Romans 9:6-9

Rachel Workman: 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.”^{[b] 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.”^[c]

I had to dig a little deeper today. Paul thinks of someone looking at Israel and saying, "God's word didn't come through for them. He didn't fulfill His promise for them because they missed their Messiah and now seem cursed. How do I know that He will come through for me?" Paul answers the question by asserting that it is not that the word of God has taken no effect.

Paul says here that not all Israel is really "governed by God." Did God's word fail? No; instead, they are not all governed by God who are of Israel.

"Paul tells us that no one is truly Israel unless he is governed by God. We have a same situation with the word 'Christian.' Not everyone who is called a Christian is truly a follower of Christ." 

Being a descendant of Abraham saves no one. It is not being children of the flesh that works something before God, but only being children of the promise.And that is you and I

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John Burnett:  ⁶ But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; ⁷ nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s ^[a]descendants, but: “^[b]through Isaac your^[c]descendants will be named.” ⁸ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as^[d]descendants. ⁹ For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.”  Paul talks of Abraham’s descendants who are not children of the promise.  I can only assume that he is talking about Esau’s descendants who make up much of the Arab world that follow the Muslim faith.

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Allen Michaels:  ⁶ It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. God’s word in the form of beautiful covenant promises came to Abraham. Covenant people, the true children of Abraham, are not just his biological descendants. They are those who trust in God and in what Jesus has done for them. 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. God does not save someone because of their race, the color of their skin, their nationality, their other physical traits, or because of their achievements. Believers are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, a physical descendant of Abraham, and the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and Isaac. Because of the virgin birth of Jesus through Mary, only Jesus in some sense is a child of God the Father by physical descent (if we carefully use that language). Paul argued that the Jews are not children of God by physical descent. Other than Jesus, the children of God are children of God because God has fulfilled His promises through Jesus and God has chosen them and adopted them into His family. The children of the promise are those who believe in and trust Jesus Christ for salvation as God promised; and in the Old Testament, the children of the promise are those who looked forward to and believed in the coming of God’s promised Messiah – all those who live by faith in the promised Messiah 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.” As a good example to all believers and teachers, Paul continued to go back to the Bible to illustrate and prove why he taught as he did. The Bible revealed that God had created and selected Abraham and Sarah to be the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, and God had appointed the time when Isaac would be conceived and Sarah would be his mother through a miraculous birth because of her old age. Therefore, Paul reasoned, God would choose the time when someone would be saved, and the fact that many Jews did not believe (or not yet believe) in the Messiah was in some way related to God’s perfect timing.

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Tomorrow’s reading for Romans 9:10-15

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.”^{[d] 13} Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”^[e]
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.”^[f]