But salvation is not ONLY of the Jews.
Be careful about committing (or not committing) the mistake of "onlyism," the inserting of the word "only" where it isn't stated. Salvation is "of" many things, not ONLY Israel. In point of fact the salvation that comes through Israel whereby all Israel will be saved (excepting that Israel that is not Israel), came first through the patriarchs loonnngggg before Israel ever existed.
I agree that Jews and Israel are not synonyms. Israel refers to all those descendants of the patriarchs, only some of which are Jewish.
I think we can say that salvation is
not FROM the Gentiles with some certainty, but this point is not so important.
As to whether salvation is FOR the Gentiles, any conversation about it is bound to be nebulous and confusing. Certainly, some people who started out as Gentiles will be saved. As I see it, though, those people cease to be Gentiles and are adopted into Israel as part of their salvation. Any conversation about "saved Gentiles" is really a conversation about those who were "
formerly Gentiles."
Be careful also not to commit the error of proof-texting. Romans 11:26 does not define all of salvation.
I'm quite sure I'm not proof-texting.
The idea that salvation is FOR Abraham (and his descendants) is found all throughout the Old Testament. You will find a few hints here and there about salvation for Gentiles, but for the most part the dialogue is all about Israel being saved in the Day of the Lord.
In fact, Paul was writing to readers to whom salvation had already come, most of whom were not Jewish Israel. Paul is writing about the portion of Abraham's descendants, the Israelites from which God had reserved a "remnant". In other words, while saying, "all Israel will be saved," Paul ALSO said, "not all Israel is Israel" AND only a remnant had been set aside. More importantly, Paul was writing about conditions that specifically existed at that time, the "present time, the time present to when he wrote that epistle.... NOT the future 2000 years later.
Romans 11:5
In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.
Verse 26 cannot be read to contradict verse 5. It certainly cannot be read to contradict verse 17, either. There's no salvation for the branches broken off. They get tossed into the fire (Mt. 7:19).
That would be correct if that one portion of that one verse defined all of salvation, but it does not.
Here in this chapter, Paul refers to Israel
after-the-flesh, and also Israel
after-the-spirit... and they aren't the same group. If you read the two as being the same, you arrive at the contradiction you have pointed out.
But just as any conversation about "saved Gentiles" is really a conversation about those who were "
formerly Gentiles," so also any conversation of "lost Israelites" is really a conversation of those who have been cast out of Israel. Hence verse 15:
For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
So far the matter of regeneration preceding faith has not been addressed.
Ok, let's talk about re-generation. Indulge me to re-cap a little history.
When Solomon died, Israel split in two. The southern half became the Jews - the
House of Judah. When they mis-behaved, God sent them into captivity for a time.
Prior to that, when the northern half - the
House of Israel - went into apostasy, God brought the Assyrian army against them and destroyed them. Killed them. Scant remants of the northern kingdom were absorbed into the neighboring nations and lost any cultural identity they had. They ceased existing as a separate entity.
In Ezekiel 37, they are called "dry bones" (v.11) and it is foretold that these dry bones would be made to live again (v.5-10). This prophecy
is repeated in the beginning of the book of Hosea and in Isaiah chapters 7 - 11. It turns out this is important for the idea of regeneration.
The Biblical idea of regeneration is this - Israel was dead, but God has made Israel to live again. Furthermore, this resurrection is accomplished by adoption. Israel is re-constituted when individuals from among the nations (
Goyim) hear God, believe, and are adopted. In the New Testament, the term
dead (
nekros) is used to describe everyone outside the faith. To be
resurrected then, is to be added to Israel by coming to faith.
I say all this to say - regeneration does not precede faith; neither does it lag behind it. Regeneration occurs at the very moment of faith. When John Newton wrote "the hour I first believed" he got it right.
Neither has the monergistic origins of the covenant in which all that Romans 9-11 is rooted. NOTHING in those three chapters, especially not Rom. 11:26, can be read to conflict with what I posted about the monergistic nature of the covenants.
Mon-er-gist-ic. I had to look it up. That's an awfully big word to describe something that is pretty ordinary. Let's go back to the verse from the original post:
63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Spirit means
breath. How are words communicated? Through the breath. What is being said in this verse (and elsewhere throughout Scripture) is that God's Word is delivered via God's Breath. Faith comes by hearing, and there is no hearing without preaching, and no preaching without breath. Mon-er-gist-ic. Not that complicated.
Only after a covenant is initiated and its participants selected, chosen, and called, commanded. Not a single example of any "wiggle room" in any of the precedent covenants. Look it up. Every example you'll find in the OT is one that occurs only after God has done what I previously lifted. ALL examples of choice come post-covenant establishment and sometimes long afterwards (circumcision followed the initiation of the Abrahamic covenant by more than ten years!).
On the contrary, every covenant has terms, and if those terms are violated the covenant can be annulled, or punishment can be enforced upon the offending party. Jeremiah 3 tells us that God divorced the House of Israel for the cause of adultery. Every last person in Israel was thrown out of Israel if not killed outright! There is significant
wiggle room to remove people from covenants.
Likewise, a covenant can be willed and inherited (when this happens we usually call it a testament). Isaac inherited the covenant from Abraham, with all its promises. Happily, when someone is adopted as a child of Abraham, they become eligible to invoke Abraham's covenant, like Isaac, so long as they are willing to abide by its terms. There is also significant
wiggle room to add people to a covenant.
You've got to prove some of these "cards," and do so better than with just Romans 11:26. Membership is pre-determined and only the pre-determined members have any predestination.
Done.
-Jarrod
Cards on the table...
. The cited verse does NOT state the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and the still-sinful unregenerate flesh sinfully self-preserves its still-sinful flesh. Neither does the cited verse say the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and then that person is saved from the sin for which they were just convicted.
