Children of the Promise

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

CHILDREN OF THE PROMISE

Rom 9:6-9

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."   8 In other words, it is not the natural children 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."  

NIV

This is going to be a tough portion of this letter to get through. This argument that Paul is beginning to lay out will take all this this chapter and into the next chapter and if we take too little it might seem easy to take it out of context and be seen as supporting the doctrine of divine election. We are going to get to those verses that some who believe in an election will use to prove that God only selects or elects some for mercy and some for wrath. In other words, God did not love the world that he sent his only Son so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. However, before we get it heavily invested in this argument let us first consider this first part where he is setting it up. This is all about the Jews having all the history with God and yet they are not living in Christ, but are still burdening themselves with the law. Paul says this is not because God’s word had failed. For not all who are descendent of Israel are Israel. It does not matter who we are descendants in the natural realm of humanity. Although we have gotten somewhat distracted by that trying to determine our lineage through various platforms such as Ancestry.com or other methods of searching through records of births and deaths of those who preceded us. We want to know our heritage, and our national backgrounds. Who were our forefathers? Paul is telling those Jews and Gentiles in the church in Rome, their ancestry is not about human lineage, but about being children of the promise. He is going to expand on that, but we need to see that it really does not matter, although it is quite interesting, who are human ancestors were, they do no define who we are, they do not make up our character, have any bearing on whether we are children of the promise. Someone may have known us from childhood, might make a comment that we are just like our father or our mother, but as it might appear we resemble them in some sense, they have no bearing on whether God’s mercy rests on us because we have decided to become a child of the promise, being born not by the will of man, but by the promise of God. Isaac was the result of the promise, for it was impossible for both Abraham and Sarah to conceive by their human wills. This is what Paul is saying here. Therefore true Israel consists of the children of the promise, those who have been adopted as sons, through faith is Jesus Christ. Because we believe God, as Abraham did, and as his believing God was credited to him as righteousness, so then because we believe God, we are the true descendants of Abraham, children of the promise.