9:4
We then get a list of the benefits and blessings that Israel has received from God. First is adoption to sonship. Now Paul talked about adoption in the previous chapter. The nation of Israel would never have existed unless God had created it. God had given them the divine glory. They saw and experienced things that no other nation had seen, and God dwelt among them. God made covenants with them, binding agreements. They received the Law, God’s divine instructions for the nation. They had the temple, the place where God dwelt, and they received a multitude of promises from God. The nation of Israel cannot be viewed as just any other nation, there is something unique about it.
9:5
Then there were the patriarchs, ie people like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If we look at the beginning of Matthew or Luke we see that Jesus, the Messiah, descended from the Patriarchs. The Messiah who is God over all. This is one of the very few places where Paul states explicitly that Jesus is God, though it is implicit in everything that is said about Jesus. There are those who think Israel no longer has any special place in God’s plans. Such thinking seems to be totally at odds with the Bible and renders God’s promises in the Old Testament as valueless. Yet Israel rebelled against God, refused to recognise Jesus. How can these two facts be reconciled? The rest of chapters 9 and 11 will explain the truth of the situation. And we do well to remember that Jesus descends from the Patriarchs, Jesus is very Jewish.
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