that you were at that time without the Messiah, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Verse 11 tells us what we were called in the negative. This verse tells us what we lacked.
Messiah
The promise of the messiah was the anchor for the souls of the Israelites. They held on to the clear prophetic words, no matter what. But that Messiah is now your Messiah.
To be without the Messiah is to be lost, to be on the other side. To be without the Messiah also furthers the idea of being second-class, with an uncertain future, and possibly being the enemy that the Messiah has to be put down for rebellion (Psalm 2).
citizenship of Israel
See how the writers of the Bible go on and on about the father of this, the father of that, the tribe of this, the tribe of that. It is about establishing who is in and who is out, who belongs and who are the rejects, who are special and who are left overs, the special ones versus the outsiders, the children versus the dogs.
But the word “children” has a new meaning with the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah, as it is written: “As many as received him, those who believe in His name, he gave the right to become God’s children (John 1:12).”
Even as we take the words of Jesus seriously, we need to acknowledge the difference His death, burial, and resurrection make.
He told a non-Israelite woman that it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs (Matthew 15:26), which is the distinction under the old covenant.
He also said that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from stones (Matthew 3:9), and Paul explained that those who have faith are Abraham’s children (Galatians 3:7).
That’s the difference the death and resurrection of Jesus makes.
The point I am making is that we need to be able to situate some of the words of Jesus as reflections of the Old Testament because of His immediate audience. And He also said that He had many more things to tell the disciples, but they could not bear them at that time (John 16:12). But the Holy Spirit will guide them into all truth (John 16:13).
He is the bridge between the Old and the New. In His flesh, He was neither fully old nor fully new; that is why those who seek to poke at the difference between Jesus in the flesh and Paul are wrong. And those who want to say Jesus endorsed the old with His life, so we should too, are also wrong.
We should really lean on people like Paul for the right understanding of the new. Recognize that the incarnate Jesus who walked on the earth was a transitional character who came to die and speak ahead of time of the gospel, which would be inclusive of people from every nation.
Covenants of promise
A covenant is an assurance. It’s God's initiative. It's God coming to you. This is also a furtherance of specialness.
It is security. It is God binding himself to you. That we were strangers to the covenants of promise shows how really dark our situation is.
It means God has not concerned Himself with you, so He has not directed His words to you. He has not called you His own or even acknowledged you exist, except for damnation. He has not offered you His help. So you are all alone, stuck.
Hope
Being without the Messiah is the same thing as being alienated from the citizenship of Israel, which is also the same thing as being strangers to the covenants of promise. And the whole point is about being without hope. It's the feeling of falling, and there is no holding you, exposed with no cover, no anchor.
God
To be without God in the world is the height of it. It means you are subjected to the influence of the demons, and things that are not gods, what Paul calls the elemental spirits (Galatians 4:3, 9; Colossians 2:8, 20), not for one year, but, as it were, forever.
Being without the Messiah speaks to the coming judgment and how you would be the enemy to be judged, rather than the children to be favored.
Being without Israeli citizenship speaks to relevance to God. It means you are not relevant to God, whether in a big or a small thing. As we see, many of the genealogies are about who should do what, their roles and positions; the land they are supposed to occupy; and what is there. It means God has no long-standing plan for you.
Being without the covenants of promise means there is no future for you. Again, God has no plan for you. And whatever plan you have for yourself does not really matter. Since God is not committing to you, you might as well give up.
Being without hope is about the soul. How are you feeling? Without the divine anchor, there is a sinking feeling, what I call “there is no bottom,” and sin ravages, and corruption seems to have no limit. Since there is no frame for your existence, you are lost in trespasses and sins. That is the truth.
Being without God is a matter of spiritual deprivation.
It was lose-lose-lose all around.
SAD.