The Roman readers of Paul’s letter may of course have regarded the example of himself as a believing Jew as but a meagre proof. There may indeed be Christians among the Jews, but the vast majority of them are hostile towards the gospel. Paul counters this reaction with an age-old example from Israel’s own history. Just as Paul suffers because of the unbelief of his own kinsmen, there was once a prophet, Elijah, who likewise felt lonely and abandoned in the midst of his people: Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life
(Romans 11:2–3). One could easily transpose Elijah’s complaint (1 Kings 19:10, 1 Kings 19:14) into Paul’s own: Lord, they have killed your prophets and even your own Son, they have persecuted his apostles, and they try to exterminate his church. And now they also seek my life!
Because of the applicability to his own context, the Lord’s answer to Elijah recorded in 1 Kings 19:18 is meaningful both to the apostle Paul as well as the Christians in Rome: But what is God’s reply to him? I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal
(Romans 11:4). Elijah was not as alone as he had thought, and likewise Paul is by no means the only Jewish Christian.1
2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?