Romans 9.6-God's Promises To Israel Have Not Failed Since Only Those Jews Who Have Faith In Christ Are True Israel
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday March 3, 2009
Romans: Romans 9:6-God’s Promises To Israel Have Not Failed Since Only Those Jews Who Have Faith In Christ Are True Israel
Lesson # 299
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 9:1.
This evening we will begin a study of the second section of this chapter, which is contained in verses 6-13.
This passage teaches that God in accordance with His sovereign grace elected the nation of Israel to privilege.
Tonight we will note verse 6 and in this verse Paul presents the premise that not all Israel is Israel and that God’s Word has not failed and for the rest of the chapter he illustrates this premise.
A true Israelite is one who exercises faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Those who reject Him as Savior are not a member of the nation of Israel from God’s perspective even though they are racial descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (aka Israel) who are the progenitors of the nation.
Paul taught this principle in Romans 2:28-29.
Romans 2:28-29, “Therefore, as an eternal spiritual truth, he is absolutely never a Jew who is one by means of the external, nor, as an eternal spiritual truth, is circumcision, that which is by means of the external in the human body. But rather, as an eternal spiritual truth, he is a Jew who is one by means of the internal and circumcision originates in the heart by means of the omnipotence of the Spirit, never by means of the letter whose praise is as an eternal spiritual truth never from men but from God.”
Let’s read Romans 9:1-13 and then concentrate on verse 6 for the rest of the evening.
Romans 9:1-5, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: ‘THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: ‘AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.’ And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.’ Just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.’”
Corrected translation of Romans 9:6:
Romans 9:6, “Now, this does not by any means imply that the word originating from God is nullified because each and every person who descended from Israel, these are, as an eternal spiritual truth, by no means, Israel.”
Romans 9:6, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.”
“But” is the “transitional” use of the post-positive conjunction de (deV), which introduces a statement that serves as the transition between the introduction to Paul’s exposition in Romans 9-11 that appears in Romans 9:1-5 and the body of it.
“Not as though” is composed of the emphatic negative adverb ou (ou)) (oo) and the nominative neuter singular form of the relative pronoun hoios (oi!o$) (hoy-os) and the conjunction hoti (o^ti) (hot-ee).
This is an unusual expression and is a mixture of two idioms, one is a Hellenistic idiom, ouch hoion (ou)x oi!on) and ouch hoti (ou)x o%ti). (Bauer, A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, page 562; F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, pages 159-160).
With this expression, Paul is saying that even though I have a great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart for my fellow Jewish countrymen who have been granted great and awesome privileges by God, “this does not by any means imply that” the Word (the promises) of God have failed.
The emphatic negative adverb ou emphatically negates the idea that Paul’s sorrow and grief over the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah implies that the promises of God have failed and thus God’s purposes for the nation have failed.
The relative pronoun hoios is used to make a comparison between Paul’s sorrow and grief over the nation of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah with all the promises to the nation of Israel having been nullified because of their unbelief.
It can be translated idiomatically as “imply” since in context Paul is emphasizing that his great sorrow and unceasing grief over his privileged nation’s rejection of the Messiah does not suggest or indicate that the promises of God to Israel have been nullified due to his nation’s unbelief.
Romans 9:6, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.”
“The word of God” refers to all the promises that God gave to the nation of Israel that are contained in the four unconditional covenants since in verses 1-5, Paul is speaking directly with reference to the nation of Israel.
“Has failed” is the verb ekpipto (e)kpivptw) (ek-pip-to), which means, “to nullify” in the sense that God’s promises to Israel have been deprived of their effectiveness, made futile and of no consequence as a result of its rejection of the Messiah.
Romans 9:6, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.”
“For” is the “causal” use of the post-positive conjunction gar (gavr), which introduces the “reason why” Israel’s rejection of her Messiah does not nullify the promises that God made to Israel.
“All” is the nominative masculine plural form of the adjective pas (pa$), which is used in a distributive sense for each and every person who descended racially or biologically from Jacob, whose name was changed by the Lord to “Israel.”
“Who are descended from Israel” is composed of the nominative masculine plural form of the definite article ho (o() (ho), “who are” and the preposition ek (e)k), “descended from” and the genitive masculine form of the proper name Israel ( )Israh/l), “Israel.”
The definite article ho functions as a “substantiver” meaning it nominalizes (i.e. converts to a noun) and conceptualizing the prepositional phrase ex Israel, “descended from Israel.”
Therefore, it indicates that the article has a substantival function, which is reflected by translating the article with a relative pronoun phrase and since the verb is plural in number as well, we can translate the article “who.”
The proper name Israel refers to “Jacob” who was the progenitor of the nation of Israel since his twelve sons became the nation of Israel.
The preposition ek functions as a marker of “source” and the proper name Israel as a “genitive of source” indicating the source from which someone or something is racially derived.
This indicates that Paul is referring to those individuals who “descended from” Israel who was also known as “Jacob.”
Romans 9:6, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.”
“They” is the nominative masculine plural form of the demonstrative pronoun houtos (ou!!to$) (hoo-tos), which is pointing back to the first use of Israel, which refers to Israel in a racial or biological sense as indicated by the preposition ek.
“Israel” is the nominative masculine singular form of the proper name Israel ( )Israh/l), which refers to the nation of Israel in a spiritual sense or those whom God recognizes as the Israel that will inherit His covenant promises that appear in the four unconditional covenants to Israel.
It refers to those Jews racially or in other words those have descended racially from Jacob that have accepted by faith Jesus of Nazareth as their promised Messiah.
The demonstrative pronoun houtos precedes this second Israel and is used in a “kataphoric” sense meaning that it is pointing at this second use of the name Israel.
“Not” is the emphatic negative adverb ou, which stands in the emphatic position in the causal clause and is connected to the second use of the name Israel as well as the demonstrative pronoun houtos.
It emphatically negates the idea that all those who are Jews racially are considered by God as constituting the nation of Israel.
In Romans 9:6, Paul teaches that this corporate election of the nation of Israel by no means meant that each and every person who is a Jew racially is saved or in other words, regenerated.
Both John the Baptist and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ taught the same principle to their Jewish countrymen.
John the Baptist addressed the self-righteous attitude of the Jew who thought their racial background and relationship to Abraham would guarantee their entrance into the kingdom of heaven (See Matthew 3:5-9).
The Lord Jesus Christ also addressed this self-righteous attitude of the Jews (See John 8:34-45).