What is meant, then, by all?
Before attempting to answer the question, it should be noted that the same difficulty attends the amillennial view, or any other view which attempts to find an actual event in this passage. While
Israel, according to the amillennialist, means “all believers,” it is also apparent that all believers are not saved at the end of the age by the coming of Christ. For the proper interpretation of the passage, both principal millennial views must limit the fulfillment to those living at the time. The difficulty is not, then, a result of the premillennial viewpoint.
The most evident answer to the question of the meaning of
all is found in the context. The
all is in antithesis to the
in part of
Romans 11:25 and the
remnant of verse 5. During the present age a remnant of Israel is saved through the gospel. The hardening or blindness is “in part.” When Christ returns, the situation will be changed. Instead of a remnant, or a small part, Israel as a whole will be saved. It will be a national deliverance. A. T. Robertson while attempting to defend postmillennialism in his interpretation admits:
“All Israel (pas Israel). What does Paul mean? The immediate context (use of
pas in contrast to
apo merous, pleroma here in contrast with
pleroma in verse 12) argues for the Jewish people ‘as a whole.’”[SUP]
30[/SUP] He goes on to express his opinon that other Scripture (
Rom. 9:6;
Gal. 6:16) may justify the teaching that both Jew and Gentile or “spiritual Israel may be the idea.”[SUP]
31
[/SUP]
The opinion of Charles Hodge is worthy of weight as he is not arguing for premillennialism: “Israel, here, from the context, must mean the Jewish people, and
all Israel, the whole nation. The Jews, as a people, are now rejected; as a people, they are to be restored. As their rejection, although national, did not include the rejection of every individual; so their restoration, although in like manner national, need not be assumed to include the salvation of every individual Jew.
Pas Israel is not therefore to be here understood to mean, all the true people of God, as Augustine, Calvin, and many others explain it; nor all the elect Jews, i.e., all that part of the nation which constitutes ‘the remnant according to the election of grace’; but the whole nation, as a nation.”[SUP]
32[/SUP] The viewpoint that “all Israel” means “Israel as a whole” is not “an almost unprecedented extreme” of “literalism which is characteristic of Millenarianism,”[SUP]
33[/SUP] as Allis would have us believe, nor is it a peculiarity of a little sect of Plymouth Brethren. It is the interpretation of those who believe that Israel means Israel, whether premillennial or post-millennial, and it is the only interpretation which makes sense out of the eleventh chapter of Romans. William Hendriksen, formerly Professor of New Testament Literature at Calvin Seminary and an avowed amillennialist, interestingly disagrees with Allis and holds that
all Israel refers to the total number of Elect Israel in all ages; i.e., holds to a literal interpretation of the passage. This is, to say the least, an improvement on Augustine, Calvin, and Allis, though it misses the point of the context.[SUP]
34[/SUP]The deliverance predicted in
Romans 11:26 is, clearly, a group deliverance rather than individual salvation. This is borne out in the explanation which follows in the chapter.
"Excerpt from 'The Future Restoration of Israel' - Theology Journals, John F. Walvoord"
I use this because sometimes it is hard for us to put in words exactly what we mean so that others can understand.
