Romans Chapter 9 Cont'd
But just because the Jews, generally speaking, are not presently right with God, it does not mean that God's word has somehow failed. For not all ethnic Jews are the true "Israelites," neither are they automatically the children of God simply because they are the natural descendants of Abraham. Ishmael was Abraham's natural born son too, but the promise of salvation wasn't to him, it was to the "supernatural born son" Isaac and his descendants. This is a historic scenario with spiritually symbolic meaning, namely, the true children of God who are the heirs of the promise of salvation are not qualified to be so through their natural birth, but through the divine promise of a supernatural birth.
For this is the nature of God's saving promise: "At this time I will come, and Sarah (not Hagar) will have a son." This same spiritual principle was repeated in the next generation as a confirmation. God's promise was not even given to all the natural born children of Isaac, but only through his son Jacob. This was to prove the point that salvation never was, and can never be, dependent on ethnic origins or human religious performance, but on God himself and his sovereign purposes and choices. For before Isaac's twins were even born and able to perform any "works"- good or bad, God said to their mother Rebecca, "The elder shall be subservient to the younger". This fulfilled the scripture, "I have chosen Jacob and not Esau."
Comments:
Here Paul is expanding on the primary foundational point of his revelation regarding the Big God-Story of the scriptures and how the New Covenant in Jesus is a logical, though admittedly surprising, extension and fulfillment of God's promise to father Abraham. It was a new "old thought". The apostle John said it this way in 1 Jn 2:7-8, " Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining." The adding of the Law through Moses, with all its regulations and cultural distinctives, that kept the nation cemented together through the centuries and prepared her as a "womb" for the personal coming of the Messiah, did not negate the essential nature of God's election and choice of human beings for the experience of his salvation.
In chapter 2:28-29, Paul said it this way, "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God." This circumcision of heart found/finds its ultimate expression by what Jesus and the New Covenant are all about. Being, or becoming, a true "Israelite" was never about race or human blood lines...it is, and has always been, about personal and living faith in God and his word. This was, first of all proclaimed to the Jews and...then also to the gentiles...because of God's intent to spread the good news of Jesus, his Son, to the whole world and every people group within it. Abraham was called to be a "father of many nations"...and this has now become a reality by the grace of God in Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment