Saturday 19 August 2017

Israel

In a bookstore today I saw copies of "The Jewish Bible" on display. I picked one up and opened it to Romans 11:25-27. I quite liked the translator's grasp of what Paul was saying.
"For, brothers, I want you to understand this truth which God formerly concealed but has now revealed, so that you won't imagine you know more than you actually do.
It is that stoniness, to a degree, has come upon Isra'el, until the Gentile world enters in its fullness; and that it is in this way that all Isra'el will be saved. As the Tanakh says, "Out of Tziyon will come the Redeemer; he will turn away ungodliness from Ya'akov and this will be my covenant with them, . . . when I take away their sins."
Then I picked up "The New Testament for Everyone" - a translation by Tom Wright - and opened it to the same passage. And there was something I liked in verse 26. He puts part of it in inverted commas:
"That is how 'all Israel will be saved', as the Bible says..."
So, what they're both grasping Paul as saying to the Gentile church-members at Rome, was like this:
"God's promise to save Israel hasn't failed - lots of Jews have already experienced it! And those who haven't, still can - simply by turning from unbelief.
Just because many Gentiles are getting saved doesn't mean Jews have lost the opportunity to believe and be saved. In fact, God is using the Gentiles' experience of salvation to try to provoke that very response from Jews!
That whole outcome was a mystery in times past, but in fact it's precisely the way Israel's promised-salvation was always going to work out..."
Jews getting saved first, then the Gentiles, then more Gentiles and Jews continuing to get saved. And that's how it will be - and then the end will come. And then the end will come.
And then Paul quotes a couple of sample-verses about Israel's salvation, just to show God's goodwill towards Jews. (Verses which in fact had already been fulfilled and were continuing to see its outworking.)
It probably wasn't really a prediction of some complete change of program in future (like at the end of some 'Great Tribulation', or during some 'Millennium' after Christ's return. Rather Paul was likely just explaining the manner in which Israel's promises had been fulfilled, and how a Jew could still come to the party.
It was an appeal to Gentiles in first-century Rome to be tender-minded towards Jews, not to despise them. The goal was true unity in the church there, between Gentiles and Jews. Because God was still reaching out to Jews, just as He is to Gentiles.
That's the gospel!

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