However, they were sinners who descended from sinful Adam and Eve, and they had plenty of pagan sins over which to repent and for which they were condemned to death by God. They were, as the apostle Paul said to them, “without Christ, alienated from the state of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, and you had no hope and were without God in the world.” (Eph. 2:12)

19. What, according to Paul, was the religious or spiritual condition of those uncircumcised pagans, and to whom did they need to dedicate themselves for salvation?

¹⁹ We must remember that these uncircumcised pagans were, not only “without Christ,” but also “alienated from the state of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise” and “without God in the world.” (Eph. 2:12) They belonged to that class of pagans to whom Paul wrote, saying: “You know that when you were people of the nations, you were being led away to those voiceless idols just as you happened to be led.” Also: “You turned to God from your idols to slave for a living and true God.” (1 Cor. 12:2; 1 Thess. 1:9) They were dedicated to those idols or to the false gods whom those idols represented. They may have borne on their bodies markings to indicate openly to which god they were especially devoted. (Compare Ezekiel 9:4-6; Hosea 9:10.) Fundamentally, then, these ignorant uncircumcised pagans needed to hear about the one “living and true God,” who is Jehovah.