Romans - Lesson 39

Romans 9:6-9 

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”

A. The Dilemma Regarding Israel: 

Back to the overall argument. Paul responds now to this problem which he set out for us in four stages as I see it. The first stage includes verse 6-29 where Paul develops the idea of an Israel within Israel; “not race but grace” is Tom Wright’s phrase. Wright is very good with coming up with these neat, very effective ways of putting things. You can see what he is getting at there, God’s choice has always rested on His grace, not simple straight forward racial identity. Not race, but grace.

Second, Paul is going to say that Israel has a lot of responsibility for her own fall. Here Paul talks about Israel’s lack of understanding, her stubbornness, her sinful disobedience. 

Three, God is saving a remnant now. In other words, when Paul presents the problem in 9:1-5, he presents it in very global general terms. But what he wants to say here is that most of Israel hasn’t responded but some of Israel has; remember, there are Jewish Christians. We should not forget that in this situation. 

Finally, climatically, the end of Romans 11, where Paul climaxes the thing by this claim that God is going to save all Israel. 

All of this is an answer to the dilemma, the problem, of how we can understand that so many Jews are not part of the new people of God and so many Gentiles are. 

The first answer, God never promised to save all Jews as shown in 9:6-29. Paul here looks at the history of the people of Israel, particularly in its early period. He says that God has been making choices all along here. Let’s start with Abraham, he says. Abraham had two sons and only one inherited, Isaac, not Ishmael. Bring it down a generation, Paul says. Isaac also had two sons and, in this case, he had two sons who were twins. Paul uses very specific language here saying that Jacob and Esau were the result of one seminal emission, one act of making love. This is the Greek language that Paul is using here. He is trying to make the point as graphically and clearly as he can: Jacob and Esau were conceived at the same time. Indeed, Esau was the older for he came out of womb a little bit before Jacob. Paul’s point is to say, God has Himself shown that simply being racially descended from Abraham isn’t what makes you a true part of the people of God. It is choices that God has been making all along, Isaac and not Ismael, Jacob and not Esau.

B. Was It Fair for God to Make These Choices: 

Paul, then in 14-18 takes this a bit further. Is God fair to do this then? Is it unjust of God to make these choices in this way? Paul responds by reminding us of the Old Testament story in which God tells Moses that He has mercy on whomever wants. On the other hand, He hardens whomever He wants. Here, he brings in the story of the Exodus and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart at that time. 

More objections in verse 19. Someone will say to me, why does God still blame us? Paul responds, God has a right to do this; to make these decisions because He is God. Not only does God make choices from within Israel, He even chooses people from outside to be involved, as in verse 24. He has called us not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles. 

So, what you have here is Paul saying that within the larger entity that we might call Israel, there is a smaller group of those whom God has actually chosen, and added to that group from within Israel is a group entirely apart from physical Israel, the Gentiles. The whole point being again that those who interpret God’s promises in the Old Testament to mean that God promises to save alldescendants of Abraham and only descendants of Abraham are misunderstanding God’s purposes in these promises. God has always had purpose demonstrated in what He has actually done in choosing only some among the larger group Israel to be His true people. And, as the Old Testament itself indicates in places like the book of Jonah, God has always been interested in allowing Gentiles to become part of that. This is something, of course, in the New Covenant era that has expanded more significantly beyond what you saw anytime in the Old Testament itself. 

This is an overview of what Paul is arguing here. It meets the objection that Paul’s gospel can’t really be from God because your gospel isn’t bringing salvation to all of Israel. Paul says that this isn’t a reasonable objection because you are assuming that God’s purpose was to bring salvation to all the people of Israel; that’s not clear at all, Paul says. Read your Old Testament more carefully and you will see again that these decisions are being made throughout.

Student:  
I’m sure this wasn’t comfortable for many people outside of Paul.

Dr. Moo:  
The Gentiles were probably to hear it. As we mentioned before, there were lots of debate among the Jews in Paul’s day about the right interpretation of the Old Testament. Who do the promises apply to and how do we understand them. Paul is taking a particular stance in that debate which, you’re right, was anathema for many Jews, very uncomfortable for many Jews. Even maybe some Jewish Christians who weren’t really happy with it. 

C. Has God Failed Israel and Will He Fail Us: 

Student:  
Whenever I have taught this section, it seemed to me that one of the main points was, was God actually going to be faithful to His promises, was He keeping His word? Whenever I could take that and bring it into our own current situation, that’s a good question for us too. If God wasn’t faithful to Israel and if we somehow build up in our minds that He made a change, He has made promises to us as well, who is to say if He will keep those? 

Dr. Moo:  
This is a very good point. If God has changed His mind after He made the promises to Israel, what is to say that He is not going to change His mind again, making promises to us that He doesn’t keep? This is a fundamental issue. At the beginning of verse 6puts it in those terms, The Word of God has not failed. His promises never fall short of becoming fulfilled.

D. God’s Sovereignty in Choosing: 

Before we leave this section, I know it’s controversial, but let’s briefly talk about the implications of this passage for the doctrine of election. 

Both Calvinists and Armenians believe in election but have different ways of understanding it. Here is the way I define the views. Here is a passage that puts a lot of emphasis everyone must agree on God’s sovereignty in choosing. The Calvinists emphasize that side of it; this is a text that Calvinists like to quote. It is God who chooses, it is not our will, it’s not our works; it is God’s choice that makes the difference.

To which Armenians typical reply, yeah, there is a lot of emphasis on God’s choice here but don’t forget that there is a lot of emphasis on human choice in Romans 1-8 to this point. Our faith seems to be something that is foundational to this whole matter of salvation as well. 

So, let’s bring them together and find here that while Paul in Romans 9 is saying that God is in charge and God is choosing. His choosing doesn’t take place apart from our decision to believe. That is where the debate focuses here. 

There is one other strand to the debate; there is another way of viewing this. In current times, recent years, there has been a lot of emphasis on taking the whole issue of God’s choosing here to have to do more with the status of Israel in history, rather than with the eternal destiny of individuals. In other words, when God decides to choose Isaac rather than Ismael, is that a text talking about God chooses to save Isaac and damn Ismael? Or is it simply saying that God chose to carry out His promise through Isaac? Or when you come down to Pharaoh, does the text say that God condemned Pharaoh to hell, or does it simply say that God used Pharaoh in a negative way to accomplish His purposes in rescuing Israel and magnifying His name? 

That has become a very popular way of coming up with an interpretation about salvation history that would fit an Armenian way of thinking about election in a general way. You know what I hold on this, you’ve read what I’ve written in the commentary, I don’t really have anything to add to this in terms of more Calvinist reading of this particular argument.