The Meaning of Falling and the Remnant

Is it an irrecoverable fall? Far from it; for they did not undergo the passion upon their own destruction, so that the event might be a corpse and a ruin, but upon the salvation of the Gentiles, so that they might be called envious of these things. Thus, the established error is a slip deserving forgiveness due to existing ignorance.

Let us not pay much attention to the difference of names, but to the demonstration of realities; and what Paul presents through the words, having taken them, let us not prevent the words from meaning something else. Immediately, does not the one falling not rise again? It declares the sense of 'to fall' not as an unrecoverable state, as in 'my enemy does not rejoice over me, because I have fallen and I shall rise' (Psalm 30:1), but 'to fall' declares a certain time of misfortune.

Rather, it is worthy to seek the matter: would Paul disagree with the prophet, saying: 'The house of Israel has fallen, and it shall no longer add to rising' (Isaiah 10:22)? Otherwise the prophet himself would seem to disagree with himself in the following, saying other good things and the end: 'And I will plant them upon their own land, and they shall never again be uprooted from the land which I gave them, says the Lord' (Isaiah 11:12; 66:9).

But the prophet Isaiah clearly solves the question: the remnant of the people that shall be saved, and Israel being called by a wholly different name; for he says the remaining ones shall be removed like a grape-fragment in a cluster, to be filled with the good things from God, dividing them toward the people: 'Behold, those serving me shall eat, but you shall hunger' (Isaiah 63:8), and the following. After much such opposition he says: 'For your name shall be left as an oath to my chosen ones, but you the Lord will lift up' (Isaiah 49:26); and to those serving me another name shall be called, as the blessed shall be blessed in God having been made certain, and the one swearing in the land shall swear in God having been made certain. And these foreign things are according to the Aquila edition, to which the Jews pay attention. Therefore it is necessary also for them to confess that there shall be a change of those who are to be saved from among them into another mind and polity, as it is true to say concerning them, either that they are not Israel, or truly these are Israel of the Israel being destroyed according to the flesh. The prophet has spoken of the one being destroyed, but the apostle of the one being saved, separating him from the one according to the flesh.

And if, as he says, the saved ones are from Israel (Rom 11:16), those who have become partakers of sanctification toward salvation, God has received these as a firstfruit of the nation (Rom 11:16), and has sanctified the whole remainder through the one received, according to the gift given unto the whole world—for we know that the mass of dough is sanctified through the firstfruit (Rom 11:16)—this, however, is a proof that the nation has not fallen entirely, unlike the Canaanite nations devoted to destruction, of whom even one impious was saved because of the universal vote of God against them, and like Sodom which was handed over to the fire, from which even the race of the righteous stranger did not deserve salvation except through the grace toward him; but of Israel, we see many being saved. Let us not, however, count them together with the Canaanites and Sodoms, nor count them among the unclean, of whom the firstfruit is holy.

But regarding those being grafted in instead of those who were cut off (Rom 11:21), he says, let it not be a cause of any pride, but let there be fear; for let it be considered that they were grafted in according to grace through faith (Rom 11:21). Those were shoots from the nature of the root, and yet through unbelief they have been cut off. But there is much in between that is according to grace and that which is according to nature. If even nature did not grant those who disobey to stability, how much more shall those of the addition benefit, unless they appear worthy of the grace that has been given? Again, upon these, those who revile the flesh should remember how much the generation according to the flesh has a deviation, even if it is preserved through unbelief.

When even the branches of the olive tree according to nature remain in destruction through unbelief (Rom 11:24), and those of the wild olive tree are being grafted in from being contrary to nature into the good olive tree, how are those who bring in both salvation and destruction from nature not ashamed? (Rom 11:24)

For you do not ignore, he says, the thing unrevealed by the providence of God, which is unknown because of the present unbelief of Israel (Rom 11:25): that until the entrance of all the foreknown ones of the Gentiles, an insensibility seizes Israel (Rom 11:25), but after this, the remnant of the nation, he who has truly followed Israel, shall be saved. For the preaching of the gospel to you, brothers, had to come through their alienation (Rom 11:28), and because of this they were alienated; but let Israel also be kept among the survivors as one belonging to their fathers.