Thus, then, in the present time also there has been a remnant according to election of grace.
Is God finished with Israel? Paul answers by pointing away from the nation as a whole to a few who are left — and to the ground those few stand on.
Paul does not give one answer to that question but three. The remnant is the first.
The apostle gives three proofs that God has not rejected His people. First, he is himself an Israelite. There is a remnant whom God has reserved, as in the days of Elijah. That is proof of the constant favour of the Lord, and of the interest He takes in His people, even when they are unfaithful. Second, the call of the Gentiles, and their taking Israel's place, was not God's final rejection of Israel in His purposes. He did it to make Israel jealous. Third, the Lord would come out of Zion and turn away the sins of Jacob.
Kelly presses the question from the other side. Why is anyone left at all?
He points out that there is a remnant of grace in the worst of times. If God had completely cast away His people, would there be such mercy? There would be no remnant if justice took its course. So the remnant proves that even under judgment the rejection of Israel is not complete. It is a pledge of future favour.
Who keeps a remnant in existence when a whole nation turns away?
If there is a remnant preserved among them at all, it is an election of grace, and so it does not rest on works — on works of any kind. Grace, he adds, stops being grace if works are mixed with it. All through their history there was always a remnant, even when the nation had turned away from God most completely... God had still reserved for Himself 7,000 men who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. That was His work, so no power of the enemy could overthrow it. The prophet says the remnant in Israel is the sap of the tree. Even when the tree is cut down, the sap shows there is life in it.
Stanley applies this to the reader, and to Gentiles as well as Jews.
Just as in the days of Elijah, there was then an election of grace — of the free, unearned favour of God. Dear young believer, you will be strongly tempted to reject this abounding, electing, free favour of God... Is it not clear that both Israel and we Gentiles are so bad, and reject the grace of God so completely, that no one would have been saved apart from His election, His free favour, His grace? All would have been like Sodom. Yes, the total ruin of man, and the election of God, stand or fall together.
The nation's failure and the remnant's preservation rest on two different footings.
The nation as a whole is scattered today because they rejected Christ. Yet God still has a remnant "chosen by grace." On the ground of works they had completely broken down, and God had rejected them. On the ground of grace He reserved a remnant in whom the nation will be restored.
Is this small number all that God intends for Israel?
He is also saving now a remnant chosen by grace. That is in contrast to the saving of all Israel later on.
Those saved in this way do not stay where they were.
This remnant, chosen by grace and called out from the mass of the Jews, exists today. Yet the very fact of its calling cuts it off from Judaism and its hopes on earth... We have to read Ephesians 2, especially the last part of it, to learn the new position of heavenly favour and blessing they are brought into, together with those called from among the Gentiles by the gospel that is being preached today.
Elijah never saw the seven thousand. Kelly turns that into a warning for us.
If Elijah had not thought so much about himself, he would have seen some of these seven thousand before, and it is the same with us... We must not forget that there are those we do not see, and those we never meet. We must leave room for them in our hearts, in our faith. We must carry them on our souls before God. If we do not, the Lord has a complaint against us, as He had against Elijah then.
- Question — Has God cast away His people? The remnant is the first of three answers, The call of the Gentiles and the Lord coming out of Zion follow.
- Grace — God keeps the few by free, unearned favour, not by works. Mix works in and grace stops being grace.
- Reserved — Elijah's seven thousand were God's own work. No enemy power can overturn what He keeps.
- Now — "At the present time" means believing Jews today, cut off from hopes on earth and joined with Gentile believers in heavenly blessing.
- Pledge — Like sap in a felled tree, the remnant proves life remains. On this ground of grace God will yet restore the nation.
But if by grace, no longer of works since [otherwise] grace is no more grace.
Paul has just pointed to a small group in Israel who still believed. God kept them by His own choice, not by anything they had earned. Verse 6 gives the rule behind that: add works to grace, and grace stops being grace.
The verse is not a stray saying. It explains why God saved any Israelite at all when the nation as a whole had rejected Christ. One writer sets the two grounds side by side, reaching back to the days of the prophet Elijah:
It is now as it was in the days of Elijah. The nation as a whole is scattered because it rejected Christ. Even so, God still has "a remnant, chosen by grace." And if it is by grace, then it is "no longer on the basis of works." On the ground of works they had failed completely, and God had rejected them. On the ground of grace God had reserved a remnant in whom the nation will be restored.
The same writer's point about God's side is pressed further elsewhere: the preserved remnant is God's own doing, and therefore safe.
If there is a remnant preserved among them at all, it is an election of grace, and therefore independent of works, as the apostle says here — of works of any kind. Grace, he adds, becomes grace no longer if works are mingled with it.
The logic of the verse is the logic of ordinary life. Earned pay and a free present work in opposite ways.
The two cannot be mixed. If I work for wages it is no grace on the part of my employer to pay me my wages. And if someone freely offers me a gift, and I insist on working to earn it, it stops being a gift. I insult it. I turn it into a wage. I show no appreciation of grace.
The question is not how much work is added, but whether any is added at all. One image makes the amount irrelevant:
Let one drop of the poison of man's works fall into a vessel full of God's grace, and grace loses its character. God will not allow man to spoil His gracious act of forgiveness by any mixture of works.
The principle is plain, so why do people push back? One writer points to what each side does with the credit:
The human heart rebels against the principle of grace. "To the one who does not work" jars on many ears. "Without money and without price" sounds unpleasant to the self-righteous and proud… The principle of works gives man the glory; the principle of grace gives God the glory. Grace must win the day. All the glory must go to God, now and forever.
This is not a small matter of wording. One writer describes what he saw it cost ordinary Christian teaching:
Many people deny just as strongly that a believer can be sure of salvation. Many others cut salvation down to a forgiveness that depends on conditions. For a soul who sees its real state, that puts peace with God out of reach. Wherever this happens, grace is still unknown. And wherever grace is unknown, some system of works — that is, of law — always comes with it.
Some believers hesitate at the word "election," yet the verse is written to steady them, not to unsettle them. One writer addresses the hesitation directly:
Dear young believer, you will be strongly tempted to reject this overflowing, electing, free favour of God. Today few believe it with their whole heart. We want you to take hold of it with your whole soul. Look at the facts. Both Israel and we Gentiles are so bad, and we reject God's grace so completely, that if it had not been for His election — His free favour, His grace — no one at all would have been saved… Note this: these scriptures show that God is not unwilling. It is man who will not have the grace of God.
Older English Bibles carry a second half to the verse — "but if it be of works, then it is no more grace" — which most newer Bibles leave out. Commentators differ on whether it belongs, and one weighs it without alarm:
This gives Paul the chance to state that grace shuts works out. The Holy Spirit never lets such a chance slip. If we accept the older reading, each one shuts the other out. But I do not see that the bracketed clause adds to the precision of the truth.
- Grace alone. Israel's remnant survived on grace, because on the ground of works the nation had completely broken down.
- Grace unmixed. A single drop of human works poisons the whole vessel; God will not let any mixture spoil His forgiveness.
- Grace unearned. Wages and gifts are different transactions; working to merit a gift turns it into a wage and insults the giver.
- Grace resisted. The heart rebels because works glorify man while grace glorifies God — and God must have the glory.
- Grace or law. Where grace is unknown, assurance dies and a system of works always moves in to replace it.