A few weeks ago I was told by a brother-in-Christ that the Church is never called “Israel.” I attempted to show him in the New Testament many places that would prove that the Church is the True Israel of God, but he did not want to consider for a moment that he was mistaken. Although he very easily lost his temper with me several times, I continued to try to talk to him because I knew that he had only been a Calvinist for a few months. I knew that he had been studying in a very small scope of authors — in fact he only read books if they were readable on the internet. That is a pretty limited library!
My dispensational brother firmly believed what classic dispensationalists strongly assert, that “the Scriptures never use the term Israel to refer to any but the natural descendants of Jacob” (Charles Feinberg, Millennialism: The Two Major Views, 230). The New Scofield Reference Bible (p. 1223), representing classic dispensationalism, declares: “The term Israel is nowhere used in the Scriptures for any but the physical descendants of Abraham.”
Nevertheless, the New Testament applies to Christians various terms associated with the Old Covenant people: we are called the “seed of Abraham, (Rom. 4:13-17; Gal. 3:6-9, 29), “the circumcision” (Rom. 2:28-29; Phil. 3:3; Col. 2:11), “a royal priesthood” (Rom. 15:16; 9; cp. Exo. 19:6), “twelve tribes” (Jms. 1:1), and the “temple of God” (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 1:16; Eph. 2:21).
For a fuller list of names and attributes of Israel that are said, too, of the Church go here to download a pdf file. These phrases reflect the very essence of Israel’s covenantal identity. Yet they are applied to the New Testament era Christian church, composed of Jew and Gentile.
So in order to maintain a distinction yet try to be true to the obvious, newer strands of dispensationalism says that the actual name “Israel” is only used in the New Testament for racial Israel. This distinction is created so that their partial-now / full-then argument remains intact.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
What’s your take on Rom 11:25-26?
25For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
26And so all Israel shall be saved:……..
I’m working with the idea that Israel is used in different ways in Romans. For example in verse 25 Israel is speaking of the nation of Jewish people. But verse 26 Israel is used as the true Israel which is all the people of God. The physical Jewish people are blind in part now — until the fullness of the Gentiles come into the number of the believing elect which combination of of those who were formerly two (Gentile and Jew) are now one TRUE Israel – the full number consisting of all those that believe.
Paul is talking about the Remnant in 11:1-10. He says that at the present time, there is still a Remnant of Israel. He is one such, he says.
The Remnant and its provoking work will have the effect of making the Jews “jealous.” The fact that gospel has gone to the Gentiles, and they are inheriting the riches of the Old Testament promises, is not the last word. Paul reveals that the Remnant’s work will bear fruit among the Israelites, so that Israel will experience a “fullness” (v. 12). When this “fullness” happens, it will be “life from the dead” — resurrection (v. 15). We shall return to this in a moment.
Having established that Israel has a future, Paul exhorts the Gentile believers not to lord it over Israel. Just as the Jews are not to dominate the Gentiles in the Church, so neither are the Gentiles to despise the Jews. God had grafted the Gentiles onto the patriarchal stock of the Olive Tree, but soon He will graft Israel back in, making One New Tree (11:16-24).
Verses 25-26 say that the partial hardening of apostate Israel will last until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and then all Israel (not just the Remnant) will be saved.
So, the fullness of the Gentiles comes first, and then the fullness of Israel. What does this mean? In context, I believe that the fullness of the Gentiles has to mean the transfer of the riches to them, as mentioned in verse 12. This transfer of treasures went on during the Interim, and it is seen particularly in the completion of the canon of the New Testament, because the New Testament interprets and applies (transfers) the Old Testament to the New Covenant situation. The fullness does not refer only to words, however, but also to the completion of the formation of the New Covenant Church, which was a large part of Paul’s own (Israel-provoking) mission.
Just as Old Covenant Israel was to minister to the Gentiles by preaching and obeying God’s law, so the New Covenant Gentile Church was to minister to Israel by preaching the New Testament and living righteously. Just as the Old Covenant Gentiles would admire Israel if she were faithful (Dt. 4:6-9), so it was necessary for the New Covenant Gentiles to be faithful in order to draw Israel into the Church. (This role reversal may be part of the reason why Jerusalem is called Babel in the book of Revelation.)
Why did this fullness of the Gentiles have to happen first? Because only then would the fullness of provocation be possible. The presence of the New Covenant Church and its true interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures had the effect of gradually stripping away the veil that lay over Moses’ words (2 Cor. 3), which was but the outworking of the rending of the Temple Veil that happened at Christ’s death. When the Church was fully formed, and the Scriptures completed, then the veil was fully removed, and the provocation to jealousy reached its most intense development.
The purpose of the provocation was the salvation of Israel. True, for many, the provocation resulted in wrath, but for others it would result in repentance. Paul says that in the future (their future, not ours), this provoking work would bear fruit. Not just a Remnant but “all Israel” would turn to the Lord. Paul does not describe how this would come about in detail, but we can see from the Book of Revelation what actually happened.
So Romans 11:25-26 is a prophecy about the end of the Old Covenant with all of true Israel being saved. That happened with the completion of the New Testament and the Fall of Jerusalem. Therefore, Romans 11:25-26 was future to Paul but is past to us.
Thanks for the lengthy and thorough response. Especially because this passage has been difficult for me, the interpretations seem varied between myself and brothers I have opportunity to discuss. I actually hope to read your explanation a few more times digesting – as I hadn’t considered before quite how you explained it especially in your last paragraph and the idea that this was Future to Paul but not to us. Wow – a whole new approach – I’ve got to chew on it.
I had heard Rom 11:26 speaking of a FUTURE yet to come for the physical Jewish people. That “so all Israel shall be saved” refers to something yet to happen – John Gill affirms this while denying what I was trying to explain in when he writes in his commentary: “Meaning not the mystical spiritual Israel of God, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, who shall appear to be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, when all God’s elect among the latter are gathered in, which is the sense many give into; but the people of the Jews, the generality of them, the body of that nation, called “the fulness” of them, Ro 11:12, and relates to the latter day, when a nation of them shall be born again at once; when, their number being as the sand of the sea, they shall come up out of the lands where they are dispersed, and appoint them one head, Christ, and great shall be the day of Jezreel; ”
Which contrasts with Calvin:
“Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would again be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, — “When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first-born in God’s family.” This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world. The same manner of speaking we find in Galatians 6:16. The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles; and he sets the people, thus collected from their dispersion, in opposition to the carnal children of Abraham, who had departed from his faith.”
thanks again,
scott
Thanks, Scott. Of course I am “partial preterist” because I think that the biblical record supports the early dating of the Book of Revelation and because it is consistent with Covenant Theology. My view of Romans 11 is therefore the most consistent view with biblical preterism and Covenant Theology (in my opinion).
Furthermore, I believe the “preterist view of Romans 11″ that I have outlined is accurate exegetically in that I do not have to try to prove that Paul was using two definitions for the term “Israel.” Paul had been referring to ethnic Jews throughout Romans by calling them “Israel” and so in this text I do not have to force a “new” definition on the term.
In fact, the hinge in the verse is no longer “all of Israel” but “fullness of the Gentiles.” In other words, once you define accurately what “fullness of the Gentiles” is referring to and if it is referring to the full presence of the New Covenant era of the church (as I espoused) then the phrase “all of Israel will be saved” is easily understood as a reference to the last days of the Old Covenant.
And finally, if the “preterist view of Romans 11″ is correct then it makes sense that the Book of Acts and the Book of Revelation describes the fulfilling of Romans 11 as we see the mass conversion of the Jews in the First Century.