The Narrow Path Ministries

I come from a Calvinist background and can now see many problems with this point of view.
I would like to better understand how non - Calvinists understand Romans 9. I have listened to some of Steve Gregg’s lectures and read some books by Arminians but I am still confused about some things and would like to ask some questions if I may in the hope of a bit more clarity.

I am confused about how much of the chapter is about “salvation” issues and how much is about “earthly, national" issues.

In vs 1-5, it is issues regarding salvation that breaks Paul heart.
In vs 6-8 Paul again speaks of salvation issues. Not all physical Israel are true Israel. Not all of Abraham's descendants are truly Abraham's children. Not all of them are saved.
At the end of Ch 9 and into chapter 10 and 11 Paul deals with salvation issues.
I can see why Calvinists find it easy to think that the whole of chapter 9 concerns salvation.

Yet many Arminians raise good points about vs 10-21 not being about salvation, but about God's earthly purposes regarding Israel as a nation and bringing forth the Messiah. They argue that Paul was not saying that Isaac and Jacob were saved while Ishmael and Esau were not.

Any discussion on these matters would be appreciated.
Some specific questions that may help:
If Paul was concerned about not all Israel being saved, what do non-Calvinists suggest as reasons why Paul discusses Isaac and Jacob being ancestors of the nation of Israel and of Jesus? Why does he bring up non-salvation issues in order to answer questions related to salvation?
In 9:6-8 what does it mean to be a child of the promise? Is it a term related to those who are saved, or just to those in the physical line for the birth of Jesus? Are Isaac and Jacob children of the promise themselves, and not Ishmael and Esau?

Thank you very much for considering my questions.

I'm an Arminian that has no problem agreeing that the passage is, in the main, talking about salvation. Some Arminians try to deflect the emphasis to service for a noble purpose, but the topic seems to be why Israel did not accept Christ, which seems to lead to the question of their individual salvation, culminating in verses 22-23, which seem specifically salvific. The main thing to see is the passage does allow for an autonomous human response to God's election; even in verses 22 & 23 the word for "prepared" is different for the vessel of wrath or mercy. When it says "vessel of wrath prepared for destruction" it's passive and a word used without ideas of predestination (καταρτίζω, with no προ). Paul prays with the real hope the Israelites can be saved, Paul says they were rejected because they sought righteousness the wrong way, and later says by faith any Jew can be joined to the Olive Tree again. Even the question "Oh man! Who are you to reply against God?" heavily implies the man had a choice about how he responded to God, yet under Divine meticulous determinism, the man had no choice but could only respond as God decreed him to (wouldn't it rather read, "Oh man! You shall reply against God just as he decreed you to!" and notice too that a lot of Calvinists make this mistake, even in serious debate, because it actually is very hard to erase every trace of autonomy in our intuition; check out this one line in a debate, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KJY-PpKFs&t=136m30s "After you hear Romans 9, you have a choice to make." Yet out of the same Calvinist's mouth we will hear that any autonomous choice is a lie that glorifies man, and the whole point of Romans 9 is that God is the one choosing, not us.) Another point, of course, is the Calvinists don't want you to go to the Old Testament source texts from which Paul's illustrations were drawn, that show an autonomous response in the clay changing the good intentions of the Potter (compare Isaiah 5, where God says "what more could I have done that I did not do," how can that possibly fit Divine determinism?)

Thanks Dizerner for your thoughts.

I agree with much of what you say.
I agree that the passage allows for human response - for responsible choice. I am not sure that it says whether it is "autonomous" or not, or what you exactly mean by "autonomous".

My present understanding is that Romans 11 goes on to teach that God's election can be rejected, and so an elect Israelite can be cut off from the olive tree through unbelief (and indeed later on be grafted back in through faith) and a non-elect Gentile can be grafted in so as to become elect. So election is not fixed from eternity as in the Calvinist system.

I understand the vessels of wrath to be the currently rebellious Israelites and agree with you that Paul prays for them to be saved and so must not see their predicament as hopeless. They are currently hardened, and prepared for destruction, but God’s purpose for them in all this is their ultimate redemption 11:32.

Would you or anyone else understand “children of the promise” v8 to apply to the same people as the true “children of Abraham”, the true “Israel” and “God’s children” in vs 6-8? These are the saved people. So, with this understanding, Isaac and Jacob, as the children of promise, were not only chosen to be the ancestors of Christ but chosen to be saved, foundational members in the olive tree (with the understanding that they needed to remain faithful to remain in the olive tree).

Or do some consider it important to see Isaac and Jacob as chosen just to be ancestors of Israel the nation, and Jesus, with God’s choice of them having nothing to do with their salvation?

Calan wrote:Or do some consider it important to see Isaac and Jacob as chosen just to be ancestors of Israel the nation, and Jesus, with God’s choice of them having nothing to do with their salvation?

Well, like I said, many Arminians try to argue the passage is only about election to service, and your views seem to line up well with Leighton Flowers, you might check out his blog at https://soteriology101.wordpress.com/ — I also post there. He recently did a debate with James White.

Don't be scared of the word "autonomy." I use it just to mean free will, since Calvinists have stolen the term "free will" to mean something else entirely.

Thanks dizerner for the links and the note about the debate. I will check them out. Looks like an abundance of interesting material to investigate.