Jonathan Williams with Word of God, Speak Truth Network

We are now in Romans 9:14-18. Paul begins this section with a question. “What shall we say then?” In other words, in light of what he has just said about God advancing his covenant plans through Isaac and Jacob rather than Ishmael and Esau, Paul asks “What shall we say? There is no injustice with God is there?” Paul then answers the question with, “May it never be!”
But why would Paul ask this question about God’s justice and then answer it with a firm no?

Today we are going to finish the story of Esau and Jacob. We have been going through Romans 9 and showing how Paul was confirming that God has been faithful to his covenant promises despite Israel’s unbelief. He was faithful to his promises because he was fulfilling them through some of Abraham’s physical descendants, not all of them. He fulfilled them for those who believed in Jesus the Messiah. Those

Isaac, the miracle son of promise because of Abraham and Sarah’s faith, and his wife Rebekah conceived twins, Jacob and Esau. Rebekah was Isaac’s legitimate wife and not a foreign handmaid like Hagar. Both sons were legitimate, and not only legitimate but were the result of the same act of sexual intercourse. Paul wanted to be very clear about this. Two legitimate sons came from this one act of procreation between Isaac and Rebekah, but the covenant God made with Abraham and affirmed with the son of promise, Isaac, he established with only one son, Jacob. Why?

We see this in the story of the births of Ishmael and Isaac. Both were physical descendants of Abraham, but who in Paul’s day would say that Ishmael and his descendants were Jews? No one. What made the difference between the two? That difference is summed up in the word, “promise.”

Paul wants everyone to know that though most of God’s covenant people have not believed, that though most of God’s people have been unfaithful, God has not been unfaithful. God has been true to his word. God’s word has not failed.

Israel was a unique nation. They had been entrusted with the most noble task in the world – to be a light to the nations and to restore all that mankind had lost because of sin. And Paul encapsulated these privileges with six words and phrases.