WWUTT 169 Cut Off From Christ for the Sake of a Brother?

Have you ever had such an anguish in your heart for somebody else to receive

Christ that you would almost wish yourself to be sent to hell in their place if it meant that they would be saved and go to heaven?

Well, the Apostle Paul felt that way when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand the

Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We are on to Romans chapter 9 today, and we'll be looking at verses 1 through, oh, probably about 8 is as far as we will get, and then we'll get into some of the deeper stuff in Romans chapter 9 next week.

So let's begin here. Romans 9, starting in verse 1, Paul says, I am speaking the truth in Christ.

I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever.

Amen. But it is not as though the Word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be named.

This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

We go back to verse 1, and starting in chapter 9 here, we begin a section that goes all the way through chapter 11, chapters 9, 10, and 11.

And here in these three chapters, Paul will differ in the way that he uses the word

Israel. Sometimes it is an ethnic Israel, sometimes it is a spiritual Israel. And we see this in particular in verse 6, where he says, for not all who are descended from Israel, ethnic

Israel, belong to Israel, spiritual Israel. So you have to look at the context to see which kind of Israel that he's talking about.

In these first five verses, he's talking specifically about ethnic Israel. I am speaking the truth in Christ, he says,

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. And what is this sorrow that he is experiencing?

Verse 3, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

So he's talking about those Israelites that he is related to by blood. Paul, we know to be descended from the tribe of Benjamin.

And it is the Israelites to whom we're given adoption. They were called out of Egypt, out of slavery and adopted as sons and daughters of God.

They were given the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises to them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh is the

Christ. Christ was born from this people as God had promised the Messiah would come from specifically this line of people who is

God over all, blessed forever. Amen. So we have this great glory that God had given to this particular people.

They saw the glory of God in a way that Gentiles never did. God had chosen them, selected them specifically to be his people.

And yet having seen all of these great things from God and received the oracles of God, as we had described earlier in chapter three, the patriarchs and the

Christ having come from their race, despite all of these things that the Israelites had seen, yet they would not believe.

And Paul has such an anguish in his heart to see his fellow kinsmen be saved, that he would wish he himself would be accursed, cut off from Christ, sent to hell, if it meant that his fellow kinsmen would come to salvation.

But Paul is realistic here. He knows that no one can take the wrath of God for the salvation of another except Christ himself.

So Paul knows that he can't be cut off from Christ and sent to hell if it meant that his brothers would be saved, for they are not saved in that way.

It is only through Christ who died on the cross for our sins so that all who believe in him,

Jews or Gentiles, would be saved. Yet the attitude that Paul experiences in his heart is very similar to something that Moses experienced when he was pleading for the

Israelites in Exodus chapter 32. This is the story of the golden calf.

When the people were waiting for Moses to come down off of the mountain, it took so long. So they went to Aaron and said, build us a golden calf.

And they bowed down to it and praised it. And the Lord said to Moses, go down for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods,

O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, it is a stiff necked people.

Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you.

But Moses implored the Lord is God and he said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Why should the Egyptians say with evil intent that he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?

Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them,

I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have promised

I will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides, on the front and on the back.

They were written. The tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.

When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp.

But Moses said, it is not the sound of shouting for victory or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.

And as soon as he came near the camp, the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses, his anger burned hot and he threw the tablets out of his hand and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

And Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?

And Aaron said, let not the anger of my Lord burn hot. You know, the people that they are set on evil, for they said to me, make us gods who shall go before us.

As for this, Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So I said to them, let any who have gold take it off.

So they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf, which has got to be the most hilarious excuse in the entire

Old Testament. Aaron saying they just gave me gold and I just put it in here. This calf just came out and they started worshiping it.

Verse 25 of Exodus 32, when Moses saw that the people had broken loose for Aaron had let them break loose to the derision of their enemies.

Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, who is on the Lord's side? Come to me.

And all the sons of Levi gathered around him and he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, put your sword on your side, each of you and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout this camp and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.

And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses in that day, about 3000 men of the people fell.

And Moses said, today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.

The next day, Moses said to the people, you have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to the

Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, alas, this people has sinned a great sin.

They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now if you will forgive their sin, this is verse 32,

Exodus 32, 32, but now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.

Verse 33, but the Lord said to Moses, whoever is sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go lead the people to the place about which

I have spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit,

I will visit their sin upon them. So notice that Moses in the passion that he had for this people said, if you will forgive their sin, please, but if not blot me out of your book that you have written, he desired so much to see this people be spared that if the

Lord wouldn't do it, then he wanted to be blotted out of his book along with them. But what did the Lord say to Moses?

Look at verse 33. If you're with me there in Exodus 32, the Lord said, whoever has sinned against me,

I will blot out of my book. So Moses had not sinned against the Lord. The Lord was basically denying his request.

No, you're not going to be blotted out of my book. It is those who have sinned against me. They are going to be blotted out of their book, out of my book, and I will visit their sin upon them, which he went on to say in verse 34.

So even though this was the desire of Moses, his heart, he knew that it was ultimately the

Lord who was the righteous judge and he could do nothing to spare those who were going to be killed for the sin that they had committed against God, worshiping a false

God instead of remaining faithful and steadfast to the true God who had delivered them out of Egypt by great signs and wonders, and they had passed through the

Red Sea. And yet even these things, they heard the voice of God from the mountain of God in Chapter 20.

But even these things were not enough to keep the people faithful to God, and they were destroyed in their sin.

Verse 35, the Lord sent a plague on the people because they made the calf, the one that Aaron had made.

So we see here Moses's attitude to try to spare the people. But even here, he knew that it was not up to him to spare the people.

Just as Paul knew that he could not do anything to lay his life down for his fellow

Israelites that they would be saved. He could not take the wrath of God for them to be spared.

Moses didn't take God's wrath, and it was Paul that did not take God's wrath because they could not take

God's wrath to spare their fellow kinsmen. Only Christ could take the wrath of God to save those who would believe in him.

Verse six, Paul says, but it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

So here Paul is sort of responding to an argument that someone would make. Well, look at the people of God who

Moses had pled for these people and said, are you going to wipe them out that the Egyptians are going to say, did you just spare them from Egypt so that you could go wipe them out in the desert?

And so in case that same argument would come up against the Israelites who did not believe in Christ and would then be destroyed, would they say to Paul, well, the word of God has failed because look at the small minority of people here who believe that Jesus is the

Christ. The majority of Israel is going to get wiped out because of their unbelief. But Paul says, not all who are descended from Israel, ethnic

Israel belong to Israel, spiritual Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.

But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. Verse eight, this means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

If you are in Christ, guess what? You are Israel. So the word of God did not fail.

Israel was saved. All who are in Christ are Israel. Jesus is faithful Israel.

He accomplished everything that Israel could not do. They were cursed to the desert to wander around for 40 years because they were unfaithful to the

Lord. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days and was tempted by Satan, but he resisted every single temptation and was faithful to the will of God.

The Israelites passed through the Jordan River to go into the promised land, but they did not remain faithful to the covenant of God.

Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, and when he went up from there, he was faithful to the

Lord. So in all these ways, we see Christ and Matthew makes this delineation,

I think more than anyone else writing the gospels, the ways that Jesus was faithful to the

Lord and succeeded where Israel had failed. So you see in Revelation chapter one,

Jesus being described as the faithful witness. It is because he was faithful where Israel was not.

So Jesus became true Israel, and everyone who is in Christ becomes the adopted sons and daughters of God, Israel.

All who are in Christ are Israel. And we had seen Paul talk about this earlier in Romans as well.

In Romans chapter two, verse 29, he said, but a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter.

So here as he talked about this toward the end of chapter two, he was describing that anybody can become a Jew, not by the circumcision of the flesh, not by being born in the line of Abraham, but by a circumcision of the heart.

It is all who are in Christ are now Israel. You, if you are in Christ Jesus, have become an adopted son and daughter of God.

As it says in first John three, one, how great is the love the father has lavished upon us that we might become the children of God.

And that is what we are. Keep some of these things in mind, because we'll revisit these concepts that we've read at the start of chapter nine, as we go on, not only in chapter nine, but also in chapters 10 and 11.

Our Lord God, we thank you so much for this adoption that we have received in Christ Jesus, our Lord, that we might call upon you as our father, our benevolent and all loving provider.

Thank you, Lord, for this grace that we have been given through Jesus Christ. And may we continue to live as worthy sons and daughters of God, doing the will of the father.

And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.