Romans 9–11 is a difficult and debated section of Scripture in terms of God’s role in salvation and ethnic Israel’s role in the redemptive plan of God. Over the next few weeks, I hope to crystallize my own thoughts about these chapters into a few posts, passage by passage, as we work through this section of Scripture as a church, making devotional comments along the way.
Reminding ourselves of the context, Paul has just focused on the glory that will certainly come to us who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:18–39). As for Israel, however, Paul’s prose turns to pain for his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3). He has “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” for Israelites who do not believe even though God’s many blessings belong to them (Rom 9:1–5).
These first five verses set the tenor for Romans 9–11 and should guide our discussions about these matters as well. To speak of “God’s purpose of election” (Rom 9:11) involves speaking of those who are not the elect—those whose fate should bring great sadness to our hearts. We should also remember that, as mysterious and incomprehensible as it is to us and our finite minds, God justly holds unbelievers accountable not on the basis of His promises and election but on the basis of their rejection of Him (cf. Rom 1:18–20; 2:8–9).
Paul then heads all that follows with this hopeful statement: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed” (Rom 9:6). If “the word of God” here involves the promise of salvation for all of Israel (cf. Rom 11:26a), and if most Israelites are presently “accursed and cut off from Christ” (Rom 9:3), how can we understand God to be faithful to His promises?
This is no small issue. If God made salvation promises to an Israel who has rejected these promises, how are to feel about God’s salvation promises to us in Romans 1–8? Will we fail to realize these promises as well?
Paul immediately explains God’s faithfulness to His word with this principle: “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Rom 9:6b). God never meant to save every single Israelite but only a spiritual remnant of Israelites within ethnic Israel as a whole (cf. Rom 2:28–29; Gal 6:16; e.g., Rom 11:1).
Two examples illustrate this principle of selectivity (Rom 9:7–13). First, God chose Isaac to receive His promises and not all of Abraham’s children. Only “the children of promise are counted as offspring,” a “counting” that comes by faith (Rom 9:7–9; cf. 4:3). Second, God chose Jacob to receive His promises and not Esau (Rom 9:10–13), a choice that could only be God’s because it was before their birth, with no thought to their works, and given to the younger of the twins. Verses quoted along the way are Gen 18:10, 14; 21:12; 25:23; and Mal 1:2–3.
If you think God’s selection of who receives His promises is unfair, Paul answers this matter as well and defends the justice and sovereignty of God in the verses to follow, which I hope to discuss in the weeks ahead.
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