Events in Israel continue apace. The Israeli Defense Forces have initiated ground operations in the Gaza Strip in order to destroy Hamas and rescue Israeli hostages. The war has transfixed the attention of the world.
For Christians, this turmoil has raised tricky theological questions. Are ethnic Jews the chosen people of God? Where do they fit into God’s plans and purposes? Does God love Jews more than other people?
Last week, we began studying Romans 9-11, where Paul most explicitly addresses such questions.
Paul opened his discussion with an expression of deep emotion: “I have great sorrow and endless pain in my heart.” Paul’s anguish stems from the fact that most Jews had rejected Jesus as Messiah. Although all of Jesus’ early followers were Jews, the nation of Israel as a whole failed to acknowledge her true king. Instead, they crucified him.
This same pattern repeated itself as the gospel went out into the wider Greco-Roman world. Wherever Paul went, it was his custom to first preach to the Jews in the synagogue. Again, some responded to Paul’s message. But the majority of the Jewish community reacted with anger or even violence.
Paul saw clearly that the Jews who rejected Jesus as God’s anointed king were in a very dangerous position; they had cut themselves off from the people of God. Unless they experienced a radical change in heart, the wrath of God would come upon them.
This strange state of affairs raised sharp questions. Every faithful Jew knew Israel’s foundational stories. God had revealed himself to their forefather Abraham and promised to bless Abraham and his descendants. But now, people of every nation were flooding into the church, while most Jews – the physical descendants of Abraham – remained on the outside! Did this somehow mean that God’s promises had failed?
Paul’s message to the Roman church is that God has indeed been faithful to his promises, even though God’s faithfulness is not necessarily what ethnic Israel was expecting.
“But it can’t be the case that God’s word has failed!” (Romans 9:6a) Paul emphatically affirms that the God of Israel is utterly faithful and true; he will accomplish his purposes. It would be easier for the whole cosmos to be swept away, than for a single word of God to fall to the ground.
Most Christians can (at least intellectually) accept the truth that God is completely reliable. However, many Christians are confused by Paul’s next statement: “Not all who are from Israel are in fact Israel.” (Romans 9:6b) What in the world does that mean? And how does it support Paul’s contention that God has been true to his promises?
This is a key moment in the argument and in the Bible as a whole. Paul is making the breathtaking claim that – in light of the death & resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit – Israel has been redefined.
In other words, there are two categories of “Israel.”
The first Paul refers to as “Israel according to the flesh.” These are the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (later renamed Israel). As we’ve noted, most of these ethnic Jews refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.
The second category Paul calls “the Israel of God.” (Galatians 6:16) These are people from every nation (including ethnic Jews) who have given their loyalty to Jesus, “the king of the Jews.”
This distinction will allow us to comprehend Paul’s otherwise puzzling statement, “Not all who are from Israel, are Israel.” Those “from Israel” are the physical descendants of Jacob. Paul boldly claims that these ethnic Jews are not necessarily a part of the true Israel.
It takes very little imagination to see how this kind of claim would have gotten Paul into hot water in the synagogue. No wonder the Jews wanted to beat and stone him! Paul was claiming that ethnic Jews who rejected Jesus the Messiah had squandered the privileged title of Israel – the chosen people of God.
The Apostle Paul did not simply lob this audacious claim at his readers out of nowhere. In fact, he spent a good deal of the first eight chapters of Romans preparing us for this moment.
In Romans 2:17-20 Paul recounts the privileges of Israel. The Jews rightly celebrated the fact that God was their God. Through the gift of Torah, they could understand God’s requirements and distinguish right from wrong. Equipped with this knowledge, Israel (at least in theory) could be a light to the nations, showing the Gentiles how they ought to live.
But there’s was a huge problem: Israel failed to obey the law. Their hearts were obstinate and hard: “You boast in the Torah, but you dishonor God by breaking the Torah!” (v23)
Paul goes on to state the consequences of disobedience: “If you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.” (v25)
We know that circumcision was the key identity marker for the people of Israel; it was the sign that they really were God’s people. But Paul boldly asserts that because Israel failed to obey the Torah, their cherished identity as God’s people was lost! This is tantamount to saying that their disobedience, in effect, revokes their membership in the nation of Israel.
What Paul writes next has baffled Christians down through the years: “Meanwhile, if uncircumcised people keep the law’s requirements, their uncircumcision will be regarded as circumcision, won’t it?” (v26)
Who is Paul referring to? And how would it even be possible for uncircumcised people to keep the law’s requirements, when circumcision itself was obviously a key part of the Torah?
Paul doesn’t fully explain what he means until later in the book of Romans. But he is already beginning to develop the new category of “Israel.” The “uncircumcised people” who “keep the law’s requirements” are Gentile followers of Jesus. These Christians are not circumcised, but they “keep the law” in the sense that Paul will later develop in Romans 8: they’re filled with the Holy Spirit, and so have the power to truly love God and obey his commandments.
It’s these people whose “uncircumcision will be regarded as circumcision.” In other words, because of their loyalty to Jesus, God will regard them as his genuine people, the true Israel.
Paul concludes this section by writing, “The ‘Jew’ isn’t the person who appears to be one, you see. Nor is ‘circumcision’ what it appears to be, a matter of physical flesh. The ‘Jew’ is the one in secret; and ‘circumcision’ is a matter of the heart, in the Spirit rather that the letter.” (v28-29)
Once again, the apostle is happily redefining Israel around the person of Jesus and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. The real “Jews” can’t be identified by their outward appearance. They’re not the ethnic Jews who bear the physical mark of circumcision. Rather, the true “Jews” are the people of Jesus, whose hearts have been circumcised by the Holy Spirit, enabling them to become God’s renewed humanity.
Paul will go on to spend an entire chapter (Romans 4) demonstrating that the true children of Abraham are not his physical descendants, but those who share his faith in the God “who gives life to the dead.”
This all goes back to the key question of God’s faithfulness. “Has God’s word failed?”
God made a solemn promise to give Abraham a family who would enjoy his blessing, and ultimately “inherit the world.” (Romans 4:13) Paul argues that this family does not depend upon the physical sign of circumcision, not upon the possession of Torah. Rather, the true “seed” of Abraham consists of all those who share Abraham’s loyalty to the God who “raised from the dead Jesus our Lord.”
We should not be caught off balance, then, when Paul returns to this exact framework in Romans 9. “Not all who are from Israel, are Israel.”
Not all ethnic Jews qualify as God’s people, but only those who acknowledge their rightful king. Meanwhile, God has marvelously flung open the door to covenant blessing for all people. Through allegiance to Jesus, people of every nation are welcome to share in the title and privileges of Israel.
Thanks Joel!