John Wesley has a good time with some Greek:
We see, when God opens our eyes, that we were before ἄθεοι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. – without God, or rather, Atheists in the world.
(from John Wesley’s Theology: A Collection from His Works, p. 25).
Ephesus was a bastion of idolatry (see Acts 19), with a temple to Artemis (otherwise known as Diana) at the heart of the city’s religious and economic system. Yet Paul is not afraid to say that the Ephesians were atheists (albeit religious atheists). An atheist is not simply someone who denies God, or disbelieves. But worse, in some sense, an atheist can be someone who professes a god, or many gods, but who is, in the last account, without God at all.
In short, an atheist is not simply someone who denies God, but someone whom God denies. God denies him because of his idolatry, and he denies him not only in the final judgment, but now. We often ask, ‘What is your view of God?’ We might ought to ask instead, ‘What is God’s view of you?’
- …Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Eph. 2:12).
