Romans 9:4-5 “Unanswered Questions”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses: 

⁴ones who are Israelites, of whom [is] the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the [temple] service and the promises. Of whom [are] the fathers, and out of whom [is] the Christ (that [is], according to the flesh), the One being God upon all, blessed into the ages. Amen.

As I wander into Romans chapter 9, one thing I hope to understand better is the place of the Jewish people in God’s great plan and even today in the Church. Actually, Paul’s discussion of the matter runs all the way to chapter 11, so I will definitely be in it for a while! On the one hand, I feel like I do understand. I understand that the Lord promised Abraham to bless his descendants forever, that Palestine would somehow be their home forever, and that they would be the special people of God. I understand that they have broken the Mosaic Covenant and rejected their Messiah, so that they are currently under the curses of Deuteronomy 28 and that the Church Age, as we know it, is actually just a parenthesis in what is reality their plan.

Jesus’ crucifixion marked the end of Daniel’s 69^th week and there are seven more years of Jewish history to be accomplished (the Day of Jacob’s trouble) before the Stone Cut Without Hands returns to destroy evil and to establish the New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, to save what will no doubt be a great host of believing Jews. In Christ, you and I have been allowed by faith to enter into the blessings of Abraham’s descendants, though we are Gentiles. Just like them, Jesus is our Messiah and makes us His children.

Into exactly this point, Paul asserts the familiar statement of Gal. 3:28,29, which would tell us, in the Church, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

That is all well and good. However, it is exactly at this point where I’m reminded there is something I totally do not understand. That statement is clear enough, it would seem, but I cannot help but observe that, even throughout the New Testament, there is maintained a constant distinction between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. Even back as early as Acts 15, this distinction became a matter of controversy. In v.1, The “Judaizers” were telling the believers, “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” You would think the simple answer to that claim would be, “That isn’t true. No one needs to keep the Mosaic Law in order to be saved.”

However, notice in that passage that, after their lengthy discussions, the elders write “To the Gentile believers in Antioch…” (v.23). Why just the “Gentile” believers? What about the Jewish believers? And why are they making any distinction at all? If we are “all one in Christ” and if the Law was only a schoolmaster to bring us all to Christ, then why would there be one answer for Gentiles, and by inference, apparently a different answer for Jews? It seems to me there never was a clearly stated case that Jewish believers are no longer required to keep the Mosaic Law.

Even as late as Acts 21, when Paul arrived in Jerusalem, James and the elders tell him, “You see, brother how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the Law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from the Moses…” (vv. 20,21). Then they propose he join the purification rites of the four men saying, “Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the Law” (v.24). Notice, you would think Paul would say, “No, what you’re saying about me is true. The Law of Moses was only ‘a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ’ (Gal. 3:24). All those requirements of the Mosaic Law were ‘only a shadow of things to come. The reality, however, is Christ’ (Col. 2:17).” But he didn’t.

Was Paul still living “in obedience to the Law” or not? If he was, why? And why do James and the elders, even in that passage, maintain that distinction between Jewish and Gentile Christians, by following up their insistence that Paul keep the Law, then say, “As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality” (v.25)? Apparently Jewish Christians should keep the Law, but Gentiles get to only follow a “Law Lite?

Yes or no? Is there still, in the Church, a distinction between Jews and Gentiles? And as for the Jewish Christians, should or should they not strive to keep the Law? I understand that Jews are still Jews. God’s promises to Abraham were to bless his physical descendants. The fact that, in Christ, we Gentiles are allowed to be “grafted in” doesn’t change the fact that there are still in this world direct descendants of Abraham, who, as a people, still possess all the blessings listed in the passage before us (Rom. 9:4,5). Jews are still Jews. There is still a rich flow of prophecy reserved specifically for them and, following the Rapture of the Church, they will resume their place specifically as the people of God, in order to finish out their glorious history. That is all clear enough, but what about now?

So there you go. I’ve drug you into my confusion! Sorry about that, but those are my questions, and I hope that somehow, by spending time studying these three chapters, Romans 9, 10, and 11, perhaps the Lord will shed some light on my feeble brain. I am 100% confident it all makes perfect sense to Him. The problem is not Him and it certainly is not the Bible. The problem is me – simply that I don’t understand – but, then, that is precisely why I study. I want to understand. I know that, in time, I can. He promised me many years ago, “Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not” (Jer. 33:3). I have every confidence that, if I study and seek the truth, then, in His time, and when He knows I’m ready, He will gladly make everything clear to me.

But on these issues, boy is that not now!

Here I go, hanging out once more with my old buddy Habakkuk: “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what He will say to me…” (2:1).