Romans 9:4-5 “Of Whom…2”

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.

Continuing to consider these advantages the Lord has bestowed on the Jewish people, we see Paul says, “of whom is the giving of the Law.” Once again, while the entire rest of the world was stumbling around, clueless as to who they were and what all this means, God Himself stepped into the world of Abraham’s descendants and gave them the Law. While the rest of the world had nothing but a fallen conscience to guide them, God Himself gave the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people. I suppose those of us who grew up in a world where “everyone” knew the Ten Commandments, we don’t even realize how blessed we were just to have that keen, sharp, direct understanding of simple “right and wrong.” We never had to wonder. For us, it was literally “engraved in stone!”

I would compare it to something as simple as taking a class. We’ve all had classes where the teacher was perhaps particularly stern and demanding, but they always made it crystal clear exactly what they expected. I personally never minded those teachers. I was raised to actually enjoy hard work, as long as I knew what exactly it was I was supposed to do. On the other hand, we’ve had teachers who perhaps were very nice people, but you could never quite figure out what they wanted. As much as I liked “nice” teachers, I would rather they be stern and demanding, as long as they simply make it clear what I need to do.

So it is with life. I am so, so, so thankful for the Bible, for a place where I can go and find true truth! That is the reason I’m studying Rom. 9. I want to know the truth. I want to understand life. And day after day and week after week, the Lord does show me what it all means. However, what am I studying? The Scriptures. And where did they come from? The Jewish people. I believe it is safe to say that every single writer of the Old and New Testaments was a Jew!

The Law was given to the Jewish people, and to this very day, any nation has been greatly blessed when they made any effort at all to build their world on the truth of the Bible, to build their legal system itself on the Ten Commandments. It’s no mistake that for 250 years America was a greatly blessed nation, when those Ten Commandments were literally etched on the walls of our Supreme Court. However, it’s also no mistake that we have fallen into what seems more and more to be hopeless chaos, since the 1960’s when we spit in God’s face and shoved Him out of our schools and our government and our lives.

Like the pagans of old, here we are again, stumbling around in the dark, trying (very unsuccessfully) to make it all work. On every side, people clamor for this or that to fix what’s wrong with us, yet the Bible would tell us it’s this simple: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 33:12). It seems impossible that this nation could ever turn back and put the Lord and the Bible back in their proper place, but then, “With God, nothing shall be impossible.” So, we’ll pray to that end. May we again appreciate the wonderful advantage it is just to have “the Law.”

While we’re on that subject, it’s worthwhile to note particularly why God gave the Law at all. It was in fact a guide to morality and truth (which we all desperately need), but because we, like them, are fallen sinners, that very Law becomes to us a curse. What did Paul tell the Galatians? “So the Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith” (3:24). What is sad to see is that, from the very beginning, the Jewish people didn’t see that. When Moses gave them the Law, they replied, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do.” They actually thought they could. They actually thought they could keep the Law, and, as Paul will say later, they sought to establish their own righteousness. The entire Old Testament is, in a sense, a record of their complete failure and a stark warning to all the rest of us that we first of all need a Savior! Paul will elaborate on this later, but, for now, let’s remind ourselves what a blessing it was for the Jewish people to have that “schoolmaster” (as the old KJV translated it) to lead them to Christ. Just like us, Jesus stood ready to deliver all those who “would not so much as lift up their eyes, but prayed, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”  You and I enjoy that same privilege if we would but read our Bibles – to see ourselves for who we really are and to cry out for a Savior – but let us be reminded, that Law came to us through Jewish hands!

Paul next refers to what I’ve translated “the [temple] service.” In the Septuagint and the NT, the word translated “service” is definitely religious service, as in the various activities at the temple. That is so much so that it can even be translated “worship,” in the sense, I guess, of all the temple sort of activities which amount to worship. In either case, how wonderful for the Jewish people to be able to worship the true God! Since humans are naturally religious, they will worship something, no matter whether it’s real or not. Thus, the whole rest of the world had their “religious” practices, but they were all delusions. They had to create their “gods” and figure out how to worship them. The Jews knew exactly who they were worshiping and how He wanted to be worshiped! As Jesus told the woman at the well, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we [Jews] worship what we do know…”

Then Paul refers to “the promises.” Oh, wow. It does our hearts good occasionally to pause and consider what an enormous blessing it is to have the Lord’s promises. Peter of course says it well, “He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (II Pet. 1:4). “Very great and precious promises.” One way of looking at it all is that I would suggest one of our biggest problems as human beings is just plain fear (which I would suggest is the flip-side of the “evil desires Peter refers to). We fear the future. We fear what might happen. We fear we might lose. We fear we might get hurt. We fear, fear, fear. And how do we deal with it? We resort to all sorts of aberrant, self-destructive, often anti-social behaviors, to somehow manipulate our world and guarantee that in fact none of that will come true!

Enter the Lord and “very great and precious promises!” “Fear not,” the Lord says over and over. We could ask, “How can I not fear, when I can see a lot of potentially very bad consequences?” He comes back with a promise like, “All things work together for good, to them that love God…” “Be still,” He says, “and know that I am God.” “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Obviously, I could multiply these promises for pages and pages, but clearly, the answer for fear is to trust His promises. And the good news is that, as we would put away our fear and simply try to do the right things, we also stop engaging in all our childish behaviors that only get us deeper into trouble.

From the beginning, the Jewish people had a Bible filled with promises. Those promises gave them the freedom to just love and do right, trusting that whatever the Lord has promised will come true. Once again, what an inestimable privilege. The rest of the world had (has) no one to trust, but the Jews did, and so do we. That is a blessing!

 

 

Romans 9:4-5 “Of Whom…”

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.

Back in 3:1, Paul asked the question, “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?” At that point, he answered himself, “Much in every way!” What we have here in 9:4,5 is an elaboration on exactly what those advantages are. As we’ve seen, just to be an Israelite, a Jew, carries with it enormous blessings from the Lord. The next phrase adds, “of whom is the adoption.” Adoption. Even Abraham was born a child of Adam, a fallen sinner, under the dominion of “the prince of the power of the air.” Neither Abraham nor anyone else is born “a child of God.” We are all, in a sense, born into the wrong family. The only possible way we can be joined into the family of God is by adoption.

Probably one of the first things we should observe about adoption is that it is always the prerogative of the parent. In other words, it is the parent who chooses to adopt the child, never the reverse. It is greatly to Mordecai’s credit that he was willing to adopt his little niece Esther and raise her as his own daughter. As much as little Esther may have loved Mordecai, yet it was him who established the father/child relationship. So it is with God, of course. If He would be my Father, He is the One who must decide to adopt me, to pay whatever price that requires, and, like Mordecai, to take on whatever responsibilities come with being a child’s parent. The good news is, all us forlorned orphans need do is ask!

For us New Testament Christians, of course, we see adoption as a very personal, very individual business. In the case before us, involving the nation of Israel, it is a different thing. It is a national adoption. Personally, I struggle just a bit to get my head wrapped around this idea, but the plain fact is that a national adoption is something different than our familiar individual case. What did the Lord say? “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” In that original statement in Hosea 11:1, the Lord is clearly speaking of the nation of Israel and calling them His son. In the New Testament the same verse gets applied fractally to Jesus (Matt. 2:15), but it remains completely applicable to Israel.

The difference between Old and New Testament adoption means that, while the nation of Israel as a whole was adopted by God, yet individual Jews still had to enter personally into that relationship…and many did not. I suppose it might be like a couple adopting a whole family of seven children, only to find that two or three of them simply refuse to be a part of this new family. However, even if that were the case, it would be those children’s loss, as the parents did offer them all the advantages of a home and family. Those advantages would be unavailable to some other orphaned child down the street who was never offered such an opportunity. Again, in a case of national adoption, not everyone willingly accepted the individual relationship, but that doesn’t diminish in any way, the spectacular benefit their adoption provided. Such is the case with the Jewish people.

Then it says “of whom is the glory.” My temptation is to immediately assume this is a reference to what is called the Shekinah glory of God. That is the cloud which entered the completed Tabernacle in Ex. 40:34,35, Solomon’s temple in II Chron. 5:13,14, and that was said to rest above the mercy seat of the Ark between the Cherubim. Just think – all of that really did happen, and Jewish people’s eyes did see it! What a blessing that would be! However, I rather think “the glory” goes way beyond the Shekinah. The subject is WAY deeper than I can consider here, besides a passing notice. Rom. 3:23 said that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That always puzzled me, “come short of the glory of God.” You would have expected rather something like, “for all have sinned and fall short of God’s righteous standard.” I’ll run by this and just say I think the problem is that we modern Christians actually think and know almost nothing of the glory of God. The Church is full of cliches about it, but how much does it really drive anything we do?

That is the problem. The glory of God is everything. To fall short of it is to miss it all. However, since it means almost nothing to us, we grapple with Rom. 3:23 and here in Rom. 9, we offer lots of ideas, but no one seems to really understand what Paul is referring to. What is amazing is to think how much the glory of God blasted itself into the history of the Jewish people. While the rest of the world was busy killing each other and worshipping sticks, the Jewish people heard the voice of God Himself speak out of the cloud on Mt. Sinai! They saw the Shekinah cloud fill the temple. And running ahead of ourselves, they had none other than Jesus Himself walking among them!

Then it says, “Of whom are the covenants.” Scholars debate endlessly trying to decide just exactly which covenants Paul has in mind. Personally (and as usual, I guess), I’m not so sure any ancient person could have cared less. They weren’t into the sort of carping, detailed minutiae we moderns demand. The plain fact is that the history of the Jewish people is one of many covenants and I think that is the point. Again, while the rest of the world was blundering along, ignorantly trying to somehow make life work, the Jewish people had God Himself step into their world and give them an enormous amount of truth.

I would rather suspect any Jewish reader’s mind would go all the way back to the promised Messiah of Gen. 3 and the Noahic Covenant and its attendant rainbow, then run ahead to the Abrahamic Covenant which distinguished the Jewish people from the entire rest of the human race. The Mosaic Covenant gave them an entire legal code to guide their morality and was itself a national constitution to regulate their nation. Then, particularly in the face of their total failure to embrace that covenant, the Lord promised them to one day establish with them a New Covenant. We Gentile believers get to bootleg along into that New Covenant because we are the body of Christ, the Mediator of that New Covenant, but don’t run past the fact that God specifically said He would make the New Covenant “with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31-33 & Heb. 8:8-10). The covenants were and always will be particularly Jewish. Don’t miss the enormity of Paul’s words when he observes of the Jewish people, “of whom are the covenants!”

If we stopped here, it would be a marvel to realize just how blessed the Jewish people have been, however, Paul has more to say! It will be fun to scratch around and think about even more blessings they enjoy!

Romans 9:4-5 “All in a Name”

 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.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what these two simple verses teach us, but, before I leave them, I want to pause over each item and consider them individually. To begin, Paul recognizes these people as “ones who are Israelites.” I find it interesting that Paul actually does express in Greek the verb “are.” In that language it wasn’t necessary. It could just be left as understood, as it is in the rest of the passage. You can see above, in the places where I’ve shown the “to be” verbs in the [***] brackets to indicate I am supplying a verb which is actually not there in Greek. This was (and maybe still is) an advantage to Greek speaking people as it gives them the option to express the verb or not. Since they usually do not, when they do, they are usually communicating some emphasis.

In this case, I do not doubt Paul’s inclusion of the verb is, in fact, expressing the honor that accompanies this name “Israelites.” Israelites – the physical descendants of Jacob, whom the Lord Himself renamed “Israel.” To be an Israelite is, in fact, to be a direct physical descendant of this man and his family who were very specifically chosen by the Lord to be His own special people. That is certainly no small blessing! He had told Abraham, “and I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7).

When the Syro-Phoenician woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter, don’t run past His answer: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel…It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs” (Matt. 15:24-26). Stop and just let that sink in. Jesus’ miracles were specifically and uniquely intended only for Israelites! That woman was granted her request, but on what basis? When she replied, “Yes. Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table” (v.27), Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted” (v.28). She acknowledged she was not an Israelite. She even acknowledged that made her and her people “dogs!” She then offered to Jesus the only thing any of us Gentiles have to offer Him – faith – and, like us, she was, in a sense, “grafted in,” and granted a blessing intended only for people born physical descendants of this man Israel!

They are Israelites! Then think too about that name. In Gen. 32:28, the Lord very specifically gave that name to this man born “Jacob.” However, note that the Lord also named both Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was born Abram. In Gen. 17:5, the Lord said to him, “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations” (which is what that name means in Hebrew). Then in 17:19, the Lord told him, “Your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac” (which means “laughter”).

The Lord Himself named Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. All the way back in Gen. 2, God had given to Adam the responsibility of naming all the animals (v. 19). Note that, from the very beginning, this business of naming things was an expression of authority. Let us all note that just to be called an Israelite is in itself a recognition that you belong to God! Yes, they are Israelites!

While we’re on the subject of names, isn’t it interesting that back in Gen. 11, the people said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that may make a name for ourselves…” (v.4). When the Lord comes to Abram in chapter 12, He tells him, “I will make your name great…” (v.2). The Tower of Babel builders would make their names great and instead, their bones long ago wasted away and their names are totally forgotten. Abram let God do the “making great,” and now, some 4,000 years later, he’s still considered a “great” man by much of the world’s population. God gave Jacob the name Israel and there is still a people and a country by that name to this day! Jesus summed it up saying, “He who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” A great name is a gift from God. We get it from being found His humble servants!

So, once again, it is no small thing to observe of this particular people group, they “are Israelites.” Eternity itself would seem to be invested in that name!

 

Romans 9:4-5 “Blessings”

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.

Something else I believe is highlighted by the verses before us – the revelation of just how privileged are the Jewish people. It has to be a good thing for you and I to pause and simply ponder on what a special people the Lord has made them.

All the way back to the Garden of Eden, the Lord had promised that one day the Seed of the Woman would come and crush the head of the serpent. Beginning with their son Seth, I believe the godly people were very aware of that Messianic promise and also very aware of exactly who was carrying it. I suspect that explains why the genealogies of  Gen. 5 contain specifically the men it does – that they were not necessarily the firstborn sons, but rather the ones chosen by God to be the ones through whom the Seed of the Woman would come.

Certainly, the Lord made it clear to Abraham that the Messiah would come through his family. Out of all the world, he and his family were “chosen.” How can we underestimate the enormity of this fact, that through Abraham’s family – the Jewish people, the Messiah would come to conquer all this horrible death and misery and brokenness of our world and restore again the perfect joy and peace of an Edenic world?

Consider what the Lord told Abraham:

“I will make you into a great nation

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

and curse them that curse you,

and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you”

 (Gen. 12:2.3).

Particularly note, “…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” That is, above all, the promise of the Messiah, and what a blessing it is! However, please note, the “blessing” is not just for Abraham and his family. It is for all the world. It is for us too! From that very beginning, the promise to us Gentiles is that through Abraham’s family, through the Jewish people, we will be blessed! What a debt of honor and appreciation we all owe to the Jewish people! No wonder Jesus told the woman at the well, “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22).

But I want to suggest that blessing goes far beyond the Messianic promise itself. As important as that is, yet we would be reminded that our Lord is the God of the “full measure pressed down and running over.” The Jewish people are a blessing to us. It has been said, “For generations, remarkable Jewish leaders have propelled humankind forward by discovering cures for diseases, developing new technologies, composing musical masterpieces, advancing causes of freedom and human rights, and serving as trailblazers in countless other fields.” It has been estimated that they comprise less than one half of one percent of the world’s population, yet their contributions have been staggering.

Consider the following list as just a tiny taste:

Jewish Contributions to Society

Albert Einstein	Physicist
Jonas Salk	Created first Polio Vaccine.
Albert Sabin	Developed the oral vaccine for Polio.
Galileo	Discovered the speed of light
Selman Waksman	Discovered Streptomycin. Coined the word ‘antibiotic’.
Gabriel Lipmann	Discovered color photography.
Baruch Blumberg	Discovered origin and spread of infectious diseases.
G. Edelman	Discovered chemical structure of antibodies.
Briton Epstein	Identified first cancer virus.
Maria Meyer	Structure of atomic nuclei.
Julius Mayer	Discovered law of thermodynamics.
Christopher Columbus (Marano)	Discovered the Americas.
Benjamin Disraeli	Prime Minister of Great Britain 1804-1881
Isaac Singer	Invented the sewing machine.
Levi Strauss	Largest manufacturer of Denim Jeans.

If you think back to someone “great” in history, and by “great” I mean someone who did something truly wonderful for the rest of the world, don’t be surprised to find out they were Jewish! What a shame to think of the Holocaust and all the pogroms and all the horrible mistreatment the Jewish people have suffered in this world. Their presence is intended by none other than God Himself to be a blessing to the rest of the world – and they are – yet all they receive here it would seem is slander and cruelty and endless ingratitude!

May it not be true of you and me!

Certainly all of us truly born-again Christians are aware that the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, are a special people, that they are and always will be the chosen people of God, yet I believe it does us good, as with the present passage, to stop once in a while and remind ourselves just how special they are! May the Lord allow each of us, even in some small way, to be a blessing to them!

 

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).

 

Romans 9:4-5 “What Matters”

 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.

The passage before us generates a lot of interesting observations. First I want to note that, in these words, we should realize Paul is drawing back the curtain of his heart. He is passionately expressing what his eyes see as of great value in this world, and in so doing, he would allow us to see our world through Jesus’ eyes.

What does this world value? Gold, diamonds, palatial mansions, physical beauty, athletic ability, luxurious clothes, delicious food. In Rev. 17ff, we see the drunken harlot of Babylon, and how is she described? “The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries” (17:4). The book of Esther opens with Ahasuerus throwing a 6-month long party and we’re told “For a full 180 days he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty” (1:4). Our world treasures everything the Great Harlot offers!

However, look again at our passage. What are the great benefits Paul would attribute to the Jewish people? Notice, as usual, he lists seven – in this case, the first being that they are “Israelites” and the seventh being that theirs is the ancestry of none other than Jesus the Messiah Himself! I find great value in pausing and realizing that this world sees no value whatsoever in any of these seven blessings! What about me? What about my heart? Which do I see as of greater value? It is true that there is great beauty in this world and there in nothing necessarily wrong in enjoying that beauty, but the question is, “What do I value?” I want to be like Paul and see “the promises” as far greater riches than gold and silver! Moses did. Heb. 11:24-26 would tell us, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.”

As our Bibles lie there open to Romans chapter 9, these two simple verses call out and challenge us all to pause and ask, “What do I really value?” Can I look at the seven blessings listed and say, “Yes, those are things that I see as priceless”? Would I rather have any one of them than all the gold in the world? Thanks be to God that, in the Word, He helps you and me to see the things that truly matter in this life. He would help us to live lives where we accumulate true blessings, not the ashes and straw of this world’s treasures. “Oh, to die the death of the righteous!” exclaimed Balaam. Oh, to die, surrounded by a loving family, with a heart filled with memories of kindnesses and hours spent investing in the lives of others, and knowing that my very next step is to enter the presence of Him who has been all these years my Shield and my exceeding great reward!

This passage calls us to remember what matters!