¹ I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. ² God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? ³ “Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” ⁴ But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”

With the coming of the message of Christ, God has not rejected His people, Israel, as some think today, has He? Paul’s emphatic “me gnoito” is unmistakable: absolutely not! He gives multi-thread evidence, first of which is himself. Paul’s Jewish credentials are impeccable, and like most Jews of his day, he is confident in his lineage. Most likely he would have been able to trace the specifics back to the patriarch Benjamin, the youngest and protected son of Jacob. If Paul preached either explicitly or implicitly the rejection of Jews, then Paul himself would be rejected. Remember, throughout the book of Romans he addresses the many Jewish objections to his Gospel message by those who were trying to poke holes in his logic or theological rationale. If their objections were legitimate, then Paul, being a Jew, would be disqualified from preaching the Gospel, because by his teaching the Jews were rejected, or so they conclude.

However, the apostle presents his own life and conversion as evidence that his message does not in any way teach that the Jews are rejected by God. He supports this also with Old Testament teaching. He could have quoted many verses, like Psalm 94:14, “For the Lord will not abandon His people, Nor will He forsake His inheritance.” Instead, he draws from the experience of Elijah, who bemoaned what he thought was God’s complete abandonment of Israel, leaving only Elijah. In fact, Elijah prayed against Israel (vs. 2) because he thought that he alone was the only one still faithful to Yahweh. The parallel with Paul’s Jewish contemporaries is clear. They saw themselves as the only ones faithful, and Paul and the other Christ-followers as apostate Israel of Elijah’s day.

However, God made clear to Elijah there were 7,000 who had not abandoned God by embracing idolatry. And the message to the Jews of Paul’s day is the same. God has saved out of apostate Israel some who are faithful to God. And those faithful ones are those who embrace the good news message that Jesus Christ is Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel, who gave Himself on the cross.

Lord, I worship the Lord Jesus as God in the flesh, who died for me.