Romans 9:6 is often used as a definition of spiritual Israel:

"For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel."

Romans 9:6

The usual argument is straightforward. Physical descent from Jacob no longer identifies the Israel which matters to God. True Israel consists of the children of promise: everyone who believes in Christ, whether Jewish or Gentile. The Church is therefore the Israel within Israel, while unbelieving ethnic Israel no longer possesses a distinct covenant identity or future.

Paul certainly denies that physical descent guarantees salvation. He distinguishes outward privilege from participation in God's saving purpose and traces that principle through Isaac and Jacob. Any interpretation which gives every Israelite an automatic right standing with God has missed his argument.

But Paul does not mention the Church in Romans 9:6. Neither does he call Gentiles Israel in the verses which follow. He begins with his Jewish "kinsmen according to the flesh," calls them Israelites, and names their continuing privileges before explaining why their widespread unbelief has not made God's word fail.

The question is therefore not whether Paul distinguishes within Israel. He does. The question is whether that distinction redefines Israel as the Church or explains how God's purpose continues through election and a remnant while the nation remains identifiable and awaits future mercy.

Where does Paul's argument begin and end?

The formal discussion of Israel begins at Romans 9:1 and ends with the doxology at Romans 11:33-36. Paul opens with grief over his physical kinsmen and closes in wonder at the depth of God's wisdom, knowledge, judgements, and ways. Romans 12:1 then turns from this theological argument to practical appeal: "I beseech you therefore, brethren."

The question which drives Romans 9-11, however, arises from the closing movement of Romans 8. Paul has declared that those whom God foreknew He also predestinated, called, justified, and glorified (Romans 8:28-30). He then celebrates the security of God's people: no accusation can overturn God's verdict, and nothing can separate them from His love in Christ (Romans 8:31-39).

Israel immediately presents the apparent test case. God had foreknown Israel, called the nation, entrusted it with covenants and promises, and set His love upon the fathers. Yet much of Israel now stood in unbelief. If that history simply ended in permanent rejection, how secure could anyone be in the declared purpose and love of God?

Paul's sudden sorrow in Romans 9 is therefore not a change to an unrelated subject. Romans 9-11 defends the faithfulness of the God proclaimed in Romans 8. The verbal links are important: those whom God *foreknew in Romans 8 are secure in His purpose, and Paul later insists that God has not cast away "his people which he foreknew" (Romans 11:2). Israel remains beloved concerning election, and God's gifts and calling* are irrevocable (Romans 11:28-29).

This also explains why Romans 9-11 is sometimes described as a parenthesis between Romans 8:39 and 12:1. Structurally, Paul pauses before moving to the practical life of the Church. The section is parenthetical in position but not incidental in purpose. It answers the largest possible objection to the assurance he has just given: whether human unbelief can cause God's pledged word to fail.

There is a smaller parenthetical movement inside the final chapter. Romans 11:11-12 begins to anticipate Israel's future fulness. In verses 13-24 Paul turns directly to Gentiles—"For I speak to you Gentiles"—and warns them through the olive-tree metaphor not to boast over the natural branches. Verse 25 then resumes the main disclosure: Israel's blindness is partial and lasts until the fulness of the Gentiles comes in.

That internal address is not a distraction. It prepares the reader morally to receive Paul's conclusion. Gentiles must hear Israel's future hope without pride, appropriation, or contempt.

The complete movement can therefore be followed like this:

| Passage | Function in the argument | |---|---| | Romans 8:28-39 | God's purpose, calling, love, and the security of His word | | Romans 9:1-5 | The apparent contradiction created by Israel's unbelief | | Romans 9:6-29 | God's word defended through promise and election | | Romans 9:30-10:21 | Israel's present stumbling and responsibility | | Romans 11:1-10 | The remnant proves that God has not cast away His people | | Romans 11:11-12 | Israel's stumbling serves Gentile mercy and anticipates Israel's fulness | | Romans 11:13-24 | Parenthetical warning to Gentiles against boasting | | Romans 11:25-32 | The mystery of temporary hardening and future national mercy | | Romans 11:33-36 | Doxology: the argument ends in worship |

Romans 9:6 must be read inside that complete case. It is an opening defence of God's faithfulness, not the final definition of Israel.

What problem is Paul answering?

Romans 9 does not begin as an abstract discussion of individual election. It begins with Paul's grief:

"I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart."

Romans 9:2

He could wish himself accursed for his "kinsmen according to the flesh" (Romans 9:3). He then identifies them:

"Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came."

Romans 9:4-5

These are not Gentile Christians or an invisible spiritual category. They are Paul's physical relatives, the nation which had received the covenants and produced Messiah according to the flesh. Yet many of them had rejected the gospel.

That creates the controlling problem: if the promises pertain to Israel, has Israel's unbelief caused the word of God to fail?

Paul answers:

"Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect."

Romans 9:6

Everything which follows must explain that denial. Paul is defending God's faithfulness to His word in the face of Israel's unbelief. He is not looking for a way to make the original promises irrelevant.

Does Paul describe two meanings of Israel?

The sentence contains Israel twice: not all who are of Israel are Israel. The first clearly refers to physical descent from Jacob. The second identifies those within that history who stand in the line of God's effective promise.

It is reasonable to describe this as a distinction between national Israel and Israel according to election, provided the labels are not made to say more than Paul does. There is an Israel within Israel in relation to saving participation. The nation contains both the faithful remnant and those who remain in unbelief.

That does not mean the unbelieving majority ceases to be Israel in every sense. Paul has just called his unbelieving kinsmen "Israelites," and throughout chapters 9-11 he continues to call the disobedient and partially blinded nation Israel. The same word can identify the historic nation and, in a qualified saving sense, the elect line or remnant within it.

Paul's distinction concerns relationship to promise, not the abolition of ancestry. An Israelite can remain part of Israel nationally while failing to participate in the salvation towards which Israel's covenants point.

Isaac establishes the chosen line of promise

Paul explains his statement through Abraham's family:

"Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called."

Romans 9:7

Abraham had more than one physical son. Ishmael was genuinely Abraham's descendant and received a blessing from God, but the covenant line through which the promised Seed would come was established in Isaac (Genesis 17:18-21; 21:12).

Paul's point is not that Ishmael was an Israelite who became a Gentile through unbelief. Israel did not yet exist as a nation. The example establishes a prior principle: natural descent from a covenant recipient does not give every descendant the same place within God's historical purpose of promise.

Paul summarises:

"They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed."

Romans 9:8

"Children of the flesh" cannot mean that physical ancestry is unreal or worthless. Isaac himself was physically Abraham's son. The contrast concerns what human generation can accomplish by itself. God's promise, not mere natural descent, determined the chosen line.

This also prevents a common mistake in the opposite direction. The verse is not initially defining the Church as Israel. It is explaining how God exercised sovereign choice within Abraham's physical family before Israel was formed.

Jacob narrows the line further

Paul then moves from Abraham's two sons by different mothers to Isaac's twin sons by Rebekah. Before Jacob and Esau had been born or done good or evil, God's purpose according to election stood: "The elder shall serve the younger" (Romans 9:10-12).

The examples are historical and corporate as well as personal. Jacob became Israel, and Esau became Edom. God's choice determined which line would carry the covenant history and produce Messiah.

This does not require us to settle every later dispute about individual election and reprobation before understanding Paul's identity argument. Whatever further implications the passage has, Isaac and Jacob demonstrate that God's word had always advanced through His electing purpose rather than through natural descent alone.

Israel's present unbelief therefore cannot be used to say that God has lost control of His promise. The same divine freedom which established the line now preserves a remnant within Israel and extends mercy to Gentiles.

Where does the believing remnant enter the argument?

Paul makes the remnant explicit by quoting Isaiah:

"Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved."

Romans 9:27

The structure matters. The many are still called "the children of Israel," while the saved remnant comes from among them. Paul does not need to rename the remainder Gentiles in order to distinguish their spiritual condition.

Romans 11 returns to the same point. Paul himself is an Israelite and therefore evidence that God has not cast away His people. As in Elijah's day, God has preserved "a remnant according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:1-5).

Paul then writes:

"Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded."

Romans 11:7

Here the categories of Romans 9:6 become clear. Israel as a whole has not obtained the sought-for righteousness. The election within Israel has obtained it, while the rest of Israel has been hardened. Paul can distinguish the remnant from the rest without denying that both belong to the national history under discussion.

The believing remnant demonstrates that God's word has not failed in the present. It does not exhaust everything Paul will say about Israel's future.

Do the children of promise include Gentiles?

Yes. Paul eventually speaks of vessels of mercy called "not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles" and applies Hosea's language about those who were not God's people becoming His people (Romans 9:23-26). Gentile inclusion is a genuine fulfilment of prophecy and Abrahamic promise.

But notice how Paul describes them: they are called *of the Gentiles*. He does not say, "Gentiles are now Israel." They become God's people, receive mercy, and share the salvation promised through Israel's Messiah while remaining distinguishable from Jews.

This distinction appears throughout Romans. Abraham is the father of believing uncircumcised Gentiles and of the circumcision who walk in his faith (Romans 4:11-12). God calls people from Jews and Gentiles (Romans 9:24). There is no difference in their need of salvation or access to the same Lord (Romans 10:12). Gentiles are grafted into the olive tree among believing Jewish branches while remaining wild branches by nature (Romans 11:17-24).

Gentiles are unquestionably children of promise through Christ. It does not follow that children of promise, children of God, the Church, and Israel are interchangeable terms in every context. Paul can unite the saved without confusing the histories through which God brought them together.

Does unbelieving Israel lose the name Israel?

Paul's vocabulary throughout the three chapters answers decisively:

| Passage | The people called Israel | |---|---| | Romans 9:4 | Paul's largely unbelieving physical kinsmen | | Romans 9:27 | The numerous nation from which a remnant is saved | | Romans 9:31 | The nation which pursued the law but did not attain righteousness | | Romans 10:19, 21 | The disobedient and gainsaying people | | Romans 11:2 | God's people whom He has not cast away | | Romans 11:7 | Israel which has not obtained, distinguished from the election within it | | Romans 11:25 | Israel experiencing partial blindness | | Romans 11:26 | Israel which will be saved |

This consistent usage prevents Romans 9:6 from becoming an absolute definition in which only believers may ever be called Israel. Paul repeatedly calls the unbelieving people Israel while distinguishing their present spiritual condition from the remnant's.

The phrase "true Israel" can therefore be useful only if carefully defined. If it means the believing remnant within ethnic Israel, it reflects Paul's distinction. If it means that unbelieving Jews are no longer Israel nationally or that the multinational Church has inherited the name to their exclusion, it goes beyond the evidence.

Romans 11 completes the answer to Romans 9

If Romans 9:6 meant that the elect remnant and Gentile believers had permanently become the only Israel, Paul's argument could have ended there. God's word would be defended simply by changing the referent: the promises were never for national Israel but for the Church.

Paul does not take that route. He spends two more chapters grieving over Israel, explaining its stumbling, warning Gentiles not to boast, and anticipating mercy upon the presently hardened nation.

Israel's blindness is "in part" and lasts "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Romans 11:25). The Deliverer will turn away ungodliness from Jacob and take away their sins. The people who are enemies concerning the gospel remain beloved concerning election "for the fathers' sakes" (Romans 11:26-28).

Paul concludes:

"For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."

Romans 11:29

Romans 9:6 and Romans 11:29 cannot be enemies. The first denies that ancestry guarantees individual salvation; the second denies that Israel's present unbelief can make God's calling void. Election preserves a remnant now and guarantees that God's covenant purpose will reach its appointed conclusion.

The remnant is evidence of faithfulness, not a mechanism for permanent replacement.

Has God's word failed?

Paul's answer is no, for several cumulative reasons:

  • God's promise always advanced through His sovereignly chosen line;
  • physical descent never guaranteed salvation to every descendant;
  • God has preserved a believing remnant within Israel;
  • Gentiles have been brought into Abrahamic blessing through Christ;
  • Israel's present hardening is partial and temporary;
  • the nation remains beloved because of the fathers;
  • the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable;
  • the Deliverer will yet remove ungodliness from Jacob.

The supersessionist reading captures one necessary truth: there is a spiritually decisive distinction within ethnic Israel. It overreaches when that distinction is expanded into a new definition which makes Gentiles Israel and leaves the historic nation without its promised future.

The Israel-and-Church distinction accounts for both sides of Paul's argument. It recognises one salvation through Messiah, the inclusion of Gentiles as children of promise, and the believing Jewish remnant within the Church. It also allows Paul to keep calling the unbelieving nation Israel and to promise that its present condition will end in mercy.

"They are not all Israel, which are of Israel" does not mean, "Israel is no longer Israel, and the Church has taken its name." It means that belonging to Israel by descent is not the same as participating in Israel's saving promise.

Not every Israelite presently possesses the faith of Israel's Messiah. The God who chose the line, preserved the remnant, and called the Gentiles will nevertheless keep every word He pledged to the nation.

References for further review