Romans 11:26 (NET) — ‘And so all Israel will be saved’.

I have compiled extensive notes on this provocative phrase.  The key question is whether Paul is referring to

(a) ethnic Israel (as the majority of scholars think), or to

(b) ‘renewed’ Israel, comprising Jewish and Gentile believers alike.  The latter view is advocated by John Calvin and N.T. Wright (along with some others), and I am inclined to agree with it.

In the course of his discussion of the question of whether the modern State of Israel has a divine right to occupy ‘the land’, Ian Paul has expressed support for this second view.  He notes:

1. There is no mention of the idea of Jews returning to the land of Isael.
2. The meaning is not, ‘and then all Israel will be saved’, but rather, ‘and in this way all Israel will be saved’.  Paul is not talking about timescale, but about method.
3. Paul clearly sees the texts which he quotes from Isaiah and Jeremiah as being fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  He is the deliverer from Zion who establishes a new covenant and takes away sins.
4. Some object that Paul only ever uses ‘Israel’ to refer to those who are ethnically Jewish.  But both Gal 6:6 and Rom 2:28f show that Paul can use the language of ‘Jew’ in both literal and metaphorical ways.  Being an ethnic Jew doesn’t make you one; conversely, an ethnic Gentile can belong to Israel, now configured as Jesus, along with all who are ‘in him’.  Within this reconceptualisation, any idea of Jews returngin to the land would make no sense.
5. It would seem odd think that Paul would describe the last generation of Jews as ‘all Israel’.  This would not only exclude those Jews who remain unbelieving at that time, but also those many unbelieving Jews of previous generations.
6. The New Testament, in a variety of ways, teaches that the last days had already arrived.  See, for example, Acts 2:16f; 1 Cor 10:11; 2 Cor 5:17.