Romans 9:1-5

Paul's Anguish Over Israel
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! [a] Amen.


Dig Deeper
In the ancient world it was pretty much the norm for children to follow in the footsteps of their parents. Sons would did the work that their father did, they would live in the same village that their parents lived, they would even generally believe what their parents believed. That has changed in many places in the world now, especially where I live in the United States of America. Not only is that no longer the norm, it’s not even common. I have seen many teenagers lately, far too many to be honest, grow up in a loving Christian home but simply walk away from that faith. They grew up, in many respects, in the family of God but God doesn’t have spiritual grandchildren and so when the time came for them to make a choice to fully enter into the Messiah and God’s family on their own accord, they simply chose not to. It’s outside of the realm of our discussion here to consider all the reasons for that but suffice it to say, it’s a real shame to see someone grow up with the incredible privileges of growing up in a family that reveres and follows God’s word only to go off on their own in their teen or college years and decide to not accept the Messiah as the only way to life. These kids go off on their own, believing that they are right and that their family is wrong, knowing full well that their family thinks that they are wrong. The worst part to watch is how painful it is for the parents. It is a real test of faith that, as the father of two boys, I hope I never have to go through. I can think of few things worse than watching your own flesh and blood walk away from all the privileges that God gave them and reject his Son, knowing full well what that will mean for them in the eternity of the age to come.

If Romans is, as many people believe, a letter that is primarily about personal salvation over and against working our way to salvation, then quite honestly, the next three chapters seem like an odd intrusion into Paul’s argument. Yet, they fit perfectly within the view that Paul has been explaining how God is faithful to his covenant promises if ethnic Jews are no longer justified by the works of the law and are not the people of God. Paul has thoroughly explained that both Jews and Gentiles stand guilty before God, without defense when it comes to the final judgment. He has gone on to demonstrate that God always promised to deal with sin through one family that was descended from Abraham and has shown that the justifying mark of the covenant given to Abraham was based on resurrection faith not on the works of the law that separated Israel from the rest of the nations and actually highlighted Israel’s sin. Only those in Christ, says Paul, are the people of God. They are the ones that have participated in the new exodus and are the recipients of the fulfillment of God’s promises. But if that is all true, then the obvious question that Paul has yet to answer in full is, “what about ethnic Israel?” Were they ever the people of God? What was their role? Have they been forsaken? Does that mean that God didn’t come through on his promises? If Jews were not streaming into the kingdom of God does that mean that they have no hope?

Paul has, with the skill of a master writer, brought those in Christ to an ecstatic and thrilling peak with the previous chapter. And just like a great speaker who speaks fervently and with great power and emotion but then suddenly and almost violently shifts to a quiet intense tone in order to change the pace and stress the importance of what he is saying after such an energetic outburst, Paul dramatically changes the tone from where he was at the end of chapter 8. He gives a triple verification of what he is about to say without yet telling his audience that he has even switched subjects yet. He says that he speaks the truth, he is not lying, and his conscience working in concert with the Holy spirit is clear. Paul doesn’t just stress how adamant he is about what he is about to say but he also stresses the incredible “sorrow and unceasing anguish” in the innermost parts of his being that he is suffering by what he is about to talk about. In fact, Paul can’t seem to bring himself to directly state what has his heart so heavy but the content of the next three chapters make it clear. The great majority of Paul’s brothers and sisters in the flesh, ethnic Israel, have not believed in and embraced the gospel of Jesus the Messiah.

This section is, no doubt, an important one to Paul’s ongoing argument but it was also a difficult tightrope to walk. Paul surely knew that he had a hard road to hoe in convincing the Gentile Christians in Rome that they still needed to be concerned with the plight of ethnic Israel, especially after the soaring rhetoric of the previous chapter. He wants to make sure that they understand the importance of Israel in God’s history and their own and that his own focus on the Gentile mission in no way signals that he has abandoned his hope for the salvation of his kinsmen. He also wants to make clear that, although he is the apostle to the Gentiles, he in no way approves of or joins in with the Gentile Christians in Rome’s low view of the Jewish people. At the same time he wants to stress that Israel really was chosen as God’s family for the benefit of the world and that through that family the Messiah has come to fulfill that role and make the promised and complete covenant family available to all.

Paul says that he could wish that he were, himself, cut off from the Messiah if only his own people would listen and believe. Every parent who has watched their child veer from their own faith can, no doubt, empathize with Paul here. He seems to be echoing the heart of Moses when he pleaded with God following the golden calf incident, saying, “"Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written" (Exodus 32:31-32). But as much as his heart might hurt for his people, he would have well known that God’s response to Moses was “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book” (Ex. 32:33). This is why he says that he wishes he could do such a thing (which in itself is probably a bit of a hyperbolic statement not meaning that Paul actually desired to be cut off from God’s true people) but he knows that he cannot.

The hurt of this situation for Paul goes beyond the fact that these are his countrymen that are rejecting the Messiah of life. There is a deep and bitter irony to all of this as well. They truly were the people of God. The adoption as sons, the divine glory, the covenants, the law, the temple worship, the promises, the patriarchs were all theirs. They had so much from God and it was real. They really had been called by God for his purposes. Even when things were very rough for Israel, God had promised that he had purposes for his good plan that went beyond their momentary circumstances. In Jeremiah 29:11 (one of the most taken-out-of-context verses in the Bible) God tells Israel that despite the fact that he has sent them into exile and the road will be tough that, in the end, they should remember that he has plans to still bless the world through them via the Messiah. Times will be rough but, God says, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’”. Yes the human ancestry of the Messiah had come through them.

In a sense, if we wanted to be more precise with the opening analogy, it wouldn’t be the children who had wandered from the faith that they had in their grasp. A closer analogy would be one in which parents lovingly went through many trials and hardships to create a godly environment for their children, suffered and sacrificed much so that they could become Christians and then, on the eve of their baptism, decided that they themselves were going to walk away from the faith. How heartbreaking it would be for the newly baptized young person to enjoy their new status in Christ on the one hand, all the while mourning the rejection of their beloved parents on the other hand.

There is some debate as to how verse 5 should be punctuated and whether the statement that God is over all should be connected with the Messiah or refers to God as a separate being from the Messiah. The TNIV almost certainly has it right here though as Paul, much like he did in 1:3-4, balances the earthly heritage of the Messiah with a divine recognition as well. This, then, would be one of the clearest statements in the entire New Testament that Jesus, the Messiah, is in fact the incarnate God.

Clearly, Paul loves his fellow Jews and he sees how much they had in their heritage as the historical people of God, culminating in the coming of the Messiah from among themselves. But now Israel has rejected the Messiah and everything that was theirs has passed to him (and by implication of what he has already said thus far, to those who are in the Messiah as well), a point that Paul will make clear in the remainder of this section.


Devotional Thought
Can you identify with Paul’s anguish as he laments over the fate of his fellow Jews? Do you have the same kind of heart for your lost countrymen, whether they be friends, family, co-workers, or neighbors? When was the last time you truly felt great sorrow and unceasing anguish for those that have yet to enter into Christ?