God’s Mercy to Israel

Romans 11:1-12

Dr. Edwin P. Elliott

I. Has God Abandoned His People?

A. History poses awkward questions about the people of God and how they relate to God. “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” (Romans 11:1)

B. To suggest God has rejected His chosen people is to frame the question improperly. “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,” (Romans 11:2)

C. Elijah was convinced that Israel had abandoned the faith and that all hope was lost, but God was still doing a mighty work. “Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.” (Romans 11:3)

D. God sees from a different perspective; only He can know if indeed all is lost. “But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.” (Romans 11:4) “For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)” (1 Kings 18:4)

E. God preserves His remnant; the pattern occurs in every period of redemptive history: Isaac—not Ishmael; Jerusalem—not Samaria; Ezra—not Babylon. “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” (Romans 11:5) “The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.” (Isaiah 10:21-22)

F. At every level across the sweep of history the determining factor is grace; salvation is by grace--not by status, effort, or any other human asset. “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” (Romans 11:6)

II. No, God Removes What Restrains Grace

A. Election and grace are inseparable; any other doctrine blinds people to God’s mercy. “What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded” (Romans 11:7)

1. Grace only functions God’s way. “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:” (Proverbs 1:28) “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” (Luke 13:24)

2. The benefits of grace only come by grace; God is not some force of nature which can be harnessed and manipulated. “For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” (Hebrews 12:17)

B. When people move away from God, He gives them what they seek; the process anesthetizes people to what they are doing. “(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.” (Romans 11:8)

C. Any medicine becomes a poison when it is misused. “And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.” (Romans 11:9-10) “Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.” (Psalms 69:22-23)

III. Providence Works for Good in All Things

A. The tragic developments in redemptive history provoke great advances in salvation. “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” (Romans 11:11)

B. The depth of the problem points to the height of the eventual triumph. “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” (Romans 11:12)

C. The fall of old Jerusalem opened the way for the spread of the gospel to all people; the intensely Jewish Paul became the developer of the mission to the Gentiles. “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;” (Ephesians 3:8)