A Remnant Chosen by Grace

…was the persecution they endured that prophets even hid in caves and in clefts of the rocks (1 Kings 18:4), at the time when Elijah himself fled into the deep wilderness and fell down before God, saying, “They have torn down your altars, they have killed your prophets, and I alone am left, and they seek my life” (Romans 11:3; 1 Kings 19:10). And at once he heard in answer to this, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (Romans 11:4; 1 Kings 19:18).

But just as then it was not God who drove Israel into such dreadful impieties, but they slipped down of themselves, following their own folly, so now again, when God the Father set before all the salvation that comes through Christ and thrust no one away at all, they slipped of their own will into apostasy, having pushed aside the Redeemer. So God has not rejected his people (Romans 11:2); for, as I said, he set before them the chance to share in the salvation that comes through Christ, if only they would choose it.

“But if by grace, it is no longer from works,” and the rest (Romans 11:6). “But if by grace,” he says, “it is no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Where, he says, someone supposes that he wins approval from works, there the name and the reality of grace will surely be pointless and superfluous; for, he says, “to the one who works, the wage is not counted as grace but as what is owed” (Romans 4:4). So if grace comes from works, it is no longer grace.

“What then? Israel did not obtain what it seeks” (Romans 11:7). He had said, “God has not rejected his people” (Romans 11:2). But since some were likely to rise up against this, putting forward, no doubt, this objection and saying, “Yet how has God not rejected his people, if Israel has slipped away, even if not entirely and completely, yet at least in part? For a remnant has been saved, and that by election” (Romans 11:5), he meets them again, and very wisely, and says, “What then?”, that is, what do I say to this? “Israel did not obtain what it seeks, but the elect obtained it, and the rest were hardened” (Romans 11:7).

For Israel sought justification from the law; but how, he says, could it be justified, when the law had brought no one to perfection (Hebrews 7:19)? So Israel sought the justification that comes through the type, but did not obtain it; yet those who were picked out and set apart from the rest because of their readiness to obey did obtain it, for they have been justified through faith. But the rest have been hardened, that is, the stubborn and those who would not be corrected.

“And David says, ‘Let their table become a snare,’” and the rest (Romans 11:9; Psalm 69:22). “Let their table become a snare,” he says, and what follows. To prove what he has said he also brings in a prophetic text, and that of not one prophet but two, to confirm it, “so that every word may be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses” (Matthew 18:16; Deuteronomy 19:15). For their table has become accursed, and quite rightly: that is, the cruel welcome and the savagery that they showed toward Christ at the time of his crucifixion; for when he was thirsty, they brought him vinegar mixed with gall (Psalm 69:21; Matthew 27:34). For this reason they were also darkened in mind (Romans 11:10) and are bent down, picturing only the things on the earth.

“I say then, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means” (Romans 11:11). I admire your gentleness, inspired Paul, for you handle words of wise tact with great skill…