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Well, our group have a question, um, for Tom about verse twenty six in chapter eleven. Is it? Um, it's, um, the one about all Israel being saved. And we want to ask, who are all Israel? And we ask that, is not Israel today in God's sight his people, the church, comprised of Jew and Gentile, the Israel of God, the true seed of Abraham, and therefore the inheritors of God's promises? Uh, very good. Um, I suspect in coming to our decisions about that question, we shall have to put emphasis on both parts of it, all and Israel. Who do you mean by Israel, as well as what does the expression all Israel mean? To try and answer that question, uh, one thing I would do, first of all, is to look at the phrase all Israel elsewhere in scripture. And one place to refer to would be one Kings, sorry, two Kings. No, what am I talking about? Uh, One Kings, uh, Twelve. And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king. Notice the phrase, all Israel. Or if you like, one Chronicles, chapter eleven, talking of David. Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. In times past, even when Saul was king, it was thou that ledest us out and brought us- brought in Israel, and the Lord thy God said unto thee, thou shalt feed my people Israel, and so forth. Verse three: so all the elders of Israel came to the king of Hebron. They made him king. What do you mean by the phrase all Israel? Well, of course, it doesn't mean, does it, uh, every man Jack without possible exception. That means Israel as a whole. And in chapter eleven of, uh, First Chronicles, it is very significant because for a while the nation had been split. David ruled over some in Ziklag, then he ruled over two tribes in Hebron, with the rest of Israel following the descendants of Saul, but there came a point when Israel as a whole, all Israel, made him king over the United Nations. I would therefore ask myself, in Romans eleven, when the apostle says, and so all Israel shall be saved, in what sense does he use the term? Is he using it in this technical sense for Israel as a whole? Secondly, I would look at the context and the argument throughout the context. Chapter eleven, did cast God cast off his people? God forbid. Verse two, God did not cast off his people which he foreknew. Who is he talking about? Well, actually, he's talking about the nation, the vast majority of whom have and, uh, rejected the Messiah and still reject him. Does that mean that God has permanently, therefore, cast off that nation, Israel, as a nation? No, no, says Paul. It's not that God has cast off that nation, has he fully and finally. No, in spite of the fact that they are at this moment, the majority of them, rejecting the Messiah, it is not, is it, that God has cast off this people. In that context, I would say, but obviously he's not talking of the true believers, either in the Gentiles or... or in Israel, because they would never would enter anybody's head that he's cast off the true Israel. Talking about the nation as a whole, the majority of whom are still rejecting the Messiah, it is not that God has finally and ultimately cast them off. We'll see. Or again, uh, verse seven: what then? That which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not. The true Israel? Well, of course not, by definition. The nation as a whole, majority of whom, apart from this remnant, have failed to obtain what they were seeking. In spite of God's judgments upon them, announced in verses eight and nine and ten. I say then, and the fourth of this series of questions introduced by the Greek preposition may, a question expecting the answer no. God has judged them with fearful judgments, and by definition, these are the unbelieving majority of the nation. Their table to be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense, their eyes to be darkened. That judgment upon the unbelieving Israel, what does that mean? Is it then that they have stumbled that they might fall? No, it isn't, is it, says Paul, introducing it with the particle may. It isn't, is it, that they have stumbled that they might fall permanently. No, that certainly isn't. He is not talking, obviously, about the true Israel at the moment, because they haven't fallen. They haven't stumbled. Talking about those who, by definition, have stumbled and are still rejecting the Savior, which is the majority of the nation of Israel. I want you to know, he says, you'll see, uh, verse twenty five, that, uh, hardening in part has befallen Israel. What, the church? Hardening in part has happened to the true Israel of God? Oh no, that wouldn't make sense, has it? Hardening in part has happened to the nation. Uh, Dulce, but uh, uh, uh, while hardening in part, why do you say in part? Well, there is a remnant of that nation according to grace, says Paul, I'm one of them. Majority in the nation, however, uh, has, uh, has re- wrecked the Messiah, and in God's mercy he puts it hardening in part, or, or has happened, happened to Israel, you'll see, until the fullness of the Gentiles become in. And when the fullness of the Gentiles, and by definition, when if you, if, uh, uh, uh, Israel is being now contrasted with the Gentiles, isn't it? I'm not saying that hardening in part has happened to the church until the rest of the Gentiles become in. But hardening in part has happened to Israel. That must mean the majority of the nation is still in unbelief, the literal nation. Until the fullness of the Gentiles become in. And so, all Israel, and I take the all to be in contrast to the part. That there is coming a time when not only shall the number of Gentiles be come in, but God will use it to provoke Israel as a whole to jealousy. And so Israel as a whole shall be saved. Not necessarily meaning that every man Jack, every woman Miriam in Israel shall be saved, but Israel as a whole, as I think from the present situation, where blindness and part has happened to them, and there is only a remnant of Israel. So let me not proceed further, Robin. That is, I think, how I would read the third of the argument. Hello. Uh, at this point in history. Are you a surgeon, sir? Uh, at the point in history where that happens, uh, will it be all those people who have a direct physical descendancy who constitute the nation of Israel at that point, who are alive at that point? Well, yes, I presume so, uh, uh, uh, uh, sir, uh, throughout these chapters, uh, one of the difficulties I find in getting my mind around them is to come to terms with the way Paul is talking largely of an entity, the nation, as distinct from individuals. You'll see. So in the Old Testament, you talk about all Israel, you don't mean necessarily every man Jack within it. You're talking of the na- the entity of a nation. Yes? Now, at the moment, that nation, there's only a bit of it, a remnant of it that's left, believing God and believe, well, believing in Messiah. The rest is hard. But there's coming a time when the nation as a whole, uh, will, it seems to me, be saved, and that would mean the people presumably living at the time and the nation as a whole then living will be saved. That's what I take it to be. Are you talking about a national revival, or are you talking about a sovereign act of God overruling the, um, individual wills of each person that constitutes the nation of Israel. Some would certainly have that view of how God acts in the salvation of individuals. Is that what is being spoken about here? Oh, Fergus, I think that raises another very big question of how, in fact, people get saved, does it not? I think, yes, right. This is, we'll see. The first question was, will, in what sense will all Israel be saved? Does it mean all Israel, the spiritual Israel, will be complete? That is, uh, spiritual Israel has gone on from the time of Abraham till the present time. Uh, at the moment is not yet complete. Why? Because it lacks large numbers of Gentiles. But when that, uh, complement of Gentiles comes in, then the spiritual Israel will be complete. Is that what he's saying? And so what we're looking for is not the salvation of the nation of Israel as a whole. We're looking for quite the reverse. We're looking for a vast multitude of Gentiles, uh, to get converted and, uh, fill up the number of the elect, the church, and so by their incoming, uh, the spiritual Israel as a whole will be now saved. And many have taken it in that view. I, my, what is influencing me is that I, I find it difficult to, to make it, uh, uh, agree with the use of the technical language in the context. If it's the spiritual Israel that's going to be finally fully saved by the incoming of the Gentile, and that's all we are to expect, what on earth does the earlier thing mean? The casting of them away is the casting away, obviously, of the unbelieving Israelite has led to the blessing of the Gentile. The receiving of them again, by definition, is not talking about the coming in of vast numbers of Gentiles. It's the receiving of again people that hitherto have been cast away temporarily and hardened temporarily. That must be Israel. And it's by the receiving of them again that there shall come this vast blessing for said to be veritable life from the dead. So by definition, you must be talking about Israel. That when God has finished with his tactics, so to speak, of saving multitudes of Gentiles in order to provoke Israel to jealousy, then finally Israel will be provoked to jealousy by these Gentiles. That can't mean the church being provoked to jealousy, the true Israel being provoked to jealousy. It must mean, uh, the Israel hitherto in unbelief provoked to jealousy by these Gentiles being converted. And there will come a time when that will happen. There shall come forth a deliverer. Now, to uh, go on to to Fergus's question, when God saves them, how will he save them? Well, he'll save them as he saves everybody, presumably, Fergus. Here it is said, there shall come forth a deliverer, and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, he'll say, and this is my covenant with them, when I shall take away their sins. Uh, uh, if you say, how do they get converted? I should respond, they get converted in the same way as everybody else can gets converted. Surely God takes the initiative always. But it doesn't seem to me, uh, that, uh, it is legitimate to say, because God takes the initiative and chooses, that removes the possibility of choice on our part, and real choice. The fact that a young gentleman sets eyes on a young lady and chooses her to be his wife, seems to me, even though he takes the initiative, and at first he thought, not on your life, uh, but the fact that he chose it doesn't remove from her the real choice for whether she responds. Yeah, but now, if I might just go beyond that truthy, but look at verse twenty eight: it's touching your e- uh gospel, they are enemies for your sake. Who's he talking about? Who are the enemies? Well, not part of the true Israel of God. How could they be enemies? Talking about the unbelieving majority in the nation of Israel. They are your enemies, uh, you will see, uh, uh, touching the gospel, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake. And they shall yet be saved. The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Does that just refer to, um, his election of, of nations and peoples, or can that be forced into the concept of irresistible grace in an individual salvation? What he's talking about here, they are beloved for the Father's sake. Now, if that means that because God chose Abram, uh, then, uh, i- i- and his seed, God cannot at any time demote certain members and sections within history. That is manifestly untrue. I quoted you this morning, uh, reminded you of Paul's quotation from Hosea. There was a time when the ten tribes as a whole, as you see, uh, were cast off by God, sent down to Assyria, and the people that had been am my, my people became lo am I not my people. So there were great sections of them and generations of them were in virtual apostasy. But God's purpose with the nation Israel persists. And if he chose them originally, he will persist in that choice, and hence their restoration is I, what I take to be the argument of the passage. God, who had chose the nation Israel to be his representative, doesn't get along the road and say, well, that was a bad choice, really. Shouldn't have chosen Israel, uh, because on the whole they proved failure, so I'll abandon that idea. No, no, not God. He will yet have the nation do what he designed for that nation when he formed them into a nation. That doesn't conflict, as far as I see, with the fact that in the course of that history, there were many individuals from great sections of the thing, and sometimes whole tribes, that God set aside and said, well, you know, not my people. You were elected, your whole argument has been that, uh, Israel was elected to a role. Mm-hmm. Surely that role has been completed in the coming of the Messiah. He himself who was the, the servant, the true Israel. If we go according to, for example, Isaiah's, uh, definition of the true Israel. True Israel really was Christ because he was the only faithful Israelite left, and that through him, the true Israel of God are those who have the circumcision of the heart. The national distinctions have been set aside because the whole purpose of God, through the role of sacral Israel, has been to bring about people who are a spiritual Israel. Therefore, my conclusion would have to be that national Israel has long ago ceased to be, and it's, it's a matter of fact that the Israel or the those who call themselves Israelites today, ninety five percent of them are descendants of East Germanic Slavic tribes that were never connected anyway, uh, blood group-wise to Israel of old Semite people, but were people who embraced Judaism in the twelfth century, who have now formed national Israel in nineteen forty eight? They're not Israelites at all, in any sense. Ah. Oh, that's a whole, uh, treasure of questions, yes. I, I come back to that, and facing that argument, I say to myself, well, uh, that sounds from, uh, theoretical point good, uh, that what God is at is to produce a spiritual Israel, and Israel as a nation, national Israel, has done that task, and it's led to Messiah, and that's that, and now to the formation of a spiritual Israel. What then I come up against in scripture is this insistence that the Israel that has fallen away shall be restored. Now, if you were talking about the true Israel, I don't see what the term restore is going to mean. In your sense, I think there has been a true Israel all down the ages. Abraham was one. I wouldn't think it's necessary for Abraham to be restored. David, Hannah, hundreds, doubtless, down the centuries, but true Israelites. How would they need to be restored? And if national Israel were there as a kind of a framework through which God would convey his testimony, but when, uh, and that would lead to the building of the true Israel, and when the true Israel is built, you may dispense with the scaffolding, so to speak. Yes, but in that sense, there would be no restoration, would there? Whereas it seems to me that all the way through Old Testament and then New, there is talk not merely of salvation, but restoration. And if you say, why is it that Israel as a whole must be restored, then I will quote as one piece of, uh, uh, element in the pool of my own thinking, the word of God through Ezekiel. Now, we may differ in our, uh, uh, um, uh, in our interpretation as to what event it refers. But, um, uh, in Ezekiel chapter thirty six, uh, God is talking about the restoration of Israel, not the preservation of the true Israel, but the restoration of the bad Israel. And he says, this is why it should be done. Not for your sakes do I do this, saith the Lord God. Be it known unto you, and be ashamed and confounded for all your ways, O house of Israel. Ezekiel thirty six thirty two. you'll see. And he goes on to explain why he will, uh, restore them, because do you see? Um, I'm going to show to the nations that they were my people. The reason that they have fallen under the oppressor and the Gentile enemies who have decimated them and this, that, and the other, does not prove that they weren't my people. The nations have yet have to learn that it was God, it was me, God acting to discipline Israel, that they fell under the nations and were scattered. And to prove that point, God will yet restore them. And I myself think that that is still one of the issues at stake. So the historical fulfillment of that has already happened before Messiah came. Oh, but then you'll say you get prophets at the return like Zechariah, when the nation has now been restored under the rubble, pointing on to the greater restoration. In fact, Zechariah is one of the chief men, isn't he, to talk about the coming great mourning and repentance and reconciliation with Messiah. And he's talking after the return from Babylon. And you see, Paul is here talking. Likewise, that's what I mean to say throughout this passage. The argument seems to me to be explicit. Who is he talking about that's going to be saved? Through Israel? No, the people that have hitherto, the nation that has hitherto rejected Messiah. It's they that are going to be saved. You say in the Romans, what shall their restoration be? You read that as a prophecy, I would read it as an hyperbole. Oh, well, yes. Uh, uh, embroider that, that's interesting. Embroider that as a little, uh, uh, the uh, chapter eleven here. What shall their restoration be? Uh, you'll see, yes, that is uh, uh. Your presupposition is that that is a prophecy. Oh yes, I say then, did they, uh, stumble that they might fall? Have they gone for good? Is God present judgment on them with their table being made a snare and so forth, and they bow down their back or, or away? Is that a final judgment, and there is no... that they've fallen, and that's the end of it? They stumbled, yes. Have they completely fallen? Never to rise again? This is the unbelieving lot. Suppose I put that question to you. They stumbled, on that we agree. Have they stumbled never to rise again? What would you answer to that? I'd answer yes, that the fulfillment of Israel's role is in the church. But sir, how would you then quote cope, cope with that, uh, uh, question and the frame of it? The answer is expecting no. We're faced with the practical and huge impossibility, like the ten nations of old, who, as you rightly say, were carried off into captivity Yeah. seven hundred and twenty BC. They disappeared. There is a married dispersed of God. It can never be recovered. How can Israel be recovered after two thousand years, since they are intermarried all over the face of the earth? Oh, as I Yes. Yes. Descended from Slavic tribes. Ah, but wait a minute. You see, even in the days of, uh, Israel of yore, you could become an Israelite by two methods. You could be born physically from Abraham, or you could be converted to Israel, accept circumcision, and become an Israelite just as anybody else. And though people are not physically descended from Israel, if they decide to become Israelites and accept circumcision and the yoke of the Torah, it is still open to them to be Israelites. That physical thing is not the only necessity. It doesn't even have to be a necessity. It never. Not contradicting the answer you gave to the gentleman at the back. What's that? Who, who... A gentleman at the back asked you about, uh, Israel, do you believe in the restoration of Israel as the literal lineal descendants? And you said yes. I, I, yes. Sorry, then I ought to amend that. Do I, do I believe in the restoration of Israel as an entity, as a nation? Yes, if you say that's impossible because, uh, lots of Israelites are not physically descended from Abraham. Well, I should say that was already true in the Old Testament. You can become a member of the nation of Israel by conversion, by circumcision, by accepting the yoke of the Torah. That has always been so. That a lot in modern times have accepted circumcision and the yoke of the Torah doesn't make them less Israelites than their counterparts, it seems to me, in Old Testament. But you see, I, I would, I think, come back to this and suggest that this is important, that series of questions, uh, from ten, uh, eighteen is the first one, ten nineteen is the second, eleven one is the third, and eleven eleven is the fourth. Introduced by the, the particle may, are questions expecting the answer no. It is not this, is it? No, of course not. That's why I put the question to you, when it says, have they stumbled? Yes, but have they stumbled to fall, never to rise again? Then if you say, n- uh, yes, they have stumbled, but they'll never rise again. Then I would say, oh, but wait a minute, the Greek implies the direct opposite. It isn't that they have stumbled that they shall never rise again, is it? Answer expected, no, by the grammatical construction of the Greek.