Paul’S Last Hope
PAUL’S LAST HOPE
ROMANS 11:25-29
All Israel will be saved.
On the strength of a great word from Isaiah 59:20f., Paul was convinced that the present rebellious attitude of Jewry to the Christian revelation was not final. His mind sought passionately for an explanation of a situation so shocking. True, the Jews were self-willed and had, by their own act, rejected Christ, but why had God allowed it?
The explanation came to him as a revelation from God. “I want you,” he said, “to understand a mystery.” The word “mystery” occurs once only in the Gospels (Mark 4:11 and the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke); John never uses the word, but Paul uses it twenty-two times. It is used to describe the Christian revelation as a whole (Romans 16:25; Ephesians 1:9; Colossians 2:2) and to describe some special aspect of the Christian revelation (Ephesians 3:3; 1 Corinthians 15:51; and the present passage). Paul claims, in a word, that God had revealed to him that the Jews had been, by God’s set purpose, permitted to go their self-willed way, in order to clear the ground for the surge of the Gentiles into the church. At a certain point, he was sure, this would stir the Jews to divine jealousy, so that they would return to the Lord.
Great difficulties have surrounded Paul’s prediction: “all Israel shall be saved.” Perhaps the bearer of the letter was entrusted with supplementary explanation. On the face of it “all Israel” means all Israelites, and leaves unstated whether that universal expression means all Israelites through all their history, or all Israelites alive at some historic moment of illumination and reconciliation. If Paul meant this, he contradicted his doctrine of salvation by faith, which is the deep contention of this letter. He has claimed, however, a special revelation from God, and therefore he could not thus contradict himself.
Difficult though the interpretation is on the face of the words, Paul must have meant the “new Israel,” the sum total of the redeemed. This is the one interpretation which conserves his consistency, safeguards his authority and preserves the argument from the incongruous conclusion that Israel is, after all, not responsible, is a specially favored people and will be necessarily all saved. This interpretation must be ventured if the doctrine of the whole letter is to hold together. If 11:26 is regarded as a reference to a spiritual Israel, the pattern of argument works neatly to a conclusion.