So All Israel Will Be Saved
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved.
Romans 11:25,26a
Paul is probably now addressing both the Jewish and Gentile church members because what he is about to say affects the future of both. ‘I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited’ (11:25). He has previously warned them against boasting (11:18) and arrogance (11:20). Paul knows ignorance is the final cause of conceit just as real knowledge brings real humility. The final antidote to pride is truth.
He wants them to know ‘this mystery’ (11:25). Mystery here means a truth that has been hidden from God’s people in the past but has now been disclosed in the gospel. Paul unfolds the mystery in three parts:
1. ‘Israel has experienced a hardening in part’ (11:25)
This has already been mentioned in 11:7. While it is God who ‘hardens,’ this hardening is a judicial process by which God hands people over to their own stubbornness. The hardening takes the form of spiritual insensitivity (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:14ff; 3:11)
2. ‘until the full number of the Gentiles has come in’ (11:25)
This hardening is partial (‘in part’) because not all Jews have experienced it, and temporary (‘until’), because it only lasts until this second stage of God’s plan. While Israel remains hardened and continues to reject Christ, the gospel will be preached world-wide and more and more Gentiles will respond to it. This will continue ‘until the full number of the Gentiles has come in’
3. ‘so all Israel will be saved’ (11:26)
Our first clause begins with the Greek word ‘houtos’ which means ‘in this way.’ It might have a temporal meaning here: and then (after the events depicted in 11:25b) all Israel will be saved. Another meaning is when it introduces a conclusion: and in consequence of this process (11:25b) all Israel will be saved. A third option takes houtos to indicate manner and links it with what comes before: and in this manner all Israel will be saved. The manner of Israel’s salvation would be the process outlined in 11:11-24 and summarised in 11:25b: God imposes a hardening on most of Israel while Gentiles come into the messianic salvation, with the Gentiles’ salvation leading in turn to Israel’s jealousy and her own salvation.
Who is ‘Israel’ here? There are three main possibilities. The first is that ‘all Israel’ means the entire church. In Galatians 6:16 Paul has already called the church the ‘Israel of God.’ The insurmountable difficulty is that Paul has used the term ‘Israel’ ten times in Romans 9 to 11 and always of ethnic Israel (including 11:25, the verse immediately preceding our text). There is no hint of a shift of category between the two verses. And further, Paul’s purpose in this passage has been to stifle Gentile pride. For him to suddenly include Gentiles in ‘Israel’ could well fuel their pride more.
A second possibility is that ‘all Israel’ refers to “spiritual” Israel, the believing Jews from within the nation. Admittedly Paul has spoken of an Israel within Israel in 9:6. Again though, this is not the way Paul has used ‘Israel’ in the immediate context.
A third possibility is that ‘all Israel’ refers to ethnic Israel. The use of ‘Israel’ throughout Romans 9 to 11 and the sequence of Paul’s argument leaves little doubt this was Paul’s intent.
What then does ‘all’ mean in ‘all Israel will be saved’ (11:26)? At present Israel is hardened except for a believing remnant and will remain so until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. So ‘all Israel’ must mean a great mass of Jewish people comprising both the previously hardened majority and the believing minority. “All Israel” is a recurring phrase in Jewish literature (including the Old Testament) where it sometimes meant “some Israelites as a representative whole” (e.g. 2 Samuel 16:22).The phrase almost always refers to Israelites living at a certain point in time and not to all Israelites in every generation of the nation’s history. Bringing this together Paul is predicting the salvation of a significant number of Jews before Christ’s return.