When Is Israel... Not Israel? A Reader’s Question on Romans 11:26

Every so often, a subscriber writes in with a real, thoughtful, theological question; I really value that. Healthy debate about Scripture is not a threat to faith. It is part of how we sharpen each other. A reader recently wrote to me making a case that many sincere believers hold: that “Israel” in Romans 11:26, where Paul writes “and so all Israel will be saved,” refers not to ethnic, national Israel, but to the Church as the true, what some call “spiritual Israel” (the term spiritual Israel is not in the Bible).

Dr. Michael Heiser's View

This view is not outside what is acceptable in broad orthodoxy. The late scholar, Michael Heiser, who did not embrace replacement theology (as far as I know), said regarding Israel in Romans 11:26

Paul is thinking — to nail this down … 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.

So his idea was that Israel in v. 26 meant all believers. We could call it the One New Man. The household of God. The Ecclesia. But at the end of the day, Heiser felt it did not refer to an End Times awakening of ethnic Jews embracing Jesus, but a summation of all those who put their faith in him.

Scholar N.T. Wright also holds the view that “all Israel” in v. 26 is the full elect community of Jews and Gentiles together, not a future mass turning of ethnic Israel.

I reject this view. 

Why?

Because:

1.     It is not consistent with the context and message of Romans 11.

2.     It ignores the prophecy that Paul quotes from Isaiah 59.

3.     Paul’s argument up until then is to convince the Roman Gentile believers that God still has a plan for Israel.

I am not alone.

Believing that Israel is Israel (what a concept!) in v. 26 isn’t a fringe reading, either. Douglas Moo, whose Romans commentary is a standard modern reference, calls Romans 11:26 “the storm center in the interpretation of Romans 9-11,” and in his own words affirms that “God is going to choose to turn to Israel again” at the time of Messiah’s return. C.E.B. Cranfield reached the same conclusion in his landmark International Critical Commentary on Romans, arguing at length against reading “Israel” here as anything other than the literal, ethnic nation Paul had been discussing since chapter 9. It’s a position shared by a range of respected voices across the theological spectrum, from John Murray to John Stott to Thomas Schreiner. So let’s look deeper.

Reading Romans 11 in Full

As much as I respected Heiser, I think the passage itself, read in full, settles the question, not through clever argument, but simply by reading what Paul actually wrote. You have to read the whole passage, not just parts. The entire point of Romans 11 is the End Times awakening of ethnic Israel, and Paul’s concern that the Gentile believers in Rome would miss this “mystery,” as he calls it in verse 25. And the result of missing this mystery and being overly judgmental against ethnic Israel could have tragic consequences—according to Paul.

Follow the argument as Paul builds it.

• In verse 12, ethnic Israel’s acceptance leads to "greater riches" for the world.

• In verse 15, Israel’s acceptance leads to nothing less than "life from the dead."

• In verses 17 through 22, Paul issues a strong warning against the church looking down on ethnic Israel, going so far as to suggest that this kind of arrogance could get a branch cut out of the olive tree altogether (see vv. 21–22).

• Then in verses 23 and 24, he says Israel can be grafted back in, and because it is their own olive tree to begin with, it will actually be easier for God to do it.

Paul’s entire reason for writing this chapter is to warn Gentile believers in Rome against turning against Israel. That is why he opens in v. 1 by making it unmistakably clear that God has not rejected His people. Why would he need to say that? Because the Roman believers had concluded exactly the opposite when the Jews were expelled from Rome in the year 49. Bible teacher David Pawson shared that when the Jewish believers were allowed back into Rome in 54, they were not fully accepted into the church. This is why Paul is writing!

Earlier, in chapter 9, he reveals God’s own heart for His ancient people so strongly that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he says he would be willing to be cursed and cut off from Messiah himself for the sake of Israel.

I speak the truth in Messiah—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Messiah for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. (Romans 9:1-4)

Those may be the most sobering words in the New Testament. Paul wrote them so we would understand God’s heart for his ancient people. He wrote it because the Roman believers—having not had a Bible for five years (the Jews took their scrolls with them)—had concluded that God was finished with Israel.

The Isaiah 59 Problem

Here is the problem with reading “Israel” in verse 26 as the Church: it is intellectually incoherent. Verses 1 through 25 are unmistakably about ethnic Israel, with no hint of a shift in subject. Then, suddenly, in verse 26, “Israel” is supposed to mean the Church, with no explanation from Paul at all.

If you make that shift, you also have to conclude that the prophecy Paul quotes right afterward, from Isaiah 59, was really about the Church all along. But Isaiah 59 opens with “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save,” addressed to a specific, named people seven hundred years before Jesus lived, in the middle of a scathing rebuke that still ends in a promise of salvation. That promise was to Israel. Paul draws directly on Isaiah 59 when he says, “God is able…” (v. 23) to graft Israel back into her own olive tree, which is why he quotes it in verse 26.

Paul’s theology in the New Testament is informed by the Hebrew Bible. He draws from his extensive Holy Spirit-inspired memory of the Old Covenant as he writes. You have to read Scripture in context. Isaiah’s rebuke in chapter 59 was not delivered to a Church that did not yet exist. It was delivered to Israel in real time, and so was the future promise that followed it.

More Than One Passage Points This Way

And Romans 11 is far from the only passage that anticipates an End Times awakening among the Jewish people.

• Zechariah 12:10 says that the eyes of the Jewish people will be opened to recognize the One they pierced, a promise confirmed in Revelation 1:7.

• Jesus himself tells the religious leaders of Jerusalem that they will not see him again until they say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:39), which, taken together with Revelation 1:7, means that when they do see him again, they will recognize him as Messiah.

• Hosea 3:4-5 speaks to the same future.

And this is not only a matter of prophecy waiting to happen. Roughly one million Jewish believers in Yeshua live on earth today. That awakening is already underway.

The Mystery Paul Actually Reveals

This is one of the most consequential theological questions the Church can wrestle with, because how we answer it shapes how we see God’s faithfulness itself. If God is finished with Israel, despite an unconditional covenant that is referred to over and over in Scripture as “everlasting,” l’olam, what confidence should the Church have that He will not one day be finished with her too? Paul anticipated that exact question, which is why he wrote Romans 11. Read in full and in context, the passage leaves little room for ambiguity. Israel means Israel, from verse 1 to verse 26 and beyond.

The mystery that Paul reveals in verse 25 is not that Israel is now the Church. But that God is going to open the eyes of the Jewish people after the fullness of the Gentiles. On v. 25, Romans scholar Grant Osborne speaks of “the certainty of this future salvation of God’s people,” referring to Israel, “after the Gentile mission.”

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25)

He writes this because he is extremely concerned that the Roman believers will miss this mystery, leading to pride, which could cut them off from the nourishing sap (see vv. 17-22). Getting this right is an urgent issue with Paul. He is not worried that the Roman believers will see ethnic Israel as having a future—that is his point. He worries that the Roman church will miss this and conclude that the Church is the new Israel, leading to resentment against the Jews.

I would love to hear how you read this passage. Healthy, respectful debate is always welcome here.