 We are listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, episode 102. What does all Israel will be saved mean? I'm your layman, Trey Strickland. He's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey, Mike. This is our second show of our two eschatology series, I guess. So, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, back to eschatology. Yeah. I'm looking forward to this one. We won't be able to get to talk eschatology for another who knows how long. At least three or four years. Yeah. We better get it while we can. Yeah. Well, today we're going to talk about, you know, as you can tell from the title, Romans 11, 25 and 26. This line that Paul has in there about all Israel will be saved. Now, again, this is a phrase that a lot of commentators, I would say really any honest commentator, has sort of, you know, found impervious to clarity, impenetrable in terms of being certain about what Paul is saying here. That I think has, I think it's fair to say that has changed a little bit. But certainly, we're not at the point currently where anyone could sort of claim, oh, it must be this and it can't be any of these other options. There's actually four interpretations that, and I'm going to start with this, you know, four kind of approaches, four views to what this phrase might actually mean. And for listeners on the page to the episode, this particular episode, there's going to be a link to a summary. It's not the actual article, but a link to a summary of an article by a fellow whose last name is Zocali, Z-O-C-C-A-L-I. And so all Israel will be saved, colon competing interpretations of Romans 1126 in Pauline scholarship. And that was published in 2008 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. And it's a really nice, again, overview of the options that scholars have presented. And again, there'll be a link to a summary of that article that gives you the four or the numbered interpretations just so you can just be acquainted with that material. And then later there's going to be another article I'll reference and I'll wait until I get there where that actually exists online and is accessible to listeners and they'll get that. But I'll mention that when I get there for right now where we're at. There are, again, four sort of mainstream views as to what Paul meant by this phrase. Let me just give you, again, from Zocali. These are his, this is his terminology. One would be what he calls the ecclesiastical interpretation. And that is, that's the view that equates Israel in the phrase, so all Israel will be saved. It equates, you know, one-to-one equation, equates Israel with the church. So this view resists defining Israel ethnically in any way as Jews. And it's based largely on Paul's apparent redefinition of Israel in Romans 9-6 where Paul says, it is not as though the Word of God has failed for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And so there are a lot of people who will seize upon that verse and say, well look, you know, when Paul talks about Israel it has nothing to do with ethnicity at all. He only, and these are key words here, he only is thinking about the church, anyone who believes. Now, that view, again, would be sort of common with sort of the current controversy about, you know, the church replacing Israel and the political ramifications of that. So that view about the church displaces, replaces Israel as the people of God. This is where they would be at. You know, Israel, there's no such thing as Israel in God's, you know, program anymore. It's just all the church. It's exclusively the church. It's all the church, okay? And I'm saying it that way deliberately because of what's going to follow. Now, that view, believe it or not, despite the talk about, you know, replacement theology has, I think it's fair to say, sort of fallen out of favor because many think it's too categorical today. In other words, it goes, a lot of scholars think it goes too far in excluding ethnicity at all because if you're this view, it's very easy to argue things like Israel and Jews ethnically are basically non-elect. You know, and people will actually say things like, they're the Christ killers. They're non-elect. God has set them aside. God doesn't care about them anymore. And so this view, the ecclesiastical interpretation will be used to prop up those kinds of statements and those kinds of ideas. And again, this is a common view, but I think, again, I think it's fair to say, and Zokali, you know, mentions this, that it's sort of fallen out of favor because it's just too categorical. So again, take that for what it's worth where we're at, at least in this episode. The second view, first is the ecclesiastical interpretation. The second view would be what Zokali refers to as the total national elect view. And this view argues that the complete number of elect from historical or ethnic Israel, and this is the way Zokali words it, the complete number of elect from historical Israel, from ethnic Israel, will be saved in the same manner as the Gentiles, in other words, through Christ. And again, what this does is it sort of takes attention away from the identity of the elect, the identity of Israel in Paul's statement, and kind of changes the discussion to how and why these elect will be saved. And of course, the answer to that is through Jesus. So it sort of changes the question or it changes the focus a little bit. Third view is what Zokali refers to as the two covenant view. This is a minority view, I think very arguably the smallest number of scholars would be in this camp. And I think you'll see why once I explain what it is. But the two covenant view says that every Jew, every Jew will be saved by membership in the Jewish covenant. In other words, the fact that they're Jews and God made a covenant with Israel, the Old Testament, those people are just saved because of who they are. Every Jew will be saved by membership in the Jewish covenant, regardless of whether they embrace the gospel of Christ or not. They're in because they're Jews and God chose the end of story. Now that defines the Old Testament covenant election as salvation. That's what that does. And again, there are significant problems with that because of apostasy and we've talked about these things in the podcast before. But again, that's just what this view would say. I would add that Jews who do respond to the gospel are also saved, but they're saved because of Jesus then. And you say, well, that's kind of odd because if you needed, they would say, no, a Jew didn't need Jesus. A Jew would have been saved because they're a Jew. But if they do believe in Jesus, well, that's good too. They're going to get to heaven either way. Now this view, I think you can tell again that the smallest number of people articulate this and defend it. It doesn't seem really coherent at all with statements that Paul makes Romans 9-1-5, Romans 11 and other epistles, Galatians, whatnot. Paul doesn't really define salvation as the fact that you're a Jew. I mean, he was a Jew and he said he needed Christ. He would not have been part of the people of God without Christ. You can't reject the Messiah. So Paul doesn't put any certainty and he doesn't take any comfort in the fact that he was a Jew. He's pointing people to the need, including pointing Jews to the need of Christ. So again, this is really kind of a fringe minority view. Fourth view is what's called again by Zokali the eschatological miracle view. And that is this is the idea of a future salvation of all Jews either at the Second Coming or immediately prior to the Second Coming. So in other words, after what Paul talks about in Romans 11, this is verse 25 because we're talking about Romans 11-26. All Israel will be saved. The verse right before it talks about the fullness of the Gentiles coming in. So this view says, well, after the fullness of Gentiles has come in, whatever that means. And that's either, hey, all of the Gentiles predestined to be saved or get saved or more ambiguously that the mission to the Gentiles is God declares that it's over. So whenever the fullness of the Gentiles, whatever that is happens, then all the Jews alive at that time will be saved through a mass conversion to Christ. Now this or some form of it, this this general idea is again, I think it's fair to say a very dominant view within evangelicalism and popular end times teaching that again, we need to and whether it gets political or not, but we need to look at Israel still as the apple of God's eye. And you know, we can never say anything against Israel or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because God has a plan for them. And this plan is that all the Jews are going to return to Israel, return to Jerusalem. You know, as we move into the end times, you know, this is going to happen because they're going to be protected from the Antichrist there. And when the Lord comes back, they're all going to look on him whom they have pierced and all Israel is going to be saved. You know, they're going to have this mass conversion because who could deny, you know, there, there he is right there up in the sky. So again, this is a very, very dominant view again within popular end times perspective and times teaching. So those are your four views again, just to recap them quickly. Ecclesiastical interpretation, that is Israel is the church. Total national elect view again, and trying to shift it from who the elect are to how they become elected. That's Jew or Gentile, they both have to be saved through Christ. To covenant view, if you're a Jew, you're in, you know, if you're not, then you need Christ. And if you're a Jew who believes in Christ, hey, two thumbs up to you anyway. And then there's this eschatological miracle idea that they're going to be converted at the second coming, either at it or shortly before. Now, the phrase again, where I want to focus on is believe it or not, I'm going to ask questions like, hey, does the Old Testament have any relevance here? If you want a discussion, a recent discussion of Romans 11-25-26 that I find myself there that sort of mirrors what I'm thinking from, you know, sources like Petrae that we discussed last week. And again, reexamining some of the eschatological content and concepts in light of the Second Temple period. There's an article by a guy named Jason Staples that is accessible through the internet. It's a PDF to get the whole article. And it was published in the Journal of Biblical Literature in 2011, which is yet as a very, it's one of the premier biblical studies journals. And so what he tries to do is kind of take a fresh look at defining what Paul meant by all Israel. And he is going to go back into Second Temple literature, and he is going to go back into the Old Testament to try to figure out what Paul was thinking when he used this phrase. So what Staples says, again, just in broad strokes here is that to answer this question of what Paul was thinking, you really have to kind of address three questions. There's three sort of really important interpretive questions. One is, well, how does Paul define all Israel? That would be the most obvious one, you know, because that's going to probably tell us what he was thinking, how he was thinking about it. So what does Paul mean by the fullness of the nations, the fullness of the Gentiles? What's going on with that? And then third, how is the salvation of, quote, all Israel? How is it related to the fullness of the Gentiles? What's the relationship between the two? So those three things, again, they work together. But he, you know, Staples is saying, look, if we can kind of grok these things, you know, we're going to be able to figure out maybe not with complete certainty, but a reasonable degree of certainty what Paul was angling for here. So in short, the essential thing to solve is, again, what is the in-gathering of the Gentiles have to do with the salvation of all Israel? If you wanted just to put it in a sentence, because Romans 11, 25 and 26 discusses both ideas in relationship to each other. So you can't just talk about all Israel being saved without talking about the fullness of the Gentiles. You can't talk about the fullness of the Gentiles without talking about this all Israel thing. So in a sentence, here's the question. What does the in-gathering, the regathering of the fullness of the Gentiles, again, into the family of God, what does that have to do with the salvation of, quote, all Israel? So let's take them in order. And again, for those who want the article, you can go up and get lots more detail. But I'm going to try to distill some of what the staples have said and, again, add my own thoughts to this, my own perspectives. But that's a good resource for tracking on the major ideas anyway. So let's talk about all Israel. Can we have to determine what that phrase means? And before we do, we have to actually talk about Israel. What is Paul thinking just with the word Israel or Israelites? Is Israel synonymous with, quote, unquote, an ethnic Jew or a state of ethnic Jews, a community of ethnic Jews? What is Israel? Is Paul thinking in ethnic terms when he uses the word Israel? Now, again, you have a limited number of options here. You could say, well, Israel, the word Israel and a word like Jews are totally synonymous. One means the other. They are completely overlapping. So if that was true, then the phrase all Israel would mean every ethnic Jew. And we talked about, again, the viewpoints, the four viewpoints. And certainly the last one about how, hey, when the Messiah returns, every Jew alive is going to be converted. And that's what all Israel means. And that view, again, very dominant within popular prophecy teaching. They're going to look at all Israel and say that that means Jews, ethnic Jews. That's how we define Israel. It's an ethnic term. All Israel means every ethnic Jew. Another option is you could say, well, maybe a word like Jews is actually a subset of Israel. In other words, all Jews were Israelites, but not all Israelites were Jews. And you say, well, how is that possible? How does that work? Well, you would go to passages like Romans 9, which we read earlier in Romans 9, 25, 26, Galatians 3. If you are Christ, you are Abraham's seed. He's writing to the Galatians who were Gentiles. The whole chapter of Galatians 3, redefining children of Abraham to include the Gentiles. So if that's what Paul's thinking about Israel, when he writes the word Israel, he's thinking, well, when I write the word Israel here, I'm not thinking of only ethnic Jews. I'm thinking of people who are Israelites spiritually. In other words, they have the faith of Abraham, like I wrote to the Galatians way back when in Galatians 3. So those are your basic options. Israel means every ethnic Jew or all Israel every ethnic Jew. But Israel might mean, well, it might just mean everybody who believes, including Jews, but not exclusively ethnic Jews. It's wider. The door is open wider there. Now, again, that doesn't necessarily help with the ultimate question that we're angling for here, because we're just going through the options now. But the interesting thing about this is that you can take both options. Okay, well, which is it? Does Israel mean ethnic Jew or does it mean something else that might include ethnic Jews but include other things too, other people too? Which isn't? Well, historically, you can go back into Second Temple Jewish sources and ask the same question. When Jews of Jesus' day, when Jews of Paul's day and before, earlier than them, without a New Testament, without the Messiah having come yet, without Paul ever even being born, how were Jews in the Second Temple period, when they wrote about Israel, when they used the word Israel or Israelite or Jew, how did they think about the terms? Well, again, staples and other scholars have done this, and it's actually kind of interesting. Israel in Second Temple Jewish literature, and I might add, even in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, is what scholars would call polyvalent. In other words, it means lots of different things. Israel doesn't always mean the same thing. It can mean a number of different things. For instance, Israel can refer to, again, either in the Hebrew Bible or Second Temple literature. It can refer to the patriarch Jacob, because his name was changed to Israel, so it's one guy. It could refer to the nation, which was of course composed of Jacob's descendants. In other words, all 12 tribes of Israel, including the northern bunch, the northern 10 and the southern two, the nation of ... After we have Solomon dying and the monarchy divides and all that stuff, Israel can be used to refer to the 10 tribes that get called the nation of Israel after the monarchy divides, or it can actually be used of all 12 tribes. They can be called Israel too. Third thing, again, is kind of obvious from what I just said. Sometimes the word Israel is limited in context to just the 10 tribes, so you'll get some sort of helper word with that like house of Israel or house of Judah, put juxtaposed next to each other. So then, okay, Israel here, mischievous means the 10, doesn't include the two. Okay, so sometimes it's more restrictive. You also can get returnees from Judah after the Babylonian exile referred to as Israel. Okay, again, Israel just in and of itself can mean a number of different things. It's a little bit different though when it comes to Jew. Jew seems to be, again, judging by the Second Temple material and even the Old Testament, the word Jew seems to be an outsider term. In other words, a term coined by non-Jews. In other words, basically the people, the Babylonians who captured the remaining Kingdom of Judah. Jew seems to be a term given to the captives while they were in exile that is linked to geography. They were from Judea. Okay, so if you're from that place, the term Jew is coined to describe who you were. Who among all the captive peoples that we have are you? Well, you're those guys. You're, you know, Yahudim. I mean, you're Jews. You're from Judea. You're from this place. So Jew actually is an outsider term. Now, if you look it up in the Old Testament, it's kind of interesting. Every place where you're going to have Jew referred to, you're going to have some sort of context that's exilic. Okay, the term is not used before the exile to describe pre-exilic Israelites. It's very interesting. So again, we have, you know, Yahudim and the plural, for instance. Whenever you see that, there's going to be some sort of flavor of the exile. Here are the instances. I don't know why. I didn't list them all out by number, but you can, I'll give you all the chapters. 2 Kings 25. 25. This is set in the time of Geneliah. It says, but in the seventh month, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, son of El-Shama of the royal family, came with two men, struck down Geneliah, put him to death along with the Jews, and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. And this is the time of the exile, Geneliah. Okay, so that's the kind of thing you get. This is a term that would have existed in the exilic context. So 2 Kings 25. 25. You get Yahudim or in a singular form used throughout Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. All of those books are exilic or post-exilic. You also get it in Jeremiah 34.9. Okay, Jeremiah 34.9. That everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother. There's the word Jew. Again, Jeremiah 34. Jeremiah is living during or just prior to the third wave of the exile. Remember the exile of Judah happened in three stages. 605, 597, 586 when the temple was destroyed. It's an exilic context. You also get the term Jew used in Daniel. Again, early date of Daniel puts that as a book written in the exile. Late date of Daniel has it written after the exile. And lastly, Zechariah 8.23. Zechariah 8.23. It's the same situation. Zechariah is a book that is dealing with exilic or post-exilic context. So it's really curious that Jew is just a much tighter thing. Again, just a reference to the captives from the southern kingdom who were captive in Babylon and of course returned. They're the Jews as opposed to Israelites, which is much broader even though in certain contexts that term itself can be restrictive as well. Now, if you go into non-biblical literature, let's take Josephus. This is in Antiquities of the Jews. This is just one example, but Josephus is actually very careful about his use of the term Udaos, Jew or Judean. In Josephus' usage, it refers to a person descended from the southern kingdom of Judah. In other words, the kingdom that was taken exile in Babylon. Again, and that kingdom, those two tribes, is only a subset of the larger historical entity called Israel. So this one passage in Josephus says this, from the day they went up from Babylon, they were called by that name in Greek, Huy Udioi, the Jews. After the tribe of Judah, which was prominent coming to those places, both the people themselves and the land received that name. So this is a pretty clear historical testimony by Josephus, who ought to know what he's talking about when it comes to the Jews, says, hey, this is what this term meant. It was a term given to the people from the tribe of Judah and of course the place of Judea that was taken captive into Babylon. So the term, again, was necessarily limited to the descendants, the people who came from the exiled southern kingdom. And it's an outsider term. It's a term given to these people by their captors. Now, there's a, I'm going to quote a little bit from an article that I don't have a link for. It's an article by a guy named John Elliott from the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, again, talking about this issue, this terminology. He says here, Jesus and his earliest followers, evidence demonstrates, were called Israelites, Galileans, or Nazareans by their fellow. Israelites, Israel and Israelites were the preferred terms of self designation among members of the house of Israel when addressing other members. They did not use Eudaos, Jew. This term was outsider coinage and his best rendered Judean, not Jew again, technically, to reflect the explicit or implied connection with Judea, with the place. It was employed by Israelites when addressing outsiders as an accommodation to outsider custom, to outsider usage. The concepts Jew, Jewish and Christian, as understood today are shaped more by fourth century AD, rather than first century AD persons or groups. The concept Jew, as understood today, derives not from the first century, but from the fourth and following centuries. It denotes persons shaped by and oriented to not only Torah and Tanakh, that's the whole Hebrew Bible, but Mishnah, Midrashim and Talmudim. That's the end of Elliott's quote. So again, just gives you again reinforcement for what the earlier source was saying. Jews referred to each other one way, they referred to each other in the presence of foreigners another way, and then the term Jew was again, outsider lingo. In the lexicon entry on Udios, in B-Dag, and B-Dag is the premier Greek lexicon for biblical studies, the editor Frederick Donker laments that quote, in calculable harm has been caused by simply glossing Udios with Jew. For many readers or auditors of the Bible translations do not practice the historical judgment necessary to distinguish between circumstances and events of an ancient time and contemporary ethnic religious social realities with the result that anti-Judaism in the modern sense of the term is needlessly fostered through by means of biblical texts. So Donker is actually saying the fact that we've been careless in the way we throw the term Jew around has actually contributed to anti-Semitism among the biblical scholars and the religious community. So I threw that in basically to say this isn't just an item of trivia, it actually has implications and implications that have been known to scholars for some time. Now let's look at the phrase all Israel. So we've talked about the phrase Israel or Israelite, we've talked about the word Jew, and again one is fairly elastic, Jew again is much less so, and again an outsider term, all Israel as a phrase, believe it or not, occurs 153 times in the Bible, only once in the New Testament. And that once is our phrase from Paul, all Israel will be same. That means that the other ones are in the Old Testament. So we might want to think about all Israel the way it is used in the Old Testament and since Paul knew his Old Testament maybe Paul sort of did that too. So all Israel again relates basically, generally to the tribal structure of the descendants of Jacob, what we would call the nation of Israel. So when all Israel is used as a phrase it's really referring to the collective community of the 12 tribes, Staples adds, it consistently again refers to the 12 tribes in Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. So the Second Temple writers are using it like the Old Testament does, again this sense of all 12 tribes in community. So in a technical sense, Israel necessarily includes Jews, those would be the ones from the Southern Kingdom, but it's not limited to only ethnicity. And when you add the word all in front of it, all Israel, well then you're even, you're really narrowing it down to the 12 tribal structure. So another way of putting that is that the word Israel since it is not, I catch this, since Israel by its lonesome can mean four or five different things that we just talked about. Again, including figures that are not attached to ethnic origin. Israel therefore speaks of covenantal inclusion, the covenantal idea. You're in the people of God. It doesn't necessarily speak of ethnicity. When you have all Israel, that's when you're really getting to the 12 tribe structure. So since Jew is consistently used to describe an ethnic group by foreigners and Israel is not used that way, the terms catch this are not synonymous. They are not one to one overlapping. So the first view that we talked about that, oh well Israel just means ethnic Jew, it's a one to one equation. That is not the case. So we can actually rule out the ecclesiastical interpretation. Again, which is the one that lots of people who advocate strict replacement theology, that's what they want to argue, that when Paul says all Israel will be saved, he's talking about the church. The Jews, the Jews, the people, they're no longer the people of God. They're set aside. They're cast aside. They're thrown away. They're garbage. All this kind of stuff. It doesn't have a destiny for them anymore. Again, that's extreme. That just says too much. It overstates the data. And to repeat it, since Jew, again, is the term used to describe ethnicity and Israel is not strictly so used that way. Therefore, the terms cannot be viewed as completely synonymous. That's an important thought. Now Staples writes, obviously the key question is whether first century Jews, in particular, continued to make this distinction. The evidence points to an answer in the affirmative. Again, back to Josephus. Josephus upholds the distinction using Israelite toss and Israel loss, only in the first 11 books of the antiquities, which are pre-exilic and exilic. And then afterwards, he uses Eudaios, Jew, over 1,100 times. When he has the southern tribes in view, again, the physical descendants that come back from the exile, he doesn't refer to them as Israel. He refers to them as Jews. When all the 12 tribes are in play, though, Josephus prefers the term Israel, which is, again, a very old testament of him. Qumran, you see the same kind of distinction. Qumran community maintains, again, stricter distinctions as E.P. Sanders, as Staples again, has observed, it is noteworthy that the sect is thoroughly refrained from simply calling itself Israel. Indeed, the members seem not to have been conscious of their status, or seem to have been conscious of their status as sectarians, chosen from out of Israel, as being a forerunner of the true Israel, which God would establish to fight the final decisive war. They identified themselves as a faithful subset within Israel. These are the phrase that the people at Qumran used to themselves. They called themselves the remnant of Israel, the captives of Israel, the house of Israel, the repentant of Israel. They also avoided calling themselves Judeans, or Jews, Yahudim. Again, preferring tribal distinctions, Judah, Levi, Benjamin, whatever. Again, they didn't view themselves as these returning exiles either. So again, you get Josephus, you get the Dead Sea Scrolls stuff, stuff from Qumran. Again, these other sources are actually faithful with the way they use the term Israel and the way they use the term Jew. And since they are not, here's the major point. Again, here's the major point. Since Israel and Jew, those two terms are not used the same ways of the same things, they cannot be completely synonymous. So anyone who says they are and wants to make a theological or political point out of that, the basis of the claim is flawed. So they are not completely overlapping. Now let's talk about some implications and go back to Paul here. Israel, and especially all Israel, refers to the covenant tribes of God, the 12 tribes. But again, the term Israel and the phrase all Israel can't be said to refer to exclusively ethnic Jews. If you were thinking of ethnic Jews, if you were Paul and you're thinking about, hey, I'm writing to the Romans here and I'm talking about like end times and I'm talking about their future destiny and I want to make sure that they know that I'm writing about ethnic Jews Paul would have used the term Udaios. He does not. He uses Israel. All Israel will be saved. He doesn't say all Udaios will be saved. Two different things. So when Paul speaks of all Israel, again, which in the Old Testament points to the covenant tribes, he is speaking not necessarily of ethnic Jews but of the totality of God's covenant people. Let me read that again. When Paul speaks of all Israel, which in the Old Testament points to the covenant tribes, he is speaking not necessarily of ethnic Jews but of the totality of God's covenant people. In other words, when Paul uses the term Israel or thinks of Israel, he isn't excluding ethnic Jews but he's also not thinking only of ethnic Jews. Rather, he is thinking about the total covenant people of God. And you know what that means? Here's the implication. It means that when Paul talks about Israel and all Israel, he's talking about a theological construct not an ethnic construct. And that is really, really important. Israel for Paul is not an ethnic term. It's a theological term. Why? Because it is tied to the covenant people concept in the Old Testament. The meaning of this is not unique. It's consistent with the Second Temple literature. All Israel does not point to all ethnic Jews. So not only can't the first view not only can't the first view sort of jump on this and draw conclusions. Again, equating Israel and the church, well, why not Mike? It sounds like the ecclesiastical no, no, no, no, no, no. It's the church, yes, but it doesn't exclude Jews. Like a lot of replacement theologians want to have it. And the last view, the eschatological miracle view that really wants Israel to mean ethnic Jews because all the ethnic Jews are miraculously saved, that doesn't wash either. That doesn't wash either. Because if that's what Paul was intending, he would have used it. Again, we have some nits to pick with replacement theology and the basis for what they say and your more popular evangelical kind of your miracle conversion view. Again, there's problems there too. And this is typically the way it is with eschatology. A system will latch on to an idea and again, I hate to put it this way, but never actually go back to the primary text and check if their idea derives from the primary sources or not. And what that leads to in the replacement view, they overstate the case again, and it actually produces antipathy toward Jews, ethnically or politically. And on the other side, it misreads the text. Paul is not talking about ethnic Jews in Romans 11, 25 and 26. So again, these are important implications of what's going on here. I mean, we have to we have to let the primary sources guide our thinking. Now, this brings us again to a question if we say that Israel is a theological construct and not simply an ethnic one. Let's zero in on this phrase all Israel. If Paul is doing theology there and he's not doing ethnicity there, the question is, did Paul ever specifically divorce this idea from Jewish ethnicity so as to include gentiles? In other words, okay, Paul's using Israel as a theological construct that really means the people of God, believers. Now, the replacement theologians want you to conclude from that that Paul is just, he is writing off the Jews and we should write off the Jews and they don't have any destiny and God doesn't like them anymore and he's turned his back on them so we shouldn't worry about how we treat them and all this kind of stuff. This is all fulfilled in Jesus and the Jews killed the Jews and the Jews are just awful and again, it breeds this anti-Semitic kind of flavoring to it. That's where replacement theology doesn't have to lead there but it often does. Again, this overly antagonistic view. Paul's building this theological construct. When he's doing that, is that proof that he's including gentiles and of course the flip side of the coin is does Paul therefore deliberately exclude ethnic Jews? Is Paul anti-Jewish? What we've read to this point I think the answer should be clear. Paul does, since it is a theological construct, since Israel is a theological construct and not an ethnic construct. In Paul's mind, Israel included gentiles. I'm going to take you into a few passages here to show you that. But at the same time while gentiles are being brought in, Paul is not expressing antipathy toward his countrymen and so we shouldn't. He is not writing them off as though they have no destiny in God's mind anymore in the flow of eschatological history. God has not washed his hands of them. The door is wide open within the theological construct of the people of God for ethnic Jews. Paul isn't making an excluding statement. He's creating a construct that is inclusive of gentiles. And I've already mentioned Romans 9. Just read a couple passages to you but then I'm going to get to one to surprise you. Romans 9.6-8, this one's probably familiar. Paul writes, But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. And not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But, quote, Through Isaac shall your offspring be named, unquote. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of God. And the promise are counted as offspring. That's a very clear statement that the children of Abraham includes gentiles. It's very clear. I don't know what else Paul could say to make it clear. Maybe Galatians 3, that's what we'll read next. Paul writes, beginning in verse 7, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Here it is, point blank. And the scripture foreseeing that God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, quote, In you shall all the nations be blessed, unquote. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Skipping into verse 25, Galatians 3, But now that faith has come we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither June or Greek. There is neither June or Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. It's the end of Galatians 3. Again, these are explicit clear statements. So let's put Paul and his terminology in the Old Testament. Does this work? What we just read in Romans 9 and Galatians 3, is Paul inventing something? Or does the Old Testament foreshadow Paul's thinking? Does the Old Testament even explicitly justify Paul's thinking? And again, what is Paul thinking? Well, Paul is thinking that since we have Jesus all Israel will be saved. In other words, all the people of God this is a theological construct. Israel is no longer an ethnic construct. It's a theological construct that includes Gentiles. Paul, that's just so innovative. That's just so radical. Is it really? Is it really? Again, the people of God think about it. Just go back to the Old Testament in your mind, especially if you've read Unseen Realm, the whole Divine Council Theology and how I talked about the Old Testament Salvation. Who are the people of God in the Old Testament? They are those who have aligned themselves with Yahweh as the God of God's by faith. In other words, their believing loyalty is assigned to Yahweh and no one else. Now in the Old Testament, yeah, the people who did that by and large overwhelmingly were from the 12 ethnic tribes of Israel. But there were Gentiles who made that decision too, weren't there? Rahab, Naaman, you get instances where Gentiles confess that Yahweh is the God of God's and they mean it. They're serious about it. Well, in the New Testament, who are the people of God? It's the same answer. All those who have aligned themselves in believing loyalty to Yahweh incarnate now in Jesus Christ. Whether you're Jew or Gentile, you can do that. And this salvation again is of course tied to the New Covenant, the indwelling of the Spirit in all who believe. And of course the Book of Acts, which we went through over many weeks, very clear to point out that the Gentiles experienced the coming of the Spirit in exactly the same way that the Jews did. Again, this is all deliberate. This is deliberate messaging. Now let's go to some texts that I think might surprise you. Again, what Paul is thinking to nail this down that for Paul all Israel is not about all ethnic Jews. It's not about the land of the Jews. It is a theological construct that's about anyone who will align themselves with the God of Israel incarnate in Jesus Christ Jew or Gentile. Jeremiah 30 verse 3 says, For behold, days are coming when I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and Judah. Catch that, he refers to all 12 tribes there. This is Jeremiah writing that the 10 tribes in the north don't exist anymore. This is Jeremiah alive just before Nebuchadnezzar's invasion, okay? For behold, days are coming, declares the Lord when I will restore the fortunes of my people who are his people, all 12 tribes. Israel and Judah says the Lord and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers and they shall take possession of it. Both Israel, the 10 tribes and Judah, the two tribes are called by God my people. Now, that's noteworthy because in Hosea, again, Hosea was the one writing before the northern kingdom went kaput. Remember Hosea 1-9, when he looked at Israel, Hosea looks at Israel and their apostates can be and he knows the Assyrians are going to wipe them out. The Assyrians are going to be God's hand for this. He looks at Israel, the 10 tribes of the north and says, Lo Ami, not my people. Okay, Hosea 1-9, I'll just read it to you. It says and the Lord said call his name, one of, again, Hosea's children, call his name Lo Ami, not my people. For you are not my people and I am not your God. Again, the 10 tribes are just done. Now, look at Paul. Look how Paul uses this phrase and its idea when he quotes Hosea in Romans 9, 25-26. So, we've read Romans 9, 25-26 twice already but what I didn't tell you is that Paul quotes the book of Hosea in what he says. Now, listen to what Paul says. Here's Romans 9-22. God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory. Even us, whom he has called not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles as indeed he says in Hosea, and here comes the quote those who were not my people I will call my people and her who was not beloved I will call beloved and in every place where it was said to them you are not my people there they will be called sons of the living God. Now, you think about that. What is Paul doing? What he's doing? He's swapping in the Gentiles to replace the 10 lost tribes. Those who were not my people who were not my people in the Old Testament? Gentiles weren't the people of God and of course we know that the 10 lost tribes aren't either because he said in Hosea not my people. Paul includes the Gentile in the restoration of the theological construct known as God, all Israel because he reads that theology in the Old Testament. He's reading that in Hosea. Now you go back to Romans 11 this is where we started. Lest you be wise in your own sight I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and in this way once the Gentiles come in all Israel will be saved. All the other instances of the phrase all Israel are found in the Old Testament and they refer to the 12 tribes who were saved. What he's doing is look partial hardening upon Israel and that's because God did that. That happened because God wanted 12 tribes. Paul is reading his Old Testament he's reading all Israel as a theological construct that includes Gentiles in the 12 tribe idea. He's getting his theology from the Old Testament and it's not about ethnic Jews. It is inherently inclusive of Gentiles which means in our parlance post-cross that what he's talking about here are believers in general and yeah you can say that's the church go ahead you can say it because the church is circumcision neutral. But look at Paul's wording it's a partial hardening on Israel and Israel itself doesn't exclude ethnic Jews it includes Gentiles so yeah you can read this and say okay what Paul's talking about is believers anywhere not just ethnic Jews that's correct what Paul means but what he doesn't mean is just as important he is not going the extra mile to throw the Jews under the bus he's not doing that and so we have to be careful not to over read what Paul is saying but also not misread what Paul is saying and so the ramifications again for our purposes as we wrap up here is that Paul's talk is certainly eschatological but these prophecies do not have 1948 or any physical regathering of national Israel in view rather for Paul the Israel he's thinking about is a theological construct the totality of the people of God whoever they might be he's not thinking of ethnic Jews or a national geographic location associated with a particular ethnic group so pop eschatology again has some sins to atone for here but so does replacement theology because of the way it over exaggerates the data again maybe because of an anti-semitic streak in it again I'm not saying that anyone whose replacement theology is anti-semitic that would itself be an overstatement I am not saying that I am saying that that view has gone down that road too often once is too often so again the error is marginalizing political Israel again to the point of anti-semitism but it's also on the reverse side of the coin it's not looking at ethnic Israel as some sanctified thing ethnic national Israel this is not what Paul is talking about a theological construct the totality of the people of God and the Jews are not excluded from that but the Gentiles in Paul's reading of the Old Testament are included in all Israel Mike I think I'm going to start a t-shirt company and have I am Israel make a shirt says I am Israel for everybody you might sell three or four of those I'm going to look into that you do that you can you can heap that on your pile of things to do there okay all right yeah that was a good one well Mike next week can you tell us what we're talking about I think it's Moses yep yeah I had a number of requests to do the serpent and the wilderness episode so we're going to do that and then that will be our last topical episode for a while I've decided beyond Moses and the serpent and the wilderness episode I want to spend it'll probably be two weeks on Obadiah my thinking here is okay we've done Leviticus which is really a marginalized book but Obadiah might even be more neglected and sort of fuzzy and like oh who would read that thing anyway so I want to spend two weeks on that and then after that we'll pursue a book that has you know more length to it but I want to do a little bit with Obadiah all right sounds good looking for that is there anything else you'd like to add to the show no I think that's it okay well we appreciate it I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast God bless thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast to support this podcast visit www.nakedbibleblog.com to learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs go to www.brmsh.com