We come this evening to a consideration of verses 4 and 5 in the 9th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

Verses 4 and 5 in the 9th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans,

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 overall God blessed forever.

Now, these two verses come, as most of you will remember, immediately after what the

apostle has been saying in these first three verses, I could, he says, wish that myself

were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen,

according to the flesh, who are Israelites, etc.

In other words, in these two verses, the great apostle proceeds now to give us his exact and

his detailed reasons for feeling this continual sorrow in his heart and his great heaviness

for his kinsman according to the flesh.

Now, we were emphasizing last week and the week before

that there is undoubtedly in this a very great element

of what one may call nationalism

or natural human feeling.

We stress the point that though we become Christian, we do not

become unnatural. The fundamental orders of creation are not abolished by Christianity. And there

is nothing wrong in that men should be particularly interested in the affairs of his

own nation and in his own family. It is God who has appointed the bounds of all nations,

and as ordained, that we should come into this world into families. So we were emphasizing that there was not

only nothing wrong in feeling and experiencing such sentiments as the apostle gives expression

...