Romans 9:6–13

Original Meaning

The Thesis of Chapters 9–11: The Reliability of God (9:6a)

IN VERSE 6A we hear the thesis that Paul defends in these three chapters: “It is not as though God’s word had failed.” This issue arises because Israel’s cursed status (9:3) appears to contradict the blessings and promises God had bestowed on her (9:4–5). To defend the gospel, Paul must defend God’s faithfulness to his promises to Israel. For if God has gone back on his word to Israel, then a deep chasm between the Old and New Testament opens up, and the good news can no longer claim the God of Israel as its author. The whole plan of salvation crashes.

Bridging Contexts

PAUL’S QUOTATIONS of the Old Testament. Granted Paul’s purpose in Romans 9–11, we should not be surprised to find these chapters filled with quotations of the Old Testament. An exact count is difficult because it is not always clear what should count as a quotation (as opposed to an allusion) and because it is hard to know how to count composite quotations. But a rough count finds twenty-four quotations in Romans 9–11. When we consider that there are about eighty quotations in all Paul’s letters, this figure is remarkable. In other words, 30 percent of Paul’s Old Testament quotations are in these three chapters.8 Thus, an accurate interpretation demands a careful look at how Paul uses the Old Testament to buttress and illustrate his argument. We will set the stage here by looking at the function of the four quotations in verses 6–13.

All four of these quotations are taken from Old Testament passages that describe the way God has acted in history to create the “line of promise.” Through Abraham God brought into being a people who would be blessed by him and, in turn, be a blessing to the nations (Gen. 12:1–3). Knowing this promise and recognizing that his wife, Sarah, was infertile, Abraham had a child, Ishmael, through Sarah’s maidservant, Hagar (Gen. 16). But God insisted that it would be through a son of Sarah that the people of promise would be created (17:15–16), and Paul quotes from these assurances in Romans 9:9 (Gen. 18:10, 14).

Once Sarah had given birth to her son, Isaac, she wanted to drive away Hagar and Ishmael so that they would not compete for the inheritance. Abraham was reluctant, but God assured him by promising to make Ishmael into a nation and by assuring him that through Isaac he would “reckon” Abraham’s offspring. Paul quotes this promise (from Gen. 21:12) in Romans 9:7. In their Old Testament context, then, these texts emphasize that God selected Isaac to be the one through whom he would create a special people of blessing and through whom his promise would be fulfilled.

The texts about Jacob and Esau (in vv. 12–13) are similar. Again we find God selecting one individual over another to carry on the line of promise. God’s determinative role in elevating Jacob over Esau is seen in his prediction to Rebekah, their mother, that the older twin would serve the younger (Gen. 25:23, quoted in Rom. 9:12). Then hundreds of years later, speaking to the tension between the nations of Israel and Edom in his day, the prophet Malachi reminds the people how God determined to bless “Jacob” (= Israel) and to reject and condemn “Esau” (= Edom) (Mal. 1:2–3, quoted in Rom. 9:13).

What seems clear is that none of these texts says anything directly about the spiritual fate of the individuals Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, and Esau. The Old Testament does not—at least in these texts—reflect on whether they were saved or not; it is concerned solely with the roles they would play in salvation history. God’s election of them is not election to salvation but election to play a certain role in the unfolding plan of God. If Paul is using these texts in accordance with their original intent, he, too, must be reflecting on the way God has chosen certain people, or nations, to play positive and negative roles in salvation history. Isaac, Jacob, and Israel contributed to God’s plan by carrying on his promise. Ishmael, Esau, and Edom contributed also to that plan by opposing God and his people and giving God the opportunity to display his glory.

As most Bible students know, this conclusion has important ramifications for the theology of Romans 9. For this passage has been a basic source of support for a Calvinist view of election. But if Paul applies Old Testament texts according to their original intent, the Calvinists’ appeal to Romans 9 is undercut and perhaps excluded altogether. Calvinist interpreters have then made the mistake of reading election to salvation into a text that is not about that at all.9

In the Contemporary Significance section, we will evaluate this claim. But here, as a step toward that end, we want to consider the significance of the Old Testament quotations. The difficulty with the line of argument that we have outlined in the last paragraph is simply this: Paul does not always apply his Old Testament quotations in accordance with their original intent. The whole matter of “the use of the Old Testament in the New” is complicated and debated. But most scholars agree that Paul, as well as other New Testament authors, find significance in Old Testament passages they quote that goes beyond the meaning of the original.

We have an outstanding example of this “shift of application” in Paul’s quotation of Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 in Romans 9:25–26. Paul applies an Old Testament passage about the northern tribes of Israel to the Gentiles. This same kind of shift occurs frequently in Paul. We do not think Paul quotes the Old Testament arbitrarily or that he is unfair to the meaning of the original. Rather, he finds a deeper significance in the Old Testament text by reading it in light of the climax of salvation history in Jesus Christ.10 But the upshot is that we cannot assume that Paul will apply the texts he quotes with exactly the same sense they have in their own context.

This, of course, does not mean that Paul does not often do so. Interpreters who deny that Paul can be speaking about individual salvation in 9:6–13 because of the Old Testament texts he cites may have a legitimate argument. But that is not a decisive argument. We cannot be sure that Paul applies these texts to the historical origins of the line of promise. Paul may be treating Isaac and Jacob on the one hand and Ishmael and Esau on the other ahistorically, as types of salvation and damnation.11 Or he may be citing the history of the promise in order to isolate a principle of God’s sovereign calling that he applies to the salvation of individuals in his own day.12 Only a careful appraisal of verses 6–13 in their context can decide this issue.

Contemporary Significance

GOD’S RELIABILITY. Can God be trusted to do what he says? This is the ultimate question Paul seeks to answer in chapters 9–11. God’s dealings with Israel raise the question, but its implications go much further. If God indeed promised he would bless Israel and then turned around and blessed the church instead, he might do the same again. His promises to the church might in turn be fulfilled, for instance, in a completely different entity. His promises to me personally as a believer might not be reliable either. Absolute trust in God to accomplish what he has promised is fundamental to our security as believers.

In Romans 8, Paul has mentioned some of those wonderful promises: God works all things touching our lives for good (8:28); our present sufferings are as nothing compared to the glory God will give us (8:18); nothing will keep us from enjoying that glory in the end (8:29–30; cf. vv. 31–39). Will God keep those promises to us? Absolutely! For God is utterly trustworthy and all-powerful. Nothing can keep him from doing what he said he will do. Our human parents usually want the very best for us, but they do not have the power always to make it happen. Other people in our lives have the power to fulfill their promises to us (my boss can give me the raise he promised; the government can provide for my failing years), but they are not always trustworthy. God combines both in his fatherly concern for us, his dearly loved children.

God’s election. Throughout this commentary, the contemporary significance we have derived has often been theological in nature. I make no apology for this, for the text often demands such application. Paul is trying to help us understand the gospel, and he wants us to think the right things about it. It is the mind of the Christian he is seeking to shape.

Of course, the shaping of our minds has important practical ramifications. The theology Paul teaches is always practical theology: Truth about God that must change our perspective and, ultimately, our behavior. Thus, we have sought to show where Paul’s theology might lead in terms of contemporary issues and of Christian lifestyle. But we deliberately seek to avoid the impression that what a believer thinks is somehow not worthy to be significant in its own right.

Verses 6–13 are a case in point. Paul’s purpose is not to set forth Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob as people whose behavior we are to imitate. Any application of this passage along such lines betrays its integrity. What Paul is doing is trying to convince us of a theological truth by reminding us of how God has acted in the past. The significance of the passage will lie in determining just what that truth is.

As we noted above, Romans 9:6–23 has long been used to support what we generally know as a Calvinistic view of election. We briefly described the basics of this view in our comments on 8:29–30. To recapitulate: Calvinists think that God chooses individuals to be saved based on nothing but his own free decision. Nothing a person has done or will do—not even faith—has any bearing on God’s choice. As Augustine, in some ways a forerunner of Calvinism, put it, “God does not choose us because we believe, but that we may believe.”13 But does Romans 9:6–23 teach this? In our discussion of verses 14–23 we will tackle the volatile issue of “double predestination.” Here we will focus on the issue of election to salvation.

One can understand why Calvinists think that verses 6–13 support their understanding of election. Paul explicitly says he is talking about “election” (v. 11), and he uses the related language of “calling” twice (vv. 7, 12). Throughout the passage, he makes clear that God’s calling had nothing to do with one’s natural descent (v. 8) or one’s works (vv. 11–12). The initiative is clearly with God as the “[one] who calls” (v. 12), not with what a person does.

Arminians, of course, who believe that God chooses people on the basis of his seeing ahead of time who will believe and who will not, do not think the passage teaches the “unconditional election” of Calvinist soteriology. They tend to fall into two camps in their interpretation of these verses. (1) Some think Paul is indeed teaching about individual salvation, but that nothing in the passage excludes the idea that God’s choice of people to be saved is based on foreseen faith. Paul is at pains to deny that works have any role in God’s choice, but Paul says nothing about faith. In light of the vital role that Paul gives to human believing in chapters 1–4, we are surely justified in assuming it in this passage.14

(2) But most contemporary Arminian interpreters take the tack that we have already described in the previous section: The text is simply not about individual salvation. Paul is writing about how God has acted in history to create his own people and to further his plan of salvation. He is ultimately concerned not about individuals but about nations: Israel and the Gentiles. Where individuals may come into play, they either represent nations or the focus is on their role in history, not their eternal destiny.

Arminian interpreters are right to protest against the tendency of many interpreters to import the issues of later Christian theology into Paul’s first-century text. Too easily we read Paul against our own individualistic heritage and miss the corporate concerns of the first century (see comments on 5:12–21). As we noted above, the Old Testament texts Paul cites may suggest he is thinking about the destiny of nations in history, not about that of individuals in the afterlife. Nevertheless, when all allowance is made for these points, I think that 9:6–13 does support a Calvinist view of election. Two points are particularly important.

(1) The words Paul uses throughout these verses are words that he elsewhere applies to the salvation of individuals:

Being “the offspring” (sperma) of Abraham (9:7–8)—cf. 4:13, 16, 18; Gal. 3:16, 19, 29 (the only exception is 2 Cor. 11:22)

“Regarded [or reckoned] as” (logizomai eis) (9:8)—cf. 2:26; 4:3, 5, 9, 22 (Gen. 15:6); cf. also Rom. 4:4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 23, 24; Gal. 3:6 (Gen. 15:6)

Being “the children of the promise” (9:8)—cf. Gal. 4:28

“Call” (kaleo), when God is the subject (9:12; cf. v. 7)—cf. 8:30; 9:24–26; 1 Cor. 1:9; 7:15, 17–18, 20–22, 24; Gal. 1:6, 15; 5:8, 13; Eph. 4:1, 4; Col. 3:15; 1 Thess. 2:12; 4:7; 5:24; 2 Thess. 2:14; 1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 1:9

“Not by [or apart from] works” (9:12)—cf. 4:6; 9:32; 11:6; Eph. 2:9

Taken together, this complex of vocabulary points unmistakably to the issue of salvation. Contact with Romans 4, where Paul shows how Abraham and his descendants were credited righteousness by their faith and not by their works, is particularly obvious.

(2) A reference to the way God saves individuals suits the context best. Paul is trying to show why there exists a spiritual Israel within physical Israel (v. 6b). Reference to God’s election of Israel as a nation does not serve this argument, nor does an analysis of the way God has used people in salvation history. What he seeks to show is that God’s promise to Israel never guaranteed salvation for all Jews. Verses 6–13 advance this argument only if Paul is applying what he says there to the status of individual Jews. We agree, then, with the basic thesis of John Piper in his careful analysis of this passage: Paul uses the Old Testament story of God’s sovereign selection of Isaac and Jacob to establish a basic principle about the way God selects people.15 The language Paul uses and the context of the verses make it clear that he applies this principle to God’s election of individuals to salvation.

But, we rightly ask, how about my faith? Is it of no importance then? A meaningless, robotic response that God forces me to make? The Arminian has a legitimate protest at this point. Nevertheless, I don’t think we can smuggle faith into verses 6–13 as the basis on which God chooses. Paul makes not just the negative point, that God does not choose on the basis of works, but the positive point also: He chooses based on his decision to choose (v. 12a).

Nevertheless, faith cannot be omitted from the salvation equation. However much we may want to claim that salvation is based on God’s choice, we must also insist that the human decision to believe is also both real and critical. We are not puppets in God’s hands, passively moving as he directs. We are responsible human beings, called by God to exercise faith in his Son. The evidence of Scripture compels us to maintain a fine balance at this point. The Bible teaches in passages such as 9:6–13 that God is the one who ultimately determines, by his own free decision, who is to be saved. But it also teaches that every human being is called upon to respond to God’s offer of salvation in faith.

Paul himself seeks to keep this balance in these chapters. In 9:6–29, he maintains that Israel is set aside because of God’s decision. But in 9:30–10:21, he argues that Israel is set aside because she has willfully refused to believe. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility in salvation stand in some tension with one another, but they are not logically contradictory.16 To be truly biblical, we must carefully maintain a balance in which both are given full weight.

What difference, we may finally ask, does it finally make whether I believe in the Calvinist view of unconditional election or not? I need to write carefully here. On the one hand, both Calvinism and Arminianism are fully orthodox views. Each can marshal impressive biblical support in its favor. I am thankful to teach in a school and worship in a church where each view is strongly represented and where proponents of each view accept and honor those who hold the opposite view. On the other hand, I do not want to suggest that it makes no difference which view we believe or that each one has equal support from the Bible.

I am generally (though not consistently) Calvinistic in my soteriology. I think the Bible supports my view, and it does make a difference. How? Primarily in doing full justice to the biblical presentation of a God who is both all-powerful and completely free in his actions. In a text closely related to Romans 9, Paul makes the point that God’s election cannot be “by works,” for, if it were, “grace would no longer be grace” (11:5–6). Now my Arminian brothers and sisters will insist that foreseen faith, as the product of “prevenient grace,” need be no threat to God’s freedom and grace. But by making the human decision to believe the crucial point of distinction between those who are saved and those who are not, and thus making God’s election a response to human choice, this perspective seems to me to minimize the power and wonder of grace.

Original Meaning

The Thesis of 9:7–29: The “Israel” within Israel (9:6b)

VERSE 6B SETS forth the thesis for verses 7–29: “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” Clearly, Paul differentiates two “Israels”: what we might call a “physical” Israel, based on descent, and a “spiritual” Israel. What is the “spiritual” Israel Paul has in view? While the point is debated, we think it likely that in Galatians 6:16, Paul refers to the entire church as “Israel,” as the NIV translates: “Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.” With this translation and punctuation, “Israel of God,” is identical to “all who follow the rule”—in the context including both Jewish and Gentile Christians.1 This, then, may be what Paul means here: Not all Jews by birth belong to the “Israel of God,” the church.2

But this use of the word “Israel” is quite out of keeping in Romans 9–11, where Paul is so concerned to guard the continuing privileges of Israel. Nor does it fit the development of the argument in 9:7–13, which focuses on God’s choice of a spiritual people from within physical Israel. Almost certainly, then, the “Israel” at the end of verse 6 is the spiritual Israel that is to be found within physical Israel. All Jews belong to the larger Israel by birth, but only those Jews called by God belong to the true Israel.