Lesson 430

(Lesson 430)(10-19-12) Romans 9:1-13, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

The real lesson of these few passages have never before been clear to me, until today. As I read this text, the full meaning of what Paul establishes here came to full bloom.
The tradition throughout history, in almost every custom, has been that the eldest son be the inheritor of the fathers power and wealth. But that is clearly not true concerning how God deals with his own.

Beginning with Cain, the firstborn of Adam and Eve, the sons of the most prominent biblical patriarchs were, in some way, gave up their inheritance. Cain killed Abel and thereby became forever identified as the evil son, ceding the label of the good son to Abel, his younger brother. Ishmael was born of Abraham's second wife Hagar, he too, throught his Egyptian lineage, he too lost his inheritance. Bible history also tells us that Esau, the firstborn of Isaac, because of his mothers preference for Jacob, lost his eldest son inheritance.

This pattern, of the first losing its position to the second, persists throughout the lineage of the Hebrew patriarchs.

The pattern uncannily coincides with what Jesus said in Luke 13:30, "And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last."

You might be wondering how all this applies to today's lesson. Paul makes that clear in these few verses. Israel was indeed God's chosen (the eldest) in the beginning, but fell to the status of servants when they rejected Jesus, the only begotten son of God. The inheritance (the church) was then given to the Gentiles (the younger brother).

Paul, because of his Jewish heritage, was mourning the fact that his brethren had, through their continuing rejection of Jesus, given up their special standing before God.~