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!