The Rest Were Hardened - Part 1

Father, I remember over a year ago now that in preaching on similarly hard things, you brought from death to life a young couple in this church, and I am therefore hopeful tonight that though we deal with a very witty matter, you will be working savingly, humbling, teaching, reproving and correcting, training in righteousness, strengthening us for every good work in ways we don't even understand. Oh, we want to be a humble people under your mighty hand, and what a sovereign hand it is according to this text. Forbid that there would be any sense of elitism in our understanding of the doctrine of election. Forbid that there would be any pride in it, any one-upmanship, any boasting in self or our kind, but rather in all lovingness and brokenness, may we prove our calling and our election by loving all peoples with a self-sacrificing compassion and love. I ask that you would do exceedingly and abundantly beyond everything that I'm able to say and surely beyond everything I'm able to do, unless you build the house, those who build it, labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. We rise up early and go late to bed in vain. Unless you come now and do the work of saving and purifying and humbling and reconciling and healing and emboldening and exalting Christ. I pray this now in Jesus' name. Amen. What is revealed about God now and His ways in these verses is very serious and very weighty. And it's light years removed from early morning banter on the radio. It is not even in the same world, it seems, as the world of entertainment. It's never mentioned ever, ever on television. It scarcely turns up in any manuals of church growth or any popular assessments of culture in America today. But if it's true, what we read here in verses 7 through 10, it affects all of these. And so I plead with you to listen and to pray for a heart that's teachable, not by me, but by the Holy Spirit. According to His Word, these are really, really weighty matters. Verse 7, what then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. Let's just stop there and get that clear. Let's see it in relationship to the preceding two verses last week. Verse 5, so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. In other words, God has seen to it in Elijah's day and now in Paul's day, that there is a remnant of believing people among Israel. And He stresses it's by grace. Israel as a whole has evidently not been believing, but some have believed in the Messiah and been justified, saved from sin and hell. So when it says, what then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking, we now know that what it was seeking was life. What it was seeking was fulfillment of the law. According to the election of grace, or the remnant was chosen. You see that in verse 5? And this choosing was by grace. The remnant hadn't done anything to deserve being chosen. That's what we talked about last time. And then verse 6 underlines that. If this election is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. Which now leaves the reader with a picture in his head that's for some of them breathtakingly problematical. The picture is God chose Israel in the days of Abraham. He just picked him out of Ur of the Chaldees. Your mind, through you I will bless the world. I will work with you. And through the history of Abraham's descendants, he made covenants and he made promises that there would be a wonderful future for this people. And here Paul is saying a remnant is saved by grace. And so the picture left is what about all the rest? Paul, what are you saying? Remnant? This is remnant. I mean, God chose Israel. What are you saying, Paul? Which brings us now to verse 7. What then? What are you saying? Paul answers, Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. In other words, it was seeking to fulfill the law. It was seeking to get right with God. It was seeking to have eternal life. And it has rejected the Messiah and therefore is lost and cut off from Christ. We've seen all that in chapter 9 and 10. The elect, I'm in the middle of verse 7 now. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. Now that's a tremendously important statement. For understanding how salvation works, the elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened. Obtained what? Obtained faith, justification, eternal life, membership in the remnant. Verse 5, at the present time there is a saved remnant chosen. Now there's the word chosen that turns up here in verse 7 again. The elect, that is the chosen, obtained it. And verse 5 said, there is a remnant chosen. So being the remnant is what they obtained. Being the saved, justified, redeemed remnant is owing to being chosen. What then, Paul, of the rest? If the remnant exists because of election, what are you saying, Paul, about the rest? Verse 7, the rest were hardened. Now just think of this language for a moment, even before we begin to explain it. Let's just think about the language for a moment and how unusual it is in American evangelicalism. Who talks this way? The elect obtained it, the rest were hardened. Anybody say that? Where in the world is such language ever used? If we were to write this text, you know how we would write it. We would write it like this.