Is There a Future for Israel in God's Redemptive Plan??

In my last post, I tackled a difficult prophecy in Daniel 9 which is the primary biblical source of Dispensationalist/ Futurist teaching regarding a future seven year Tribulation which will precede the parousia of Jesus Christ at the end of the age.  I concluded in that post, that the seventieth week of Daniel is a reference to the entire present age from the time of Christ's baptism to the time of his second coming.   Today, I'm going to continue my discussion of Christian eschatology by considering another very important, but equally controversial, passage in Paul's writing - Romans 11:25-32:

²⁵ For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;  
²⁶ and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,

“ The Deliverer will come from Zion,
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”
²⁷ “ This is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

²⁸ From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers;  

²⁹ for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.  

³⁰ For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, 

³¹ so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy.  

³² For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

The primary difficulty in this passage which divides Evangelical interpreters is to discern the meaning of v. 26: "and so all Israel will be saved."   In this post I'm going to briefly sketch out four possible Evangelical interpretations of this phrase.

Interpretation #1:  "All Israel" = Israel as a National Entity

The view that God will one day restore the nation of Israel to her former glory, including the restoration of the land of Palestine, the rebuilding of the physical Temple in Jerusalem and the reinstitution of commemorative animal sacrifice during the Millennial Kingdom, is the interpretation that has been embraced by Dispensationists and the majority of messianic Jewish congregations.  It has probably been the most popular eschatological position among North American Evangelicals since the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy in the 1920s when Fundamentalists embraced en masse a very pessimistic premillenial eschatology in opposition to the Liberals who adpated postmillenial optimism to the social gospel.  The rapid growth of Dispensational Premillenialism in the past century, in my opinion, was a knee jerk reaction to Liberal Protestantism.  At the heart of the Dispensationalist system of theology is the distinction between Israel and the Church into two entities.  Jesus' offer of the Kingdom to the Jewish nation was rejected by Jews living in first century Palestine (Plan A) and so He turned to the Gentiles by establishing the New Testament Church (Plan B).  For Dispensationalists, the Church, which includes both Jews and Gentiles is a 'parenthesis' in God's redemptive plan.  For the present 'dispensation', Jews are saved, added to the Church (which is a mixture of Jews and Gentiles), and will be taken up in the so called 'secret rapture', but once the Church is raptured God will resume Plan A with the Jewish nation here on earth.  Dispensationalist interpreters see Paul's teaching about the salvation of 'all Israel' in Rom 11 as further evidence of a Jewish Millenium where God will fulfill all of his promises to ethnic Jews in a very physical, literalistic way.  Dispensationalism commits the same error as the apostles did in Acts 1:6 when they interpreted the Kingdom of God almost exclusively with respect to the Jewish nation.

Interpretation #2: "All Israel" = Spiritual Israel  (Church)

Much support can be garnered for this view, popular among Amillenialists and some Historic Premillenialists which sees Paul's reference to Israel in v. 26 as a reference to the New Testament Church.  In other words, this view interprets Paul as saying that all of God's elect people, whether Jew or Gentile, will be saved and gathered into the Church before the conclusion of the present age - it is a reference to the "Israel of God" spoken of by Paul in the closing verses of Galatians.   

The support for this view comes from the way Paul and the apostles speak about the Church throughout the New Testament.  For example, Peter calls his Gentile audience a "spiritual house" and a "holy priesthood" in 1 Peter 2:4-5.  The author to the Hebrews applies the promise of the New Covenant (cf. Jer 31) to the Gentile Church (Heb 8).  Paul calls the Gentile believers in Gal 3:29 "Abraham's offspring" and "heirs according to the promise."  Paul and the other NT authors also frequently apply OT texts given in their original context to national Israel to Gentile followers of Jesus (cf. 2 Cor 6:14-18).   So, there is clear and irrefutable Biblical evidence to suggest that the Church is indeed Spiritual Israel.  This is not an anti-semetic way to intepret the NT as is sometimes alleged by Dispensationalists, nor is it 'replacement theology' (a curse word frequently used to slander and malign the reputation of Reformed theologians) - it is good, sound Biblical theology.  If  Reformed theologians are guilty of 'spiritualizing' the OT references to Israel, then the same accusation must be leveled against Paul and the apostles.   A fair assessment of the NT Scripture must acknowlege that Paul uses the term 'Israel' in different senses depending on the context.  Sometimes, Paul is speaking about the Jewish nation (ethnic Jews), sometimes he is speaking about the believing remnant within ethnic Israel and sometimes he is 'spiritualizing' the term in order to speak about the New Testament Church (Gentiles and Jews together).  In other words, Paul is not enslaved in his hermeneutics to the grammatical-historcial meaning of the text at all points - he is open to the sensus plenior (the fuller meaning) and so should we be today in our interpretation of Scripture!

In spite of my sympathy for this position, I cannot believe that Paul is speaking about Spiritual Israel here in Rom 11.  The very fact that he is consistently using the term 'Israel' in the immediate context (chapters 9-10) to refer to his Jewish 'kinsmen according to the flesh', it is almost inconceivable to conclude that he suddenly switches the meaning of this term in 11:26 to refer to the Church without giving any clear indication to his audience.  I am convinced that Paul is indeed referring to ethnic Jews in this particular passage.

Interpretation #3:  "All Israel" = Believing Remnant within National/ Ethnic Israel

This interpretation has much contextual support to commend it, and I am extremely sympathetic to those Evangelical expositors who hold this position.   I am actually torn between this position and the next one which I currently think is the better interpretation.  

This view is a good exegetical option which takes into account an extremely important distinction made by Paul in Rom 9:6 - "For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel."  Unfortunately this distinction between Israel as a nation and the elect members of the nation who were justified by faith alone in the Messiah to come, is all too frequently lost on Dispensationalist interpreters.  God has always had an elect people which was not equivalent to the nation of Israel as a whole - the Israel within Israel!  To fail to make such a distinction, and to teach that Jewish people were saved by following the Mosaic Law and sacrificing animals as a rote religious ritual of a former dispensation of law,  is to totally misunderstand the role of Israel in God's Redemptive plan.  God elected the Jewish nation for a purpose - to bring forth Messiah as a blessing to the families of the earth!  The purpose of Israel's election as a nation has been fulfilled in the flow of Redemptive history when Jesus was born, lived a perfect life and died a substitutionary death in accordance with the OT Prophecies concerning Messiah (cf.Is 52-53).   Many Israelites who sacrificed animals and took the sign of circumcision will be in hell for all of eternity right alongside the many professing Christians who go to church every week and have been baptized.  Simply going through a religious exercise, be it Jewish, Christian or otherwise never saved anyone and never will: "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." (Heb 10:3).  So the Dispensationalist teaching about a restored Millennial Temple in which animal sacrifice will be restored is at best a serious misunderstanding of the flow of Redemptive History, and at worst a blasphemous heresy which denies and tramples upon the once for all character of Christ's redemptive work on the cross and mistakes the 'shadows' and 'types' of the Old Coveenant for the reality in the New Covenant.   

Nevertheless, I'm not confident that this is what Paul is talking about here in Rom 11, although I may be easily persuaded.  If Paul is talking here about all of the elect Jewish people coming to faith during the entire present age I see two problems.  First of all, the word translated "until" in v. 25 seems to imply chronology.  That is to say, I think the salvation of "all Israel" here is probably a reference to a future salvation of a large number of Jews, even though Paul himself uses his own conversion as evidence that God is not finished with the Jewish people yet in 11:1-2.  Paul's conversion seems to me, to be a harbinger of a much larger revival among ethnic Jews which will occur at some point in the future - probably right before the return of the Lord.   The second problem with this view has to do with the doxology at the end of chapter 11.  To state that all of the elect Jews throughout redemptive history will come to faith before the end of the age, is to state a truism.  Of course the elect Jews will come to faith!!!  And so it is difficult to see why this would issue in such a glorious doxology from the Apostle at the end of the chapter.  It seems to me that something more is going on here.....

Interpretation #4:  "All Israel" = Large Number of Ethnic Jews who will be Converted and Added to the Church in the Future

The subtitle pretty much says it all, and this is the view which I currently think is the best understanding of Rom 11.   The conclusion that Paul is speaking of ethnic Jews is difficult to avoid if we are allowing this text to speak for itself.  For Paul to switch suddenly from a discussion of Ethnic Jews in the previous two chapters to a discussion of Spiritual Israel in 11:26, is not a natural way to understand the text.  It also seems fairly difficult to avoid the conclusion that Paul is speaking here about something that will happen in the future.  According to this text, the salvation of the Jews will not occur "until" (a key word!!) the "fullness of the Gentiles has come in."  Without jumping through fancy exegetical hoops to make the text mean what it does not appear to say - I think it is fair to say that Paul is speaking of a future event that has not yet occurred  but will occur shortly before the return of Christ - perhaps even simultaneously with his return!   

And so, I agree with Dispensationalists insofar as Paul is talking about a future conversion of Ethnic Jews, but I disagree  with them that this conversion has anything to do with national blessings or the fulfillement of Old Covenant land promises.  I expect that many Jews will be converted when Christ returns and that this will be one of the signs that precede His second coming.  I certainly don't think every single individual will be saved as some contend ('all' does not always mean every single individual in the NT!!)

On a side note, my views on the Seventieth Week of Daniel and on the future conversion of ethnic Jews alleviate two major problems with Historic Premillenialism (The eschatological position to which I currently subscribe).  First of all, the denial of a seven year tribulation in the future allows me to affirm the possibility that Christ could return at any moment.  For post-trib Historic Premillenialists like Doug Moo who take a futurist interpretation of Daniel 9, the return of Christ must be at least 7 years away!   Secondly, the conversion of the Jews before the return of Christ gives an plausible explanation to the difficult problem of the origin of evil in the Millennium.  I think that the Jewish people will be saved when they see Christ coming at his glorious return to earth.  The Church is raptured at that point and the enemies of Christ are destroyed, but these converted Jews live on into the Millenium and some of their children and grandchildren eventually rebel against the Lord as we read in Rev 20.   To be sure, there are other significant theological problems with a Premillenial view, but until I become convinced that Rev 20 does not follow Rev 19 chronologically, I must remain a Historic Premillenialist who is extremely sympathetic to Amillenialism!

Saved by Faith but Judged According to Works??? (Matt 25:31-46)

Matthew 25:31-46 provides us with a vivid description of the final judgment and can be a perplexing passage for many of us who hold strongly to sola fide since it seems to imply (in contrast with Paul) that salvation is ultimately by works rather than by faith alone in Christ:

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'  Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?'  Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."  (vv. 41-46)

  Is there a contradiction in the Bible here?  Does Paul teach sola gratia, while Jesus teaches works-righteousness?   A number of solutions have been offered:


Solution 1:  All Good People go to Heaven

This is the Liberal Protestant answer to this question which really isn't much of a solution at all.  Those who deny the authority of God's Word, have no difficulty accepting that it contains irreconcilable contradictions because they do not believe that Scripture is Verbally Inspired (cf. 2 Tim 3:16).  For many Liberals, the essence of Christianity can be boiled down to being a nice person, following the golden rule and trying to improve society through social reform - in a nutshell it is humanism dressed up in a clerical collar.  If they retain a theology of eternal punishment then the criteria for judgment becomes how closely you followed the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.  If they don't retain a theology of eternal punishment, it doesn't really matter in the end since hell is an invention of the early church that has been placed in the mouth of Jesus and therefore doesn't really exist.

The Liberal Protestant view interprets "the least of these brothers of mine" (v. 40) as a reference to all people generally.

Solution 2:  There Are Multiple Eschatological Judgments

This solution is offered by Dispensationalists who claim that there is not one final judgment, but three. Matthew 25:31-46, they argue, is a judgment for the nations to determine which ones will enter into the thousand year Millennial Kingdom.  This appears to solve the problem nicely, since Matthew 25 applies to believers living in another dispensation and does not apply to believers today who are saved by faith alone - (sigh of relief!) According to this view, "the least of these brothers of mine" is a reference to Jewish believers living during the time of the Great Tribulation.  The criteria for entering the Millennium in this view, is how the Gentile nations treated the Jewish people during the Tribulation.

Dispensationalists hold that a second eschatological judgment is described in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and is a judgment for reward for Christians.  This "Bema Seat Judgment", they say will occur in heaven during the Great Tribulation after the church has been raptured and before the final appearing of Christ (parousia) at the end of the Tribulation.

The third  and final judgment is described in Rev 20:11-15 when non-believers will be resurrected and judged and the sheep (God's elect) will be separated from the goats (those who rejected Christ).

Although the Dispensational view seems to offer a plausible explanation to this passage which guards sola fide, it requires that you first accept the presuppositions of the theological system, which in my own view cannot be easily substantiated from Scripture itself. (A subject for another day)


Solution 3:  One Final Judgment- Justified by Faith and Judged according to the Evidence

A third view, which I personally think is the best one makes matters very simple when it comes to eschatology.  All passages in the New Testament and in the Old Testament prophetic books that refer to judgment are speaking of the same event, which is called the "Great White Throne Judgment" in Rev 20.  There will be one eschatological judgment at the end of the age, at which time believers and  non-believers will stand before Christ to give an account of their lives.  This judgment will consist of an evaluation of both the object of one's faith (whether it was Jesus Christ alone or something else), and the righteous works that have been done during our pilgrimage on earth.  The works performed by God's elect will, at this time, be graciously rewarded by the Lord as Paul teaches us in 1 Cor 5.

The answer to the dilemma concerning faith and works as they relate to the final judgment is resolved if one interprets these judgment passages in the light of the entirety of Scripture.  The NT teaches two very important truths related to this issue which must both be equally affirmed.  Emphasizing Proposition 1 to the exclusion of Proposition 2 leads to the heresy of Antinomianism.  Emphasizing Proposition 2 to the exclusion of Proposition 1 leads to the opposite heresy of Legalism: 

1) Salvation is a gift of God that cannot be earned.  (Eph 2:8-9) We are justified by faith alone in Christ.  (Rom 5:1).
2) True and saving faith perseveres to the end. (1 John 2:19)  Genuine faith is always accompanied by good works, just as a good tree produces good fruit.  (Eph 2:10, James 2:24; Matt 7:17-20)   In other words, good works are an indispensible part of the Christian life.

So .... will we be judged on the basis of faith or of works??  The answer to this question is that the good works that the Spirit produces in our lives as believers is the ultimate evidence of saving faith.  Works are not the ground of our salvation, but they are the evidence by which we can know whether or not we are truly saved.  To put it another way - we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, but we will be judged on the basis of works which validate the genuineness of our faith in Christ.  With this in mind, passages like Matthew 25 which stress the importance of good works should not distress us or cause us to drive a wedge between Jesus and Paul - they should cause us to examine ourselves to see whether we are truly in the faith (2 Cor 13:5).  They should cause us to strive to make our calling and election sure. (2 Peter 1:10).  They should serve as warnings that cause us to be ready for the return of our Lord and so that we will not be among the crowd of false professors on that final day (Matt 7:21-23), or that we would be ashamed at His appearing (1 John 2:28).

The Olivet Discourse (Matt 24) - Futurism and Preterism

My journey through Matthew has brought me today to the Olivet Discourse, one of the primary eschatological passages in the New Testament that has been the subject of intense intra-mural debate among Christians. I am going to briefly sketch three different categories of interpretation:

Extreme Futurism:

 The first theological system that I learned growing up in the fundamentalist movement was the Classical Dispensationalism of C.I. Schofield (rooted in the 19th century theology of the Plymouth Brethren leader J.N. Darby) which differentiates Matthew 24 from its synoptic parallel in Luke, viewing the former as the fulfillment of Daniel's seventieth week (cf. Daniel 9:24-27) and the latter as a reference to the historic destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.  This 'seventieth week' which will be seven years long is often called the 'Great Tribulation' which will follow a 'secret rapture' of the predominately Gentile Church.  Dispensationalists differ on the exact timing of this rapture - some beliving that it will occur at the beginning of the tribulation period, and others holding that it will occur at the half-way mark.  They effectively split the return of Christ into two phases:  Christ's return for the Church which is imminent (understood as 'any moment') and will not be preceded by any signs, and the second coming of Jesus (parousia) which will occur at the end of the Great Tribulation when he will return to earth to reign in a literally reconstructed temple in Jerusalem.  Because Matthew 24 is full of signs that point to the Lord's second coming, Dispensationalists reason according to their theological system, that it cannot possibly be a text about the rapture of the Church.  All eschatological texts in the NT are divided into 'rapture texts' and 'parousia texts' depending on whether or not there are signs which precede the event.  For Classical Dispensationalists, Matt 24 is strictly a 'parousia' text (including vv.36-44 which is sometimes understood (wrongly they say) as a reference to the 'secret rapture' of the Church.
The Classical Dispensationalist interpretation of Matt 24 is that the Olivet Discourse pertains exclusively to the final generation of Jewish believers who are alive during the Great Tribulation.  It may be an interesting passage for Christians to read, but it is not really that important for the current dispensation.  It is a view that sees no historic fulfillment in Matthew 24 in spite of the fact that the entire discourse was occasioned by the disciples question regarding the destructon of the temple (v.2).  According to Dispensationalists, Jesus simply ignores this first question posed by the disciples and focuses exclusively on their second question about the close of the age and events of the future (v.3).

Preterism:

Preterism is the view that Revelation and Matthew must be understood in light of the historic events of A.D. 70 when the temple was destroyed by the Roman general Titus.  Preterism is broken into two views, viz. Full Preterism which views Matthew 24 and Revelation as being completely fulfilled in the first century, and Partial Preterism which views much of Matthew 24 and Revelation as already fulfilled, and some which is yet to be fulfilled in the Eschaton.  The distinction between Full and Partial Preterism is a very important one.  Full Preterism is not an orthodox position because it denies the future, bodily return of the Lord Jesus.  Partial Preterism, on the other hand is a very live option for Evangelicals and has been promoted by R.C. Sproul, R.V.G. Tasker and others. 
Partial Preterists break Matthew 24 into two sections.  Verses 1-28 deal exclusively with the historical destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  The mysterious 'Abomination of Desolation' (v. 15) is a reference to the desecration of the Temple by Titus (who actually offered a pagan sacrifice in the temple court), and not a reference to the eschatological Antichrist of the Great Tribulation.  Partial Preterists interpret vv. 29-44 as the future bodily return of Christ at the end of the age, while  Full Preterists erroneously contend that these verses were fulfilled historically in the first century.

I came across a passage in the City of God recently that seems to indicate that St. Augustine can also be categorized as a Partial Preterist:  "I pass over many other passages which seem to refer to the last judgment but which, on more careful condideration, are found to be ambiguous, or to refer more pertinently to something else.  They may refer, for example, to the 'coming' of the Saviour which is going on throughout this present age in His Church:  that is, in His members.  In this sense, He comes part by part and little by little, since the whole Church is His body.  Again the reference may be to the destruction of the earthly Jerusalem.  For when Christ speaks of that destruction He often does so as if He were speakign of the end of the world and of the last and great day of judment." (XX.5)

Moderate Futurism:

While I see the Partial Preterist position as a possibility and a better option that the Dispensationalist view, I do not think it is the best way to understand Matthew 24.  In my own understanding, Matthew 24 refers to two different events in one single prophecy, and must be interpreted as a prophecy having multiple layers of fulfillment that are not easy to separate in a simplistic way.  We ought to interpret Matthew 24 just as we interpret Old Testament prophecy - there are usually multiple levels of fulfillment, both historical and eschatological.
There is little doubt in my mind that Jesus is talking in Matthew 24 about events that were fulfilled in A.D. 70  and also that the language is heightened in such a way that he is also describing events that will happen just prior to his return (which I understand to be a single event that will occur at the end of the Tribulation).  The Abomination of Desolation mentioned by Daniel in the OT and used again here by our Lord, is an event that has numerous historical fulfillments.  It was fulfilled in the Maccabean period when Antiochus Ephiphanes sacrificed a pig in the temple (surely the backdrop of Jesus words).  It was fulfilled again in A.D. 70 when Titus offered sacrifice in the temple courts.  It will be fulfilled again in the future by the Antichrist - although not in a literal temple since the Church itself is the temple of God!  Although we do not understand what exactly will happen, Jesus indicates in a parenthetical statement in v. 15 that Christians alive during that future time of firey persecution and martyrdom will understand what this passage means when the event actually occurs.