Romans IX (God Chooses The Children of Promise)

Verses 10-13:
(Bible)

After the distinguishing made in the previous post and in the last three verses, Paul now takes these principles and supports them with examples. He uses two Old Testament examples, which the Israelites obvious knew, since it was dealing with the Patriarchs of their nation. The two examples are that of Isaac (v.7), which I briefly mentioned in the last post, but will do again. And then the example of Jacob (v.10,12,13).

Example 1: Isaac and Ishmael

God made a promise to Abraham that through his seed all the nations shall be blessed (Genesis 12:3), he told Abraham his descendants would be as numerous as the sand and the stars (Genesis 22:17). That it would be through the son that God would give to him (Isaac, Genesis 15:5) that this would happen and that it would be Sarah, his wife, who was barren, that would conceive (Genesis 18:10). Because of Abraham's weak faith at the time, he did not fully trust in God's promise, for it seemed to him impossible that Sarah could conceive a child. So, instead, Abraham use Hagar, a maid of Sarah, as a concubine to produce a child named Ishmael.

Abraham wanted Ishmael to be the heir God had promised. "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!"(Genesis 17:18), But God told Abraham, "No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year." Ishmael would indeed be blessed, since his descendants would be what would become the Muslims. But as God said His covenant was not with him, and so he was not the child of promise. Though born of Abraham, he was cut off from the promises and the covenants of the Lord.

"But," someone might object, "Of course God didn't choose [Ishmael] as a child of promise. He didn't have a Jewish mother. Hagar was a Gentile"(Piper).

So Paul clarifies his point further...

Example 2: Jacob and Esau

"And not only this..." As if to say, "this is not the point I am trying to get across." Now we see further, that God's choice is based on His good pleasure and nothing in a man. Along with the proof of God's word standing strong, we now get into the doctrines of predestination, election, and the grace of God (Note to Reader: I realize this might start to get a bit confusing, I'll try to make it clear).

Paul really narrows the objections down here, for one, we are talking about children born of the same womb, by the same man (Isaac). Further, they are twins, there is minimal distinctions between these two brothers. And yet one was chosen over the other, why? Paul is, "systematically doing away with the human distinctions that might constrain God's election of one over the other. He is saying that election is based on God, not man"(Piper).

Verse 11 starts to talk of the unconditionality of God's election. "For the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil..." Skip to verse 12, "The older shall serve the younger."

"The quote from Genesis 25:23 simply makes clear that God decides the destiny of these two sons and the nations they represent before they are born. And to make it even clearer for us, Paul does not just say, they were not yet born when God decided their destinies, he also say, 'they had done nothing good or bad.' And to remove the possible objection that he chose the older because the old deserves it, he chose the younger...This is why we speak of the doctrine of unconditional election. God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born or had done anything good or bad. It was not their behavior or their attitude or their faith or their parents that moved God to choose Jacob and not Esau. The choice was unconditional. It was rooted in God alone and not in man"(Piper).

Conclusion

Paul makes it much too clear for us here. The objection from the Jews was that Paul was saying that God's word had failed them. While it may seem this way at first, Paul completely unravels that argument and states that, "not all Israel" is "Israel." Then proving that with Biblical evidence for this, that in Isaac and in Jacob.

I am going to stop here, because if I try to write everything I want on these verses this is going to be extremely long. In my next post I will go back to verse 11, "for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls." And attempt to explain this verse, in light of the doctrine of election. Then I will look at verse 13, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." And break that down.