Quote:
Originally Posted by KMK  Rom 11:26 "And so all Israel shall be saved..."
This must be the same 'Israel' as mentioned in vs 25 "...that blindness in part is happened to Israel."
This is the same 'Israel' from 9:3,4,5 "...my kinsman according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenents, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers..."
From this I would conclude that those who believe in a future 'mass conversion' of ethnic Israel believe that the Israel that shall be converted are the fleshly descendants of Jacob who are still within the covenant. Would Paul consider a fleshly descendent of Jacob who has apostacized from the covenant to be a part of 'Israel'? |
The only operative covenant today is the new covenant. The old covenant was decaying and ready to pass away when Hebrews was written (8:13). The final collapse happened in AD70.
Biblical (old covenant) Judaism gave way to two religions, Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. Jews operating under the terms of the new covenant are called Christians.
Paul wrote Romans 9-11 during a time with it was still possible to be a Jew per old covenant terms. Those conditions no longer exist today. During that time ‘Israel’ still existed, at least theoretically. Even though the dead of Christ ended the sacrificial system when the curtain of the Temple was torn from top to bottom, the Jewish powers caused the system to continue to limp along for another 40 years.
So the legitimate question is; does Israel exist today?