Saturday 22 October 2016

All Israel?

"All Israel" in the Book of Ezra didn't necessarily have to literally mean every living Israelite: it could have just meant that representatives of each tribe of Israel had returned and re-settled their home cities.
The Bible often says "all" when it means 'potentially' all without necessarily meaning literally all, in experience and outcome. Examples could be given.
In any case, Paul didn't say in Romans, "...and then all Israel shall be saved..."; rather he said, "...and so [not, and then] all Israel shall be saved..."

So could the meaning have been: "...and so [in the manner just described, it is indeed coming to pass that] 'all Israel [each tribe, all individuals potentially] shall be saved'..."
and then Paul proceeds to quote an example-verse which had predicted Israel's salvation, which by the way, if it hadn't begun to be fulfilled already, then no Jew had ever yet been saved!

The said-Scripture was being fulfilled already, Paul was saying, but with the outcome he'd just described - which was, that the remnant within Israel had indeed experienced the salvation, and that God was also using Gentiles who had also come to experience it to provoke even more Jews to faith.

This scenario (of Jews first, then Gentiles, meanwhile also more individual Jews getting provoked to faith) this scenario was to continue "until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" - that is, until the "end" - "and so..." not, and then, but "...and so [with this scenario] 'all Israel shall be saved'..." Maybe!

But even if Paul was foreseeing a future nationwide salvation of national-Israel, it can only come about on the platform of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, not on the lesser platform of the Law.

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