Is Israel still God's chosen people?

I cannot close this section without calling the attention of the Christian reader to the deeply-interesting declaration contained in the 15th verse: "And God said, moreover, to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial to all generations." This statement contains a very important truth — a truth which many professing Christians seem to forget, namely, that God's relationship with Israel is an eternal one. He is just as much Israel's God now, as when He visited them in the land of Egypt. Moreover, He is just as positively dealing with them now as then, only in a different way. His word is clear and emphatic: "This is my name for ever." He does not say, "This is my name for a time, so long as they continue what they ought to be." No; "this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial to all generations." Let my reader ponder this. "God has not cast away his people which he foreknew." (Rom. 11:2) They are His people still, whether obedient or disobedient, united together, or scattered abroad; manifested to the nations, or hidden from their view. They are His people, and He is their God. Exodus 3:15 is unanswerable. The professing church has no warrant whatever, for ignoring a relationship which God says is to endure "for ever." Let us beware how we tamper with this weighty word, "for ever." If we say it does not mean for ever, when applied to Israel, what proof have we that it means for ever when applied to us? God means what He says; and He will, ere long, make manifest to all the nations of the earth, that His connection with Israel is one which shall outlive all the revolutions of time. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." When He said, "this is my name for ever," He spoke absolutely. "I AM" declared Himself to be Israel's God for ever; and all the Gentiles shall be made to understand and bow to this; and to know, moreover, that all God's providential dealings with them, and all their destinies, are connected, in some way or other, with that favoured and honoured, though now judged and scattered, people. "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people, according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." (Deut. 32:8-9)

The question with which the apostle opens the 11th of Romans is an exceedingly important, and interesting one, not only to Israel but to us. Of course, when he says, "Has God cast away his people?" he is not talking of Christians now, but of His ancient people Israel. At once the apostle says, "God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin." Then he states most emphatically, "God has not cast away his people which he foreknew." Now, by casting them off, what the apostle has before his mind, clearly, is their being, as a nation, irrevocably rejected by God, to be no more taken up by Him. It is not a question of individual salvation here, in this part of Scripture; it is as a nation they are spoken of. Has He then cast them off? The answer is most distinct. "God has not cast away his people which he foreknew," and the apostle goes on to quote a remarkable bit of their history in connection with Elijah, who, when he thought he was the only man standing for God, is reminded, that God had seven thousand men, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" (ver. 5).

THOUGH ISRAEL, as a nation, has been set aside for a time, they have not been cast away for ever. Some Gentiles in the conceit of their hearts thought so when Paul was writing, and not a few think so today. But God forbid that it should be so, for they are His people foreknown for a special object, and in that event His object would be defeated. The Apostle immediately cites his own case as proof. Mercy had been shown to him and he was an Israelite, a sample of that remnant which God was then calling, and a pledge of the ultimate restoration of his nation. God is still today calling a remnant just as one was preserved in the days of Elijah.

This is the first answer to the question of Israel's total and final rejection. God foreknew His people when He chose and called them; and, knowing all their evil beforehand, He certainly will not cast them off. He has not done so, as Paul's own case proved; for he was no bad instance — he who had shared in the nation's guiltiest prejudices and bitterest unbelief and rejection of Jesus; yet had God called him. His love lingered over His poor unworthy people even now, as Paul was also a pattern for them who should hereafter believe on Christ Jesus to eternal life. On him first was the Lord showing the whole of His longsuffering: yet was he also an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, the one recalling the ancient promises, the other subsequent sin, himself withal present electing mercy, a pledge of the future grace which would save the people fully. Were the exclusion absolute, Paul certainly could not have been brought into His favour. But there is further proof still. "Know ye not what the scripture saith" in the account of Elijah? The disheartened prophet saw himself alone faithful in that dark page of Israel's history — himself therefore the object of hatred unto death as far as king and people could. But the divine admonition let him know of a complete remnant, "seven thousand, such as bowed not the knee to Baal." Thus then in the present time also there has been a remnant "according to election of grace." It was electing grace now as then. The general state was at that time undeniably apostate: what was it in Paul's day?

(Vv. 22-25). Thus, in God's dealings with Israel and the Gentiles, we see the goodness and the severity of God. God has acted in severity towards unbelieving Israel, and in goodness toward the Gentile. But His "goodness" will cease towards the Gentiles if they fall into unbelief; and God's severity can cease toward Israel if they repent of their unbelief. In this case the fall of the Gentiles will become the occasion for the restoration of Israel. If wild olive branches can be grafted into the olive tree so can the natural branches. This, indeed is what will happen, for the blindness that has come upon Israel is only blindness in part. The nation is not blinded nevermore to see, nor fallen never to be restored, nor cast off never to be received. The time of their casting off will end when the fulness of the Gentiles has been brought into blessing.

Rom. 11:25-32. But there is another reason more express: blindness in part is happened to Israel, but this is until the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in; and so all Israel, instead of being rejected, shall be saved. It is the future national restoration and salvation of Israel. They shall be restored to their own olive, to their place in the line of God's testimony and promises on earth: for heavenly hopes do not enter into view here. Instead of being cast off, Israel, as such, are destined to enjoy all that was promised them. The Deliverer shall come out of Sion; and God will take away their sins. Plainly it is the Jews, the literal Jews, who are here meant; for they are distinguished from, and contrasted with, the Gentiles all through the chapter from verse 11, and very clearly in this verse 26. "The fullness of the Gentiles" means the complete number of such Gentiles as believe — all the Gentiles who share in the blessing during Israel's practical obdurateness. Israel are enemies on account of the Gentiles now as regards the gospel, but as regards election, beloved on account of the fathers. This is in no wise applicable to what people call the spiritual Israel, for they are friends as regards the gospel, and beloved of God the Father, not on account of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand Israel after the flesh, and all is simple: they have made good their enmity as regards the Gospel, and God will not fail to prove in due time that they are beloved on the fathers' account. For the gifts and calling of God are not subject to repentance: they are indefeasible. The election mentioned in Rom. 11:28 is that of the beloved people Israel. It must not be confounded with the election according to grace, whereby, in the interval of Israel's rejection, the called Jews and Gentiles are taken for heaven. The first is a national election, the second an individual election, which sets us in far superior blessing, since its object and result are to introduce us into heaven. In fact, the believing Jews, who abode on the olive-tree, share in these two elections.

How strange that Christians who enjoy and maintain the faithfulness of God as to their own souls, should deny it as to Israel, spite of His call and promises to them. But He will never repent. He is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent. He created, and when His work became corrupt, He destroyed. (Gen. 6, 7.) But if He calls, He never casts off: His counsel is irrevocable. He is sovereign in Rom. 9. He is faithful in Rom. 11. "For as the Gentiles at one time believed not in God, but have now had mercy shown them through their (Israel's) unbelief, so Israel have now not believed in the Gentiles' mercy, in order that they also may have mercy shown them. For God has shut up all together in unbelief in order that He might show mercy to all." Israel shall be reinstated in the blessing of the promises by the same road that the Gentiles have followed to enter into the blessing of the gospel — namely the mercy of God. Through rejecting Christ they lost their title to the promises, and they sealed that loss by opposing and denying the mercy of God which passed on to the Gentiles who received the Christ in heaven, whom the Jews rejected on earth. Thus Israel is stripped of title and stands the object of pure mercy just as much as a Gentile. And thus God will save Israel at the end, not on the ground of their claim but of His mercy.

And of this the nation are as striking an example. The only people chosen of God as His own among the nations of the earth to be the manifest seat of divine government, their own history becomes of necessity the illustration of this. "You only have I known," He says, "of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities." Any thing else but this would have been impossible for a holy God. And yet it is of Israel and their election that it is said, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. 11:29.) Even in their present state of dispersion, as the apostle argues, they are still "beloved for the fathers' sakes." Their rejection as a nation is not final. God repudiates utterly, by the mouth of Jeremiah, that which is still the thought of many Christians: "Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord hath chosen, He hath even cut them off'? Thus have they despised My people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the Lord, If My covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them." (Jer. 33:24-26.)

No; it was somewhat similar in Elijah's day, when the nation as a whole was without the knowledge of the true God. Then God preserved a little remnant; and as in that day, so now. Grace still works, though at present in only a few of that nation. As a whole, Israel has been suspended on account of its disobedience and unbelief, but a few of their number still come in for blessing, on the principle of grace and through faith in Christ Jesus. Their present fall as a nation is a judicial consequence (as both Isaiah and David show) of their unbelief (Rom. 11. 1-10).

In view of the preceding chapter on Israel 's rejection, the question is asked "Hath God cast away His People?" Is there nothing more in store for national Israel ? God forbid. If it were so, God's gifts and calling would be subject to repentance and He would not be the faithful, covenant-keeping God. He foreknew His people Israel and that foreknowledge embraced all their sad history of failure and apostasy. The Apostle Paul speaks of himself as an Israelite of the seed of Abraham. He demonstrates in his own experience the fact that God hath not cast away His people. Hating Christ, having zeal for God without knowledge, a persecutor of the church, he had obtained mercy that in him Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him (1 Timothy 1:16). His unique conversion must be looked upon as a prophetic type of the conversion of the remnant of Israel, when the Lord comes. As Saul of Tarsus saw Him in the glory-light, so the Israel living in the day of the second Coming of Christ will behold Him (Zechariah 12:10; Revelation 1:7). This vision will result in their national conversion.

We are now to see how Israel's portion is yet to be made good to them. We have seen already, that, in fact, the promises of God must be fulfilled. They are not, if we think of those to Abraham, conditioned upon any response on man's part. God alone is the Speaker in them, and as the apostle tells us in the next epistle (Galatians) the law which was 430 years after could not be added, as a condition to what God had already unconditionally declared. Israel's portion is then, yet to be made good to them; but this involves another thing. If the special place and privileges of the nation are to be restored, the church subsists only by the breaking down of these very distinctions. In it there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but it is composed of both, united by one Spirit in the body of Christ. Thus, then, the Church must have passed away from the earth before Israel's promises can be fulfilled. The two could not exist together at the same time, and so it is stated in this chapter; as concerning the gospel, with regard to that, Israel, although always beloved for the fathers' sakes, is yet treated nationally as an enemy, and it is not, therefore, by the gospel as it goes out at present, that Israel as a whole can be brought back to God.

The apostle dwells first of all upon the fact of this present election of grace as declaring God's unchanged favor towards them. "God," he says, "hath not cast off His people whom He foreknew." That foreknowledge embraced, assuredly, all the history of the people of His choice. He at least could not be disappointed, nor could the evil in them work change in Him. He could certainly never be deceived. The heart of man, which man indeed is incompetent to fathom, He Himself claims to know perfectly. 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. Through all their history, even at the time of most complete national apostasy, still, as he reminds us here, there was ever a remnant. Elias, even, could make intercession to God, alas, against Israel. "Lord," he says, "they have killed Thy prophets and digged down Thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life"; but it was a mistake in every way. God had still reserved to Himself, as He says, 7,000 men who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. That was His work, and therefore no power of the enemy could overthrow it. The remnant in Israel is, according to the prophet, the sap of the tree, which, though the tree be cut down, shows nevertheless that there is life in it. If there were no sap, there would be no life; but as long, therefore, as there is a remnant according to the election of grace, Israel still in that sense lives before God.