Between The Advents

Romans 11 and the term “All Israel” is one of the most debated passages in the book of Romans because many Zionist, dispensationalist, and Pre- Millennials base their entire theology on this passage alone. But what does “All Israel” mean? I will give it to the people in this camp that this passage, mainly verses 25-26, is an eschatological passage. But is this a physical regathering of Israel? The main question is what does Paul mean by “All Israel”?  To answer this question, we must ask ourselves three more questions, how does Paul define “All Israel”? What does Paul mean by the fullness of the nations fullness of the gentiles? And how is the Salvation of all Israel in relation to the fullness of the gentiles and the salvation of Israel? Romans 11 puts both ideas, the end gathering of the gentiles and the salvation of Israel together, so what do they have to do with each other?

            Is Israel synonymous with an ethnic Jew or a state of ethnic Jews? A word like Jew is a subset of Israel, all Jews are Israelites but not all Israelites are Jews. Passages like

Romans 9:25-26 ²⁵ As he says in Hosea:“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
    and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”^[a]26 and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
    there they will be called ‘children of the living God

And

Galatians 3:7-9  ⁷ Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. ⁸ Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”^[d] 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

These passages clearly redefine children of Abraham to include gentiles, so if that is what Paul is thinking about Israel when he writes the word Israel he is not thinking of ethnic Jews, he is thinking of those who are Israelites but spiritually, they have the faith of Abraham. Israel is everyone who believes.

To fully grasp this Romans 11 passage we do need to be able to understand and know our Old Testament. Proper Biblical hermeneutics is using clear passages to help us interpret the clear passages. Here we will use that same approach but with Biblical terms, such as Israel and Jew. We must understand when Jews of Jesus’ day, or Paul’s day and before, before the New Testament, before Paul was born, before even Christ the Messiah came, how did they think about these terms?

The term Israel is polyvalent, meaning it can mean multiple things. Israel is referred to as a person, Jacob. Israel can refer to the nation, the totality of the 12 tribes. But its also referred to just 10 tribes after the monarchy divides in 2 Chronicles. And Israel is also referred to the returnees from Judah after the Babylonian exile.

The term Jew on the other hand is a little different, it is not polyvalent. This term is never used before the exile, it is only a post exilic term referring to post exilic Israelites. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, all of these books are post exilic or exilic. Jeremiah 34:9, Jeremiah is living just prior to the third exile. And the book of Daniel, whatever date you wish to argue, the later or the earlier both are exilic. The term Jew is referring to ethnicity, Israel is not. We will get more in depth on that but first we need to wrap in the term “All Israel” again.

The phrase “All Israel” is used 153 times in the Bible, only once in the New Testament, that’s here in Romans 11, so again this phrase can only get its understanding from how its used in the Old Testament. As we saw before, Israel by its lonesome can mean four or five different things and that includes people whom aren’t of ethnic origin. Therefore the term Israel speaks of covenantal inclusion, the people of God. Its not ethnicity. Jew, the term used for ethnicity in Israel is strictly used that way, for ethnic Israelites. Therefore the terms cannot be used completely synonymous. If Paul wanted us to think of ethnic Jews in Romans 11 he would have used the term for ethnic Jews which is “loudaios” but he doesn’t, he uses Israel. So when paul uses, “All Israel” he’s not talking to ethnic Jews. He is talking on the total covenant people of God. Paul us talking on a theological construct, not an ethical one. Reading this as ethnic Jew is misreads the text. But this does beg the question, does this mean Paul excludes Jews as to only include the Gentiles? No, of course not, it does not exclude Jews, it just includes Gentiles now, now it has just become all who believe in Christ. As Paul puts it,

Romans 9:8 ⁸ In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

Again as he puts it in Galatians 3:7 and 3:26

⁷ Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.

V26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Does this framework work within the Old Testament? Who are the people of God in the Old Testament? They are the ones who have aligned themselves with God, their believing loyalty is assigned to God and no one else. By and large the people of God in the Old Testament are ethnic Jews from the twelve tribes, but there are plenty of Instances where Gentiles became apart of the people of God, it was never limited to only ethnic Jews. If a non Ethnic Jew professed their faith in Yahweh they became apart of Israel. Examples of Rahab, and the Israelites who left Egypt were not alone. Many Egyptians fled with them according to Exodus 12:38 “a mixed multitude went up also with them”. Israel was never for just ethnic Jews, its always been those who believe in God. The NT people of God are the same, its just post cross, so in the New Testament, as the same for us, the people of God are those who align themselves with God through Christ. Salvation is tied to the new covenant, the indwelling of the spirit to all who believe. The book of Acts, very clearly shows that the Gentiles experienced the coming of the spirit in exactly the same way the Jews did.

Lastly, Jeremiah 30:3. In Jeremiah the 10 tribes don’t exist anymore, Jeremiah was alive just before the Nebuchadnezzar invasion. But both Israel the ten tribes, and Judah the two tribes are called by God “my people”. That’s noteworthy because of Hosea 1:9, Hosea was writing before the ten tribes went against God. God calls the ten tribes not his people. In Roman’s 9:22 Paul quotes Hosea 1:9 in swapping in the gentiles to replace the ten lost tribes. “Those who were not my people” who weren’t Gods people in the Old Testament? Gentiles of course, and the ten lost tribes. Paul includes the gentiles in the restoration of the theological construct known as the people of God, because that’s already a thing in the Old Testament.  Now back to Romans 11 “partial hardening upon Israel” God did that, that happened because he wanted the fullness of the gentiles in, and in this way, once the gentiles come in. “All Israel” will be saved, all other instances of the phrase “all Israel” are found in the OT, and they refer to the twelve tribes. Paul’s reading “all Israel” as a theological construct because Israel is not tied to ethnicity or a place, its people, its always been about people. Its all who choose Christ. Its always been about Christ, but Paul is not throwing out Jews, after all we would not all be saved if it weren’t for a Jew. We must be careful to not over read what he’s saying but we must also not miss what he’s saying. Israel is those who are in Christ, “All Israel will be saved” is a promise, that those who believe in Christ will see the fulfillment of Gods eschatological promises. This is a verse that we should cling on and be hopeful of, because of the fact that Paul is telling us those whom are in Christ will be saved, saved from what? Death. This is an eschatological passage we will give  Zionist that point. But they’re wrong to say it’s a physical regathering of national Israel, rather the Israel Paul is talking about is the totality of the people of God, whoever they might be. This is not replacement theology, it’s simple Old Testament theology.