One Citizenship in Christ

As we’ve seen, the nations were divided, and still are, because of their wrong relationship and response to God. Paul mentions this again in Ephesians 2:19—Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints—by using two terms, strangers and foreigners, and there is a true gem of truth in understanding them. While the words are synonymous, there is subtle distinction between them. The word strangers translates the Greek xenos, which in Classical Greek referred to a foreigner who did not belong to the community and was in direct contrast to words such as polites (a “citizen” of the country). It could even refer to a wanderer or a refugee. To the Greeks, a xenos was the same thing as a barbarian. This is, of course, where we get out English word “xenophobia”—a fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.

Foreigners then is the Greek paroikos, a compound word made up of para (by or along side) and oikos (house), so therefore, “by the house,” “next to the house,” or “one who has a house along side others.” The idea conveyed by this term was a foreigner who lived beside the people of a country, that is, one who was a neighbor that enjoyed the protection of the community (the natives) but one who had no citizen rights because his citizenship was elsewhere. He was a “resident alien,” a licensed sojourner, one who paid an “alien tax” to live in the area without being naturalized.

Being a Roman citizen and one who had traveled over much of the ancient world, Paul would certainly have understood this subtlety. He was therefore telling the Ephesians that they were no longer either xenos or paroikos, neither passing strangers nor licensed immigrants. Rather he calls them fellowcitizens. The Greek here is sumpolitēs. The root politēs referred to a citizen, an inhabitant of a city, a freeman who had the rights of a citizen. Adding the prefix sum (“together with”) yields the idea of a citizenship with others.

Roman citizenship (Latin civitas) was a much-coveted thing, much like American citizenship is coveted today. It gave rights and privileges that were unobtainable in any other way. A Roman citizen, for example, could own land, could vote, had the right to enter a legal contract, had the right of military service, and was eligible to hold public office (although some of these rights were restricted by property qualifications). Also, a Roman citizen could never be scourged, much less crucified, unless he committed treason.

Putting all this together, Paul tells the Ephesians that they all have a common citizenship in Christ. This would have made a deep impression in their minds. Their thoughts might well have gone something like this, “If a Roman citizen has great privileges, what greater ones we must have in Christ! Indeed, we are citizens of a far greater country than Rome.” May this make a deep impression on us as well.

What a challenge and encouragement this is to the Christian! As wonderful as life is, as blessed as American citizenship is, it all pales to insignificance in light of the fact that we are only temporary residents of this earth. We’re just passing through. Our citizenship is in the Heavenly City. Many preachers today don’t emphasize this truth enough, preferring to put their emphasis on political reform and social change, but thank God for those like seventeenth-century English Churchman Jeremy Taylor, who put it so well: “Faith is the Christian’s foundation, hope is his anchor, death is his harbor, Christ is his pilot, and heaven is his country.” I’ve mentioned it in this study already, but Vance Havener’s words bear repeating: “We are not citizens of this world trying to get to heaven; rather we are citizens of heaven just trying to get through this world.”