From Jim McGuiggan... All Israel will be saved (2)

All Israel will be saved (2)

Whatever we make of Romans 11:26 we need to remember that it is Paul's triumphant assurance that God is faithful to his commitments. Chapters 9—11 have many difficulties but there's no doubt about what Paul's means to say: In the face of much that bewilders and behind much that has a God-denying look there is a God who can be trusted to keep his promises. Some have looked at 9—11 and walked away fuming. When Paul is done writing it he bursts into praise that just won't be kept imprisoned (11:33-36). Maybe if we knew what he knew and saw what he saw we'd burst into praise as well. "Qohelet" in Ecclesiastes 1 watches the sun rise and set, rise and set, rise and set. "See," he said, "everything is empty and pointless. Nobody cares. There's nothing but the same old same old." Jesus saw the sun rise and the sun set, rise and set, rise and set. "See," he said, "how kind the Holy Father is. He makes the sun to rise on the righteous and the unrighteous." They both saw the same thing...and yet, they didn't, did they? We read Romans 9—11 and ponder. Paul's reads it after he has written it and burst into praise and says to his secretary, "Add this, 'Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God'..."

Paul believed that God hardened Israel (11:7-10,25). Certainly Israel herself was in on the hardening process but Paul, following prophets before him and guided by God to see the present correctly, doesn't mince words. God blinded Israel and bowed their back. See The Hardened Heart in the Exodus lessons. But it wasn't the whole of Israel that was hardened; it was part of Israel. And the part that was hardened was not the righteous because God doesn't harden the hearts of righteous people. He hardens only those who are committed to unrighteousness and even then it is for a specific purpose. Hardened Israel had no grounds for complaint. It wasn't that they were righteous and God hardened their hearts against him. Their history revealed a pattern of apostasy and unrighteous behavior and when the Messiah appeared that bent for resisting God bottomed out and Israel suffered awful loss (11:12). What Israel (as a whole) had wanted they missed, but the remnant got it (11:7). They weren't blinded. They weren't hardened. They didn't suffer loss. They, and Paul was one of them (11:1-2) were proof that God hadn't rejected the children of Abraham through Jacob. It's nonsense to think that in Palestine that the bulk of Israel rejected Christ. James reminds Paul in Acts 21:20 of the many thousands of Jews that believed. In the scattered countries of the world the masses would not have heard of Jesus and therefore did not reject him. But that's another discussion.

The hardened were those who were lost before Jesus came along. It's a serious mistake to think that the hardening made them unbelievers. No, they were hardened because they were already unbelievers. With the coming of the Christ the plot thickened and revealed the hidden depths of Israel's lostness. This isn't anti-Semitism. Paul's quarrel with Israel is a lover's quarrel. And it isn't anti-Gentile to say that Gentile hands were covered with the blood of the Jewish Redeemer. Romans 11:32 says that God concluded all humans under sin that he might have mercy on them all. But we need to make up our mind to this: those that are hardened are unsaved! It isn't that unbelievers can't turn back to God and be saved—they certainly can (11:20,23). But while they are hardened in unbelief they are unsaved! Putting it in terms Peter used in Acts 3:22-23, those who reject the Messiah are cut off from among his people. However conciliatory we wish to be we're compelled to say that those who reject Jesus Christ as Lord are lost.

That means that Paul does not see a problem when he asserts that "all Israel will be saved" while equally insisting that "some of Israel will not be saved." But it is Israel he has in mind, ethnic Jews, not a non-ethnic, cosmopolitan community called "the church". When he says all Israel will be saved and some of Israel will not be saved he is talking about ethnic Israel!

The hardened are unsaved and it was God who hardened them. And why did God harden Israel? He hardened them that through them he might bring fullness of blessing to the Gentiles (11:12,30). And why did he bring fullness to the Gentiles? That Israel might feel the loss of their blessings and turn back to God in Christ (10:19-20, 11:11,14 and 15:27). When did God harden Israel? More than once, as the prophets testify. But in Paul's era it centers on the rejection of Jesus Christ to whom Israelites and Gentiles were privileged to look for salvation (see 15:8-12).

But what is Gentiles "fullness"? It can mean the "full number or complement" and that's how the NIV and the RSV render it. But it has many and various meanings. In 11:12 the NIV renders the same word as "fullness" (no word of "full number") and the RSV renders it "full inclusion". Paul uses the word (pleromati) in 15:29 to speak of the complete richness of Christ's blessing. The RSV leaves it as "fullness". I think the "fullness" of the Gentiles in 11:26 is the spiritual wealth with which God will bless the Gentiles. 

Note the contrasts in 11:11-12.  We have:

Jewish fall—Gentile salvation

Jewish fall—World riches

Jewish loss—Gentile riches

Jewish loss—Gentile fullness

There is nothing about "numbers" in the section. There is plenty about loss and gain and impoverishment and fullness. God hardens unbelieving Israel and it results in the crucifixion of the Messiah and that opens the door for rich Gentile blessing.

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.