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The elect can also mean Israel.

Remember that according to Paul, we Gentiles are, through our faith, grafted against nature into the olive tree that is Israel and that there are Israelites who, because of lack of faith, are cut off from that root. And being part of Israel consists in becoming a son of Abraham through the same kind of faith that Abraham had who believed God and it was counted for him as righteousness. We who are Gentiles were excluded from the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But Jesus broke down the division between Jew and Gentile in his own body and allowed us who were foreigners to become fellow citizens of God's people and members of God's household built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. This body of believers throughout time is the church, the body of Christ. As Paul said, in Christ there is no distinction between slave or free, Jew or Greek, male or female. All are one in Christ.