The New Testament often quotes or alludes to the Old Testament, and occasionally, the citations provide insight into a specific doctrine or understanding of the New Testament writer. For example, Paul’s usage of Isaiah 45:23 in Philippians 2:10-11 reveals what Paul thought of Jesus—He is the Lord to whom all will bow the knee. Paul naturally appealed to the Old Testament to support his teachings, citing it some 93 times in his letters. He more than likely did so to demonstrate that there was continuity between old and new covenant revelation and that the new fulfilled the old.[1] This article will consider Paul’s citation of Hosea in Romans 9:24-26 and how Paul applied this passage to his audience.
The Context of Romans 9–11
Out of the 93 times that Paul cites the Old Testament, 26 of those occurrences are in Romans 9–11.[2] This section has been the center of debate for some time among scholars. Many wonder what relevance this section has with the rest of the epistle. The claim is that if these chapters were removed, then it would still flow naturally from chapter 8 to chapter 12. Be that as it may, this is the best place for Paul to insert a section on the question of Israel. Paul had been laboring up to this point that the gospel he preached was that of the prophets (Romans 1:2). He had described how those who were justified will ultimately be glorified (8:30) and those who the Son was sent for were eternally secure in Him (3:24; 8:31-39).
Given all of this, the natural question that Paul anticipated was the role of Israel in light of the gospel. In other words, what happened to Israel? As Leon Morris states; “Paul’s whole argument demands an examination of the Jewish question.”[3] Thus, it is easy to see the urgency that would have moved Paul to answer some of the questions his readers had. C.E.B. Cranfield helpfully summarizes potential objections to Paul’s gospel on this question:
If the truth is that God’s purpose with Israel has been frustrated, then what sort of basis for Christian hope is God’s purpose? And if God’s love for Israel has ceased, what reliance can be placed on Paul’s conviction that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ?[4]
Paul began his response in Romans 9 by focusing on the divine reason why God’s Word had not failed to the Jews. First, he said that it did not fail because, the promise, understood correctly, was not to all Israel, but to the Israel within Israel. (Romans 9:6). The promise was for the spiritual Israel that was elected by God. Additionally, this divine determination by God is consistent with His sovereignty (9:7-23).
This brings us to our passage. In one of the many citations of the Old Testament in this chapter, Paul does so here to show that the choosing of God was prophesied in the Old Testament to include Jews and Gentiles (Romans 9:24-29). Before proceeding, it needs to be pointed out that the entirety of vv. 24-29 are important for his argument. While we will focus on vv. 24-26 where Paul argues for the inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God, vv. 27-29 are a citation to show that there is an elect remnant of ethnic Israel included in the covenant people.[5]
Exegesis of Romans 9:24-26
even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’ And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” (Romans 9:24-26, NASB 1995)
The question of how v. 24 connects to the preceding verse is a difficult and has a range of possibilities.[6] Syntactically, v. 24 connects back to v. 23, since the relative clause oὓς (“whom”) is the first word of verse 24 and since it is a reference back to the σκεύη ἐλέους (“vessels of mercy”) in v. 23. Nonetheless, what Paul says in v. 24 begins a new paragraph since he already established that God is free to choose whom He wishes in the preceding verses.[7] What Paul is doing is identifying those who receive God’s mercy. Not only were the Jews recipients of God’s covenant mercy but so were Gentiles. The former would have been obvious to any Jew in Paul’s day, the latter would have been more difficult for them to accept. Yet Paul argues his case based on their very own Scriptures—the Old Testament. In vv. 25-26, he cites two passages from Hosea to demonstrate that Gentiles are included in this covenant mercy.
In Romans 9:25, Paul cites freely from Hosea 2, neither quoting the Masoretic Text nor the LXX. Interestingly, Paul also reverses the word order of the two clauses that he cites in the passage. The passage found in Hosea 2:23 [2:25, MT/LXX] reads:
And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.
Paul’s free quotation of this passage is as follows:
Those who were not my people I will call my people, and her who was not beloved I will call beloved.
καλέσω τὸν οὐ λαόν μου λαόν μου καὶ τὴν οὐκ ἠγαπημένην ἠγαπημένην·
Paul then quotes Hosea 1:10 [2:1, MT/LXX], almost verbatim from the LXX. Hosea 1:10 reads:
And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them “Children of the living God.”
Paul’s quotation from the Greek translation of the Old Testament reads:
And in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God.
καὶ ἔσται ἐν τῷ τόπῳ οὗ ἐρρέθη αὐτοῖς οὐ λαός μου ὑμεῖς, ἐκεῖ κληθήσονται υἱοὶ θεοῦ ζῶντος.
How Can Paul Apply a Passage About Israel to the Gentiles?
The perplexing question that biblical scholars have to account for is of the peculiar hermeneutic that Paul employs in the passages he quotes. Calvin noted the theological elephant in the room when he said that no one can deny that the prophet Hosea was speaking about the Israelites.[8] In fact, in the passage, Hosea is predicting a time when the northern tribes of Israel who rebelled against Him would be restored. Those who were called “not my people” would be called “my people.” Israel, who had rejected God and His Word, would again become God’s people in their restoration. So how can Paul employ these passages that refer to the tribes of Israel as a justification that God is calling the Gentiles to Himself?
Calvin seemed to think that the prophet had included Gentiles in his prophecy and thus there really is not a problem to solve.[9] There are certainly places in the Old Testament that predict Gentile inclusion into the people of God, but it is very hard to read this out of these prophetic portions in Hosea. Some dispensational commentators have argued that Paul is actually not referring to the Gentiles in quoting these passages, but he is indeed referring to Israel. Alva J. McClain writes:
A lot of folks think that this passage refers to the Gentiles. It does not. They think Paul made a mistake and quoted from the Old Testament something that belonged to Jews and applied it to the Gentiles. He is talking about Israel. “I will call her my people which was not my people.” God cast Israel off and then picked her up in mercy.[10]
Prominent pastor and commentator John MacArthur also shares the same view. He says that “it is important to understand that Paul is here speaking about Israel as a nation.”[11] He further writes:
Paul was also referring to Israel’s rejection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, at His first coming. Rejecting God’s own Son was Israel’s supreme unfaithfulness to God… Like her rejection of God in the time of Hosea, Israel’s rejection of Christ in the time of Paul was perfectly consistent with God’s divine plan…the prophet saw and understood Israel’s unfaithfulness and God’s scattering and rejection of her during the ancient time and through Paul, the Holy Spirit applies to New Testament times what Hosea both envisioned and witnessed in regard to the Israel of his day.[12]
This view in untenable for a few reasons. First, Paul’s basis for quoting these passages is to demonstrate how both Jews and Gentiles are called by God. Paul’s purpose is to not only document, but to develop this claim which is indicated by the word καὶ (“moreover, therefore”) in the beginning of v. 25 (ὡς καὶ ἐν τῷ Ὡσηὲ λέγει).[13] In other words, if Paul is only focused on Israel in these Old Testament passages, then where does he elaborate and defend his statement in reference to the Gentiles? Additionally, it makes more sense to see Paul documenting his statement on the remnant of Israel beginning in v. 27. Paul clearly cites Isaiah to defend his statement on Israel in 9:27-28. Therefore, since Paul is defending the election of both Jews and Gentiles, and he cites Isaiah in his defense of the elect remnant of Israel, it is more than likely that Paul views the Hosea passages as relating to the calling of the Gentiles.[14]
Another view is that Paul, in quoting Hosea’s prophecy, is extracting a principle of divine action. The Gentiles who did not know God, in coming to know Him, patterned what was going on in Hosea’s day.[15] Murray seems to advocate for this position when he writes:
Paul recognizes that the rejection and restoration of Israel of which Hosea spoke have their parallel in the exclusion of the Gentiles from God’s covenant favour and then their reception into favour.[16]
In other words, just as Israel was rejected and then embraced by God, so the Gentiles, once forsaken, have been received by God’s covenant mercy. On the surface, this position is attractive. However, it is hard to see how this view would prove Paul’s argument that God is calling the Gentiles. As Moo states, “Paul requires more than an analogy to establish from Scripture justification for God’s calling of Gentiles to be His people.”[17] Simply showing that there is an analogy between Israel during the time of Hosea and the Gentiles of Paul’s day begs the question of whether or not God actually called the Gentiles. It does not prove Paul’s statement.
After looking at the various approaches, it seems the best way to understand Paul is that he finds the prophetic fulfillment of Hosea’s words in the church.[18] This view makes the best sense in light of the broader context of Romans 9:24-29. Paul is citing the Old Testament demonstrating that the prophetic promises find their fulfillment in the church which is comprised of the called Jews and Gentiles. As Schreiner notes:
The church is the renewed Israel, and the arena in which God’s promises find their fulfillment. Paul wants to show his Jewish contemporaries that the calling of the Gentiles was not without precedent; it fits with the surprising way God has always acted.[19]
This understanding is not limited to Paul’s usage of the Old Testament prophetic texts. In 1 Peter 2:10, the apostle, after applying Old Testament terms and concepts to the church, writes to his Gentile audience,[20]
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:10).
The idea that the Old Testament promises were fulfilled in the church was not something that was foreign to the New Testament writers.
To Which Place Does Hosea Refer?
One last question that needs to be addressed in the text is how to understand καὶ ἔσται ἐν τῷ τόπῳ (“and in that very place”) in v. 26, as well as the word ἐκεῖ (“there”). The text of Hosea 1:10 seems to indicate that the place described is either in Palestine or in the exile itself. Keil and Delitzsch suggest the latter,[21] that the change takes place in the exile, and thus, in exile is where they become “children of the living God.” With regard to Paul’s understanding, some argue that he had in mind the time when all the nations would gather at Jerusalem in the future, while others would see this as a gathering that would take place throughout the world. Others do not identify a certain location, but assert it is not necessary to assume Paul was calling attention to every single word in the citation.[22]
In other words, just because he quoted the passage, it does not mean Paul intended to press every single detail to a particular fulfillment. It is simply preserved in the quotation.[23] Regardless of the location Paul had in mind (if he had one in mind at all), Moo is more than likely correct when he says, “If Paul finds any particular meaning in the language…he probably intends a similar application but this time with reference to the Gentiles; it is in the land of exile, the dispersion that God will call out a people for himself.”[24]
Conclusion—Israel Expanded
Before closing, an important question to consider is how Romans 9:24-26 contributes to the “people of God” in the theology of Paul. What we can determine is that Paul understood the church, both Jew and Gentile, to be the people of God. The Gentiles, according to Paul, have become one with believing Jews as God made them into “one, and has broken down in [Christ’s] flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14). Thus, according to Paul, elect Jews and Gentiles make up the true Israel, or the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16).[25]
This does not mean however, that the promises of God to Israel were transferred in any way to someone other than Israel. No, Israel was not replaced. Rather, Israel was expanded. It must be remembered that fleshly Israel never would have inherited the promises of God, and in fact, the true people of God always consisted of spiritual Israel (Romans 2:28; 9:6). It is to this true spiritual Israel, that God has added believing Gentiles.[26] So it is not that the Jews have lost their status as the people of God, or that they have lost the promises granted, but it is that spiritual-ethnic Israel, along with believing Gentiles (the church) have inherited the promises in Christ. This is not Paul’s understanding alone, but the consistent witness of the New Testament writers.[27]
In conclusion, what we have found in Romans 9:24-26 is that (1) Paul quoted these two Old Testament texts as justification for God calling the Gentiles by His covenant mercy, and (2) in doing so, he believed that the prophetic passages established in the Old Testament found their fulfillment in the New Testament people of God.
[1] George E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1993), 433.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, Pillar New Testament Commentary Series (Eerdmans, 1988), 343.
[4] C.E.B. Cranfield, Romans 9–16, The International Critical Commentary (New York: T&T Clark, 1979), 447.
[5] Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker Books, 1998), 526; cf. Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans, The Yale Anchor Bible Commentary Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 573.
[6] For a helpful discussion of these possibilities, see Morris, Epistle to the Romans, PNTC, 369.
[7] Schreiner, Romans, 525.
[8] John Calvin, Commentary on Romans (Christian Classics Ethereal Library).
[9] Ibid.
[10] Alva J. McClain, Romans: The Gospel of God’s Grace (Chicago: Moody Press, 1973), 183.
[11] John MacArthur, “Romans 9–16,” in The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Publisher’s, 1991), 46; cf. John A. Battle Jr. “Paul’s Use of the Old Testament in Romans 9:25-26,” Grace Theological Seminary (Spring 1981).
[12] Ibid., 46.
[13] James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word Book Publisher, 1988), 571.
[14] Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1996), 613.
[15] F. F. Bruce, The Letter of Paul to the Romans: An Introduction and Commentary (Eerdmans), 185.
[16] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, Vol. II, Chapters 9–16 (Eerdmans, 1965), 38.
[17] Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 613.
[18] Ibid, 613. Moo states the text reflects a hermeneutical supposition for which we find evidence elsewhere in Paul and in the NT, and the OT predictions of a renewed Israel find their fulfillment in the church.
[19] Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary, 528.
[20] Colin G. Kruse, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Pillar New Testament Commentary Series (Eerdmans, 2012), 389. For a good discussion and defense of the audience of Peter being Gentile, see Carson & Moo Introduction to the New Testament, 647–48.
[21] Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 10 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 32.
[22] Schreiner, Romans, 528.
[23] Fitzmyer, Romans, 573. It is also important to note that this is all under the assumption that Paul used a text of Hosea that had the word ἐκεῖ in it. Some of the LXX manuscripts do not include ἐκεῖ. It may be even possible that Paul added this word himself for a particular purpose. See Cranfield, Romans 9–16, The International Critical Commentary, 500.
[24] Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 614.
[25] For an excellent defense of seeing καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ as referring to all those who walk according to this canon (6:16), see O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishers, 2000), 39–46.
[26] Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 583.
[27] New Testament writers such as Peter apply titles and language of OT Israel to the NT church (1 Peter 2:9; Exodus 19:5-6). Also, many of the Old Testament promises are recorded in the NT as fulfilled in the church of God (see Joel 2:28-32/Acts 2:17-21; Amos 9:11-12/Acts 15:16-17; Jeremiah 31:31-34/Hebrew 8:8-10).
