Chapter # 11 Paragraph # 1 Study # 3
November 11, 2018
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: The "bottom line" in Paul's explanation that God has a larger plan than the one revealed in the writings of the Old Testament prophets is God's intentional shift of focus from Justice to Grace.
Introduction: When people think about God, it is inevitable that they will mistakenly "settle" their opinions of Him around a single, primary, attribute. This "settling" will not be rooted in divine revelation; it will be rooted in the gut level instincts of those who are doing the "thinking". This "settling" is revealed in numerous ways because of the fracture lines that exist between divine revelation and human preferences. For example, there are those today who have called themselves "evangelical" as to their theological orientation who are now promoting the heresy of the ultimate annihilation of all who have opposed God through their lives and times on the earth. They do this because of their conception of what they call "the love of God". In this concept, they are the ones who decide what "Love" is and, then, what "Love" will and will not do. Another example is the fracture between what some people call "Grace" and others call "Law". As in the "Love" controversies, those who argue vehemently for "Grace" are the ones who are defining "Grace" and then deciding what "Grace" will and will not do. Alternatively, there are those who champion "Law" and, again, they are the ones defining "Law" and what God will and will not do because He is "Just". And, there is probably no real escape from these "inevitable mistakes".
But, the real issue behind all of this is this fact: God is in the business of preparing human creatures to inherit His glory in a coming kingdom. This "preparation" does not mean that God is going to "correct" all of the things that are wrong with those heirs of His glory and kingdom while they live in this world, but it does mean that He is "correcting" certain particularly obstructionist characteristics of those heirs so that they may be suited for their specific inheritance in eternity to come. In other words, we ought to be realistic about what we expect God to do in our lives while we are here in this world, but we ought not to be defeatist.
This is all to say this: the focus of our study this evening is upon just what we (as individuals) can expect of God as He works out His Greater Plan in light of the "group" identified as "heirs of His glory and kingdom".
- I. Paul's Use of God's Response to Elijah to Reveal a Very Real Bottom Line That All Believers Should Adopt.
- A. It was Elijah's complaint that he "alone" was "faithful" to Yahweh in all of Israel.
- 1. He, notably, made this complaint while being "unfaithful" in both attitude and activity.
- 2. He was both "aware" and "deceived".
- a. He was "aware" of the state of affairs in Israel, the northern kingdom, in the middle of the ninth century B.C. (around 860 B.C.).
- 1) The rulers of the northern kingdom had imposed a rigid law against the people of their territory to travel down into the southern kingdom for "religious" reasons.
- 2) This meant that they could not go to Jerusalem to worship God at the Temple of Solomon; they could not offer sacrifices upon the altar in Jerusalem according to the dictates of "Law"; they could not participate in the major festivals of the "Law"; and they had to fall into line with the "religious" practices of the apostasies of Israel's kings.
- b. He was "deceived" by the appearances created by this "setting" into thinking that there were none in Israel (the northern kingdom) who were loyal to Yahweh.
- B. It was God's response that Elijah was not alone because there were 7,000 (probably a rounded number) male Israelites who were loyal to Yahweh.
- 1. God declares that He has "kept for Myself" these 7,000.
- a. The word translated "kept" is typically translated "left" in the sense of "leaving behind as one goes on down the road" or "abandoning" or "forsaking".
- b. But, our context insists that the meaning in this declaration is that Yahweh "got in the way of those 'going down the road with all the rest' so that they were 'left behind' ".
- 1) The rest of the context presents God as "blinding" people to the destination to which their path is taking them.
- 2) This strongly argues that it is God Who is, in effect, leading them down the road to destruction because of their persistent unbelief and argumentative spirit.
- 3) But, while leading them to the legitimate end of their rebellion, He actively "got in the way" of some whom He decided He would not allow to be destroyed by their sins.
- c. This means that Yahweh had determined to prevent 7,000 men from the results of their own self-destructive behavior.
- 2. God's declaration is very specific regarding what He has, and has not, done.
- a. He has kept them from "bowing the knee to Baal" (in the Old Testament record, He includes "kissing" Baal).
- b. He has not kept them from their many violations of "The Law" because of the pressures of their cultural, political, and religious setting.
- 3. This means that God makes a very large distinction between "sins" and "apostasy".
- a. This distinction is maintained throughout the entire body of written revelation from God.
- 1) "Sins" are evil; they have their own individual consequences both in the "law of the harvest" and in the relational universe they inhabit.
- 2) But, it is "apostasy" that distinguishes between those "justified by faith" and those whose destiny is eternal disaster.
- b. This distinction helps us to realize why there are no "sinless" saints in our world and why even the best of the faithful reveal their flaws to those who know them best.
- C. This means that we can expect God to keep us from apostasy, even if we cannot expect Him to enable perfection in us at this time.
- II. Paul's Deduction From God's Response.
- A. It was entirely God's doing that there were some who believed in Yahweh.
- 1. This was Isaiah's introductory declaration in Isaiah 1:9.
- 2. Paul had already appealed to that declaration in Romans 9:29 in his argument that God had already established the fact that He was behind His plans for His creation.
- B. This meant that "remnant" theology was an established "norm" in the ways of God.
- 1. Paul's words are "Thusly, therefore, also in the now time ... a remnant had come into being".
- 2. But Paul specifically tied his "remnant" theology to a particular "standard".
- a. He said the "standard" is "a gracious election".
- b. He argues off of the picture of God's deliberate frustration of the progress of some of the wicked in their determined self-destruction (from God's response to Elijah).
- c. He has also already claimed himself to be a sample of those who are of "the people of God" along with his own experience as a kind of "standard" by which God operates (1 Timothy 1:16) as Romans 11:1-2 says.
- C. The point, then, is that if we are going to fixate upon a particular attribute for the present time, it needs to be "Grace".