Romans 9:23-29: God Has Called People From Both the Jews and the Nations – January 2026 Outreach Israel News

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John McKee delivers the January 2026 Outreach Israel News update. What are some of the controversies, needing to be fairly sorted through, from Romans 9:23-29? How have Paul’s claims been taken in some inappropriate directions by others? This teaching is then followed with some excerpts from the Messianic Apologetics Second Statement, on: the worldwide Body of Messiah, replacement theology/supersessionism, Messianic Judaism, One Law/One Torah Theology, and Two-House Theology.

Romans 9:23-29

“And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 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’ [Hosea 2:23; 1:10]. Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, ‘THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED; FOR THE LORD WILL EXECUTE HIS WORD ON THE EARTH, THOROUGHLY AND QUICKLY’ [Isaiah 10:22-23]” (NASU).

There should be little doubting the fact, that even with a salvation historical motif present for Romans chs. 9-11, and the Apostle Paul having surveyed a history of Ancient Israel and his First Century Jewish people—that Romans 9:23-29, vs. 24-26 in particular, stands out as being a little strange. There are surely controversies present in the intertexutal references of Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 and the salvation of the nations, followed by Isaiah 10:22-23. What are these things supposed to mean? How do they affect Messianic ecclesiology, and in particular whether or not non-Jewish Believers are part of a separate entity called “the Church,” or whether they are a part of an enlarged Kingdom realm of Israel?

When reading Romans 9:23-29, it is not difficult to recognize how Paul had two groups of people in view: those being brought to saving faith in Yeshua from among the nations, and his own Jewish people.

The second set of quotations, where Isaiah 10:22-23 appears in Romans 9:27-29, is much easier for readers to reckon with. As painful as it was for Paul to recognize how many of his fellow Jews had rejected Yeshua, and hence were going to be cut off from Israel (Romans 9:6), it is not as though there was no Biblical precedent for this. The stark word of Isaiah 10:22 is, “For, although your people, Isra’el, are like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return” (CJSB). While in this case, along with the themes of Isaiah ch. 11 following, a return from the exile and the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom were foretold for physical people—Paul was looking at things principally from a spiritual vantage point, as presumably only redeemed persons get to really enter into the Messianic Age, hence participating in Israel’s restoration and its culmination.

A spiritual dynamic was afforded to him by how the Hebrew sh’ar yashuv, was rendered by the Greek LXX, as to kataleimma autōn sōthēsetai. The verb shuv, appearing in the Qal stem (simple action, active voice), “turn back, return” (BDB),[1] was actually translated with sōzō, “to save or preserve from transcendent danger or destruction” (BDAG),[2] relating to either physical salvation or spiritual salvation. Here, the latter is what was emphasized by Paul—because even with a sizeable enough number of physical Israelites, only a small amount would be saved/rescued and return as is anticipated by the Prophets.

The first set of quotations, where Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 are quoted in Romans 9:24-26, can really catch some readers off guard. Here, the Apostle Paul has claimed, “he called us, not only from Jews, but also from Gentiles” (Brown and Comfort),[3] ekalesen hēmas ou monon ex Ioudaiōn alla kai ex ethnōn. In asserting that God has called people ex ethnōn or “from the nations,” as well, Paul was speaking here in terms of how these people were called to salvation. Yet, rather than quoting a general passage, such as Isaiah 49:6, which emphasized both the restoration of Israel’s tribes and salvation going out to the whole world—a specific prophecy regarding Israel’s restoration was associated with the salvation of the nations. And, not only was a specific prophecy of Israel’s restoration applied to the nations; the declarations of Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 principally concerned those of the Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim being restored to God in the eschaton. So, not only is it important for Bible readers to find a fair answer for how Romans 9:24-26 is involved with the question Are non-Jewish Believers really a part of Israel?, there are some additional factors also in play, which have not always been approached too well.

Stern recognizes in his Jewish New Testament Commentary how Hosea 2:23 and 1:10 are quoted in Romans 9:24-26, and drew the conclusion that Paul had to have been speaking midrashically—obviously via some kind of allegory—when it came to applying a prophecy regarding Israel’s restoration to those from the nations:

“Sha’ul uses these texts from Hoshea midrashically. Hosea was not referring to Gentiles but to Israel itself; he meant that one day Israel, in rebellion when he wrote, would be called God’s people. Sha’ul’s meaning, which does not conflict with what Hosea wrote but is not a necessary inference from it, is that ‘God’s people’ now includes some Gentiles.”[4]

Stern appears to admit, a bit reluctantly, that those to be regarded “My people,” as stated in Hosea 1:10, may include non-Jewish Believers.

Within today’s Two-House sub-movement, it is extrapolated that the non-Jewish Believers being referred to in Romans 9:24-26, via the appeal to Hosea 1:10 and 2:23, were most probably descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim. Whether or not those from the nations, ex ethnōn, in Romans 9:24-26, may be regarded as distant descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom or not, must be viewed as making some assumptions—assumptions which require empirical evidence not often provided by Two-House advocates.

All readers should be able to recognize the fact of how the God of Israel is a loving and gracious Heavenly Father, who desires to show mercy toward all of His human creations. Yet, some questions of logic are necessarily raised when looking at Hosea 1:10 and 2:23 and Romans 9:24-26.

We should not take issue with how there are a series of Tanach (OT) prophecies involving the descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim, which are unfulfilled at present, and involve their reunion with the Southern Kingdom of Judah (i.e., Isaiah 11:12-16; Jeremiah 31:6-10; Ezekiel 37:15-28; Zechariah 10:6-10). These are prophecies which need to be considered in relation to the Second Coming of Yeshua and the Messianic Age. But who are these descendants, mainly? There are pockets of people in remote corners of places like Southeast Asia, Southern Asia, the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean basin, and the environs of Central Africa, who claim to be descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom via some kind of oral tradition, and/or what can appear to be Jewish-style customs—and most probably are. (Sometimes this has been enjoined with some credible DNA analysis, confirming distant Semitic descent.) These are the areas which generally fall within the sphere of influence of the old Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires, and where the exiles of the Northern Kingdom could have been legitimately deported, scattered, and/or assimilated (cf. Jeremiah 31:10; Hosea 8:8-9; Amos 9:8-9).[5] The problem is that many Two-House advocates assume that the descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom are in every corner of Planet Earth today, and they really do not take into consideration the steadfast Torah word: “Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 28:62, NASU).

Any assumption that all, or even most, of the non-Jewish Believers in Yeshua from the First Century were some sort of “Ephraimites,” as Two-House proponents widely think, draws a conclusion which not only an Apostle like Paul did not make—it is something which someone like him could not have humanly known, in the event there were a few descendants of the Northern Kingdom “swallowed up” (Hosea 8:8) and assimilated within small parts of his First Century world in the Mediterranean basin. If very few of the non-Jewish Believers in the First Century world of the Apostles were indeed descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim—then not unlike the true identity of the Unknown Soldier, such knowledge would have only been known to an Eternal God.

It is safe to conclude that those in passages like Romans 9:24-26 were genuinely people of the nations at large. At the same time, it can be said that a kind of entirely spiritualized or typological application of restoration of Israel passages to the nations, such as Hosea 1:10 and 2:23 quoted in Romans 9:24-26, does not do enough. A general word like Isaiah 49:6 is clear to explain, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (NASU). The salvation of the nations, generally, is a part of the grand restoration of Israel. Isaiah 49:6 is appealed to, for certain, concerning the nations’ redemption, in the Apostolic Writings (Luke 2:32; Acts 13:47; 26:23). If Paul wanted to emphasize to his mixed Roman audience how God was calling people to salvation from both his own Jewish people and the nations, this is the kind of passage which one would expect to see quoted.

When all is considered, the safe—and most provable approach—is that the nations are participants in a larger restoration of Israel.[6] Whatever main substance is represented by Hosea 1:10 and 2:23, is something which the redeemed from the nations are beneficiaries of as well. Obviously, this would regard those non-Jewish Believers in Paul’s day, mainly Greeks and Romans, who had acknowledged Israel’s Messiah, and were surely to be reckoned among God’s people along with Jewish Believers who had likewise recognized Israel’s Messiah. Surely, if the Lord can demonstrate mercy and grace to the descendants of the exiled Northern Kingdom—whose ancestors once lived in the Promised Land, saw the Temple of Solomon and God’s presence within it, and then fell into gross idolatry—would He not also be compelled to save those of the nations at large, who were just flat turned over to sin and their lusts (cf. Romans 1), welcoming them as participants in Israel’s restoration?

It is witnessed in Romans 9:24-26 how prophetic passages regarding Israel’s restoration are applied to the nations—with non-Jewish Believers from the nations participating in Israel’s restoration. With concepts such as Hosea 1:10 and 2:23 applied to non-Jewish Believers and their salvation—such people were hardly part of some separate “Church” entity.

NOTES

[1] BDB, 996.

[2] BDAG, 982.

[3] Brown and Comfort, 557.

[4] Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, 392.

[5] This would be particularly seen in materials such as Quest for the Lost Tribes A&E, 1998, DVD 2006, hosted by Simcha Jacobovici, and the concurrent comments witnessed in Jonathan Bernis (2005), The Scattering of the Tribes of Israel, March/April 2005. Jewish Voice Today. Available via <http://www.jewishvoice.org&gt; and Sid Roth, The Incomplete Church: Bridging the Gap Between God’s Children (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2007), pp 17-18; Kent Dobson, with Jonathan Bernis, Jewish Voice International Ministries NIV First Century Study Bible, 2011 NIV (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022), pp 1855-1857.

[6] Most examination of the two-stick oracle of Ezekiel 37:15-28, as witnessed in the Two-House sub-movement, quantitatively fails to mention the fact that it is not just Judah and Israel/Ephraim who are united together, but that a third group of companions—seemingly the righteous from the nations at large—are also involved.