Now, to get our bearings, let's go back to chapter 9, verses 1 to 5.

This is really crucial that we understand where Paul is in the flow of the argument.

Three things we saw in this initial paragraph.

One, many Jewish people, many Israelites are accursed and cut off from Christ.

Paul says it in a way that is indirect by saying, I could wish that I myself were in their

place, accursed and cut off from Christ. In spite of all their benefits and advantages and privileges

listed here in four and five, they're lost, they're perishing.

He has great sorrow about that.

He has it all the time, in spite of how joyful he is.

And Jesus Christ is God overall.

That's what we saw, and that is a posing of the problem to be solved.

And the problem to be solved is, has the word of God fallen?

So he says in the next verse, but it is not as though the word of God has failed. And the reason it seems to have failed is that the Israelites are God's

covenant people. God's covenant people don't go to hell. What's the point of being covenant people

of God if you perish and get cut off from the Siah and are lost? And so it looks as though the

covenant is meaningless. It looks as though the promises aren't coming true,

and the word of God has fallen. And so he asserts that's not the case. It is not as though the

word of God has failed. And then his first answer, and he's only given one so far, and there are two

more coming in Chapter 11. It's because not all who are

descended from Israel belong to Israel. Not all are children of Abraham, covenant people,

children of promise, just because they're his physical offspring. That's his first answer.

When many Jews perish, they're simply not part of the covenant people to whom the promises apply.

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