DISPUTED DOCTRINES -- Chapter Four

THE CONVERSION OF ISRAEL

This is the doctrine supposedly based on Rom. 11: 26, "And so all Israel shall be saved." It is a doctrine that is usually incorporated into the doctrine of the Millennium, although there is no warrant for any such connection. The doctrine is, however, accepted by many who reject all Millenarian views. The passage above referred to is supposed to teach the conversion of Israel en masse, although by most of the advocates of the doctrine of the conversion of the Jews in the last times, the word "all" is interpreted to mean a large number.

To arrive at the right meaning of the expression in Rom. 11: 26 it must be studied in connection with its context. In Rom. 10:19-21 Paul had spoken of the rejection of Israel as a nation. In the beginning of chapter 11, which immediately follows, he asks the question, "I say then, hath God cast away His people?" To this he himself makes answer: "God hath not cast away his people which He foreknew." As proof of this he instances his own case first of all, then the example of the remnant in the great apostasy in the time of Elijah. Following this he draws the conclusion in v. 5: "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace."

Then toward the end of the chapter in vv. 25-26, he says: "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the times of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written. There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: And this is my covenant with them, When I shall take away their sins."

Let us note carefully Paul's argument here. It is, that while Israel as a nation has been rejected, this rejection is not to be regarded as so absolute or all-inclusive that no Jew hereafter can be saved. The mystery here revealed to Paul was that the hardening which had befallen Israel was "in part," and by no means of so sweeping a nature as to include every individual among the Jews.

On the other hand, this hardening is not represented as about to cease, either in the near or the far distant future, but as continuing "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in," i. e., until the end of the present dispensation; for we have no right to conjecture that the full number of the elect among the Gentiles will be gathered in before that time, or that there will ever be a period before that time when no Gentile will any longer be saved.

In the Gospels where the corresponding phrase, "the times of the Gentiles," occurs (cf. Matt. 24:14; Mark 13:10; Luke 21: 24), this expression is at once followed by the immediate signs, which indicate the near approach of the General Judgment. The expression is consequently equivalent to the entire period of the present Gospel dispensation.

We should note also the particular wording used by the Apostle in the expression which follows his reference to the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles. He does not say, "And then all Israel shall be saved," but, "And so all Israel shall be saved." This means "in this manner," or "in this way"; and the whole context shows this to be by faith.

Now faith is fundamental with Paul, as it is throughout the Scriptures. It is also always represented as a personal or individual matter, not as a matter pertaining to people in the mass, or to races or nations. Further, faith is wrought through the means of grace; but never have the means of grace met with universal acceptance on the part of those to whom they were administered. The universal conversion of Israel would, accordingly, be a miracle of grace of so extraordinary a nature as to overthrow the Divine plan of salvation hitherto existing, and would introduce a doctrine of predestination, as far as Israel is concerned, found nowhere else in the New Testament Scriptures.

We therefore conclude: Paul does not teach a universal conversion of the Israelitish nation, or even one in which a large part, or the great majority of the nation shall be converted in the last times and saved.

We have the key to what Paul means by "all Israel" in the preceding part of the Epistle, in Rom. 9: 6, where he says: ''For they are not all Israel which are of Israel''; and from Rom. 11:5, where he says: "Even so at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." "All Israel" accordingly refers not to the nation of the Jews, or to the Jewish people as such; but to the true Israel, the elect remnant, or as Paul elsewhere expresses it, "the Israel of God" (Gal. 6: 16).

The meaning of the Apostle is simply this: When the Gospel has finished its work among the Gentile nations and the full number of the Gentiles, among whom the Jews are scattered, is gathered in, the end will come, and will usher in full, eternal salvation for all true believers as constituting the true Israel, the spiritual children of Abraham (Rom. 4:16).

The teaching of Paul is, that Israel as a nation will remain hardened in part unto the end; that the Jewish race will be scattered among the Gentiles until Christ's Second Coming, only a remnant of them being saved during the New Testament dispensation.

Proof apart from Paul's writings that this application of the term "Israel" is Scriptural is furnished in the Old Testament prophets (cf. Ezek. 20:40 with Ezek. 20:38, and Isa. 19:25 with Isa. 10:21).

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