Original Meaning

PUTTING A PARAGRAPH break between 9:23 and 9:24 may seem strange, since the sentence Paul began in verse 22 continues into verse 24: The “even us” picks up the reference to “objects of his mercy” in verse 23. But the loose syntactical continuity masks the fact that Paul in verse 24 is returning to the main course of his argument. We now hear again the theme that dominated 9:6–13: God’s call is the sole basis for inclusion in the true people of God. “What counts is grace, not race,” as N. T. Wright puts it.1

Paul now takes a step further by taking this principle to its logical conclusion. Since God’s grace is what matters, then he is free to call Gentiles into his kingdom as well as Jews. The apostle makes this point in verse 24, the “heading” for the paragraph. He then grounds his assertion with quotations from Scripture. The structure of the paragraph is chiastic, the verses falling into an A B B′ A′ pattern:

A God calls (some) Jews (v. 24a)

B God calls Gentiles (v. 24b)

B′ Old Testament confirms God’s call of Gentiles (vv. 25–26)

A′ Old Testament confirms God’s call of (some) Jews (vv. 27–29)

The verb “call” (kaleo) has its usual sense when God is its subject: his effective summons to enter into relationship with himself. It is another way of describing what Paul has said in 9:23, that the people to whom God shows mercy are “prepared [beforehand]” by him for that blessing and for eventual glory. In Paul’s day, those people included both Jews and Gentiles. In fact, in Rome and elsewhere on the mission field, it was increasingly becoming the case that Gentiles outnumbered Jews. It is just this unexpected circumstance that Paul is trying to reconcile with the Old Testament here. Thus, he quotes Scripture to substantiate both sides of the situation.

Since he has mentioned the Gentiles last, Paul begins with them. His quotes in verses 25 and 26 are from the book of Hosea. He quotes freely from Hosea 2:23 in verse 25 and then verbatim from the LXX of Hosea 1:10a in verse 26. Although the promise of inclusion into God’s people in Hosea is directed to the northern tribes of Israel, Paul applies it to the Gentiles. By God’s gracious call, they have been transferred from the status of “not my people” and “not my loved one” to the status of “my people,” “my loved one,” and “sons of the living God.”

Under the old covenant, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 2, the Gentiles were “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). While God graciously extended his covenant grace to some Gentiles (e.g., Rahab, Ruth; see also the book of Jonah), his people were largely identified with, or drawn from, Israel. Under the new covenant, however, all that has changed. God shows no distinction, giving his grace to both Jew and Gentile alike. This, Paul insists, was predicted in the Old Testament itself (see Bridging Contexts section for more on Paul’s use of Hosea).

If the Old Testament and Jewish tradition make it important for Paul to justify the inclusion of Gentiles, it also requires him to show why not all Jews are being included. Thus the quotations he uses about Israel in verses 27–29 focus not on God’s call of Jews per se but on his call of only a minority of Jews. Isaiah 10:22–23, quoted in part in Romans 9:27–28, is one of the great “remnant” texts in the Old Testament. The remnant conception emerged in the prophets as a message of both judgment and hope—judgment, because the continuing sinfulness of Israel brought God’s judgment on the people as a whole, resulting in the salvation of only some of the people; hope, because despite Israel’s sinfulness, God maintained his commitment to his covenant and pledged to save at least some of the people.

We hear both notes in the Isaiah 10 quotation. On the one hand, though the people of Israel are numerous, God will save only the remnant. (The word “only” has nothing corresponding to it in the Greek text, but is a legitimate contextual gloss.) On the other hand, this remnant will be saved. Verse 28, which quotes from Isaiah 10:23, is difficult to interpret. But probably it reinforces the note of judgment from Romans 9:27: God will carry out the judgment he has decreed against Israel with certainty and with dispatch.

Paul ends his series of quotations with another one from Isaiah (Isa. 1:9, quoted in Rom. 9:29). What probably drew his attention to Isaiah 1:9 is the word “descendants” (Gk. sperma), which is the key word at the beginning of this section (see comments on Rom. 9:7–8). This word is much more positive, holding out hope to Israel because God is determined to preserve “descendants” for Israel—people who will inherit this promise to Abraham. The verse thus anticipates Paul’s word of hope about Israel in chapter 11.

Bridging Contexts

HOSEA, ISAIAH, AND PAUL. As we have repeatedly said in this commentary, we must pay careful attention to Paul’s use of the Old Testament if we expect to get the full meaning out of Romans. The series of four quotations in 9:25–29 affords a fascinating example of this “deeper” reading of the letter.

What first strikes the alert reader is that Paul seems to have misapplied his quotations of Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 in Romans 9:25–26. Hosea prophecies about the mercy God will show to the rejected northern tribes of Israel; Paul applies the prophecies to the inclusion of Gentiles. We can avoid the conflict if we interpret Hosea to be referring to Gentiles2 or Paul to be referring to Jews.3 But neither alternative does justice to the respective texts. Others think that Paul quotes by analogy: God’s calling of Gentiles operates on the same principle as God’s promised renewal of the ten northern tribes.4 But Paul requires more than an analogy to establish from Scripture justification for God’s calling of Gentiles to be his people. How then do we explain what Paul does here? Is he guilty of taking words out of context to suit his own argument?

We think not. True, Paul is not quoting Hosea in strict accordance with the “original meaning” of the prophecies. But set against the larger picture of salvation history, the prophecies assume a broader significance in accord with the way Paul applies them. The key is the Abraham story. Especially the divine promises that are basic to that story provide Paul with the key to salvation history and therefore to his hermeneutics of Old Testament interpretation. Indeed, at the risk of exaggeration, we may almost say that continuity with Abraham is the key to Paul’s argument about the Gentiles in Romans.

Abraham is, of course, the basis for Romans 4. But Abraham is also central to the argument about the nature and extent of the people of God in Romans 9–11. The chapters begin with a reminder that Israel possesses the promises and the patriarchs (9:4–5), and all the rest of the discussion is, in a sense, an elaboration of what these promises, connected with the patriarchs, really mean. Thus, the way in which Abraham’s “descendants” are “reckoned” is central in Romans 9. The point, then, about the Hosea prophecies is this: They echo the Abrahamic promise of Genesis.

The opening words of Hosea 1:10 (which Paul does not quote) predict that the “Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted.” This theme of innumerable descendants is a constant refrain in the Abrahamic promise texts of Genesis, and the analogy with the “dust of the earth” or “the sand on the seashore” is used four times (Gen. 13:16; 22:17; 28:14; 32:12). As Douglas Stuart reconstructs the logic, then, Paul can quote Hosea to refer to Gentiles because “those who are in Christ constitute Abraham’s seed, of whom this prediction of great growth was made….”5

That our explanation of Paul’s use of Hosea is on the right track is confirmed by the fact that Abrahamic allusions surface in the two other quotations in these verses as well. Isaiah 10:22, quoted in Romans 9:27, uses “the sand by the sea” language from Genesis. And Isaiah 1:9, quoted in Romans 9:29, picks up the key word “descendants” (sperma) from the Abraham story (see 4:13, 16, 18; 9:7–8). Paul began this section (see comments on 9:7–9) by affirming that Abraham’s true “descendants” are selected by God from among all his “children.” He ends it by affirming that Abraham’s descendants also number people who are not biologically related to him at all. All who have faith are ultimately Abraham’s children (4:10–12).

Contemporary Significance

READING THE SCRIPTURE STORY. Paul’s reading of the Old Testament against a broad theological background says something to us about our own reading of the Scriptures. Scholars debate about whether modern Christians should interpret and apply the Old Testament with the same degree of creativity that the New Testament writers did. But surely we should follow their lead in reading the Old Testament as a single integral story about God’s plan of redemption that finds its fulfillment in Christ. Yet too many of us do not know the story well enough to do that. We read bits and pieces of the Old Testament over time, but often have little idea about how the whole thing fits together. Would we read a novel of Dickens like that—opening up a chapter or a page at random and seeing what “we can get out of it”?

Admittedly, the Bible cannot ultimately be compared to a novel, and we can learn a great deal by reading a single psalm, proverb, or book. But we will not appreciate the significance of specific texts until we have an idea of where they fit into the story line. Years ago preachers and teachers could assume that most of their listeners knew that story line. They were addressing people who had grown up with the biblical story, whether in church or in the culture. But we cannot assume that any more in our post-Christian society. At the seminary where I teach, we have had to revamp our curriculum, installing some basic Bible survey requirements for graduate students because we have learned we cannot assume they are familiar with the Bible’s story.

Those of us who preach and teach, therefore, need to take more seriously the importance of helping the people to whom we minister to see the big picture of the Bible’s wonderful narrative of God’s redemptive plan. We need to offer classes that expose people to the breadth of the Scripture story. We need to make sure to show how specific texts inform, and are informed by, the Scriptures as a whole. And all of us—preachers, teachers, and laypeople alike—need to learn the “old, old story” so well that we can revel in the marvelous interrelationship between all the parts of Scripture.