Paul is suffering from heartache. To the Christian congregation in Rome he writes: ‘I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.’ Whatever is wrong with him? Is he feeling homesick for his mother city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, now that he has once again crossed over to Europe and is staying in Greece? Is he afraid of the Jews, who are constantly driving him away from the synagogues, so that he must fear for his life? No, Paul cannot take it that his own Jewish kinsmen are lagging behind, or even opting out, and do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah of Israel. How on earth is that possible? This is the question oc­cupying his mind in Romans 9-11.Israel should be happy with the coming of the Messiah, as one of the many privileges the Israelites may enjoy (cf. Rom. 3:1-2, where Paul still spoke of Jews). That name Israelites speaks volumes: it is a name of honour which brings to memory father Jacob, once renamed by God himself with the name of Israel. In this way Jacob’s descendants received a privileged position. Paul can be proud to call himself an Israelite (Rom. 11:1; 2 Cor. 11:22). Of course, he has a bond with Israel!

Privileges⤒🔗

In the first part of Romans 9 six privileges of the Israel­ites are summed up:

1. The sonship (huiothesia): allowed to be child, and therefore heir, of God. Not only does Israel as a people go through the world as an adopted son of God (Ex. 4:22; Hos. 11:1), but Israelites individually have been adopted as children of the Father, sons and daughters of the Almighty. (2 Cor. 6:18).
2. The glory (doxa): God’s glorious presence, which accompanied the Israelites on their journey through the desert and dwelled in the tabernacle and the temple because the LORD wished to live there with his people. That glory of God radiates on Israel.
3. The covenants (diathèkai): the Eternal desired to connect to, amongst others, the forefather of the Israelites, Abram; to the people of Israel at Sinai; to the royal house of Israel through David. He held out the prospect of a new covenant to Israel. Moreover, all these covenants came with linked promises (Eph. 2:12).
4. The law (nomothesia): the Torah had been given to the Israelites at Sinai. Moses wrote the words of God down in a book and read that law book out loud to the whole people. He confirmed the covenant by the sprinkling of blood, after all had pledged to take to heart what the LORD had said (Ex. 24:1-8).
5. The worship (latreia): in the cult, the Israelites showed their will to obey their God by adhering to the prescriptions revealed to them in the Torah. This applied both to the worship services in the temple and to the worship in daily life.
6. The promises (epangeliai): everything that, in the course of the centuries, had been promised to the Israelites from heaven, culminating in the prom­ised Messiah who would come on behalf of God to deliver the people from all impotence and guilt.

That all belongs to ‘them’, the Israelites, Paul empha­sizes. ‘To them’ belong also the Patriarchs (pateres), Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who have been given God’s promises and who placed their unwa­vering trust in him. Privilege number seven!

And then the list reaches a climax that encompasses all the preceding privileges: ‘from them’ (from the Israelites therefore) is Christ originated, the true Israelite. Paul refers es­pecially to the origin of Christ ‘according to the flesh’, as Christ also ‘according to the flesh’ descended from David (Rom. 1:3), and as Paul considers himself a descendant of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil. 3:4-5).

Doxology←⤒🔗

Paul then continues with a doxology (an expression of praise to God) in verse 5. For the translation and interpretation of this, two options have been suggested:

a. An independent doxology, aimed at God the Father. This is the choice of some translations, for example of the GNT, which places a full stop after ‘Christ, as a human being, belongs to their race.’

b. A continuation of the sentence regarding Christ, with a comma, followed by a doxology aimed at Christ’s divinity. The ESV and most of the other English Bible translations choose this option.

The Greek manuscript tradition of the New Testament did not yet use full stops and commas. Therefore, analysis of the text itself has to provide the answer. Option b. does the most justice to the sentence structure, because the grammatical subject of the whole sentence is then Christ (ho oon is similar to hos estin (Rom. 1:25; 2 Cor. 11:31)). Other doxologies by Paul are also generally part of the preceding sentence or are closely connected to what precedes.

Why then, is the choice sometimes made for possibility a.? The most important argument is that one finds it impossible to im­agine that Paul, certainly in this context, would distance him­self from Jewish monotheism by giving Jesus the title of ‘God’.

Apart from the question whether this is truly unimaginable (see text box: Jesus as Theos), in Romans 9-11, Paul is talking about a very special situation. The unbelieving Israelite has no good excuse. Christ is no stranger to them, is he? Humanly speaking, this is about a blood relative. At the same time, he is more than a human, as becomes clear from his position in heaven: he is also God, who is above all and everyone, and is to be praised eternally. The human nature of Christ, in which he is related to the Israelites, is supplemented by Paul with the divine, in which he is, as glorified Son, one with the Father. The human and the divine are, with Christ, joined together (cf. Rom. 1:3-4 and 1 Tim. 3:16 according to the majority text: ‘God, who was manifested in the flesh’). You could say that he has a ‘dual nationality’, both heavenly and worldly.

In this way Paul arrives at an extraordinary doxology, aimed at Christ. The Messiah is not exclusively Jewish. He is, however, from but not of the Israelites. Because of this personal approach we could consider representing the Greek word pair epi pantoon with ‘over all (all people)’, instead of ‘over all things’, as some translations have done. In Romans 10:12 we see something similar: ‘For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.’ Paul feels connected to his own fellow men, but as the apostle for the nations, he is also think­ing of the non-Jews. Christ stands above all people.

Separation←⤒🔗

Heartache: that is what Paul is suffering from when he thinks of his headstrong fellow men. It hurts him deeply, but has to do with the gospel which he proclaims.

While innumerable non-Jews are converting, as far as the Jews are concerned Paul sees a strong resistance to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It tears him apart: he is both connected to his Jewish fellow men and dedicated to the Lord. Just like Moses, who was prepared to be blotted out of God’s book (Ex. 32:32), Paul would be willing to sacrifice himself for the Israelites, if it would benefit them. Even if this means that he would be separated from Christ (literally: ‘accursed’; Greek: anathema einai; cf. 1 Cor. 12:3; 16:22; Gal. 1:8). In reality a spiritual divi­sion was occurring within the people of God’s covenant. Paul was standing on the fracture line and was forced to observe, with pain in his heart, that not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel (Rom. 9:6). Yet the apostle also felt joy. God’s people from the new covenant will gather around the true Israelite, he who is God, who stands above all and is to be praised in all eternity! Amen.

Literature←⤒🔗

– Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God. The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992).

– Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

– Hans-Christian Kammler, “Die Prädikation Jesu-Christi als ‘Gott’ und die paulinische Christologie. Erwägungen zur Exegese von Rom 9,5b”, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentli­che Wissenschaft 94.3-4 (2003): 164-180.