The Seed of Abraham

Does God save all of His children, you might ask? Aren't every one of us the children of God? Well... it depends on how you look at it. There are actually two parts to this question.

One, we must differentiate between the natural/physical children and spiritual children. It is the spiritual children of God who are to be saved. As the Apostle Paul put it quite clearly in Romans 9:6-8,

"For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring."

Therefore, when viewed in a Biblical sense, God does save all of His children, that is His spiritual children.

Two, we do not know why some of us are elected to be God's spiritual children while others are not. The Bible does not tell us the reasons, and we should not speculate any further as we might create the wrong doctrines.

If the Apostle Paul ended his epistle at Romans 9:6-8, we might think that the children of the promise are only found within physical Israel. However, he did not do so. The Apostle Paul later elaborated in Romans 11 on exactly who are the children of the promise.

In verse 13, the Apostle Paul identified who he was writing to, "I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles..." In verses 17 and 18, the Apostle Paul used a grafting branches analogy:

"If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you."

The "broken branches" that the Apostle Paul wrote about refers to the unelected physical children of Israel. The "wild olive shoot" refers to the elected Gentiles. The "olive root" is a reference to Abraham. And note the word "grafted." It means that the elected Gentiles are adopted into the line of Abraham, making them Abraham's spiritual children.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:6-9,

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Therefore know that those of faith, these are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the nations through faith, preached the gospel before to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all nations be blessed." So then those of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Why are all the nations blessed? Initially, God's covenant of grace only applied to the physical children of Israel. By "grafting" the elected Gentiles into the "olive root" that is Abraham, God has extended His covenant of grace to all nations. God's spiritual children are no longer restricted to physical Israel, but can be found among the Gentiles. Because the elected Gentiles are now considered sons of Abraham, the divine promise "In you shall all nations be blessed" is fulfilled.