Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: "If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.
Truth to Learn
God chooses who will be saved from spiritual death just as He chooses who will be saved from physical death.
Behind the Words
The word translated “cries out” is the Greek verb kradzō, meaning “to screech” like a raven. It represents a loud impassioned scream or shriek used to get people’s attention.
Meaning Explained
Paul now quotes another of the prophets to show that God is sovereign regarding who receives salvation. In this case he clearly shows that not all of Israel will be saved. The quotation is from Isaiah 10:22:
For though your people, O Israel, is as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return; a destruction is decreed overflowing with righteousness.
Much of Biblical prophecy has an application to events occurring at the time the prophecy is given as well as a future application, especially to events of the end times. The prophecy of Isaiah here quoted applied to the preservation of a remnant of Israel from the destruction and desolation that was coming upon them by the Assyrian King Sennacherib and his army. In its future application, however, it is commonly understood by Jews as looking to the end times. It declares that God will abandon to ruin a great many of the seed of Abraham, and yet maintain his word of promise to Abraham through a chosen few, a remnant, who will be saved.
Let’s take a look at that promise God gave to Abraham. In Genesis 22 Abraham proved he was willing to be obedient to God by being willing to sacrifice his promised son, Isaac. Though God stopped him before the actual killing, He also proceeded to promise Abraham the following:
Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and He said: "By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son — blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of His enemies. (Genesis 22:15-17)
Abraham did not live to see God’s promise fulfilled, but he believed it nonetheless. Eventually, the number of descendants of Abraham became too many to be counted as promised. But Isaiah clearly states that even though the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became as the sand of the sea, only a remnant, a portion of them, would be saved from destruction. This is a clear example of God choosing some of the Jews and rejecting many others.
If God chooses some Jews to be saved and allows others to be destroyed, it is just as valid that He chooses some of the Gentiles to be saved while the rest will be recipients of His wrath in the Lake of Fire.
Application
Those who were saved from destruction by Sennacherib did not choose to be saved any more than those who died refused to be saved. God did the choosing then, just as He does now.
In God's service, for His glory,
Copyright © 2018 Will Krause. All rights reserved
