Rm 9, 6-13 God's elective plan might continue

(Rm 9, 6-13) God's elective plan might continue

[6] But it is not that the word of God has failed. For not all who are of Israel are Israel, [7] nor are they all children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but "It is through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name." [8] This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants. [9] For this is the wording of the promise, "About this time I shall return and Sarah will have a son." [10] And not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one husband, our father Isaac – [11] before they had yet been born or had done anything, good or bad, in order that God's elective plan might continue, [12] not by works but by his call - she was told, "The older shall serve the younger." [13] As it is written: "I loved Jacob but hated Esau."

(CCC 60) The people descended from Abraham would be the trustees of the promise made to the patriarchs, the chosen people, called to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of the Church (Cf. Rom 11:28; Jn 11:52; 10:16). They would be the root on to which the Gentiles would be grafted, once they came to believe (Cf. Rom 11:17-18, 24). (CCC 705) Disfigured by sin and death, man remains "in the image of God," in the image of the Son, but is deprived "of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23) of his "likeness." The promise made to Abraham inaugurates the economy of salvation, at the culmination of which the Son himself will assume that "image" (Cf. Jn 1:14; Phil 2:7) and restore it in the Father's "likeness" by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is "the giver of life." (CCC 706) Against all human hope, God promises descendants to Abraham, as the fruit of faith and of the power of the Holy Spirit (Cf. Gen 18:1-15; Lk 1:26-38. 54-55; Jn 1:12-13; Rom 4:16-21). In Abraham's progeny all the nations of the earth will be blessed. This progeny will be Christ himself (Cf. Gen 12:3; Gal 3:16), in whom the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will "gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad" (Cf. In 11:52). God commits himself by his own solemn oath to giving his beloved Son and "the promised Holy Spirit… [who is] the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it" (Eph 1:13-14; cf. Gen 22:17-19; Lk 1:73; Jn 3:16; Rom 8:32; Gal 3:14).