Three Strands of Evidence that God Has Not Rejected the Jews
I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Romans 11:1-4
Paul began these three chapters (Romans 9,10 and 11) with the paradox of Israel’s condition – uniquely privileged by God and yet firm in unbelief (9:1ff). This was not because of God’s unfaithfulness or injustice (9:6ff) but rather because of His ‘purpose in election’ (9:11), Israel’s stumbling over Christ (9:32) and continuing rejection of God’s persistent advances (10:21).
Paul now asks two questions:
1. ‘I ask then: Did God reject his people?’ (11:1)
Because they rejected God, it isn’t out of the question for God to reject them. Paul is adamant they are not the abandoned people they might seem. Their rejection is only partial; a believing remnant remains, as Paul shows in 11:1-10
2. ‘Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery?’ (11:11)
Israel’s fall is temporary. Already her rejection has resulted in unexpected blessings with more to come (11:12-32)
So the rejection of the Jews is neither total nor final. There is still an Israelite remnant in the present, and there is going to be an Israelite recovery in the future, which will itself lead to blessing for the whole world.
Paul begins in 11:1 asking ‘’ Did God reject his people?’ and answering emphatically ‘By no means!’ He presents four strands of evidence:
The first is personal: ‘I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin’ (11:1). Paul might be writing as a patriotic Jew but more likely he is taking himself as an example of a Jew who God has not rejected, despite his being a blasphemer and persecutor. God not only saved him but then chose him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. He wouldn’t be both a Jew and a Christian if God had rejected the Jews.
The second is theological. Has God rejected ‘his people,’ His special chosen people, the people of His covenant which He has declared unbreakable’ (Jeremiah 33:19ff)? Paul calls them ‘his people, whom he foreknew’ (11:2). Earlier in 8:29 Paul used the term ‘foreknew’ in the sense of to fore-love and so to choose. The context there was to Christians. Here it is the nation that God is said to have foreknown, but could God foreknow, fore-love, choose and then reject a people. In Paul’s mind this doesn’t seem possible.
The third is biblical. After Elijah’s victory over the prophets of Baal, he fled from Jezebel into the desert, and later took refuge in a cave on Mount Horeb. There ‘he appealed to God against Israel’ saying “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me” (11:3). God corrected him, “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (11:4). Israel’s apostasy was not complete. A faithful remnant remained.
Paul is emphatic: God has not rejected His people? He has demonstrated from a personal point of view, a theological point of view and biblical point of view why he holds so strongly to his position. His fourth strand of evidence will follow in the next devotional.