ontinual presence in the tabernacle[2]: to them, in
the persons of the patriarchs and of Moses, God gave special covenants,
that is to say, pledged His word to them in an unmistakable manner and
repeatedly that He should be their God and they should be His people:
thus in pursuance of a divine purpose they were brought under the
education of the divinely given law and ritual worship: and all this
with direct and repeated promises of a more glorious position in the
future to be brought about by the divine king, the Christ who was to
be. To them finally belongs all the sanctity which can attach to a
people from having numbered among its members the holy ones of God: for
of this race were the patriarchs, the friends of God; and of this race,
so far as human birth is concerned, came in fact the Christ who, born a
Jew, is sovereign of the universe and ever blessed God. Surely then,
St. Paul implies, that this race, now that the Christ they were
expecting is at last come, now that the goal of all God's dealings with
them is at last reached, should have fallen outside the circle of His
people and be no longer sharers in {16} the sonship or the election,
would seem a result too monstrous to contemplate. The contrast between
what they were and were intended for, and what in present appearance
they are, is indeed appalling.

Yet the natural conclusion for the Jew to draw, which at this point
flashes into St. Paul's mind, the conclusion that God has proved
unfaithful, is not the true one. No: God's word, God's promise, has
not broken down. For, if the facts are looked at, it appears quite
plainly that the Israel of God was never simply the Israel of physical
descent, nor the children of Abraham simply his physical seed. Plainly
not. For Isaac and Ishmael were equally Abraham's seed, physically
considered, but for the purpose of God the promise is given only to the
family of the younger son, Isaac (Gen. xxi. 12), who moreover was born,
not in the mere natural order, but under circumstances of special
divine promise and intervention (Gen. xviii. 10). And if in this case
it be said that the younger son Isaac was the only son of Sarah, the
wife and free woman, and therefore had a natural prerogative over
Ishmael, yet the same inscrutable principle of selection is apparent in
the next generation, in a case where there is no possible inequality
{17} of natural claim--in the case of the two sons born simultaneously
to Isaac of th