All Israel will be saved (5)
The common evangelical view is that a mass of Jews,
the bulk of living Jews close to the time or at the time of Christ's
final appearance will turn to God in faith in Jesus Christ. This they
think is the fulfillment of Romans 11:6, "And so all Israel will be
saved." Perhaps this is true but we need to recognize the gravity of
the loss if this view is correct. Besides, I don't think such a view
would accomplish Paul's aim. First, there's the gravity of the loss if
this view is correct.
As Paul presents it, God hardens the Jewish
unbelievers and they reject the Christ but this is to bring salvation
to the world (11:8-11,15). He says the hardening would last "until the
fullness of the Gentiles has come in" (11:25). Numerous people take
that to mean "until the last Gentile is saved," or as some versions
render it, "until the full number" of Gentiles has arrived. Since
Gentiles are still being saved these people think that 11:25 hasn't yet
been fulfilled. They think it will be fulfilled close to or at the
final appearance of Christ. When the last Gentile is saved, God will
end the hardening that blinds Israel and they will turn to Christ en masse.
And what of the Jews between the 1st century and the 21st?
Imagine a Jew asking Paul how God proposes to maintain his faithfulness
to all of Abraham's descendants through Jacob. Imagine Paul saying
something like, "God will continue to harden Israel for two thousand
years and then, close to the time when the Messiah makes his final
appearance, God will end his hardening work and save the bulk of that
generation then alive." What do you suppose that Jew would say?
Remember that "all Israel will be saved" is Paul's
way of denying that God is faithless! And would his saving the bulk of
a single generation of Jews in (say) the 21st century show
his faithfulness to fifty generations of Jews that he hardened? Two
thousand years of hardening is to be offset by his saving the bulk (or
even all) of a single 21st century generation of Jews?
As for me,
it seems better to hold that God's judicial hardening of unbelieving
Jews lasted until the door was opened for Gentile blessing (see
11:30-32). That was occasioned by the death (and glorification) of the
Messiah when God made Gentiles full of the spiritual wealth that he had
always promised to Israel. Once the door had been thrown wide open the
gospel was for all (11:32).
©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.