Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 78

Romans 9:24-26, "Even us, whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As he says also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them. Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God."

It is immaterial for us to know whether it was ignorance or intentional perversion which prompted Paul to refer to Hosea for a purpose which that prophet had not in view. It suffices to refer to Hosea 1, in order to ascertain that the prophet alludes not to the Gentiles, but exclusively to Israel, who, when obedient to the law of God, were to be called Ammi, ("my people"), and Ruhamah, ("she who is pitied"); but when disobedient they were to be called Lo-Ammi, ("not my people"), and Lo Ruhamah ("not to be pitied"). And again in verse 10, we read, "And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God."

Paul writes this section as part of a long argument. Protestants often misinterpret this verse as asserting that the question as to who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is predetermined by God. Going to heaven is not a topic addressed by Romans 9, but by Romans 10. In that chapter, we learn that going to heaven is conditional, where those who confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead are the ones who will go to heaven.

One can argue from Paul's quotation of Isaiah that he uses the term "saved" yet this is not about who goes to heaven, but which group of Jews avoids getting wiped out.  The children of Israel would be like sands of the sea, yet those who fled to Egypt and those who abandoned God for idols would be killed off or assimilated into the pagan cultures.

Romans 9 is about the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. It is God's sovereign choice, not on who goes to heaven, but on which group God will use to complete his mission. Instead of electing the Jews to bring the news of Messiah to the world, he elected his church to that task. If someone asks how God would dare do this to the Jews, Paul answers that you are not in a position to answer back to God.

Romans 9 concludes with this reference to Hosea.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
As indeed he says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
 and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
“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.’”
 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of them will be saved,
for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.” (Romans 9:22-29)

Paul's reference to vessels prepared for glory and vessels prepared for destruction is a reference to Romans 2:

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:3-5)

This is how God hardened Pharaoh's heart. He did not directly cause his heart to be hard, but used his forebearance and patience to delay pouring his wrath on Pharaoh. God delayed Pharaoh's destruction to allow the man to become, of his own non-deterministic free will, as wicked and deserving of wrath as he could be. In that sense, God turned the man into a vessel of wrath.

Hosea reads as follows:

She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the LORD said to him, “Call her name No Mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, to forgive them at all. But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God. I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”

When she had weaned No Mercy, she conceived and bore a son. And the LORD said, “Call his name Not My People, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. 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.” And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
(Hosea 1:6-11)

When Hosea addresses this passage, he is addressing it to Israel as opposed to Judah! He is addressing this passage to the Northern Kingdom only, not to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Paul applies this passage to state that the children of the Northern Kingdom will be like the sands of the sea, and yet only a remnant of them will not be wiped out in the Assyrian exile.

A. Lukyn Williams gives Talmudic quotes where the rabbis apply passages meant for Jews to Gentiles.

Yet R. Isaac, as a good scholar, ought to have been well aware that to quote the passage of Gentiles was a thoroughly Jewish proceeding. Karaite though he was, he knew his Talmud, and could use it when occasion offered. He ought, then, to have remembered that in T. B. Pesachim, 87b, R. Eliezer [ben Hyrcanos], in proof of the proposition that in the hour of the LORD's anger He remembereth mercy, says: "The LORD sent Israel into captivity among the nations only that proselytes might be added to them: for it is written: And I will sow her to me in the land (Hosea 2:23, Heb. 25). And a man sows a seah only to gather many cors [one cor contains thirty seahs]. Then R. Jochanan proves the same truth from the verse: And I will have mercy on her upon whom I had not had mercy."* Rashi's comment on R. Jochanan's quotation is: "They who were not my people clave to them, and became my people." Thus we have Rashi in the eleventh century, and RR. Eliezer and Jochanan in the end of the first century, explaining passages in Hosea as referring to the conversion of Gentile.