Toward the end of Paul’s (definitely not) aside on Israel in Rom. 9-11 he says ‘all Israel will be saved’. It has been an anchor point for the claim that at the end of this age there will be a mass turning of Jews to their Messiah… however, to hold to such a view logically would only involve Jews alive at the coming of Jesus, thus all those who had lived before that would not be ‘saved’. A further issue is that the phrase, sometimes translated ‘and then’ is NOT a temporal phrase (kai houtos, has to be translated ‘in this way‘). There is no time reference in what he writes but the means of ‘salvation’ coming is what he has been consistently writing about in these chapters. The question is ‘how’ will all Israel be ‘saved’ not when.
And a twist I am trying to think about is the distinction between ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’. The work of Jason Staples in ‘The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism’ argues that the two are not synonymous, with ‘Jew’ referring to those who belonged to the Southern kingdom and Israel referring to the bigger entity of the 12 tribes. This morning I was reading Paul’s defence before Agrippa and took note of what I had not seen before:
I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain… It is for this hope… that I am accused by Jews! Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead.
He was accused by Jews and he claimed his hope was the hope of Israel! [I am thinking this might give yet another twist to ‘Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?’.]
The northern kingdom (the ‘ten tribes’) ‘disappears’ with the Assyrian exile leaving (eventually post-a trip to Babylon) Judah, Benjamin and some of Levi, the ‘southern kingdom’ that had been faithful to David and his line. Generally speaking that is what is referred to as ‘Judah’ and gains the description ‘Jews’. Then we can add so many twists but how about this one: Ephraim and Manasseh are elevated to the position as tribes. They are the sons of Joseph and ‘Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On’. Joseph’s wife: an Egyptian and from a dodgy spiritual line!! Ethnic purity – NOT. [And Jewishness comes through the mother’s line?]
‘All Israel’… and not ‘all those descended from Israel are Israelites’… wow, all a tight knot that is not simple to undo(!) but leading surely to where Paul is headed in these chapters – ‘so that he might be merciful to all’. And ALL is a big term.
I have some unpicking still to do but it seems Paul is not arguing for some great future event but a process that is ongoing that we should not reduce to being able to produce some physical DNA results as evidence. The hope of Israel, the twelve tribes… Paul, from the tribe of Benjamin, becomes an apostle to the non-Jews (Gentiles), so that the ‘hope’ of God might be fulfilled, that of a transformed world, in which the hope of Israel will also be fulfilled. Israel is bigger than Jewishness; Israel is ‘dirtier’ than ethnicity. And above and beyond it all God’s ‘hope’ is bigger than my hope, or the hope of Israel.
I have no direct conclusions as yet on the tight knot, but ‘in this way’, in God’s way there is an eternal ever expanding reach toward all of humanity.