Romans 9:8 Cross References - Mace

⁸ that is, the children by natural descent are not thereby the children of God: but the children of the promise are alone considered as his posterity.

¹³ a birth which they had not from circumcision, nor from the constitution of the body, nor the institution of man, but from God.

¹¹ and he received the sign of circumcision, as a seal of the justification by that faith, which the uncircumcised have: that he might be the father of all those who believe, tho' they are uncircumcised, that it might be accounted to them also for righteousness: ¹² and the father of the circumcised, that is of those who are not barely circumcised, but who imitate that faith which our father Abraham had, being yet uncircumcised. ¹³ Besides, the promise that he should possess the world, was not made to Abraham, or to his posterity in consideration of the law, but with regard to the righteousness by faith. ¹⁴ for if they only who are of the law have right of possession, faith is made useless, and the promise becomes of no effect. ¹⁵ because the effect of the law is punishment: for if there had been no law, there could have been no transgression. ¹⁶ therefore the inheritance is of faith, that it might be meerly of favour, to the end the promise might be assured to all his posterity, not to that part only who have the law, but to that also who have the faith of Abraham, the father of us all, as it is written,

¹⁴ as many as are actuated by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

²⁶ for you are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷ for as many of you as have been baptized into christianity, have been invested as christians. ²⁸ there is now no distinction of Jew or Greek, of bond or free, of male or female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ and if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's offspring, and his heirs by virtue of the promise.

²² for it is there written, Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free-woman. ²³ he, who was of the bond-woman, was born according to the ordinary course of nature; but he, who was of the free-woman, was born by virtue of the promise. ²⁴ these things have an allegorical meaning: the two women signify the two covenants, the one from mount Sinai, which is represented by Agar, whose children were born in a state of servitude. ²⁵ this Agar answers to the Jerusalem now in being, for she is in servitude with her children: ²⁶ but the heavenly Jerusalem is represented by the free-woman, who is the mother of us all. ²⁷ for it is written, "rejoice thou barren, that bearest not; break out into loud acclamations, thou that hast not the travels of childbirth, for more are the children of the desolate, than of her that hath an husband." ²⁸ Now we, my brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of the promise. ²⁹ but as then, he that was born in the ordinary course of nature, persecuted him, who was born by an extraordinary power; even so it is now. ³⁰ but what saith the scripture? "cast out the bond-woman and her son; for the son of the bond-woman shall not share the inheritance with the son of the free-woman." ³¹ so then, my brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free-woman, by virtue of that freedom which Christ has procur'd for us.

¹ Consider what proof the father has given us of his love, in allowing us to be called the sons of God: therefore the world does not know us, because it knew him not. ² beloved, we are now the sons of God, tho' it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know, that when this change shall be, his immediate presence will give us a divine resemblance.