As we look at chapter nine, it is important to keep in mind three important details. We need to understand what is a dispensation. Second, this chapter is not about personal salvation. Instead, it is about God being able to choose whoever He wants to serve Him and carry out His will, whether that be the nation of Israel or the Body of Christ (individual believers, Jew and Gentile), or even a couple of unsaved Gentiles in time past.

We are now getting into the more dispensational section of the book of Romans (chapters 9-11). Paul is now going to be focusing primarily on the nation of Israel and the fact that they as a nation have been set aside temporarily. A dispensation is defined as how God acts toward man and how God expects man to respond in return.

In time past under the law, God chose the nation of Israel to be His people and He gave them the law (Rom. 3:2). God told them to keep the commandments (Deut. 4:1-2; 6:17; 7:11; Ps 119:115; Matt. 19:17). Keeping the law in itself didn’t save them. Instead, it was their faith that ultimately saved them just like it’s our faith that saves us today. But, they were to do works (keep the law) in faith. The problem is that they didn’t have faith.

Ro 9:31-32 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

Mt 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

They didn’t obtain the law of righteousness, because they tried to get it only by the works of the law. They needed to seek it by faith, instead. Christ wasn’t telling the scribes and Pharisees to not do the law. Christ was simply telling them not to forget the more important matters like faith. All through Israel’s history, the Scriptures report that they lacked faith (Deut. 32:30; Matt. 6:30; 8:10). They were still instructed to keep the law, but in faith.

During the Dispensation of the Grace of God (Eph. 3:2), however, God is now dealing with mankind on an individual basis, instead of nations. There is no current national distinction between the Jew and the Gentile (Rom. 3:22; Gal. 3:28). All believers are one in Christ Jesus (one in His Body) by the gospel of the grace of God whether they be Jew or Gentile. How does one get into the Body? By believing the gospel. By believing that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day.

 “For you are not under law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14b).” God has not instructed us to keep the law today; instead, all He expects us to do is respond in faith. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do good works. God does tell us that we are created unto good works (Eph. 2:10). But, it is the Spirit that does the work in and through us, producing good fruit unto God. In our own flesh, we are not able to bear fruit unto God, because of sin. The only way for us to bear good fruit unto God is by walking in the Spirit. It’s by His power and strength. 

For the rest of the chapter, we will answer the question, ‘How can God set aside the nation which He chose to be a light unto the world and instead now use a Body of individual believers (the Body of Christ, Jew or Gentile)?’ Romans 9 helps explain to us how God has (and can) temporarily set aside the nation, Israel, and is now working directly with the Gentiles.

Nation of Israel

The Apostle Paul starts out by showing all the blessings that Israel as a nation of God had. They had the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the service of God, the promises, and they had Christ who came in the flesh (Rom. 9:4-5). However, “they are not all Israel who are of Israel (9:6) (most of Israel didn’t recognize and still don’t that the Christ came).” There was and is only a small remnant of true believers in Israel.

God chose Isaac, not Ishmael, for the spiritual seed of Abraham to come from (9:7-9). He didn’t choose Isaac to be saved over Ishmael. He simply chose to use Isaac as the one in which His plan would be carried out. We see the same with Esau and Jacob.

Calvinists see these passages to say that God chose certain people to be saved and others to be damned. They think this because God says that “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (9:13).” But, God is not talking about personal salvation, but instead He is talking about the two nations that would come from these men (the Edomites and the Israelites). The elder shall serve the younger.

Genesis 25:23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.  

1 Chronicles 18:13 And he put garrisons in Edom; and all the Edomites became David’s servants. Thus the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went.

The Israelites would be God’s special people (nation) to serve Him by being a light unto the world as a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6). This doesn’t automatically mean that everyone in Israel is saved. In other words, just because you’re a Jew doesn’t mean that you’re automatically saved, nor does it mean that God can’t use a Gentile to carry out His purposes at certain times.

Moses

Paul now turns his attention to Moses. He quotes from Exodus 33:19 and it says that God will have mercy and compassion on whom He will have mercy and compassion. He is still not talking about personal salvation here, but rather still dealing with Israel on a national level. In Exodus 32, Israel had made the golden calf idol and was worshipping it.

Exodus 32:9-10 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

The LORD said that He would consume Israel and make Moses a great nation, instead. Moses prays to God asking Him to consider this nation (Israel) to be His people. God does decide to show mercy to Israel. Israel would still be God’s people and God would still choose to carry out His will through them.

Pharaoh and Cyrus

Now, he uses both Pharaoh and Cyrus as examples of two Gentile kings that were used by God to carry out His purpose. Let’s begin with Pharaoh.

Romans 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

Exodus 4:21 And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

The word for harden means “to strengthen.” Pharaoh was already not going to let Israel go. He decided that for himself. God simply strengthened the resolve in his heart.

Then, Cyrus was used by God to tell Israel that they could go back to the Promised Land after their Babylonian captivity (Rom. 9:20,21; Isa. 45:9).

So, God was able to use two Gentiles (Pharaoh and Cyrus) to carry out His purpose with the nation of Israel.

Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

God endured with much longsuffering a vessel of wrath that was fitted to destruction (Pharaoh) so that He “might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory (Rom. 9:23).” If God can use vessels of wrath to carry out His purpose, then He can certainly choose to make His riches known to vessels of mercy, even if those vessels happen to be Gentiles and not just Jews.

Body of Christ

Romans 9:23-24 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

This is what God is doing today in this Dispensation. He has set Israel aside temporarily, concluded us all in unbelief, so that He might have mercy on us all (Rom. 11:32). He has made known the riches of his glory upon all those that simply believe the gospel of the grace of God, whether they be Jews or Gentiles. God is now using the Body of Christ, not Israel, today to make known these riches. We are to make known the “fellowship of the mystery (Eph. 3:9).”

How can this be? How can God show His riches to Gentiles? How can they be children of God, when Israel was God’s special people?

Paul, of course, has already shown this to us, but he adds another argument. So now, Paul addresses the nation of Israel once again by using the prophets that point to a time when Israel herself was called “not God’s people,” as well as pointing to her future restoration. He quotes from Hosea and Isaiah. When God says “I will call them My people, who were not my people,” He is not referring to the Gentiles, but Israel (Rom. 9:25;26; Hosea 1:9; 2:2).

Hosea 2:2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

Hosea 2:19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

First, He tells Hosea to marry a prostitute in order to explain to Israel that He was divorcing her (divorce is not the same as what people think of today) for her adultery, idolatry, etc., but God would eventually betroth the nation back to Him. Israel will be restored again in the future. Paul then quotes from Isaiah, which says that God will do a “short work upon the earth (refers to the Tribulation) (Rom. 9:28)” and the “remnant will be saved (Rom. 9:27).”

What is Paul’s point? He is saying that just like it is possible for Israel to go from not being God’s people to being restored to that position in the future, the Gentiles can also go from never being in fellowship with God (Eph. 2:11-12) to now being His children. God can choose to have mercy on whomever He will have mercy on (Rom. 9:15). He can also do so even if Israel is blinded during this current Dispensation of Grace. He can make the riches of His glory known to both Jew and Gentile (a.k.a whosoever believes) without using Israel. He is using the Body of Christ to make it known, instead. (as a side note: the mystery was not revealed in the prophets, but first revealed to Paul. the mystery is the Body of Christ)

During the Dispensation of the Grace of God, the Body of Christ is being used by God to carry out His purpose today. The Body of Christ is His vessel of mercy that He is using today. Anyone can be a member of that Body by simply believing the gospel.

Romans 9:30-33 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

In conclusion, the Gentiles were able to receive righteousness (as well as today) by faith alone. Israel did not obtain it, because they forgot they needed faith and only tried to get it by the works of the law. Therefore, they stumbled at the stumblingstone (which is Christ and work on the cross), but whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. Anyone who believes what Christ accomplished for them on the cross (He died for their sins. He paid the penalty for sin. He buried those sins away forever. He rose again for your justification.) is saved, because it is the power of God that saves them. It is something not to be ashamed of, but to glory in (Rom. 1:16; Gal. 6:14).

Galatians 6:14 But God forbid that I should glory, save (except) in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.