As Paul concludes chapter 9, he offers a further explanation as to why many of the Jews had rejected Christ, fleshing out the reality of election. He looks to Isaiah who discusses the reality of an elect remnant among Israel who were truly faithful throughout the entire history of Israel. It was never as though all the descendants of Abraham were faithful and true Israelites. Many of them were unbelievers, and that is the case for Paul’s kinsmen. They looked to the law and their works as the means by which they would be justified, and so the message of Christ was weakness to them. However, as Paul has explained throughout Romans, it is only by faith in Christ that one is justified, for both the Jew and the Gentile. And so Paul continues to pray and desire that the Jewish people would come to faith in Christ that they may be truly saved, for in Christ, there is true freedom and righteousness.