I ask, then, ‘Has God rejected his people?’ Heaven forbid! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
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God has not rejected his people, whom he chose from the first. Have you forgotten the words of scripture in the story of Elijah – how he appeals to God against Israel?
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‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have pulled down your altars, and I only am left; and now they are eager to take my life.’
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But what was the divine response? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have never bowed the knee to Baal.’
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And so in our own time, too, there is to be found a remnant of our nation selected by God in love.
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But if in love, then it is not as a result of obedience. Otherwise love would cease to be love.
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What follows from this? Why, that Israel as a nation failed to secure what it was seeking, while those whom God selected did secure it.
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The rest grew callous; as scripture says – ‘God has given them a deadness of mind – eyes that are not to see and ears that are not to hear – and it is so to this very day.’
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David, too, says – ‘May their feasts prove a snare and a trap to them – a hindrance and a retribution;
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may their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see; and do you always make their backs to bend.’