Romans 8:28-39
• those who love Him
• those who have been called according to His purpose
• those God foreknew
• those God predestined
• those God predestined
• those God called
• those God justified
• those God glorified
Descriptions of the believing remnant of Israel - Jew and Gentile.
"first born among many brothers" - Jesus was the first of many who will be raised from the dead. Though Jesus was "born" as a human being in Bethlehem, and lived for 33 years as a Jew in Judea, He is not a created being, or an ethnic Jew, but He has always been, and He always was, is, and will be God.
[31] "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? [33] Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies."
Despite the Jews' belief that they were privileged because they had been "chosen" by God, God delivered His own Son up for us all - Jew and Gentile - freely giving Gentiles the same opportunity to know God and to be of His people, as the Jews. It is God who justified the Gentiles, and therefore if God is for them, who can be against them? It is God who elected (chose) the Gentiles, therefore who can bring a charge against them?
[34] "Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
No one can condemn those whom God has justified because Christ died, is risen, and is at the right hand of God. He is currently ruling as King from heaven, with all authority in heaven and on earth. Christ intercedes on their behalf. In the context of the passage, "us" is the remnant of Israel.
[35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [36] As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
[37] Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. [38] For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, [39] nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
• "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
• "We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."
• "Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us."
• "[nothing] shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
God's promises to the remnant of Israel.
Romans 9:1
[1] "I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, [2] that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. [3] For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, [4] who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; [5] of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen."
In this passage, Paul describes his immense anguish for his fellow countrymen, his fellow Jews, his brethren, who are in the flesh. In a bold statement of faith, he describes how, if he were able, he would trade places with them, being accursed (def.: doomed to destruction) from Christ, so that they would have Christ. How many Christians would trade their salvation for the lost?
The Israelites are to whom the adoption as God's children, the glory (conformance to Christ's image), the covenants, the law, the service of God, and the promises, pertain to. They are the fathers, and are from whom Christ came, in accordance with the flesh. Christ is over all people. Christ is the eternally blessed God.
[6] "But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, [7] nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” [8] That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. [9] For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”
Paul said that being an Israelite - being a descendant of Abraham, being Jewish - does not automatically make one a part of Israel, a child of God, or a child of the promise. Abraham had eight or nine children, but those who were "called" would come through Isaac, the "son of the promise" and his descendants, because he was miraculously born by God through an aging couple who were beyond child bearing years. Because God came and Sarah had a son, Isaac, his descendants are the children of the promise, and counted as the seed, while those who are not descended from Isaac, are children of the flesh, and are not the children of God.
[10] "And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac [11] (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), [12] it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger.” [13] As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
Isaac and his wife Rebecca conceived twins, Jacob and Esau. When Rebecca was pregnant, the children struggled within her, so she went to the Lord to inquire of Him. God said to her,
[23] “Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.” Genesis 25:23
Rebekah bore Esau and Jacob. Esau came out of the womb first, therefore he was the older, and Jacob was the younger. However, God did not say to Rebekah that the older son was going to serve the younger son, and there is no indication that he ever did.
What God said is that one people would be stronger than the other, and that the older nation/people would serve the younger. The two nations/peoples God was referring to were Edom (Esau) and Israel (Jacob).
This came about because Jacob (the younger) deceived Esau (the older) into giving him his birthright. Later, Jacob deceived his father Issac, by taking Esau's first born blessing from him. The birthright and blessing are significant because:
1) they made Jacob the patriarch of the family, when Isaac died, rather than Esau;
2) they allowed Jacob to inherit any property that Isaac owned, which in this case included all the land that God had promised to Isaac and his descendants;
3) they gave Jacob (Israel) authority over Esau (Edom), and because of God's promise to Issac, his blessing gave Jacob authority over all other nations;
4) as the Patriarch, Jacob was responsible for the family and for the inheritance, therefore God dealt directly with him concerning them;
5) Isaac's blessing would protect Jacob, by cursing anyone who cursed him, and it would bless anyone who blessed him.
It is not that God literally hated Esau and loved Jacob more, but that He had chosen, or elected Jacob (Israel) to be the people/nation through whom the Messiah would come and bless the nations. Just as Abraham's son Ishmael was not a recipient of God's promise to Abraham, Esau, nor his descendants, received the promise either, even though he was his grandson. The descendants of Abraham to whom the promise was made began with Issac, and then Jacob, and then Judah of the twelve tribes, and then throughout the generations, all the way to the Messiah.
Paul refined the definition of Israel even more in Romans 9:6-8 which we have already looked at, where he wrote that "not all who are Israel are of Israel", and in Galatians 3 where he wrote that Abraham's Seed is Christ, and that all who have faith in Christ are the children of Abraham and the children of God (also Romans 8). Paul is saying that those who have faith in Christ are Israel.
In Galatians 6:15-16, Paul wrote that in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but being a new creation is what matters. He continued, "peace and mercy be upon anyone who abides by that rule, and upon the Israel of God". "The Israel of God" seems to mean, those who have faith in Christ, because earlier, he made the point that there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile in Christ Jesus. Therefore, if he was referring to Jewish Israel in that statement, he would be making a division between Jews and Gentiles which he earlier said doesn't exist, and therefore contradicting himself. That doesn't seem likely.
In further support of this idea, Paul wrote to the predominantly gentile Church of Philipi,
[3] "For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" - Philippians 3:3
The Jews, who were known as Israel during that time, were called "the circumcision", but here Paul is referring to those who have the Spirit and faith - the Philippian church which is predominantly gentile - as the circumcision. Paul was saying that those who have faith in Christ, the ekklessia, are the Israel of God.
Similarly in Romans 2:28-29, Paul wrote,
[28] "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; [29] but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God."
Just as he wrote in Galatians 6:16, Paul said that circumcision doesn't mean anything for those who are in Christ, therefore circumcision does not make anyone a Jew, but a Jew is someone who is one inwardly, whose heart has been circumcised in the Spirit. Being a Jew is not outward, but inward. It is not ethnic or racial, but by the Spirit and by faith in Christ.
As an apostle, Paul had his understanding of the Scriptures opened (Luke 24:31), and he interpreted it as such. When he was encountered by Jesus, something like scales fell from his eyes, and his blindness was gone. Paul's eyes were opened to who Jesus was and to what the Scriptures mean. Paul was a highly regarded Pharisee who knew the Scriptures, but like all Jews, he did not have full understanding of them until God opened the apostles' understanding after Jesus was resurrected. The men and women who were saved after Pentecost continued in the apostles' teaching, because their understanding of the Scriptures had been opened. What was not known to them before as ordinary men, was made known to them. The apostles were given knowledge of the Scriptures that even the most learned Jews did not have.
Not long after the apostles' churches were planted, false teachers emerged and began infiltrating them. Many of them did not have elders appointed to oversee them, so the apostles stepped in to correct their false doctrines in order to protect the church from being led astray, hence the epistles and pastoral letters in the Bible.
This is important because proper understanding of the Scriptures comes from the apostles' interpretation of the Scriptures, not from Jewish, or even Old Testament interpretation, and certainly not from our own interpretation, even if we are well learned through books, and college education. Moses, David, or the prophets did not possess the full understanding of the Scriptures as the apostles did. Even the twelve disciples did not fully understand the Scriptures, and they sat directly under the teaching of Jesus. Jewish rabbis, or Pharisees did not either, and they still do not. Scripture needs to be read through the apostles' interpretation of them, and Jesus, Paul and Peter all interpreted God as having one people which included both Jew and Gentile, and they interpreted Israel as being those who are in Christ Jesus.
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