Amen. It's a pity that so many inadverantly call the Holy One a lawyer and try to read "all Israel shall be saved" as "1% of Israel shall be saved."
Shalom.
That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." -- Romans 9:6,8"For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel...
That's the last comment I'm making on this thread regarding Israel. Somehow the thread has been conveniently side-tracked off the pope's foolish and destructive agenda and onto another topic entirely.
Obviously the criticisms of this socialistic document out of Rome were hitting too close to the uncomfortable truth.
Just curious, but does "all Israel" now include you since going under the knife? How about a bunch of Ethiopian converts from the 19th century?
Are you able to provide a definition of "all Israel" that includes 2000 years of ethnic and cultural uncertainty, not to mention is biblically consistent?
How is the biblical phrase "all Israel" related to modern, self-identified Jews?
Is "all Israel" limited to a moment in time?
John Calvin commented on this text:
26. And so all Israel, etc. Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would again be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, — “When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first-born in God’s family.” This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world. The same manner of speaking we find in Galatians 6:16 (“And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”). The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles; and he sets the people, thus collected from their dispersion, in opposition to the carnal children of Abraham, who had departed from his faith.In reality, no one knows how much of true physical Israel has been saved over the course of the last 2000 years. It was considerably more than 1% in the early years. And there has been a steady number of conversions (regrafting of the natural branches) since then.
The only thing we can say for sure about “all Israel” is that it is the exact number of the elect that God intends to save. On that we can be certain.