Sermon Tone Analysis

The Naked Bible Podcast 2.0 Number 102

“What does “All Israel will be saved’ Mean?”

Dr. Michael S. Heiser With

Residential Layman Trey Stricklin

May 29, 2016

What Does “All Israel will be saved” Mean?

It’s common among Christians to interpret Paul’s statement that “all Israel will be saved” () to refer to mean that national Israel will be saved by God in the end or that all Jews will eventually turn to the messiah in the end times.

But is that what Paul meant?

How would we know?

This episode discusses Paul’s statement and these questions.

Links referenced:

Summary of Christopher Zoccali, “And So All Israel Will be Saved: Competing Interpretations of in Pauline Scholarship,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 2008: 289-317

Staples’ article: Jason A. Staples, “What Do the Gentiles Have to Do with “All Israel”?

A Fresh Look at ,” Journal of Biblical Literature 130:2 (2011): 371-390

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TS: Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 102, What Does “All Isael will be saved” Mean?

I’m the layman, Trey Stricklin, and he’s the scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser.

Hey Mike, this is our second show of our two eschatology series so I’m looking forward to it.

MSH: Back to eschatology.

Today we’re going to talk about, as you can tell from the title, , this line that Paul has in there about all Israel will be saved.

Now this is a phrase that a lot of commentators, I would say really any honest commentator, has sort of found impervious to clarity, impenetrable in terms of being certain about what Paul is saying here.

That I think it’s fair to say, has changed a little bit but certainly we’re not at the point currently where anyone can sort of claim it must be this and it can't be any of these other options.

There’s actually four interpretations and I’m going to start with this, four kind of approaches, four views to what this phrase might actually mean.

For listeners on the page to the episode, this particular episode, there is going to be a link to a summary, it’s not the actual article, but a link to a summary of the article by a fellow whose last name is Zoccali, and his article is called, And So All Israel Will Be Saved: Competing Interpretations of in Pauline Scholarship.

That was published in 2008 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament.

It's a really nice overview of the options that scholars have presented.

There will be a link to a summary of the article that gives you the numbered interpretations 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.

I’ll mention that when I get there.

For right now, there are four sort of mainstream views as to what Paul meant by this phrase.

Let me just give you from Zoccali, this is his terminology.

One would be what he calls the ecclesiastical interpretation and that's the view that equates Israel in the phrase, so all Israel will be saved.

It equates, a one-to-one equation, 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 where Paul says,

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed.

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,

MSH: So there are a lot of people who will seize upon that verse and say 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 would be sort of common with sort of the current controversy about the church replacing Israel and the political ramifications of that.

So that view about the church displaces or replaces Israel as the people of God, this is where they would be at, Israel, there's no such thing as Israel in God's program anymore.

It's just all the church.

It’s exclusively the church.

It's all the church.

I’m saying it that way deliberately because of what’s going to follow.

That view, believe it or not, despite the talk about 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, a lot of scholars think it goes too far in excluding ethnicity at all because if you are this view, it's very easy to argue things like Israel and Jews ethnically are basically non-elect.

People will actually say things like they’re Christ-killers.

They’re non-elect.

God has set them aside.

God doesn't care about them anymore.

So this view, the ecclesiastical interpretation,

will be used to prop up those kinds of statements and those kinds of ideas.

This is a common view but I think it's fair to say, and Zoccali mention’s this, that it's sort of fallen out of favor because it's just too categorical.

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 Zoccali refers to as the total national elect view.

This view argues that the complete number of elect from historical or ethnic Israel, this is the way Zoccali word’s it, a 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.

Now 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.

It sort of changes the questioner, it changes the focus a little bit.

Third view is what Zoccali 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.

The two covenant view says that 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 in 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 them, end of story.

That defines the Old Testament covenant election as salvation.

That's what that does.

There are significant problems with that because apostasy, we’ve talked about these things in the podcast before.

That's just what this view would say.

It would add that Jews who do respond to the Gospel are also saved but they’re saved because of Jesus then.

You say that’s kind of odd because if you needed and they'll say nope, a Jew didn't need Jesus.

A Jew would've been saved because they’re a Jew.

But if they do believe in Jesus, that’s good, too.

They’re going to get to heaven either way.

This view I think you can tell, the smallest number of people articulate this and the defend it.

It doesn't seem really coherent at all with statements that Paul makes, , and other epistles, Galatians, what not.

Paul doesn't really define salvation as the fact that you’re a Jew.

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 this is really kind of a fringe minority view.

Fourth view is what's called by Zoccali the eschatological miracle view.

This is the idea of a future salvation of all Jews either at the second coming or immediately prior to the second coming, after what Paul talks about in , this is verse 25.

We’re talking about , all Israel will be saved.

The verse right before it talks about the fullness of the Gentiles coming in.

So this view says after the fullness of Gentiles is come in, whatever that means.

That's either all of the Gentiles predestined to be saved get saved or more of ambiguously the mission to the Gentiles as God declares it's over.

So whenever the fullest of the Gentiles, whenever 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 general idea is, I think it's fair to say, a very dominant view within evangelicalism and popular end times teaching that 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 we can never say anything against Israel because God has a plan for them.

And this plan is that all the Jews are going to return to Israel, return to Jerusalem as we move into the end times.

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.

They’re going to have this massive conversion because who could deny, there he is up in the sky.

So this is a very very dominant view within the popular end times perspective, end times teaching.

So those are your four views.

Just to recap them quickly, ecclesiastical interpretation, Israel is the church; total national elect view, trying to shift from who the elect are to how they become elect and that's Jew or Gentile, both have to be saved through Christ; two covenant view, if you’re a Jew you’re in and if you're not then you need Christ, and if you're Jew who believes in Christ, 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 where I want to focus on is, believe it or not, I’m going to ask questions like does the Old Testament have any relevance here?

If you want a recent discussion of that I find that sort of mirrors what I've been thinking from sources like Pitre that we discussed last week and re-examining some of the eschatological content and concepts in light of the Second Temple period.

There’s an article by Jason Staples that is accessible through to the Internet.