Romans 9:9

7 ^anor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ^b“In Isaac your seed shall be called.”

8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but ^athe children of the promise are counted as the seed.

9 For this is the word of promise: ^a“At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”

10 And not only this, but when ^aRebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac

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 ^aHim who calls),

12 it was said to her, ^a“The older shall serve the younger.”

13 As it is written, ^a“Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

Israel’s Rejection and God’s Justice

14 What shall we say then? ^aIs there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!

15 For He says to Moses, ^a“I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”

16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

17 For ^athe Scripture says to the Pharaoh, ^b“For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”

18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He ^ahardens.

19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For ^awho has resisted His will?”

20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? ^aWill the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

21 Does not the ^apotter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make ^bone vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering ^athe vessels of wrath ^bprepared for destruction,

23 and that He might make known ^athe riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had ^bprepared beforehand for glory,

24 even us whom He ^acalled, ^bnot of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

25 As He says also in Hosea:
^a“I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”

26 “And^a it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

Commentaries:

Forerunner Commentary
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What Does Romans 9:9 Mean?

Romans 9:9-16

Our calling and election by God preceded even the slightest fragment of saving knowledge of God and thus our having faith in Him. Therefore, we could not possibly earn any grace of God, even as Jacob could not. As a vivid illustration for us, God deliberately chose to do this before Jacob could possibly do any works pertaining to salvation.

An almost overwhelming nugget of truth may be gleaned from these verses. If God is revealing here His general pattern which He follows to call all of those He is choosing to save at this time, then it shows that our personal calling and election into His spiritual creation is in no way random but very specific, even as Jacob's was.

Perhaps we, like Jacob was, are called from the womb so that, like him, there will never be any doubt that even the tiniest of our works had a part in saving us. There is precedent for this in Jeremiah 1:5 about Jeremiah's birth and calling; in Luke 1:11-17 about John the Baptist; and in Psalm 139:14-16 about David.

We might think that these were really great personages, people important to God's purpose. They were indeed, but are we not part of the same spiritual Body and part of the same Family as they are? Does not God say that there is no partiality with Him in Romans 2:11? Every part of the Body of Jesus Christ is important. Enough is revealed in Scripture for us to give this serious consideration.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Living By Faith and God's Grace

Romans 9:7-13

"The children of the promise are counted for the seed" means Abraham's seed, and "the children" are Esau and Jacob. Jacob was chosen or elected by God, but Esau was not. So through whom would God work? Obviously, it was Jacob, who on the surface was the weaker of the two—perhaps in character and certainly bodily. The question immediately arises, "Is it fair of God to do this?"

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Eleven)

Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Romans 9:9:

John 3:7
Ephesians 2:8-10

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Romans 9:10 >>

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Israel’s Rejection and God’s Justice

What Does Romans 9:9 Mean?

A Verse and a Thought,Every Morning

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