Ephesians 2:12 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

That—ye were without Christ, &c.— "Without any knowledge of the Messiah, or any expectation of deliverance or salvation by him." Though the covenant, for substance, was one and the same, the Apostle speaks of it in the plural number, covenants, as it was delivered at several times, with various explications and enlargements, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and afterwards to the whole body of the Israelites: and as the promises which it contained centered in the great promise of the Messiah, and of salvation by him, St. Paul therefore speaks of them inthe singular number, as but one promise; which is agreeable to the Scripture style in other places. Some propose to render this passage, Strangers from the covenants,—having no hope of the promise. The Gentiles were without God in the world, as they neither knew nor served the true God. It is in this sense that they are here called Αθεοι, without God, for there were few of them Atheists in our sense of the word; that is to say, deniers of a superior power; and many of them acknowledged one supreme eternal God: but as St. Paul says, Romans 1:21. Even when they knew God, they glorified him not as God: they owned not him alone; but turned from the invisible God to the worship of images and the false gods of their countries. It has been observed upon the clause of this verse, having no hope, that though a general knowledge and uncertain idea of a future state prevailed among the heathens, yet it is certain that they reasoned very weakly upon the subject; that they had no well-grounded hope of future happiness, and that they were but very little impressed with it: so that they had no deity to which they prayed for eternal life, as the fathers often remonstrate; and by far the greater part of their most learned philosophers either expressly denied, in private lectures to their pupils, the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, or taught principles quite inconsistent with it.