Who are the Israelites?
Paul opens Romans 9 grieving over his own people, and before he argues anything he lists what God gave them. The question the chapter forces is whether being born an Israelite settles a person's standing with God.
The Name Itself
"Israelite" is not a neutral label. It is the name God gave Jacob, and it carries a dignity the other names for the same people do not.
G C WillisThe people of Israel had three names: Hebrews, Jews and Israelites. Jews were especially those of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, though many others had joined them under this name. "Israel" means "prince of God," and was the name given to Jacob by God Himself, when he wrestled with the angel and prevailed... This name includes all the descendants of Jacob, all the twelve tribes, not the two tribes only as the name "Jew" means.
One writer notes that "Hebrew" was the name used in scorn, and "Israelite" the name of dignity — Jonah, running from God, reached for the lower one.
A List Drawn Up By Love
Paul had been accused of belittling his nation. His answer was not a defence but an inventory, and commentators read the generosity of it as proof of his affection.
William KellyThose who hate others lose no opportunity of detracting from them and denying at any rate favours that seem peculiarly theirs from God. Love makes the most of what is possessed by its object. Judged by such a test, there could be no doubt of the love of the apostle who sets out the marks of God's goodness to Israel as none else had ever done before.
What The Six Gifts Were
Each item on the list points to something concrete in their history — a place in God's family, God's visible presence among them, agreements He made with the nation, the law from Sinai, a system of worship He designed, and promises still outstanding.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe adoption is theirs, as His family on earth, destined for earthly blessings... In visible glory Jehovah dwelt in their midst. While absent now, the promise is that in the future day of their restoration, that glory will return with the coming of the Lord... Theirs are also the covenants; they were made with the nation; and the giving of the law. Furthermore, theirs is the service of God, that divinely instituted levitical ritual, so full of blessed and prophetic meaning... And all these great things belong to Israel. They still belong to them.
National, Not Individual
The word "adoption" here trips people up, because Paul uses it elsewhere for Christians. In this verse it is a national title, not a personal one.
L. M. GrantThese are not at all individual blessings, but national, and consequently not at all in that sense having the slightest connection with the blessings of Christianity, which are applied to individual souls. "The adoption" here is the adoption of a nation — "When Israel was a child — I called My son out of Egypt" (Hosea 11:1).
Another writer puts the same point positively: Israel "ranks highest in all the families on earth in the mind and purpose of God."
Their Crowning Glory Refused
The list climbs. It ends not with a privilege they held but with a Person who came from them — and that was the one item the nation would not accept.
William KellyHe brings out the peculiar glories of Israel according to the depth of the gospel as he knew and preached it... Far from denying or obscuring what they boasted of, he goes beyond them... Here was the very truth that every Jew, as such, denied. What blindness! Their crowning glory was precisely what they would not hear of. What glory so rich as that of the Christ Himself duly appreciated? He was God over all blessed for ever, as well as their Messiah.
Birth Is Not Enough
Two verses later Paul says that not all who descend from Israel belong to Israel. The privileges were real; the assumption built on them was not.
C E StuartIsraelites unquestionably the Jews were by natural descent. Did they, taking their stand upon that, thereby claim the blessings of the kingdom? They had read the Hebrew Scriptures to little profit then... They might do that, and yet be not numbered among God's faithful people.
What Gentiles Received Instead
Commentators differ on how far the "Israel of God" language stretches to believers today; some apply it to those born again, others keep it for the believing remnant of the nation. On Romans 9 itself, though, one writer draws the contrast this way:
William KellyIf the mass of those gathered into the church were dark, outcast Gentiles; if they could not say, we are "Israelites, to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants"... they received a better adoption and a more surpassing glory... but the unsearchable riches of Christ freely given.
Summary
- Name — "Israel" means prince of God, given to Jacob by God Himself; it covers all twelve tribes and is the people's name of dignity.
- Gift — six things were handed to them as a nation: adoption, glory, covenants, law, worship, promises. Commentators insist these are national, not individual.
- Love — Paul, accused of despising his people, praises them more richly than any Jew ever had.
- Peak — the list ends with Christ, God over all, born of them — the one glory the nation refused.
- Limit — descent guarantees nothing. Not all who are of Israel are Israel, and the outsiders brought in received a better adoption still.