This passage of Scripture is referring to every unregenerate sinner that ever walked on the face of this earth. The whole world is guilty before God. And, without God, our condition is helpless and hopeless. We cannot approach God. We will not seek after God. And it is virtually impossible for the natural man to please God. To make matters worse, there's absolutely nothing that we can do to change our hopeless condition. That's what Ephesians 2:12 is referring to. In our unregenerate state, we have no hope and we're without God! The unscriptural doctrine of man's free-will blatantly denies this Biblical truth. If man could do anything to change his spritually dead condition, Ephesians 2:12 would be a lie. "Having no hope" means just what it says. Apart from God we have NO HOPE! This shuts men and women up to the sovereign mercy of God Almighty. And that's exactly what God's preachers are called to do. Until we see ourselves as "having no hope", we will never sincerely cry out to God for mercy. When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, God has already changed our condition. We are no longer "without God." After describing our sinful, hopeless condition in the first three verses of Ephesians 2, the Apostle Paul said, in verses 4 and 5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved.)" Our sovereign God made a drastic change in our hopeless condition - HE QUICKENED US! HE GAVE US LIFE! HE OPENED OUR BLIND EYES! HE UNSTOPPED OUR DEAF EARS! God the Holy Spirit enlightens the minds of His elect. We see Jesus Christ as our only hope. We see Him as the God-man, establishing a righteousness for us by His perfect obedience to God's holy law. We see Him as our substitute, suffering and dying under the wrath of God for our sins. We see him as our risen Saviour, having obtained eternal redemption for us. We see Him as our Great High Priest, interceding for all those who were given to Him in the covenant of grace. We see Him as King of kings, crowned with the glory and honor, seated on His sovereign throne of power. We see Him as our Lord and our God, and we gladly bow down to Him giving Him all the praise. Brethren, God has delivered us from that hopeless condition we were in. We are no longer "without God in this world." "Now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." God who cannot lie has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. There never will be a time when we will ever again be without God. This blessed hope is in Christ and only in Chirst. God gives to every believer "a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that with the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Hebrews 6:18 - 20).
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