For those interested...
... William Kelly's commentary (excerpt)
regarding Ephesians 2 -
[quoting an excerpt]
"Here [v.11 on] opens a very distinct section of the epistle. It is not God's thoughts of grace unfolded, reaching forth from before the world's foundation unto the inheritance of glory, when all things shall be subjected to Christ, the Church being one with Him in His supremacy over them all. Neither again is it the means whereby God takes up souls that were dead under the power of Satan and by nature children of wrath, one as much as another, quickening them with Christ, raising them up and making them sit together in Him in heavenly places. We have had this in the earlier part of chapter 2. But now we have the present working of the plans of God in the world. Ephesians 1 gave us the counsels of God about them; Ephesians 2:1-10, the way in which He wrought in them; but now we have the manner of His plans upon the earth. Accordingly, this brings into very distinct relief the condition in which man had been before. There had been already dealings of God here below. After the flood, when the whole world had departed from God, and set up a new form of peculiarly malignant evil - the worship of false gods, the true God called out one man into a place of separation from all others, and made him to be the depository of His promises and testimony upon the earth. This was Abraham, and Abraham's seed. Accordingly there it was that from the call of Abraham we find the scene of the workings of God's power, goodness, and government, though government was afterwards severed, because of Israel's hopeless evil, and handed over to the Gentiles. But the cross of Christ terminated these trials. God might linger for many years after, as we know, in forbearance, but the fate of the Jewish nation was sealed in the cross of Christ; and from that very moment God began to bring out these much deeper purposes of His love. For the Jewish people, at the very best even, had they been converted and received the Messiah, could never have been more here below than an earthly people. They might have been regenerate, but they must have been earthly. The promises that were so fully and richly accorded them in the Old Testament had to do with the earth. I do not say that faith had nothing deeper, or that there was not in the hidden mind of God something outside this present scene. But, let me say again, they were an earthly people; they had the "earthly things" of the kingdom by the distinct gift of God; and it is in reference to this very circumstance, that God declares that His gifts and calling are without repentance. He had given earthly blessings to the Jews, and He had called them out for the purpose of enjoying the land. It will be in a condition of glory under their Messiah. He will never repent of His purpose, nor withdraw His gift. But meanwhile the whole history of Israel's rejection of God has come in; their worshipping of idols, and finally the crucifixion of their own Messiah; and for the time being they are dispossessed of their land, and scattered over the face of the earth.
"But during the time of the dispersion of Israel, and even before it began, from the moment that their guilt was consummated, this heavenly purpose of God was gradually manifested upon the earth. But we must remember that the Church, besides being the object of God's eternal counsels, and having a glorious portion in heaven along with Christ, for which we are waiting, has also an existence upon earth, and enters into the dealings of God here below. This is the point at which we are arrived in this epistle. We have had the deeper thoughts of God; but as the epistle does touch upon the ways of God on the earth, we should not have had a full view of the Church's place if it did not give us the dispensational succession here below. Accordingly we have the elements which compose the Church: "Wherefore remember that ye being in times past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands." Here we are on totally different ground. It is no longer "children of wrath," persons that were by nature one as bad and dead as the other; but here men are distinguished on earth - the uncircumcision on the one hand, and the circumcision on the other. So that you are on earthly ground, the ground of dispensational dealings, where you have God separating one part of mankind from another by His own will; not because the one was better than the other, but for the display of His own wisdom and purpose. The great mass of the Jews were just as evil in the sight of God as the Gentiles; and some of the Gentiles were converted, such as Job, while there were many of the Jews that perished in their sins. But for all that, God did put a difference between Jew and Gentile; and He says, "Remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh." You were among the rest of mankind, left out of the call of God; you were not brought into a place of separate witness for God as Abraham was; you are called the uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision. "At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel." They had no part in the polity of God set up in Israel; and they were "strangers from the covenants of promise." God gave glorious promises in the form of a covenant, and bound Himself to accomplish them. The Gentiles had no part nor lot in them. There were promises about Gentiles, but none to them. Israel were the direct parties concerned in the promises - they, and they only. And we must carefully remember what these promises meant. They were not made to Abel or Enoch, much less to Adam and Eve, though it is common to speak of the promise made in the garden of Eden. But Scripture never talks of promise there. And if you examine Genesis 3, you will find the wisdom of God in this; for it could be in no sense a promise. To whom could it be a promise? To whom was it uttered? To that old serpent. No believer could imagine a promise to him. It was a threat of the extinction of his power. God was judging the sin which had just entered the world: is this the suited time when promises are made? It is strictly a revelation of God, not in the form of a promise at all, but a declaration which comes out in denouncing judgment upon the serpent, and which showed that the Seed of the woman was to bruise his head.
" "The promises," then, do not go up higher than Abraham: they are connected with the dispensations of God. It may be asked; Have we not promises? I answer, We have all the promises of God; but how and where? They are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. If we have Christ, we are Abraham's seed, and inheritors of the promises, though in a way totally differing from that in which the Jews had them of old or will have them by and by. We come in on the ground of pure mercy, and as altogether outside covenant. There is no such thing as a covenant with the Church, or with us Gentiles. I do not mean that we receive not the blessings that are in the new covenant: we have all that is blessed in it, and better too; but not as Israel. They come under them as subjects of the promises of God; whereas we are sought, and reached, and blessed by sovereign grace - having a title to nothing, and yet some better thing provided for us. We come in as filling up the gap between the rejection of the Messiah and His reception by Israel by and by; and we form part of this parenthesis, rather than of the dealings of God here below, in a very interesting manner, as I hope to show."
--William Kelly, Commentary on Ephesians 2
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/kelly/ephesians/2.htm
[end quoting]
____________
This is the thing I'm always pointing out about the distinction between
Matthew 22:7 (
the 70ad events:
see Lk21:23,20, etc [
in the vv.12-24a section of the Olivet Discourse, regarding the 70ad events];
and that of Matthew 22:8 "
THEN SAITH HE to his servants" ("
THEN SAITH HE" was necessarily AFTER the 70ad events [
well after He was IN HEAVEN
], and that is what we see written out in the
LATER 95ad Rev1:
1[
7:3]/4:
1/1:
19c "IN QUICKNESS [NOUN]"
FUTURE events, the specific limited time period LEADING UP TO His promised and prophesied EARTHLY Millennial Kingdom, commencing upon His "RETURN"
to the earth, per Rev19 [end of trib])
