The Election of Grace: A Meditation on Romans 11, for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid.

For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.

Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias?

how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying,

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars;

and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

But what saith the answer of God unto him?

I have reserved to myself seven thousand men,

who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.

Even so then at this present time also

there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

 

As we pass the ides of August, and our communities seem stuck in the political vicissitudes of an election season marred by a fanned public panic in the latest pandemic, it is easy for a Christian to feel alone.  In various parts of the country, hostile politicians have attacked the Church with renewed vigor, facilitating mobs which persecute them in their congregations for having the audacity to gather around Christ in His Word and Sacraments.  Worse yet, faithless church leaders have abandoned the faithful to the whims of government, effectively shutting down their churches and taking away from the people their blessed communion.  Insanity has reached a fever pitch in many cities, where elected officials have bowed to Marxist mobs to defund police and deliver over the people’s property and livelihoods to masked marauders.  Such civilizational suicide waxes stronger in some regions than others, but nowhere seems immune from its reach.  There is an infection of unbelief in both the body politic and the Body of Christ which is causing massive suffering both locally and globally, and many there are who despair of our recovery.

 

However, the words of St. Paul to the church at Rome nearly 2000 years ago, help us remain centered and grounded in times such as these.  Lest we forget, the church at Rome was persecuted not only by the government but also by fellow Jews, and not many days hence that vitriolic persecution would become a persecution of blood.  St. Paul reminded the Christians at Rome that they stood in the election of grace by faith, which is how the people of God had always stood—from the ancient Israelites to the current day.  There were times in ancient Israel, hundreds of years before Paul’s writing to the church at Rome, where the faithful thought they were being persecuted into oblivion.  Yet even in Elijah’s time, when he was whisked away in the wilderness, fed by ravens in a secret location to avoid his government execution, he cried out to God in his loneliness, and God told him that He had retained for himself over 7000 people of faith even in that dark time.  St. Paul used this example to remind the Christians in Rome that they stood by grace through faith, grafted into the Root which supported both the faithful Jews of times past, and the people of faith in times present.  Various times of unbelief in the history of Israel caused some of those branches to be broken off in judgment so that others like themselves might be grafted in, but the Lord of the Harvest had power to graft every branch back in again, should they return to Him in faith and repentance.

 

The thrust of Romans 11 is to remind the Gentile Christians of Rome that they stood by grace through faith, and that if the Jews had become the enemy of the Gospel, partnered with a pagan government to persecute them in unbelief, the calling of God was still irrevocable, and everyone who returned to Him in faith would receive grace.  The message to the Church at Rome would strengthen them for the times of trial ahead, knowing that if God did not abandon His people during the time of Elijah, He would not abandon them now.  For in every age, God retains His remnant of faithful people who do not bow their knees to the pagan idols of their age, but remain steadfast in His Word.  And that remnant was strengthened by divine grace through an election which could not be overthrown by any powers of man or devil.  This was true in ancient Israel, in the days of St. Paul, across the 2000 year history of the church, and in our own day, as well.

 

As I shared with some friends this weekend who lamented that they thought they would never live to see such days as ours, the reality born of history shows that every generation has its time of controversy and conflict over the faith.  And while some times and places have greater or lesser persecution of the people of God, it is more likely than not that a Christian will face some form of persecution in their time and place if they seek to abide in the Word of God by faith.  This time in which we have been called and sent, grafted into Jesus like branches to a steadfast and living Root, is our time to live out our faith and resist the forces of despair, unbelief, destruction, and death.  And if we feel alone in our struggles, we can remember the times past when God’s Living Word sealed to Himself by His own power a remnant which would not bow their knees to Baal, just as He has done in our own time.  We are not alone as we stand in the election of grace by faith in Christ alone, but rather we stand together with all those who are sealed by the Holy Spirit in our time, and in the great cloud of saintly witnesses who have been saved and sealed in every generation before us.

 

We stand by grace through faith in our time and place, because God has very intentionally placed us here in this time, and in this place.  We are not accidents of the universe bouncing around with pointlessness and fear toward oblivion, but the called and elect children of God who live forever, forgiven and free.  We are the ones through whom the Lord of Glory has chosen to shine His saving Gospel today, to accomplish in our time and place the works He has ordained for us from before the foundation of the world.  And we do not stand alone.  For we are grafted together into the Body of Christ, born from above by Water and Spirit, receiving our eternal life in this world and the next through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The Gospel of faith and repentance which we carry by Jesus’ Word is irrevocable, piercing through every darkness in each generation, calling all who will return to Him, to forgiveness and life.

 

Be of good cheer, for we may not have chosen the times in which we live, but we can be sure that we were chosen for our times by Him who holds the whole universe in the palm of His omnipotent and gracious hand.  We stand forever by grace through faith in Christ alone, calling all people to join us in that life, through the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus.  Amen.