An Esophagus Full of Camel Hair

From the department of straining at gnats and swallowing camels, The Standard Bearer ran a series of posts by David Englesma in 2017 and 2018 criticizing the standard premillennial interpretation of Romans 11, culminating in this one and this one. Based on this chapter (though not exclusively), premillennialists anticipate (in Englesma’s own words), “a mass conversion and salvation of Jews, and their restoration as an earthly kingdom of God in Palestine”.

That’s a fair representation of my beliefs, an exegetical hill I’ll happily die on.

The mere inclusion of Jews with Gentiles in the present day church, even in large numbers, entirely fails to satisfy premillennialist expectations. It would have wholly failed to satisfy the apostle Paul. Moreover, imposing it on chapter 11, especially as its resolution in verse 26 (“in this way all Israel will be saved”), does a major injustice to the thought flow of Romans.

Saving Israel in the Present Age

Here is Englesma is in his own words:

“The text does not read ‘then.’ Neither does the text mean ‘then.’ Nor may anyone explain the text as teaching ‘then.’ The text reads, means, and must be explained as ‘so,’ or ‘thus,’ or ‘in this way.’ In the way of the blindness of Israel only ‘in part,’ which means that always some Jews are being saved all the while that the fullness of the Gentiles is coming in, all Israel shall be saved throughout this present age.

When the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, at the very end of history, also all Israel shall have been saved. All Israel shall have been saved in the ongoing salvation of the elect Jews throughout New Testament history.”

Clear enough. Okay then. Englesma’s entire argument — literally the whole thing, which he contends devastates the premillennial interpretation of the passage, calling it a grievous error — revolves around the meaning of a little Greek word that appears 213 times in the NT and is variously translated “so”, “thus” or, as my ESV has it, “in this way”. Elsewhere it is translated “after this manner” or “likewise”. All are acceptable translations depending on context. Englesma is correct that the word does not mean “then”.

The Restoration of Israel

But the argument for the future blessing of the nation of Israel does not turn on the meaning of a single, very common word. I’m perfectly happy with Englesma’s preferred “in this way”.

In what way will Israel be restored? God will do it through the returning Christ: “In this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’ ” This is what Paul plainly teaches, appropriating the words of Isaiah as his proof. The only issue for the NT reader is whether the restoration to which the apostle refers is merely individual or national as well. Isaiah presents Christ’s return to “Jacob” as a permanent solution to injustice, unrighteousness and dishonesty throughout the nation, a solution that will continue “from this time forth and forevermore”. The context of this restoration is millennial: “So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun.”

Is that happening now? Manifestly not. The world awaits it, even as huge numbers of Jews down through history continue individually to enjoy the blessings of salvation.

Here Comes the Camel

That little word outō(s) is the gnat. Here comes the camel.

Englesma’s interpretation ignores or steamrollers over the thought flow of chapter 11, of the three-chapter section on the status of the Jewish nation that begins in chapter 9, and of the entire book of Romans. That’s a lot to throw away over the interpretation of a single Greek word, which is entirely unimportant to the premillennialist argument about the meaning of the passage.

Let’s back up through Romans and see just how many times Paul has made it abundantly clear that individual Jews are saved by faith in Christ in this era. In chapter 1, the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek”. Not only to the Jew, but “to the Jew first”. That is certainly historical. The church was all-but-entirely Jewish for the first few chapters of Acts. It’s only from chapter 10 onwards that significant numbers of Gentiles are recognized as brothers and incorporated into the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit. In chapter 2, he says a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart. In chapter 3, he says God is the God of Jews and Gentiles alike. In chapter 4, he calls Abraham “the father of us all”, including Jews, by faith.

Already, by chapter 4, Paul has clearly established that the church at the time he wrote was composed of Jews and Gentiles saved by faith. He does not need to argue this point further. The point Englesma thinks Paul is trying to make in chapter 11 was actually made conclusively seven chapters earlier. Chapter 11 is about something else.

National Apostasy

So then, when Paul finally addresses the anguish that he feels for his Jewish kinsmen in chapter 9, we must understand that he is not grieving over a shortage of individual Jews who had embraced the faith in the first century. There were already more than 500 Jewish disciples even prior to Pentecost, three thousand more on that day and numerous others added daily. This continued for some lengthy period and multitudes were added to the church, all Jews. Thousands upon thousands of Jews saved, to the point where the Jewish leadership was willing to kill the apostles to silence them.

The pressing question for the early church was not whether enough Jews were repenting and confessing faith in Christ, but what to do with the Gentiles who were now joining them. Would Paul have liked to see more Jewish converts? Certainly. He would definitely like to have seen the leadership come around. What grieved him was the obduracy of the official opposition. Israel’s leadership had apostatized on behalf of the nation it represented.

Paul’s distress at the beginning of chapter 9 is not for these who are Jews nationally but members of the household of faith spiritually. Rather, it is for the rest of his nation, those remaining under the sway of Judaism and under the judgment of God. He concedes, “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” He has already accepted this reality, and justifies God in setting the remainder of his nation aside. He accepts that concerning the rest of Israel “only a remnant will be saved”.

The Deliverer Will Come from Zion

David Englesma is asking the reader to believe that the big payoff of Paul’s three-chapter argument in Romans 9-11 is the revelation of a process that had already been going on day after day for almost three decades. He maintains Paul is saying, “by this method” — trickle, trickle, trickle, drip, drip, drip, one by one, two by two, over two thousand long years or longer — “all Israel” will be saved.

But that’s not what Paul says. He says Israel’s restoration will happen when the Deliverer comes to banish ungodliness from Jacob. Note that he does not say the Deliverer has already come to Jacob, but that he “will come”. The deliverance of which Paul speaks will be sudden, complete and national, after the manner described so vividly in the Hebrew Prophets, especially Zechariah. It is not that ungodliness in Jacob will gradually peter out over the centuries as the gospel spreads throughout the Jewish community, but that Christ himself will banish it at his coming in a wave of unprecedented repentance and grief.

More Thought Flow Problems

Further, Englesma’s interpretation of verse 26 poses thought flow problems for earlier statements in the same chapter. Here is Paul’s line of reasoning:

In verses 7 through 12, Paul says his nation is divided into two groups: the “elect” or “remnant” (saved Jews in the church age) and “the rest”, who “were hardened” (v7) and “stumbled” (v11). He goes on to say that the group who stumbled did not do so to no purpose: their trespass brought salvation to the Gentiles. But he does not leave them there. He asks rhetorically concerning “the rest”, “If their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fullness (ESV: “full inclusion”) mean?” So there IS hope of inclusion for the rest, and it is not through the gradual spread of the gospel, but through the direct intervention of Messiah.

Follow me here. He goes on to say, “If their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” This “life from the dead” is something additional to reconciling the world and bringing Gentiles and Jews alike to personal, individual salvation. Both the rejection and the acceptance of which he speaks are national, not individual. Individual Jews who believed were never rejected and do not need to be accepted. When Paul wrote, as it is today, this “acceptance” was still future, and it was not merely the salvation of even more Jewish individuals, which had already been in progress for over a quarter of a century when Paul wrote Romans. This would be something new. He is speaking of the national restoration prophesied by Ezekiel.

Life from the Dead

Now, I know supersessionists like to read Ezekiel 37 as a picture of the Holy Spirit’s work in the regenerative aspect of salvation, and it nicely illustrates that spiritual truth for gospel preachers to use on Sunday mornings. However, more importantly for Israel, the dead bones coming to life are also — I would argue primarily — an illustration of the miraculous restoration of the nation. This, in fact, is the passage’s original meaning. Hear Ezekiel’s words:

“Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.” Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel … I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.’ ”

This is the “life from the dead” of which Paul spoke: the miraculous restoration in which the Deliverer finally banishes ungodliness from Jacob once and for all. It is, as Englesma writes, “a mass conversion and salvation of Jews, and their restoration as an earthly kingdom of God in Palestine”. I could not have put it better myself.

So, no, the dispensational interpretation of Romans 11 does not hang on a single Greek word. Moreover, that interpretation is consistent with not just the immediate context of the rest of the chapter, but with the argument Paul begins in chapter 9. Further, it is entirely consistent with the teaching of the rest of the book of Romans, and in harmony with the teaching of the Old Testament concerning the restoration of Israel, which supersessionism is at pains to get rid of.

The standard dispensational interpretation of Romans 11 is not “heresy”. It’s not “bizarre”. It’s not “error”. It’s just good exposition, and it’s greatly preferable to explaining away the plain sense of the passage, which, in my humble estimation, leaves Englesma with an esophagus full of camel hair.