<p>11:4 <em>But what was the answer of God to him? I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed their knee to Baal</em>- &quot;Left for myself&quot; is the key phrase. These had been preserved by grace. God had worked in their lives to keep them faithful. And yet they were not openly associated with Elijah; their faith was weak, we can conclude; they included the likes of Obadiah who although counted faithful, still presumably went along with the appearance of Baal worship. These 7000 were therefore counted righteous, preserved by grace- and that is the exact context of Romans.</p><p>It may be that Paul's equation of the Jewish believers of the first century with the seven thousand who refused to worship Baal has a literal application (Rom.11:4) in that there were about 7,000 Jewish believers. By the time of Acts 4:4 &quot;the number of the men (that believed) had come to be (Greek- not as AV) about five thousand&quot;. The only verse that seems to contradict this impression is Acts 21:20: &quot;Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe&quot;. However, the Greek word translated &quot;many&quot; is nowhere else translated like this. The sense really is 'You know what thousands believe'- i.e. 'you know the number of Jewish believers, it's in the thousands'. See on Acts 2:46.<br />Reflect on how God's mercy is far greater than the mercy of man- even if we are talking about very loving and spiritual people. Elijah told God that only he was faithful, and the rest of the ecclesia of Israel had turned away. God said that in <em>His</em> eyes, there were another 7,000 faithful. Paul uses this as an example of how all of us are like that 7,000- those saved by God's grace (Rom. 11:4,5). So Elijah was a spiritual man; but by His grace, God thought much higher of Elijah's brethren than Elijah did.</p>