Chapter 518 of 957

THE CHOSEN

ROMANS 11:5-6

Paul again emphasizes the importance of grace.

From the thought that the remnant is the true Israel, two conclusions, consistent with Paul’s whole argument, emerge:

Race alone is not the basis of the choice. If the remnant who, in prophetic times, and in Paul’s own day, represent the true Israelites (John 1:47), it follows that to be a “Hebrew of the Hebrews” is no final guarantee of God’s acceptance. It is by faith in Christ, not the works of the Law. A person is saved, not because their parents were at peace with God, not on the basis of race, family or nation, but because of a personal and individual decision. The principle applied, to their consternation, to the Jews. It applies still. It is curious how the old heresy extends. No church or nation is saved collectively.

It also follows that, since the Jews found themselves under the same dispensation of grace as all other peoples, then members of those other races, the Gentiles, could become part of the “chosen people” by following the same path to salvation. The notion of a “chosen people,” in fact, has passed through a complete transformation. It is a spiritual idea, not an ethnic one.

Both of these conclusions are, as has been seen in the earlier movement of the argument, consistent with the doctrine which Paul has preached. But in the process he has answered the first question of the chapter. “Has God rejected his people?” Not at all. A remnant, as through all time, has accepted him, and that remnant has become his people, reinforced, as the prophets had also foretold, by additions to their number from the mass of humanity, who found the pathway of faith to Christ’s salvation.

Note a final thought emerging from the thought of the “seven thousand.” Theirs was no aggregate salvation. There was no organism involved, no group personality, no predetermined number. The seven thousand had not “bowed the knee to Baal.” Their total was the sum of individual choices, each confessor was a human personality, individually choosing not to submit to the evil which flooded the land.

↑ Back to top