lay out your take on what you hold the following passages...
1- are asserting...
and what you think...
2- the Dispy is asserting...
Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. 9:26 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.
I'll have a go of it, though my answer disagrees with replacement, reformed, and dispensational teaching. Something for everyone to love.
The problem is the dichotomy of Israel vs. Church that underlies the question. Those aren't the groups in question.
The two groups that the Bible talks about are true Israel and false Israel. Neither one started in the 1st century. They both start somewhere around the 14th century BC.
Israel came out of Egypt by God's mighty hand... but everyone else benefited, too. Lots of folks were under Pharoah's thumb, and when his army and country were wiped out in a month's time, they took advantage.
Israel marched out... straight into suddenly-empowered Midian, and intermarried with the Midianites. Then they headed north through Edomite territory, and intermarried with Edom. After beating a path into the back-side of the desert for 40 years, they finally entered Canaan. They promptly cut treaties with the Gibeonites and intermarried with the Canaanites they were supposed to eradicate.
All... those people... came to be the nations of Israel and Judah, at least after the flesh. After the Spirit, some were Jacob but some were Esau, some were Israel but some were Edom.
The chapter you chose says it succinctly - "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel" (verse 6)
So then, the "vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" were the Canaanites living in the promised land. God had ordained them to destruction as just penalty for their terrible crimes. But when they became intermingled with His chosen people, the "vessels of mercy" in the verse, God instead "endured with much longsuffering" their continued existence.
This is why the Old Testament spends so much time talking about the Jews not intermarrying. This is why national Israel struggled with idolatry - the enemy literally sewed Israel with "other seed," which was growing up alongside the good seed.
But what was good for the goose also worked for the Gander. When Israel and then Judah went into diaspora, all the pagan world ended up sewn with the good seed, leaving bits of true israel everywhere among the nations.
The gospels are written against the backdrop of a land where everyone understood that half of Judah was false, but didn't have a good way to separate the two. That's why we have all this talk of tares and wheat, of lambs and goats, and most of all, of a coming day when the two would be separated.
And, Jesus also talks about "other sheep" who would be gathered to the fold. So then, the church is not a replacement for Israel. Rather, the church is the continuation of true Israel. God winnowed Israel, and destroyed the false part. To that remnant, he brought a harvest from among the nations, where seeds sewn long before bore fruit as soon as they heard the gospel message.
The passage in Hosea which is quoted in Romans 9 predicted it perfectly. Israel was called "not my people" and went into exile and perdition, becoming truly not a people at all. But then, in the space of a few decades, the preaching of the gospel brought Israel back to life, and gathered her to the faithful remnant of Judah.
That's what the church is. And that's pretty much the Bible explained.
