Christ Came from Israel According to the Flesh

When that divine teacher of the churches was writing to the Romans, reproving, or rather mourning, the unbelief of the Jews, that is, of his own brothers, he used these words: “I wished that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption as children, 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 is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever.” Oh, the love of that most faithful apostle and most kindly kinsman! In his boundless love he wished to die, as a kinsman for his relatives and as a master for his disciples. And why did he wish to die? For one reason only: that they might live. And what did their life consist in? Simply in this, as he himself says: that they should recognize a divine Christ born according to the flesh, of their own flesh. That is why the apostle grieved all the more: those who ought to have loved him all the more, as one sprung from their own stock, failed to understand that he was born of Israel. “Of whom,” he said, “is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever.” He states plainly that the Christ who is over all, God blessed forever, was born from them according to the flesh. [a]

You certainly cannot deny that Christ was born from them according to the flesh. But the same person who was born from them is God. How can you get around this? How can you wriggle out of it? The apostle says that the Christ who was born of Israel according to the flesh is God. Show us, if you can, a time when he did not exist. “Of whom,” he says, “is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God.” You see that because the apostle has united and joined these together, “God” cannot possibly be separated from “Christ.” For just as the apostle declares that Christ is from them, so he asserts that God is in Christ. You must either deny both of these statements or accept both. Christ is said to be born of them according to the flesh, but the same person is declared by the apostle to be “God in Christ.” That is why he also says elsewhere, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” It is utterly impossible to separate the one from the other. Either deny that Christ sprang from them, or admit that God in Christ was born of the virgin, “who is,” as he says, “over all, God blessed forever.”