“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).
Consider our former state, how that we “were without Christ, being aliens . . . and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” versus our present state, “now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12,13). This theme dominates verse three of the wonderful hymn, “A Child of the King.”
I once was an outcast stranger on earth, A sinner by choice and an alien by birth; But I’ve been adopted, my name’s written down, An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown.
All of us chose sin. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (I John 1:8). This rebellious choice has “separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you” (Isaiah 59:2). Furthermore, we are born into sin as Adam’s descendants. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men” (Romans 5:12). Thankfully, as our text relates, our alien status has been altered to that of “fellow citizens,” we’ve been adopted into “the household of God.” “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7).
Our inheritance befits children of the King. In our “Father’s house are many mansions. . . . I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). We will be arrayed in fitting garments, garments once soiled by sin. We will have “washed (our) robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). On our heads will be “a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give” (II Timothy 4:8) to all His royal children. JDM
