Confirming Scriptures That Jewish Salvation Is Only In Christ
… and so all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” Romans 11:26,27
A final question relates to the meaning of ‘saved’ in ‘all Israel will be saved.’ Popular dispensationalism suggests Paul attributes this future salvation of Israel not to faith in Christ but to obedience to the Torah. This teaching assumes Paul recognised two ways of salvation, through the “Christ covenant” for Gentiles and through the “Torah covenant” for the Jews. But Paul gives no hint whatsoever of another pathway to salvation other than what he has outlined throughout Romans.
He has been utterly “one-eyed” that faith in Christ is the sole pathway to righteous standing with God for both Jews and Gentiles.
Paul backs up his prediction of a significant turning to Christ for salvation among Jews in the last days by citing Isaiah 59:20,21 along with a phrase from Isaiah 27:9:
“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
27 And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.” (11:26,27)
These verses make three statements. First, ‘The deliverer will come from Zion.’ In Isaiah this is a strong reference to Christ’s first coming. Secondly, that ‘he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.’ In Isaiah 27:9 this described Jacob’s guilt being atoned for and removed. Thirdly, the deliverer would establish God’s covenant which promised forgiveness of sins. Putting these together, the deliverer would come to bring His people to repentance and so to forgiveness according to God’s covenant promise. The ‘salvation’ for Israel that Paul prayed for (10:1), to which God would lead His own people by arousing them to envy (11:14), which has already come to the Gentiles (11:11) and which one day ‘all Israel’ will experience (11:26), is salvation from sin through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul nowhere presents this as a national salvation that necessitates a return to their ancestral land. Nor is there any hint of another way to salvation for the Jews that puts aside faith in Christ.
Paul has four times repeated a Jews – Gentiles – Jews – Gentiles sequence (with modifications) in 11:10-27:
· first in his ‘chain of blessing’ (11:11,12) he moves from Israel’s transgression to salvation for the Gentiles, to Israel’s envy and fullness, to ‘much greater riches.’
· second, in reference to his own ministry (11:13-16) he writes of Israel’s rejection, the reconciliation of the world, Israel’s acceptance and ‘life from the dead’
· third, in the picture of the olive tree (11:17-24) the breaking off of natural branches is followed by the grafting in of the wild shoot, with the prospect that the natural branches will be grafted back in again and that the wild branches must continue in God’s kindness
· fourth, in Paul’s statement of the divine mystery (11:25,26) he moves from Israel’s partial, temporary hardening to the fullness of the Gentiles to the salvation of ‘all Israel,’ though the finale of blessing to the world is not mentioned.