Not as though the word of God hath taken
none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither,
because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac
shall thy seed be called. That is, 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. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I
come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had
conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according
to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said
unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I
loved, but Esau have I hated (Rom. 9:6-13).
Q. “This text teaches that not all who are
born of believing parents are elect, but that some only are. Doesn’t ‘In Isaac
shall thy seed be called’ imply that Ishmael was not an elect?”
(I)
To argue from Romans 9:7 (“In Isaac shall thy seed be called”) that Ishmael was therefore a reprobate doesn’t follow, and would also make Scripture contradict Scripture—for in Genesis 16, 17 and 21, we see strong evidence that Ishmael was one of God’s elect. “In Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Rom. 9:7) does not mean “Isaac is elect, but Ishmael is not,” but simply means that it was in Isaac that God’s seed shall be called—i.e., there will be elect among Isaac’s children and not Ishmael’s children (not that Jacob or Joshua or Ishmael were not God’s seed). In other words, the covenant line of God’s elect was to continue in Isaac’s generations and not Ishmael’s. It was in Isaac’s descendants, for example, that God called Christ and the nation of Israel—but not in Ishmael’s, who, like Lot, did not see his children saved, though he himself was saved. (08/11/2020)
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(II)
More
to come! (DV)
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