Romans 11:7

What then? [What results from the facts just stated? If God only acknowledges covenant relations with a remnant, and with them only by grace, surely you expect me to make some statement as to the status of the bulk of Israel. My statement is this:] That which Israel [the bulk or main body of the nation] seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the election obtained it, and the rest were hardened [The search spoken of is that with which we are already familiar; viz., the endeavor to obtain justification before God. All Israel sought this treasure. Those seeking it by the works of the law (the vast majority of the nation) failed to find it, but the remnant, seeking it by faith in Christ, found themselves chosen of God or elected to it. "The Jew, he says, fights against himself. Although seeking righteousness, he does not choose to accept it" (Chrysostom). If he could not find it by his own impossible road of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency, he would have none of it, though the apostle showed how easily it might be obtained by pointing out those who made it theirs by receiving it as a free gift from God through faith in Christ. But for those despising this rich gift, God had another gift, even that of hardening, which means the depriving of any organ of its natural sensibility. The calloused finger loses the sense of touch; the cataractous eye no longer sees clearly; the hardened mind loses its discernment between things good and bad, and readily believes a specious lie (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12); the hardened heart becomes obdurate like that of Pharaoh's, and is not touched or softened by appeals to pity, mercy, etc. We have seen, in the case of Pharaoh, that the hardness was the joint act of God and Pharaoh. The same is shown to be the case of the Jews, for Paul here attributes it to God, while it is elsewhere charged against the Jews themselves (Matthew 13:14-15). Of course God's part is always merely permissive, and Satan is the active agent. "God," says Lard, "never yet hardened any man to keep him from doing right, or in order to lead him to do wrong. He is not the author of sin. He may permit other agencies, as Satan and the wickedness of men, to harden them, but he himself never does it"]: