Romans 11:7– Election and hardening

What then? What Israel is seeking for, this she did not encounter, yet the chosen encountered it. Now the rest were calloused,

In 9:31 we read that religious Israel pursues a law of righteousness, but in vain. But what the people as a whole did not obtain, the elect part did obtain. This minority is called a ‘remnant’. They are the remnants that God continues with in the present time.

Great is the emphasis that Paul also places here on the fact that it is GOD who is in control of everything. Both in faith and in disbelief. In the terms the apostle uses, he emphasizes that GOD is the one who acts while man is passive in it. What can a person do to be ‘chosen’? After all, God is the one who chooses and the chosen one receives that. The same goes for “the rest that were calloused”. That too is passive: the human being is a direct object in it.

Of course man is inexcusable if he does not recognize God (Rom. 1:20). But that’s just one side of the coin: the bottom. The top of the coin is that GOD directs everything in both election and hardening.

Delen: