Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: (7) Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. (8) 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. (9) For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. (10) And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (11) (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;) (12) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. (13) As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
The Apostle seems to have found his soul relieved at the opening of this verse, in calling to remembrance that the true Israel of' God, notwithstanding the Israel after the flesh were shut out, had all the blessings of the covenant in Christ designed them. The people, the true Israel of God, whom Jehovah formed for himself, were still, and everlastingly must be, his chosen generation, his peculiar people, a royal priesthood. God called them a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation, Exodus 19:6. And Paul here makes the distinction between nature and grace, between Israel after the flesh, and after the spirit. He runs up the subject to the fountain head of the appointment, and in the everlasting purpose, counsel, will, and pleasure of Jehovah, shews how the Church was chosen in Christ from the beginning; nothing in the children of promise, who were the happy partakers of it, predisposing to the mercy, or in the smallest degree contributing to it, because the thing was done before they were born. Paul most plainly and decidedly shews this, and confirms it by quotations from the Old Testament scripture. If the Reader will consult the scriptures referred to, and compare them with one another, the subject Paul had in view to establish will appear in its obvious sense and meaning, Genesis 25:21-27; Malachi 1:3; Galatians 4:28, to the end.