Whenever any country boasts that there are 100% one faith, or that there are 0 Christians in a nation, it is laughable.  It is laughable because whoever says such things does not know the ways of God.  There always has been and always will be a remnant of people in any country that pursue God in love and truth.

The same thing here with the Israelites, albeit a little bit different.   Paul has been talking about how because of the stubbornness and hardness of the hearts of the Jewish people, they rejected Christ.  So did this mean that God’s promise to Abraham had failed?  That all nations would be blessed through the “seed,” the Christ that the Lord had promised?

Not in the slightest.  As Paul has said elsewhere under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “when we are faithless, he is faithful” (2 Timothy 2:13).

So did God abandon his people because they rejected Christ?  Not at all.  He is first going to make the point here that God always has a remnant of the faithful.

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.  God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel:  “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? ⁴ And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”  So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.  And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

In Elijah’s time, the faithful had refused to bow their knee to Baal at the risk of their lives.  Elijah thought he was the only one, but God knew and saw that there were actually thousands who had not bowed.  Maybe they weren’t so open and obvious, but they had not bowed.  They put their faith in God, not Baal.

In this instance there is a similar theme.  Many Jews had rejected the message of Jesus that salvation was by faith through grace, not the law or works.  The Jewish people had missed the message that was there from the time of Abraham.  Instead, they had held up the Law above all.

The Gentiles though, who did not have the law, had put their faith in Christ, apart form works of the Law.  So did all the Jews reject the message of the Messiah?

Not at all.  Paul is saying that there is remnant who have chosen faith through grace in Christ.  And if they have trust God through Christ by faith, then it is not by works.  Works do not save.  Only Christ saves and we who put our faith in him.

The point Paul is making is that God has not abandon Israel.  There are people who believe.

In fact, Paul is one of them.