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Romans 9:6 is ground zero in the broader debate over "who is Israel" in the New Covenant era. And people on both sides of this question, whether Dispensational or Reformed, tend to miss the most important point in this verse: "For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel." So in what follows, I wanted to give my deep-dive interpretation of Romans 9:6 and why it matters today, in the hopes that this will shed some light on a very important yet controversial issue. --------------------------- To set the stage, it should be noted that Dispensationalists refuse to acknowledge that Paul could be applying the title "Israel" to the entire Church in Romans 9:6, at least in some sense. Thus, they will typically interpret this verse in one of two ways. 1) Some will assert that Paul is referring only to Jewish Christians here. Hence, as the argument goes, Paul is not taking the title of Israel away from all of Israel writ large. Nor is he applying the title Israel to the entire Church, including Gentile Christians. He is simply saying that Jewish Christians represent Israel in the deepest way possible. This particular maneuver stops the Dispensationalist from having to apply the title Israel to anyone but a physical Israelite (in this case ethnically Jewish Christians), because the idea that Israel and the Church are completely distinct is a core tenet of traditional Dispensationalism, which therefore implies that no Gentile or Gentile Christian should ever be included as a part of Israel. According to this reading of Romans 9:6, the Jewish Christians (who are allegedly referred to in this verse) are a part of Israel and the Church at the same time, even though these two entities (Israel and the Church) remain completely separate from one another without any overlap. 2) Other Dispensationalists (and those who share their presuppositions) argue that Romans 9:6 should be read not as a statement of fact per se but as a rhetorical question. Thus, some are now arguing that the proper translation of Romans 9:6 is as follows: "Is it not so that all who are descended from Israel are Israel?" According to this reading, there is no sense in which the title Israel is applied to Gentile Christians here, because Paul is simply reasserting a prior point from earlier in Romans 9 that physical Israel is Israel. --------------------------- Within the Reformed camp, Romans 9:6 is interpreted in a much more straightforward way, and as the basis for Christian supersessionism--the idea that only Christians have a claim to the title Israel, meanwhile the physical nation of Israel from Old Testament times is disinherited from all of the covenant blessings they previously enjoyed. So, in essence, the fault lines of this debate have been forged by those who want to adamantly resist applying the title Israel to Gentile Christians on the one hand (Dispensationalists & other Post-Supersessionist theologians), versus those who want to make the title "Israel" the exclusive possession of the Church on the other (the Reformed Supersessionists). --------------------------- When looking at these proposed interpretations, none of them, in my opinion, quite hit the mark. For one, the Dispensational approaches are weak because there is no doubt a broadening of the term Israel throughout Romans 9, which culminates with Paul's assertion that Gentile Christians are included in the "Israel" Paul refers to in verse 6. As a result, Paul concludes his point in Romans 9:22-24 by saying: "What if [God] did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?" In other words, it is very hard to make a logical case that the redefinition of Israel Paul initiates in Romans 9:6 does not in some way incorporate Gentile Christians, because the entire focus of Romans 9 after this verse is on how Gentiles, by God's grace and election, are included in whatever Paul started talking about back in verse 6. That is how the text flows when it is read, as it should be, as one coherent thought that is unfolding between verses 6 and 33. Paul makes his bold statement about Israel in Romans 9:6. And then in the verses that follow he tells us what he means. And thus, there really is no contextual basis to the Dispensational claim that Romans 9:6 refers only to *Jewish Christians* as a kind of physical Israel within broader physical Israel, because throughout Romans 9 Gentile Christians are not only in view but they are arguably Paul's primary focus along with physical Israel. Plus, as we will see very shortly, Paul is not even primarily concerned with physical descent in Romans 9:6-33. So making the claim that Romans 9:6 must be read only as a reference to *physical Israelites* who believe in Christ goes against the grain of the text, which emphasizes spiritual descent more than physical descent. And second, while I have been very glad to see more and more Post-Supersessionist & Dispensational scholarship in the last 20 years challenge the way Romans 9:6 has been used throughout Christian history to support Replacement Theology (i.e., Supersessionism), the claim that Romans 9:6 should be reinterpreted as a rhetorical question is also dubious. For starters, Romans 9:6 simply does not harmonize, in terms of word usage, grammar, or syntax, with other statements in the book of Romans that are in fact rhetorical questions. So yes, Paul does use rhetorical questions quite often in Romans (Rom. 6:1, 6:15; 7:7, 7:13, 9:14, 9:19, 9:30; 11:1, 11:11). But after looking at every single one of these rhetorical questions in the Greek text, I do not see any similarity between them and Romans 9:6. As a matter of fact, many of the specific features that almost always show up when Paul uses a rhetorical question are absent from Romans 9:6, which again proves that Paul is making a statement in this verse, not asking a question: ""For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel." Or, more literally based on the Greek: "For not all who come out of Israel, are Israel." --------------------------- If the prevailing Dispensational approaches to Romans 9:6 are lacking, I'm afraid things don't get much better when we look at the broader Protestant and Reformed world of interpretation. To be a little more specific, the problem with the rest of Reformed Protestant interpretation of Romans 9:6 is not that it suggest some redefinition or broadening/narrowing of the term Israel in Romans 9:6. It is that this Reformed redefinition of Israel is pursued to the negation of the rest of physical Israel, which contradicts numerous statements Paul also makes in Romans 9-11. Said another way, any redefinition, narrowing, or broadening (or whatever you want to call it) of the term Israel in Romans 9:6 must also take into account that throughout Romans 9-11 Paul repeatedly still calls the physical, ethnic, and territorial Israelite nation Israel, while simultaneously affirming that this nation is still in some kind of covenant relationship with God. For example, when speaking of Israel in Romans 9:4 Paul uses the present tense and states: "Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises." In other words, Israel still possesses all of these things. They still possess "the adoption to sonship," "the covenants," and "the promises." Then, a little bit later, Paul puts an even finer point on the matter and says of Israel in Romans 11:28-29: "As far as the gospel is concerned, they [physical Israel] are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable." Based on these verses, there is no sense in which we can say that physical Israel is no longer Israel, or that physical Israel has lost all of the gifts God bestowed upon the nation in Old Testament times. Paul says quite clearly that they are still "elect" in some sense---that is, chosen for a special purpose that still applies, and that Israel's call and God's gifts to her are "irrevocable." So is there some redefinition of Israel in Romans 9:6? Yes. But does this redefinition completely transfer the title of Israel to the Church, to the point that the Church becomes the "New Israel" or the "True Israel" to the utter negation of "Old Israel"? Absolutely not. --------------------------- So what then is really happening in Romans 9? Well, put simply, Paul is operating in two dimensions at the same time and contrasting the spiritual descendants of Israel (vv. 6-33) with the physical descendants of Israel (vv. 1-5). So yes, Paul absolutely does apply the name Israel to the entire Church in Romans 9:6, at least in some sense. But this application of the title Israel to the Church is not done in such a way that it requires us to accept that physical Israel can no longer be Israel at the same time. It is more like saying members of the Church, whether Jew or Gentile, are the truest spiritual offspring of Israel and her Patriarchs, because it is only members of the Church who actually share the faith of the Patriarchs, which is obviously the most important thing as far as God is concerned. That Paul is moving into the realm of spiritual descent, rather than physical descent, in Romans 9:6 is made even more clear in verse 8: " In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring." --------------------------- Throughout the Bible, this concept of spiritual descent, based more on qualities and characteristics, rather than bloodline, is a common feature. As far back as Genesis 3:15 God spoke about the "seed" or "offspring" of the Serpent, which refers mostly to people who share Satan's characteristics, not to people who have Satan as their literal Father. Cain, in Genesis 4, would be the first example of one of Satan's spiritual descendants. And Jesus also said the Devil was the father of the religious hypocrites in his day (Jn. 8:44). On the more positive side, when we say that someone is a child of God, this is often a statement about their spiritual qualities. But it does not mean that all people are not children of God in some sense as well, because everyone is His creation at one level (see Acts 17:28). So, in summary, being God's child can mean multiple things in the Bible. Every person alive today is a child of God. But some people are God's children in a deeper salvation sense that does not apply to the corporate whole. And this same dynamic is at play in Romans 9:6 when Paul is talking about Israel. All physical descendants of Israel are Israel. And that title and the ***temporal/earthly*** (not salvation) privileges associated with it cannot be taken away from them, including God's protection, preservation, and gift of the Promised Land (Rom. 11:28-29). But at a deeper level, "Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel" (Rom. 9:6) because not all of physical Israel actually share's Israel's, or as he was called earlier in life, Jacob's faith. Beyond physical Israel, there are also those, including many Gentile Christians, who are Israel's descendants in a spiritual and qualitative sense. They live by faith and accept the very same Messiah whom Abraham and the Patriarchs were also looking forward to. So at one level, the Church is Israel, or a part of Israel, in a way that even physical Israel is not, which underscores the primary importance of faith over flesh. That is Paul's point in Romans 9-11. He narrows, broadens, and redefines Israel to include all Christians, while at the same time protecting the ongoing covenant and temporal blessings that still belong to physical Israelites regardless of their faith. And thus, contrary to the claims of Dispensationalists, the Church actually is Spiritual Israel, at least in a certain sense. We are the spiritual offspring of the Jewish Patriarchs. And yet, contrary to the claims of Protestant Reformed theology, the Church inheriting a spiritual connection to Israel through Christ does not make physical, ethnic, or territorial Israel something that only had relevance under the "Old Covenant." Paul allows physical and spiritual Israel to coexist in his head just like he allows the physical and spiritual children of God to coexist in his head, precisely because these two categories of physical and spiritual descent are at the center of the biblical storyline from beginning to end. --------------------------- Dispensationalists often have this compulsive reaction against any claim that the title Israel could belong to the Church, at least in a certain sense, whereas Reformed Theology has succumbed to the opposite disorder, obsessively denying that "modern Jews" and "modern Israel" still maintain some biblical and covenant significance today. This is a classic case of two sides in a theological debate falling into separate ditches on opposite sides of the road. In reality, the middle path is preferred. Christians are the offspring of Israel in a spiritual sense, which is the most important thing (Rom. 9:6-8). But that does not in any way negate the ongoing reality and importance of physical Israel (Rom. 11:28-29). Paul had a multifaceted doctrine of Israel and so should we.

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