Today’s word has happy connotations for me. I have several plastic bins full of scrap fabrics leftover from making quilts. Rather than throw them away, I’ve made a few ‘scrap quilts’ that are colorful and unique. Scrap quilts are popular these days and many quilters are excited to use up what others might discard. The photo shows a very simple one.
In the OT, the word for leftovers or remainders or excess is often translated as REMNANTS and is significant in OT theology. While it can refer to the remains of natural disasters, excess of speech, surplus of goods, an abundance of honor, or leftovers from a meal, this term is mainly used to describe the people that God will save, even after great judgment, such as the Jews who survived the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in the sixth century B.C. Much of that remnant was exiled to Babylon.
2 Chronicles 36:20. “(Nebuchadnezzar) took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia.”
The prophets promised that God would eventually restore this remnant to the land. Jeremiah 23:3 says, “Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply” even though Jeremiah usually refers to the survivors left behind in Jerusalem as the “remnant” and those taken to Babylon as the “exiles”. Others make the same prophesy and Paul picks up and develops this OT theology of the remnant in the NT.
Romans 9:27. “And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved’”.
Paul discusses the issue of why more Jews have not come to salvation in Jesus, God’s sent Messiah. One of his main points is that God’s rejection of the Jews has resulted in the message of salvation going out to Gentiles. But in addition to this observation, Paul insists that the doctrine of the remnant now applies to those Jews who have in fact become believers in Jesus, saying in Romans 11:5, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.”
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. The OT promises to save a remnant gave God’s people hope in dark times. The NT teaching adds to this with declarations of His faithfulness, even when the world is falling apart. He kept His promises then and will keep those yet unfulfilled. For me, knowing them and focusing on the power and faithfulness of God keeps me in peace on those days where the news or personal experiences threaten to pull me into worry and anxiety. Now, with this brief study and a reminder that His remnant is like my quilt scraps, I can look at all those colorful bits and pieces and think about God’s goodness. He will never leave me in bondage to being ensnared by my helplessness. By grace I have been chosen, rescued, and continually delivered into the joy of His faithfulness. I’m a small remnant in His scrap bin!
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