Who is Israel?-4

To whom much is given, much is expected and commanded. This includes fruit, rewards, talents, and all future promises. As mentioned before, God’s promises and covenants contain responsibility to us to obey them in order to be blessed by them. Too often obedience is forgotten or just blatantly ignored. This was and continues today to be the problem with the ‘nation’ of Israel, but also includes the ‘church’.

Romans 9:1  I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, 9:2  that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. 9:3  For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 

Saul, now Paul, has great sorrow for his physical kinsmen. He personally knows the deceit that has enslaved them to the teachings of men and doctrines of demons. He was a man driven to go anywhere to stop people from worshiping Jesus Christ. Now he is a servant of Christ. It took him to be stopped by Christ on his mission to arrest believers in Damascus, which is in Syria not Israel.

9:4  who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, 9:5  whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

The physical family of connected people known as Israel were given all they needed and more. But, what they did not forget they just ignored and disobeyed.

9:6  But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; 9:7  nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: "THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED." 

God is not our problem nor was He their excuse for their sin. Abraham as the father of many nations, was not uniquely devoted to just Israel/Jacob. God’s plan for Israel the nation was for them to be a light unto the nations.

9:8  That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. 

As we have read before, God doesn’t rely only on family lineage to present His message or to receive His blessings. If you truly belong to God, you are a child of the promise. Too many ignore this very clear, basic truth. Thus they continue today to think of the physical Israel of today as God’s only chosen people.

More next Saturday.