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As we saw above,
you have been saved by grace [Eph 2:5]
What have we been saved from? All the opposites (where possible) to our blessings! That gives us so far: death, culpability, condemnation, enmity, a carnal mind, iniquity, hatred, sorrow, impatience, unkindness, evil, faithlessness, sternness, debauchery, profanity, blame, orphanhood, baseness, bondage, poverty, ignorance, disappropriation, contempt, insecurity, hopelessness and powerlessness.
The opposites of the ones to come are: remoteness, hostile division, preclusion from access, alienation, rootlessness, homelessness, non-membership of the body, exclusion from the promise, trepidation.
Some of these qualities pertain to life in this world; others are of consequence beyond that.
Once we Gentiles had nothing to do with God's covenants:
[Remember] that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, not having any hope and without God in the world, [Eph 2:12]
Israel had a unique position. God asks,
And what great nation is there that has righteous statutes and regulations according to all this law which I am placing before you today? [Deut 4:8]
But things have changed now:
but now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been made near by the blood of Christ, [Eph 2:13]
This doesn't mean that we have citizenship in Israel, but that we stand in a close relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We don't need to be frightened about being so near because Christ has made us fit to be so close - it is not dependent on our works, but “the blood of Christ”.
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