without holding anything back. Even when you are suffering from a serious illness, if you have someone to talk to and can be frank with someone, you will be able to endure your suffering. What a blessing it would be if that person was God, the source of life! On the contrary, if you don’t know God, whom you can talk to and be frank with, your suffering will become unbearable. Not only that, but if you don’t know the true God, who is the source of life, even when you are not suffering, you will still be anxious and worried about when suffering will come. Furthermore, even when you have fun, you will feel empty when that fun passes. By knowing the true God, who gave us life, we can learn to endure suffering. And by being connected to the true God, who is the source of life, we can live with hope.
In this way, to know and live connected to the true God is to live as “God’s people” if we use the expression from the Bible. Those who are familiar with the Bible will probably think of the Israelites, “God’s people” of the Old Testament, when they hear the phrase “God’s people.” The Lord, the true God, delivered the Israelites, who were slaves in Egypt, from their state of slavery and made them into “God’s people” who served the true God. And in the New Testament era, the Jews were those who had inherited the faith of Israel, “God’s people” of the Old Testament. Therefore, being a Jew meant knowing the true God and being connected to the true God. Conversely, being a non-Jew, or a Gentile, meant not knowing the true God and not being connected to the true God.
In verses 11 and 12 of today’s Bible passage, Paul speaks to those who are non-Jews and have believed in Christ as follows.
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
There was a clear difference between Jews and non-Jews, as can be seen from the phrase that “you Gentiles in the flesh.” There was a sign on their bodies that showed this difference. This sign was the sign of “circumcision,” as can be seen from the way Paul refers to Jews as “what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands,” and refers to non-Jews as “the uncircumcision.”
“Circumcision” is a ritual in which the foreskin of a male’s penis is cut as a sign that the person is a member of God’s people. It was usually carried out on the eighth day after birth, in accordance with the regulations of Genesis 17:12 and Leviticus 12:3 in the Old Testament. In addition, when a non-Jew converted to Judaism, even if they were an adult, they would still undergo the “circumcision” ritual. Even today, Jews carry out this ceremony in accordance with the Old Testament, and if you watch a film depicting Jewish life, you will see a scene of a baby being circumcised. At the moment of the circumcision, the baby will often start to cry out. The reason why the circumcision ceremony was considered a sign of being God’s people was probably because the ceremony was meant to strengthen the reproductive power of men so that they would be blessed by God and have more descendants. The Jews held this ceremony in very high regard and took great pride in it. In the churches of the Galatian region, after Paul had left, Jewish Christian evangelists who had come to the area taught that “one cannot attain full salvation without not only believing in Christ, but also undergoing the ritual of circumcision as prescribed in the Old Testament law,” and this caused confusion in the churches. In response to this, Paul taught in his letter to the Galatians that one is saved by believing in Christ, and so there is no need to undergo the ritual of circumcision.
From the Jewish perspective, Gentiles who were “uncircumcised” were not part of God’s people. And not being part of God’s people meant not being connected to the true God, the source of life. Paul expresses this in verse 12 when he says, “You were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” The meaning of “separated from Christ” is that they had no connection with Jesus Christ, but it also includes the meaning that they did not know about the Messiah, the saviour who was prophesied in the Old Testament. The Jews had hope through their longing for the Messiah even in their sufferings, but the Gentiles did not have that hope.
“Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel” means that they were not God’s people, connected to God, the source of life. “Strangers to the covenants of promise” means that they were not related to the covenant God made with Abraham, the ancestor of God’s people, or to the “new covenant” that gives forgiveness of sins, as prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah. The covenant given to Abraham promised the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants. However, as I preached in the exposition on Galatians, this covenant was pointing to the promise of heavenly inheritance for those who believe in Christ. The “new covenant” that the prophet Jeremiah prophesied, which would grant forgiveness of sins, was a covenant that was fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Those who live in a covenant relationship with God as his people can live with the assurance of salvation, knowing that they have been forgiven of their sins, counted as righteous, and will inherit eternal life. However, the Gentiles, who were not in a covenant relationship with God, wandered around seeking empty pleasures, not knowing what to base their lives on or what their goal should be.
Paul describes the empty lives of these Gentiles in the last part of verse 12, saying that they were “having no hope and without God in the world.” When you read this, you may think, “That’s not true.” There are many people in this world who are neither Jews nor Christians. So, you may argue back, “Even people who are neither Jews nor Christians live with hope, don’t they?” For example, when it comes to an individual’s life, there is the hope of success, wealth and a happy family. When it comes to society as a whole, there is the hope that advances in science and technology will bring about a convenient, prosperous and equal society. However, while these hopes may be temporarily fulfilled to a certain extent, they are not eternal hopes that will last forever. The hopes of individuals and society in this world are things that are temporarily fulfilled to a certain extent, but then break down and are lost. This is an inevitable result of human sin and the limited nature of human life. If we pursue and hope for satisfaction in this world, which is constantly changing, the end result will be emptiness. The leader of the congregation known as the “Ecclesiastes” in the Old Testament pursued satisfaction in worldly life and said, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3).
When Paul describes the empty lives of the Gentiles as “having no hope and without God in the world,” he means “living without true hope and without knowing the true God.” Before becoming Christians, the Ephesian believers believed in the gods of Greek mythology, such as the goddess Artemis, as I mentioned at the beginning of the exposition of this letter. The people of Ephesus were offering their desires to these gods that humans had come up with according to their own desires, and asking them to protect them in this world and the world to come. This is a vain faith that worships one’s own belly as a god and serves it.
What about the God that the Bible teaches us? Is the God that the Bible teaches us also a god that people have come up with according to their own desires? No, that is not the case! The God that the Bible teaches us is the God who does the opposite of what people desire for them. As we read in the book of Job, which I quoted at the beginning of today’s sermon, God is the God who gives righteous Job such sufferings that he says, “Let the day perish on which I was born.” So, does God just enjoy causing people pain? No, that is not the case. God causes people to suffer in order to humble them before God, to make them repent, and to lead them to a right relationship with God. And by leading people to repentance, God is able to have a more certain relationship with them. Job, who spoke his heart to God without holding back and continued to have a dialogue with him, finally says “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6), and he humbles himself before God and repents. He then has a more certain relationship with God and receives even greater blessings than before the disaster.
In verse 13 at the end of today’s passage, Paul says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” What is it that “far off” and “brought near” refer to? It goes without saying that they refer to the relationship to the true God. In 1:5 of this letter, Paul says that God predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” And in 1:7, he says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.” When we consider these words together with 2:13 of today’s passage, we can see that God gave people forgiveness of sins through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross in order to make people who did not know the true God into God’s children, and to enable them to approach the true God and have intimate fellowship with him. God enabled people to connect with himself, the source of life.
This also meant that Gentiles could become part of God’s people alongside the Jewish people. The fact that Gentiles were “brought near” to the true God also meant that they were “brought near” to the Jewish people, who are God’s people. However, since many Jewish people still do not believe in Jesus Christ, it is difficult to say that Christians and Jews have been “brought near” to each other. There is also the tragic reality that Christians persecuted Jews, as in the case of the genocide of the Jews by Nazi Germany. So, although the foundation has been laid for Christians and Jews to be “brought near” to each other, the challenge now is for Christians and Jews to develop a close relationship on this foundation.
The life of a Christian who believes in Christ is something that takes a lifetime to live. It is not such life as you can just temporarily believe in Christ or go to church when you feel like it. The life of a Christian is one that continues to receive Christ’s salvation and to live following Christ throughout a lifetime. And there may be times in your long life when you think that you were better off before you became a Christian. These are times when you may suffer greatly even though you believe in Christ. However, being a Christian means that you have the God to whom you can talk about your sufferings without holding back. It means that you have the God to whom you can talk without holding back, and that you are a member of God’s people who can pray for each other and remember each other’s sufferings. This is a blessing that you would never have thought of when you didn’t know the true God.