Election - Cuts Both Ways

The Hardening of Israel

Election has been at the center of understanding God’s work with humanity.

God’s Purposes of Redemption and Salvation are Set According to His Will, and We call this Election

Election has the primary meaning of His Will being done in relation to People, those who are his, and those who are not

Deuteronomy 9:4–6 (NIV)

One Group is Being Judged and Handed over to hardness, blindness, and sin, or judgement and destruction

This can apply to what God does today, one is being given over to the madness of their hardness, and God makes the light unassessable them (Stupor) Isa. 29:10 “The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).”

Judgement of Romans 1

Another Group is being Redeemed

The Jews are being given over to hardness and the gentiles are objects of salvation

One Group Out and Another Group In!

We are the Objects of His Mercy, while the Natural Objects of His Mercy are Given Over to their Hardness and to perdition.

Israel’s hardening Romans 11:7-10

Romans 11:7–10 (NIV)

What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened, as it is written:

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,

eyes that could not see

and ears that could not hear,

to this very day.”

And David says:

“May their table become a snare and a trap,

a stumbling block and a retribution for them.

May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,

and their backs be bent forever.”

Isa 29:10 “The Lord has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers).”

Romans 11:11 “Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.”

To Stumble as to Fall, to Hopeless Estate?

Stumbling, and unexpected event, possible due to one’s actions or the environment (They Stumble over Christ)

Stumbling involves a possible fall

Fall involves a possible death, or permanent change in one’s status.

There have been many who have stumbled, and have fallen into Hopeless Perdition?

Isa. 8:11-15 “This is what the Lord says to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people: “Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread. He will be a holy place; for both Israel and Judah he will be a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare. Many of them will stumble; they will fall and be broken, they will be snared and captured.””

1 Peter 2:8-10 “and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Jude 24-25 “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”