Will all Israel be saved in the end times (Romans 11:26)?

Then we have more than this. In the same chapter (Romans 11) the argument of the apostle makes it perfectly plain that the Spirit of God contemplates nothing less than all Israel, brought in as a people to the enjoyment of their ancient and cherished hopes, though upon the ground of the sovereign mercy of God, and therefore with a real work of the Holy Ghost in their souls. The argument in the eleventh verse is this: "Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy." The actual blessing of Gentiles by the gospel was in no wise to leave the Jews for ever outside the promises of God as a nation. You must remember, there was nothing in the mind of God, or indeed of the saints at that time, to forbid the thought that many individuals of the Jews would be brought in meanwhile by the faith of Jesus. The fact is, a very large portion of the believers then living were Jews; certainly in the places where the gospel was first preached, they formed the great majority of those who bore His name. The work was extending among the Gentiles, and, no doubt, in no long time, the Gentiles that believed far outnumbered the Jews; but still, in the earlier days of evangelisation, it is plain that the mass of professors were from the nation of Israel. Therefore, manifestly, it was no question at all of God's mercy to individuals out of Israel. The only point to decide was, whether God had abandoned Israel as a people. The answer distinctly negatives such a conclusion. If His mercy now went out to the Gentiles, it was to provoke Israel to jealousy in the long run, it was to win back the nation as such. "Now, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness?" Then, instead of seeing a mere remnant of believers separate from the main body of the Jews, there should be a nation born of God, an entire people publicly enjoying all that God had promised, and, by faith, knowing the sweetness of the promises infinitely more because they had found their King, as well as their forgiveness, in that very Saviour whom they had before despised, rejected, and crucified. Accordingly, in the latter part of the chapter, he gives us no longer the fact of a remnant as a witness that God had not definitively cast off Israel as a whole, no longer a process of reasoning from the end of provoking Israel to jealousy, but the most distinct textual proof from direct prophecy. He says: "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits" [the very danger of Christendom and the snare into which it has fallen]; "that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." What doctrine or deduction can be plainer? It is certain, from the language of the Holy Ghost, not merely that there shall be a vast accession to the remnant of believers out of the Jews (for this is not the matter in hand), but that there is the surest warrant from the word of God that the nation, as such, shall yet be blessed. "All Israel shall be saved." It is in contrast with a mere remnant.

Thus we find the Spirit of God citing this portion of Isaiah as authority, and adding the most conclusive reason why it cannot be a part of the present work of God in gathering out the Church of God. In the Church, the Jew and the Gentile, as such, are unknown; there the distinction has entirely disappeared. Here, on the contrary, you have "all Israel" saved, in contrast with the divine action that is now going forth toward the Gentiles, where a remnant of Jews coalesces with a mass of Gentiles. This is in progress now, and in Christ, in the Church, the distinction does not exist. Whereas, on the contrary, when God has finished His present work, all Israel shall be saved. This entirely explains the language of verse 28, "Enemies, as concerning the Gospel" — an expression which could not be used if it were by the gospel as now preached. No doubt in that bright day they will be brought into reconciliation; but then it will be by a distinct work of God. It will be, not by a message which supposes the distinction of Jew and Gentile at an end as in that which God is doing now, because He is acting from Christ at the right hand of God, where Jewish and Gentile distinctions have no place. But God, after this work is done, takes up the links of the ancient promises and prophecies, and brings them home to Israel by the power of the Spirit, so that the whole nation shall be saved.

Rom. 11:25-32. But there is another reason more express: blindness in part is happened to Israel, but this is until the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in; and so all Israel, instead of being rejected, shall be saved. It is the future national restoration and salvation of Israel. They shall be restored to their own olive, to their place in the line of God's testimony and promises on earth: for heavenly hopes do not enter into view here. Instead of being cast off, Israel, as such, are destined to enjoy all that was promised them. The Deliverer shall come out of Sion; and God will take away their sins. Plainly it is the Jews, the literal Jews, who are here meant; for they are distinguished from, and contrasted with, the Gentiles all through the chapter from verse 11, and very clearly in this verse 26. "The fullness of the Gentiles" means the complete number of such Gentiles as believe — all the Gentiles who share in the blessing during Israel's practical obdurateness. Israel are enemies on account of the Gentiles now as regards the gospel, but as regards election, beloved on account of the fathers. This is in no wise applicable to what people call the spiritual Israel, for they are friends as regards the gospel, and beloved of God the Father, not on account of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand Israel after the flesh, and all is simple: they have made good their enmity as regards the Gospel, and God will not fail to prove in due time that they are beloved on the fathers' account. For the gifts and calling of God are not subject to repentance: they are indefeasible. The election mentioned in Rom. 11:28 is that of the beloved people Israel. It must not be confounded with the election according to grace, whereby, in the interval of Israel's rejection, the called Jews and Gentiles are taken for heaven. The first is a national election, the second an individual election, which sets us in far superior blessing, since its object and result are to introduce us into heaven. In fact, the believing Jews, who abode on the olive-tree, share in these two elections.

With verse 25 we drop the figure of the olive tree and resume the main theme of the chapter. The apostle very plainly predicts Israel's blindness is only going to last until the fulness of the Gentiles is come in. Then their eyes will be opened, and Israel as a whole will be saved. This will happen when once more the Lord Jesus returns. The blindness is only "in part," since all along God has been calling out an election from amongst them. When Jesus comes again "all Israel" will be saved: that is, Israel as a whole, or nationally. It does not mean that every individual Israelite will be, for the Scriptures show that many amongst them will worship anti-christ and perish.

But has God cast away His people? This the apostle has answered elaborately in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 11). To the saints in the metropolitan city of the world that then was, the Holy Spirit has declared on the contrary that the day is coming when "all Israel shall be saved" (Rom. 11:26), that is all Israel who survive the tremendous judgements of that day. He, Paul, was himself a pledge of it: as in Elijah's time there was a remnant, so there was in the apostle's day. No doubt, the mass now, yet more than then, are blinded, and salvation is for the Gentiles, not to cast off the Jews but to provoke them to jealousy, as Moses predicted (Deut. 32). Now, if their fall be the world's wealth, what will be their future rise? Life from the dead. After all, the Gentile was but a wild olive grafted into the olive tree of promise, and is warned not to be high-minded but to fear, seeing how God spared not the natural branches. It is only Gentile pride and delusion that Israel are gone for ever to make themselves "the Israel of God,"* and abide till time melts into eternity. Not so! Assuredly if the Gentile abide not in God's goodness (and who will dare to affirm this?) he will be cut off, and the Jews will be grafted into their own olive tree. Then the apostle drops argument and figure, declaring in plain terms that a hardening in part (it has never been complete) has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; "and so all Israel shall be saved," according to the prophet (Isa. 59:20). This will be the true restoration of Israel in the day of Jehovah, when the Gentiles meet with condign judgement at His hand. It is only fleshly Israel that can be said to be "enemies for your sake as touching the gospel." It is only they who are "beloved for the fathers' sake, as touching the election." What theologians call "the spiritual people," "the Israel of God," or believers, cannot answer to this language. It is the same people, enemies as regards the gospel yet beloved as regards election, who shall be saved. For, adds the apostle, the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance — they are subject to no change of mind on His part. God will assuredly restore His people yet.

Having shown that all Israel are not even now rejected that he himself was an Israelite — and that, as in the days of Elias, when there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, "so at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace" -he proceeds to consider the case of that part of the nation (the mass of it, alas!) who were cast away. He quotes passages, both from Isaiah and the Psalms, as to the judicial blindness to which they are given up. Well, as to these, — the bulk of the nation, given up thus to blindness, — is it for ever? 'I say, then, have they stumbled that they should fall?' — that is, fall finally, never to be restored. "God forbid," the apostle again replies, "but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy." Now, if one object of the present calling of the Gentiles it; to stir up God's ancient people to jealousy — to produce in them the sense of what they have lost, and the desire for its recovery — how evident that they, the Jews, are not finally cast off. Nay, More, the apostle argues thus — that if the effect of Israel's present rejection be the extension of mercy to the Gentiles, the result of Israel's restoration must be something better still. "Now if the fall of them (Israel) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness? … For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?" Does this look like Israel's being for ever rejected? Further, having shown that for unbelief some of the branches of this olive tree have been broken of, while the Gentile wild olive has been graffed in, the apostle warns us Gentiles, in the language considered at large in a previous paper.* "For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell (that part of Israel which is now rejected) severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." Let the reader mark well the words which follow these. "And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again." This is not an assertion that Israel shall be restored; but it is a declaration that if they abide not in unbelief they shall be restored. But the apostle advances another step, and shows, that if there was nothing incongruous in our replacing them, when they were rejected because of their unbelief, still more likely is it that they will be restored when the Gentiles are cut off. "For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?" Thus he proceeds, step by step. Israel's restoration is first possible — "God is able to graff them in again." Then it is conditionally promised — "they, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be graffed in." Then it is highly probable — "how much more shall these be graffed into their own olive tree." Thus it is that the apostle approaches the climax of his argument. And what is it that completes and crowns this climax? The full, explicit, emphatic declaration of the truth, that Israel shall yet be restored. "For 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, AND SO ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." And if it should be said that this is unquestionably a promise of Israel's conversion, but not of their restoration, let me beg the reader's attention to two things. First, we have seen before that there is something promised on condition of their conversion — if they abide not in unbelief, (that is, if they are converted,) they are to be graffed in again. The graffing in again is their restoration; and so the apostle argues, that if they should be converted, they are sure to be restored. But will they ever be converted? The objection we are considering admits that their conversion is unquestionably foretold — "so all Israel shall be saved." If saved, then restored, according to the previous reasoning of the apostle. Secondly, the apostle proceeds to say, "As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." The nation, beloved on account of the patriarchs with whom God's covenant was made, are still the heirs of all the blessings which in that covenant were made over to them.

If we turn, moreover, to the testimony of the apostles, we shall find it confirmatory, not condemnatory, of Israel's hopes. Take, for instance, Rom. 11. The chapter opens with the enquiry, "Hath God cast away his people?" to which the emphatic and almost indignant reply is at once subjoined, "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew." Ah," says our author, and many others of his school, "it is the elect — the Israel of God — of whom the apostle speaks." This is Mr. W.'s grand solution of almost every difficulty which arises to his theory of interpretation. But what question was there among those to whom the apostle wrote, as to whether God had cast off the souls of his elect? Had God utterly and for ever cast off his people Israel — the literal, natural Israel? was a question naturally arising out of all that the apostle had been teaching; and it was one of deepest interest to his brethren according to the flesh. No doubt he mentions an election from among them — "a remnant according to the election of grace." But this remnant is not his subject in the chapter before us; he only refers to its existence as one argument among many, by which he proves that Israel — the nation Israel — is not utterly and for ever rejected of God. It is thus that he distributes his theme. Not utterly, seeing (1) that he himself is an Israelite; (2) that in the worst days of the nation's previous history, such as those of Elias, God had a remnant; and (3) that "even so at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." He thus proves the first part of his proposition, that it is only to part of Israel that blindness, hath happened, not to the whole. But is the blindness to be permanent, even to the extent in which it does exist? No. "Blindness in part is happened to Israel," not for ever, but "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved." Mr. W. has the boldness to suggest whether the word "Israel" in one part of this quotation may not be understood literally, and in the other figuratively! whether "all Israel" and "the fulness of the Gentiles" be not one and the same body of men! Could temerity itself go farther than this in dislocating and confounding the statements of God's holy Word? What must be the system of interpretation which requires of its exponents to go to such lengths as these?

But it is not at once that the apostle states the conclusion, that "All Israel shall be saved." He reaches it by successive and ascending steps. He argues (1) that through the fall of Israel salvation has come to the Gentiles, "to provoke them (Israel) to jealousy." Can they be for ever cast off, if even God's present mercy to the Gentiles be designed to provoke Israel to jealousy, and so beget in them gracious and holy desires after him under whose chastisements they at present remain? (2) If the Gentiles have reaped such profit from Israel's fall, what shall the receiving of Israel be "but life from the dead?" Here is anything but an obscure intimation, that Israel is yet to be received; and not only so, but that the reception of that people is to inaugurate a period of blessedness for the world — the Gentiles — with which the present is not worthy to be compared. (3) The reception of Israel having been thus referred to, the apostle reasons from the very graffing in of the wild Gentile olive to the good olive tree from which the natural Jewish branches have been broken off, that it is possible for these latter to be graffed in again. (4) He advances another step, and proves it to be not merely possible, but probable: "how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?" Then (5) finally, he declares the certainty of their conversion and salvation, quoting in proof of it a passage from Isaiah 59:20, which inseparably associates it both with the coming of the Lord, and the introduction of millennial blessedness on earth. No doubt there has been, is, and shall yet be, an election from among Israel; but Israel itself, as a nation, is elected of God, and it is with reference to this election that the apostle says, "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Of what other election than that of the nation itself can the apostle say, "as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes?" Our brethren sometimes indulge themselves in speaking of a certain passage as "a millstone round the neck of pre-millennialism;" but certainly the eleventh of Romans may not inappropriately be regarded as a like fatal incumbrance to those "high-minded" prophetic theories, which deny the validity of Israel's national hopes, and seek to resolve all its bright prophetic future into the present heritage of "Gentile branches," even now through unheedfulness to this warning grown "wise in their own conceits," and ready, alas! to be cut of!"

Thus, indeed, shall "all Israel" in that day "be saved." But what will accomplish this? The coming of the Deliverer out of Zion," replies the apostle. But is not Christ the Deliverer? — and has He not come? Yes; but not out of Zion." He has come out of Bethlehem, and out of Nazareth, and, thank God, out of the grave also; but not yet out of Zion: for Zion is the royal city, David's city; and when the King of kings reigns there, then, indeed, shall Israel's deliverance be accomplished. Clearly it stands written, that Israel's conversion nationally shall never be complete "until," says their gracious Lord, "they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son: … in that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." (Zech. 12:10; Zech. 13:1.)

But has He done with the seed of Abraham for ever? By no means. The Apostle raises the question, "I say then, Hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people which He foreknew" (Rom. 11:1-2). He then proceeds to show that God has a remnant during the present time, while the spirit of slumber is upon the mass of the nation. These of course are incorporated in the Church of God, the body of Christ. But this is not all. God has not forgotten them as a people, and intends to reinstate them in His divine favour, with the full pardon of all their sins. They have been cut out of the olive tree because of their defection, but they shall be brought in once again. In verse 23 we are shown that this is possible, "God is able to graft them in again;" in verse 24 that it is probable, "How much more shall these … be grafted into their own olive tree?" Then the Apostle rises higher still in his reasoning and shows it to be certain, "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (verses 25, 26).

319 Such, then, is the thought of God. Israel is blinded for the moment in part, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and then Israel as a whole, as a nation, shall be saved. God will not repent of His gifts and calling. Enemies for the Gentiles' sake as to the gospel, they are yet beloved for the fathers' sakes. One can see the characteristic manner in which the Gentile is taken up, for he is called the wild olive: "Thou being a wild olive." Also he, the Gentile, is placed upon the root, not upon the trunk, nor upon the branches. He became neither a Jew, nor of Israel. And the reason, as it seems to me, that he says, Thou, O Gentile, in the singular, is because the question was, as to the Gentile, one of principle. As to the Jew, it was an accomplished fact that the branches had been cut off; the church, properly so called, regarded as the corporate body of believers, could not be; and it is thus that the apostle then contemplated them, and it is thus also that they really were; and a threat was so much the more inapplicable under this point of view, that there were Jews as well as Gentiles, and as to the latter, it was the election from among the Gentiles which had just been brought in. In that point of view, then, I could not speak of cutting off The election from among the Jews - an idea found indeed, it is true, in the prophets, but new in the history of the people, remained upon the trunk, and thus the threat of cutting off could not be addressed to the election newly grafted in, but to the individual, as a Gentile, if he persevered not in that position. The explanation of this mystery is, that there was a partial blinding of Israel until the election from among the Gentiles - their real fulness - should come in; for the church began with a remnant. Israel ended with the separation of a remnant; but that fulness once accomplished, that which is not of faith among the Gentiles, which might be found there, would be cut off.

It is also utterly contrary to nature to graff the wild olive into the good. In all nature, the good olive, or apple, is graffed into the wild. But God had taken the poor wild Gentile, and graffed him into the good Abrahamic tree of privilege. And, further, the apostle would not have them ignorant of this dispensational truth, “that blindness, in part, is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall he saved, as it is written,” etc. (Vers. 25, 26.) Thus the time of “no difference” shall come to a close; the purpose of God in gathering out of the Gentiles shall be accomplished; then all Israel shall be saved, as it is written. Then shall every promise to them be fulfilled. The whole then spared nation of Israel shall he gathered to their own land, and then be born of God, as it is written. Such is the purpose of God, though they are the bitterest enemies now; God elects so to do.