This is taken from Romans 11:1-2 in which the whole verse reads, “I say then, Did God cast off his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not cast off his people, which he foreknew …” Paul’s proof that God had not cast off His people was himself. He was a Jew, yet God had not cast him off.
Paul has shown that the righteousness for which Israel sought was in Christ and the theme of the book is found in Romans 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith.” But Israel was too busy seeking to establish their own righteousness; they would not submit to the righteousness of God. In chapter 10 the apostle showed that while Israel was ignorant of God’s righteousness, their ignorance was not because God had made no effort to see that the gospel was preached to them (10:3). He had, and with that preaching was God’s assurance that “whosoever shall on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13; cp. Joel 2:32). But. along with that assurance came these sad words: “But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings” (Romans 10:16). God anticipated their rejection, causing Isaiah to write, “Who hath believed our report?” (Isaiah 53:1). In Romans 10:19, Paul asked, “Did Israel not know?” Israel did know because David had written long ago: “Their sound went out into all the earth” (Psalm 19:4). God said, through Moses, “I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation” (Deuteronomy 32:21), and while the Gentiles gladly heard and received His message (“I was found of them that sought me not,” Isaiah 65:1), Israel rejected God’s message although God had, all the day long, “spread out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people” (Isaiah 65:2).
Israel’s state was not the result of God casting off His people. It was because His people had rejected the message God had spoken to them. Their state was a repetition of the conditions of the ten tribes of Israel to whom Elijah was sent. Elijah said, “Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have thrown down thine altars, … and I am left alone, and they seek my life” (1 Kings 19:10). Elijah was sent to these ten tribes who had rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam many years before, Solomon’s son. They had sought relief from the high taxes Solomon had imposed upon them, and assured Rehoboam they would serve him if he would give them relief from high taxation. But Rehoboam refused and division of Israel occurred. Their spiritual state spiraled downward when Jeroboam set up two golden calves to which the people resorted. It sank into even lower idolatry and apostasy during the reign of Ahab and Jezebel. During the days of that wicked couple God sent His prophet Elijah to the nation, and he worked a marvelous miracle among them demonstrating that the God Israel had once worshipped was the true God. He also demonstrated that the “gods” Israel now worshipped were no gods at all. Israel briefly returned to the worship of God but quickly turned again to idolatry and were taken away from their land into Assyrian captivity and lost their identity.
When Malachi wrote his prophecy, he concluded it with these words: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:1). God did send the Elijah He promised: John the Baptist. John preached of an approaching kingdom and the coming Messiah to the remaining two tribes (Judah and Benjamin), and while he had much success, the nation rejected John. Like other prophets before him, he suffered martyrdom from their hands. That nation (like the 10 tribes before them) lost their sovereignty, their city was destroyed, and the remnant of the people was scattered among the nations. It was nearly 2,000 years before they existed as a nation again.
To Elijah’s protests that the nation to which he was sent had totally rejected him (and thus the Lord who sent him), that he alone remained, and that the people sought to kill him, God responded, “I have left for me seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” And while Israel had rejected their Messiah, Paul the apostle assured his people: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5).
Jim McDonald