Today we’re looking at Romans Chapter 9, which is Paul’s attempt to answer this question:

If unbelieving Jews won’t be saved, does that make God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament null and void? Is the Lord a liar?

Paul’s answer? It was always about faith, and never about simple ethnicity.

9:1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Paul begins by sharing the pain that he has experienced because so few of the Jews have accepted Jesus as Messiah, despite the fact that they have the amazing heritage of God’s chosen people.

6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 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.” 8 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. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”

10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
    and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

Is God unfaithful to his promises? Paul says, “No!”

Paul points out that there were always two “Israels”—the people literally descended from Abraham, and then the ones God chose as his people. So, Ishmael is descended from Abraham, but God chose Isaac; Esau is descended from Abraham, but God chose Jacob.

Think of it like the church: there are folks who are church members in name but not in spirit, but then there are those who have actually put their trust in Jesus. It’s not possible for us to see into human hearts and know the truth about people, but God can. There is the true church and the false church. Paul says it is exactly the same for Israel—it is the people of faith who are truly the chosen people, not just the ones descended from Abraham by blood.

There is an Israel within Israel.

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?25 As he says in Hosea:

“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
    and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

26 and,

“In the very place where it was said to them,
    ‘You are not my people,’
    there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
    only the remnant will be saved.
28 For the Lord will carry out
    his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”

29 It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless the Lord Almighty
    had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
    we would have been like Gomorrah.”

Paul knows that people will object and say that it’s unfair that not everyone in Israel will be saved. Here, he’s not talking about faith or personal response—just the fact that God only saves those who have faith in him. And Paul’s point is that it’s not unfair at all—God can do whatever he wants.

30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:

“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall,
    and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

So, how is it that the Gentiles ended up turning in faith to God while the Jews, who had previously received the Law, did not? Paul says it’s because they forgot that the whole thing (starting with Abraham) was always about faith.