Ephesians 2:13

but now under the changed conditions of actual and accepted Redemption.

in Christ Jesus In living union with the true Messiah. Just before, Ephesians 2:12, we have "without Christ" merely; here, "in Christ Jesus." The Messiah of Prophecy is now known as also the Jesusof the Gospel.

sometimes Once, as R. V. The A. V. uses a word now antiquated in this sense, or appearing only as "sometime" the word used here in Wiclif's Version (1382), in "The Great Bible" (1539), and the Rhemish Version (1582).

far off … nigh That is, from and to the Citizenship of Israel and the Covenants of promise; the realm, in fact, of Messiah. Cp. Acts 2:39, and see Isaiah 57:19. The thought of remoteness and nearness in respect of Godis of course implied, and comes out clearly in Ephesians 2:18; but it is not the immediate thought of this passage, which rather speaks of the incorporation of once heathen souls into the true Israel. But the two views cannot be quite separated. "Nigh" and "far" were familiar terms with the Rabbis in the sense of having or not having part in the covenant. Wetstein on this verse quotes, inter alia, the following from the Talmud: "A woman came to R. Eliezer, to be made a proselyte; saying to him, Rabbi, make me nigh. He refused her, and she went to R. Joshua, who received her. The scholars of R. Joshua therefore said, Did R. Eliezer put her far off, and dost thou make her nigh?"

by the blood of Christ Lit. and better, in the blood, &c. To illustrate the phrase cp. Hebrews 9:22; Hebrews 9:25; "almost all things according to the law are purged in blood;" "the High Priest entereth the Holy Place … in bloodnot his own." Whatever the first use of the phrase, it had thus become an almost technicality of sacrificial language, nearly equalling "with(shed) blood" as the accompanying condition of acceptable approach. It is not necessary to import into the idea here the other, though kindred, idea of washing in blood, or even of surrounding with a circle of sprinkled blood. The "in" is, by usage, as nearly instrumentalas possible. The sacred bloodshedding of the Messiah's sacrificial death for His true Israel was the necessary condition to, and so instrument of, the admission of the new Gentile members. It is the "blood of the covenant" (Exodus 24:8; quoted Hebrews 9:20); and cp. the all-important words of the Lord Himself (Matthew 26:28), "This is My blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."