Romans 9:6–16

Paul had been teaching that all, whether Jew or Gentile, come into blessing on the ground of sovereign grace. At once the Jew raises the objection that this teaching denies the promises which come to them on the ground of natural descent. The apostle answers that not all who are of Israel by natural descent are the true Israel of God — the Israel God made the promises to. He then turns to Scripture to prove his point.

Their objection assumed that God had to bless the whole race descended from Abraham. But that would open the promises to the Ishmaelites as well. Not so, cries the Jew: the promise runs only through Isaac. Then, the apostle could reply, natural descent is an unsound principle... So to shut out the Ishmaelites, they must themselves fall back on the promise tied to the line of Isaac. Promise decides, then, not flesh... Descent by birth alone secures no inward blessing. "The Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit" is more than one of Jacob's descendants: not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

Of all people, Israel could least afford to quarrel with God's sovereignty. Again and again He had used it in their favour... God made a sovereign choice in regard to the sons of both Abraham and Isaac. He chose Isaac and Jacob, and set aside Ishmael and Esau. Anyone objecting to God making a choice would have to wipe out every distinction between themselves and the Ishmaelites and Edomites. They would not consider that for a moment. So God was only continuing what He had already done. Not all who were of Israel by natural descent were the true Israel of God.

God's reckoning is a spiritual one. Natural birth cannot presume to claim blessings that God gives for spiritual reasons. Jacob was named Israel only when his flesh was touched and left shriveled. How then can natural Israel claim to be "Israelites indeed"? Their flesh is far from shriveled — it is the very thing they boast in. That is Jacob, not Israel.

This explains that verse, "all Israel will be saved." Remembering that "not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel," we see here the unreal cut off. But God lets none of the true seed, the true children, perish; they are all saved. They are truly Israelites. The national adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises are all theirs.

You claim to be children — and the only children of promise — because you are Abraham's natural seed. But it is written, "In Isaac shall your seed be called." If you take it as descent according to the flesh, you must let in the Ishmaelites. The Jew would answer, "Ah, that was a slave — not a true child of promise." Still it showed that the children according to the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of promise.

Not so, cries the Jew: the promise is only in the line of Isaac. Then, might the apostle reply, natural descent is an unsound principle... They themselves therefore, to exclude the Ishmaelites, must fall back on the promise tied to the line of Isaac. Promise therefore, not flesh, decides.

The flesh can produce nothing except what is flesh... God knew its character from the beginning. He knew it was a corrupt source and therefore a source of nothing but corruption. So He passed by Ishmael, the child of the flesh. His election rested on Isaac, the child of promise — the son whose origin lay in the resurrection power of God, expressed in His promise of earlier years.

Ishmael was no true heir of promise, for his birth was at the will and in the power of the flesh. In natural order he was Abraham's heir. But natural inheritance can never take in the promises of God. The word of promise must create its own fit object, according to the power of God. So Isaac's birth waits until the force of nature is spent, so that his birth might be of God.

They themselves therefore, to exclude the Ishmaelites, must fall back on the promise tied to the line of Isaac. Promise therefore, not flesh, decides... Fleshly descent alone secures no inward blessing... God must be left free; and He is pleased to call Isaac, not Ishmael in the same way.

Sovereignty therefore is the only source of hope for Israel. The chapter reasons this out further and applies it to Jacob, shutting out Esau — though they had the same mother as well as father, and were even twins. But the same sovereignty of God was Israel's only resource at Mount Sinai, when everything else had ended in ruin for the people as a whole through their worship of the golden calf... Driven from the ground of law, as well as of lineal descent, what could they fall back on? On the sovereign mercy of God.

The unbelieving mass of the nation are children of Abraham according to the flesh. But only the believing remnant are the true seed according to promise. Still, even the children according to the flesh would be great upon the earth.

In Isaac we see that family who are "born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God," and who stand in liberty. As the apostle says, "Now we, brothers, as Isaac was, are the children of promise." We are Abraham's seed — so many Isaacs, children of the free woman, or in the adoption, if we are Christ's.

The word of God keeps all its force. Only man is at fault, and the Jew above all. Their objection assumed that God was bound to bless the whole race descended naturally from Abraham. But this would open the promises to the Ishmaelites. Not so, cries the Jew: the promise runs only in the line of Isaac. Then, the apostle may reply, natural descent is an unsound principle... Promise, not flesh, decides... This is universally true. Descent according to the flesh, on its own, secures no inward blessing.

You claim to be children — children of promise only, as Abraham's natural seed. But it is written, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." If you take it as descent according to the flesh, you must let in the Ishmaelites... And there is more. Rebecca conceived by one man, Isaac. Here no one could dodge the point by pleading a slave mother. Before the children were born, before they had done anything good or bad, it was said that the older would serve the younger. If the title goes by fleshly descent, you must let in the Edomites. If the Jew would not agree to that, he must agree to sovereignty in election.

The flesh can produce nothing except what is flesh. The Lord Himself declared this plainly (John 3:6), and His death set flesh aside completely and condemned it — its judicial end. Still, God knew its character from the beginning. He knew it was a corrupt source, and therefore a source of nothing but corruption. So He passed by Ishmael, the child of the flesh. His election rested on Isaac, the child of promise — the son who came into being by the resurrection power of God, as expressed in His promise of earlier years.

One son, the elder, Ishmael, was born in the natural way... The other child, Isaac, was not. His father was a hundred years old. His mother was ninety, and had long before lost the power to have children. But God had promised that Sarah should have a son... God's promises are always true. He is the faithful God (Deuteronomy 7:9). So, in God's own time, He sent Abraham a son by Sarah his wife. This son was truly a "child of promise."

The Jew was ready enough to bring that statement forward as a bar to any claim the Ishmaelites might have made. He gladly agreed with it. But he did not see, until the apostle pointed it out, that it had a wider application, and one that came closer to home — dealing a death-blow to any hope of divine blessing simply on the ground of natural descent... They might, as the Lord had told them (John 8:37, 39), be Abraham's seed and yet not be Abraham's children.

Samuel, like Samson, was a child of promise. A child of promise is always the sign of grace (Romans 9:8). As it says, "not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."

The inspired apostle cannot contradict himself. The Bishop sets Romans 2 and 9 against Romans 11:25-26. But that passage, beyond any real dispute, declares that "all Israel will be saved," after the fullness of the Gentiles — now being called by the gospel — has come in... Romans 2 only insists that a bare name and outward form are worthless, and that reality counts: true now, as well as in that day. Mere fleshly descent from Israel is of no use.

The Apostle next takes up the story of Isaac and proves the same principle by his two sons. With Abraham, a Jew might object that the two sons had different mothers. No one can object that way about the sons of Isaac. Jacob and Esau were both sons of Rebecca. If the blessing comes by natural descent, then the children of both sons would inherit the promises. But that would force the Jew to include the Edomites, the people descended from Esau. No Jew would do that.

There is more. Rebecca conceived by one man, Isaac. Here no one could dodge the point by saying the mother was a slave. Before the children were born, before they had done good or bad, God said the elder shall serve the younger. If the right comes by natural descent, you must let the Edomites in. If the Jew did not consent to this, he must consent to sovereignty in election.

In the first case the mother was different, even if the father was not. In His wisdom God saw a need to show His sovereign choice even more plainly. And that is what happened here. Esau had the same father and the same mother as Jacob, and the two were twins. No closer match between two people could be found than these two sons of Isaac and Rebecca.

Rebecca was the wife of Isaac the heir of promise. God had appointed her for him, and God sped Abraham's servant on his way to find her (Gen. 24). God, then, was in the birth of Isaac and the choice of Rebecca. Further, the conception of Rebecca was in answer to the prayer of Isaac's faith. He prayed for seed, and a double answer came; twins were in the womb of Rebecca.

So the apostle contrasts God's call with works, not with our faith. He does this to shut out a weak idea some writers have held: that God's choice is governed by seeing ahead which man would turn out better. Language could not contradict this more plainly. Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him.

This shows us that God chooses because of what He is in Himself, not because of what men show themselves to be by their works.

Esau has no ground for complaint. God chose Jacob before he was born. But God did not say "Esau I have hated" until long after Esau was born, and not until Esau's character, and the character of his descendants, had been shown in full. (Mal. 1:3)

He proves to Israel that arguing against God's sovereign right to choose means giving up everything they have been given. For how did they get in? Was it by birth? No; for on that ground Ishmael and Esau had the precedence. Was it by works? No; for they made the golden calf. How then? Simply by God's sovereign mercy. Well then, if God is sovereign, He can show mercy to whoever He wants. And blessed be His Name, because that opens the door for us poor Gentiles — the nations outside Israel.

Through Isaac shall your offspring be named; but the Jewish objector might say, Yes, but Hagar was a slave, and Ishmael slave-born. Well, but take Esau and Jacob of one mother — that is a case no one can object to. Yet Jacob was chosen, not Esau, and it was of pure grace, before they had done good or evil. The circumstances were natural, but the principle, pure sovereign grace, is to set aside the national claims of the Jews. They must let in Ishmaelites and Edomites, or allow God to be sovereign.

Even before their birth, God chose the younger son Jacob to receive the place of earthly supremacy. This proves that they were not blessed on the ground of their own works. When God spoke of their relative positions, they were not born, and they had done neither good nor evil. Afterwards they both did evil: but God secured, by His own faithfulness to His promise, the place of supremacy for Jacob.

The apostle contrasts the call of God with works, rather than our faith. He does this to cut off the poor semi-Pelagianism of teachers old and new, which would make election governed by the foreseen superiority of one to the other. Language could not contradict that idea more exactly. Esau had done no ill to disqualify him, Jacob no good to qualify him; but before either of the twins was born, God in the exercise of His sovereign will chose that the greater should serve the lesser. Such was His purpose. Their works had nothing to do with the matter. Paul shuts them out, so that all rests on the caller, God Himself.

It is "not because of works" — neither works done at the moment when God chooses, nor works done later: it is "not because of works" at all! It is "of Him who calls". Here is the true source, origin and centre of divine purpose and election: it is in "Him who calls", in God Himself.

Esau had nature's right of inheritance, for he was the firstborn. But what was to be inherited was divine promise, and that can rest only in the vessel prepared to receive it. So God's calling runs ahead of the course of nature, and contradicts it. Blessing is kept in God.

There is no ground here for that absolute reprobation which Calvin deduces from this place. Not a syllable is hinted as to hating the unborn Esau in Genesis 25. Man is quick to infer the rejection of the one from the choice of the other. This is unfounded. Out of two who have no claim, to choose one to a superior place is to exercise will. But to show favour in one case is not to condemn the other. Both were born in sin and grew up in sins. That is what makes a person liable to condemnation, which turns on man's sins, not on God's purpose. It is not God's word to Rebekah, but the word spoken through the prophet Malachi, that speaks of hating Esau. It was at the very close of the Old Testament, after Esau had displayed his unrelenting enmity to Israel. The love to Jacob was thus free; the hatred had moral grounds in Esau.

The wisdom and rightness of God's choice is always revealed in the after history, and thus His election always justifies itself in its results. Before Esau and Jacob were born the divine word was "the older will serve the younger." A thousand years after their careers were over it was put on record, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

His choice of Jacob did not depend on what Jacob would be. He did not choose Esau — He chose Jacob. Was God righteous in that? Is there unrighteousness with God? The apostle recoils from the thought. It is really a disrespectful question, which we have no right to raise. It is His right to have a purpose and to carry it out.

The Apostle next takes up the story of Isaac and proves the same principle by his two sons. With Abraham, a Jew might object that the sons had different mothers. No one could raise that objection about the sons of Isaac. Jacob and Esau were both sons of Rebekah. So if the blessing comes by natural descent, the children of both sons would inherit the promises — and then the Jew would have to include the Edomite. No Jew would do that.

The apostle contrasts the call of God with works, not with our faith. He does this to shut out the weak idea, held by some, that God's choice is governed by seeing in advance that one person is better than the other. Language could not contradict that idea more plainly. Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him. But before either twin was born, God in His sovereign will chose that the older should serve the younger.

The purpose of God is according to election i.e. according to God's sovereign choice. This principle 'abides'. It is 'not of works' — neither works done at the moment God chooses, nor works done later: it is 'not of works' at all! ... It is 'of Him who calls'. Here is the true source, origin and centre of God's purpose and election: it is in 'Him who calls' — in God Himself.

Election, then, is distinct from foreknowledge, though based upon it. God's election, or choice, is not a blind, random drawing of lots... He chooses in the full light of His foreknowledge. So no sinner who truly wants to be saved finds the door shut against him because he is not one of the elect. His very desire is the fruit of the Spirit's work.

Verse 13 has caused difficulty. But that statement comes from the book of Malachi. Those words were written long after both men had fully shown what was in them. Verse 12, by contrast, records what God said before their birth.

Nothing shows this more fully than the choice of the younger son before either was born. When the younger son is chosen after birth — as with Joseph or David — people can say that his actions or his natural character earned him that preference. The important principle is that none of them have any claim at all.

Here we see their history on earth marked out beforehand. It is all the more striking because the unborn children had the same mother as well as the same father — they were twins... So God showed His sovereignty to be as free as it is sure to faith. This disproves descent by birth, on which the Jews based their exclusive title... His word made the point sharper still by declaring that "the older will serve the younger," and this with a view to the nations they would become.

There is then an election which distinguishes between the children of the promise and the children of the flesh. Once again you must allow the sovereignty of God. Without it, all is over with you since Sinai, where you broke the covenant of the Lord... So there is no unrighteousness with God. You have no room to complain, if He acts toward the Gentiles in the same sovereign mercy which He has shown to you.

Like many others, you confuse two distinct passages of Holy Scripture. God did not say, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," before the children were born. He said it hundreds of years later, after the real character and daily ways of each man had come out fully. Before the children were born He said only this: "the older shall serve the younger." It is more than a sad mistake to represent God as hating a man before he was born. In Amos 1:11 we read, "For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever." Do we not have here ample grounds for the divine hatred?

Esau had done no wrong to disqualify him, and Jacob no good to qualify him. But before either twin was born, God chose by His own sovereign will that the greater should serve the lesser. Such was His purpose. Their works had nothing to do with the matter and count for nothing here. Everything rests on the caller, God Himself.

There is no ground here for the absolute rejection which Calvin draws from this passage. Genesis 25 does not hint by a single syllable at hating the unborn Esau. Man hastily infers the rejection of one from the choice of the other. This is unfounded. Out of two who have no claim, to choose one for a higher place is an act of will. But to show favour in one case is not to condemn the other. In themselves both were born in sin, and no doubt grew up in sins. That is what makes a man liable to condemnation, which turns on man's sins, not on God's purpose... The love to Jacob was free; the hatred had moral grounds in Esau.

Long centuries after both men had lived out their lives and formed their characters, God said, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Jacob, with all his many faults, was a man of faith, and comes into blessing on the ground of grace. Esau, with many natural excellencies, had no fear of God, and misses the blessing though he was the older son by natural descent.

The evidence Malachi gives is drawn wholly, not from God's action towards Esau himself, but from God's judgments on his descendants: "I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert." And in other Scriptures we find that these judgments came on them because of their unrelenting hatred of Israel.

But now go further down in your history, and you come to Jacob and Esau. If you go by descent, you must let in the Edomites on the same terms as yourselves... so your mouth must now be closed as to descent. God's own words stop it: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." He has chosen, by His sovereign right, to bless you, and your blessing depends on that alone... If we ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and truly call Him into question, we are seeking to judge God instead of letting God judge us.

To these arguments the flesh may object that to choose one and not the other is unrighteous. Is there, then, unrighteousness with God? Far from it, says the Apostle. To answer this objection he points to one case in Israel's history. There it is plain that God acted in sovereign grace, and yet no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. There can be no question about the unrighteousness of that act. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all.

If we start to ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God?" and really mean to call Him into question, we are trying to judge God, instead of letting God judge us. Whenever someone questions the sovereignty of God, the soul is saying, in effect: I am the one to judge God, and God is not to judge me.

The truth is that Israel was ruined at the foot of the mountain, the very place where they had promised to obey everything God commanded. And what did God say to Moses? "I will have mercy," and so on. So the sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles turns out to be everything to the Jew.

Mercy is an attribute of God Himself, part of the character of God which showed itself when sin came into the world. In Romans 9:14 we find it stated clearly and with care. Verse 16 guards it: blessing "is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs." Man says, "I will, I run, and so I get blessing." No; that is not the way. Mercy is the root; after mercy follows the will, then the running, then the doing of His commandments.

But here a warning note is struck. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. God may show it in mercy. He may also show it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He showed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He showed it in hardening that king.

But did you ever think it through, or find out where this statement about God's love was written? It is found, as we have already seen, in the last book of the Old Testament — Malachi. God does not record these words until thirteen hundred years after the men named had passed off the scene.

Do you think that God is less just than you? "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!" (Rom. 9:14). Is He less compassionate than you? He has revealed Himself in Jesus, and He "is rich to all who call upon Him" (Rom. 10:12). If He is sovereign, it is in compassion and mercy, while judgment is His strange work. We may rejoice and be glad in the first. The second we do not understand, so we leave it to Him who will do right in all things.

To answer this objection, the Apostle points to one case in Israel's history. There God plainly acted in sovereign grace, and no one could charge Him with unrighteousness. He recalls the terrible sin of Israel when they made a golden calf and worshipped it. Of the unrighteousness of this act there can be no question. They had broken the first command, and the penalty was death. Righteousness could have destroyed them all. But what did God do? He fell back on His sovereignty and said, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." God falls back on the very principle the Jew objects to. Without it, all Israel would have been destroyed.

History and prophecy alike showed that the blessing of Israel hangs on God's sovereignty... So the very sovereignty they disliked when God showed mercy to the Gentiles proves to be everything to the Jew.

Ruth the Moabite is a striking instance in Old Testament times of God's mercy shown outside the limits of Israel, the nation the Lord chose out of all others to be His own people. In this impressive example, the Lord acted on His own right to show favour where, when, and how He pleased.

Once the shared guilt and ruin of every creature has been proved, justice is no longer the question in any display of God's favour towards them... By its very nature, mercy is controlled and directed by the will of the One who shows it. Nothing deserving in the person draws it out. Human misery is itself the natural effect of God's judgment against sin, so it cannot force mercy to act. We must look for its deep and blessed spring in the mystery of the love of God — in God Himself, whose name is Love.

How blessed then for Israel that it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms: the question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights. The truth is that man himself is all wrong, and righteousness rests on God having His rights.

God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in executing judgment. In Israel's case, when they were guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. In Pharaoh's case He displayed it by hardening that king.

In truth, God's sovereignty is always on the side of mercy. Some people fix on one side of the truth and deny another that Scripture states just as strongly — that man is responsible to God. They sometimes go so far as to say that God elects the lost to be damned. Never was there a greater mistake.

Only God can really say "I will". The moment God said that, the death of Christ became a necessity. How could God carry out His will which involved the showing of mercy apart from the cross?

When was it that He said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"? It was when, on grounds of bare righteousness, Israel ought to have been cut off. God then drew back, so to speak, into His sovereignty, to spare Israel. Righteousness would have condemned them as they stood around their golden idol. How blessed then for Israel that it does not depend on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy! Romans 9:16 states this principle in general terms. The question is not man's desires or efforts, but God's will. Besides, when we come to the facts of the case, we find that man neither wishes nor seeks for mercy. It is too late, then, for man to talk of rights.

The words may hint at Isaac's well-known wish, which came to nothing, and at Esau's efforts to gain by the hunt, which failed too. They may hint at Jacob as well, who was faulty enough to lose everything by his trickery — except that sovereign mercy secured the promise to him. It is certainly the conclusion of grace against man's empty confidence in his own will and effort.

Man will have no mercy on himself. Man goes marching to everlasting woe. We can see thousands around us doing this — old and young… "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." This is grace, the free favour of God. He shows mercy to the man who has no mercy for himself. It is not man, the sinner, who chooses God. God chooses the sinner… God has chosen those who never would have chosen Him.

God, by His Spirit, does for us or in us what we never would, or could, do for ourselves or by ourselves. The work from first to last is God's.

But here comes a warning. God's sovereignty is like a two-edged weapon. He may display it in showing mercy. He may also display it in carrying out judgment. With Israel, guilty of the sin of the golden calf, He displayed it in mercy. With Pharaoh, He displayed it by hardening that king.

Let us by the grace of God firmly hold both of these great facts. God is sovereign in how He acts in grace. Man, though fallen, is a responsible creature, and God addresses him as one… So let us accept both, even if for now we cannot see far enough to work out how they fit together.

But to whom is God pleased to show mercy? Certainly not to the self-righteous mockers, who by their very attitude deny their need of mercy. It is to the repentant — those who confess themselves sinners and call on the Name of the Lord in their extremity… God has sovereign title to show mercy, and man must bow to this divine sovereignty. Indeed, can anything do more good for man than being subject to his Creator?

If mercy has declared itself, and He has spared us, we must still never forget that His estimate of what we are stands on record… The rainbow in the cloud declares His faithfulness to His promise. We stand on the ground of MERCY, and if we forget it, He does not… We look at the cloud; God looks at the rainbow. What grace is here!