Don't Discard the Jews With Dispensationalism

Reformed Interpretations of Romans 11:26

This article first appeared in Issue 6.3 of the Fight Laugh Feast magazine.

Introduction

As more evangelical Christians enter Reformed churches and tradition, it is not uncommon for them to rightly shed some previously held doctrines as they encounter the teaching of Scripture afresh and are exposed to the Reformed confessions. As a Reformed minister, I praise God for this and rejoice in the great fruit I see in families from many different backgrounds who have made their ecclesiastical home in our midst.

One theological system that is rightly being examined and discarded by many embracing Reformed theology is dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a distinct variant of premillennial eschatology that was developed by John Nelson Darby in the 19th century and popularized by D.L. Moody, the Scofield Reference Bible, and the Left Behind book series. I praise God for this departure from dispensationalism, as it is an unbiblical hermeneutic that is foreign to the Reformed tradition and covenant theology. However, a number of teachers have lately taught that discarding dispensationalism inherently involves discarding the Jews as a unique people, along with the expectation of their future national conversion to Christ. But this is far from true. Many Reformed men across various eschatological views have held to this understanding of Romans 9–11, imitating the Apostle Paul’s “desire and prayer to God for Israel that they may be saved” (Rom. 10:1).

The thesis of this article, then, is modest. It is not my intention to exegetically prove that this interpretation of Romans 11 is correct. You will need to wrestle with the text and various commentaries yourself for that. Rather, my aim is to demonstrate that a hopeful expectation of the future national conversion of the Jews is a historic and mainstream view in the Reformed tradition, and therefore, the call to abandon the Jews along with dispensationalism is not required. To demonstrate this, I will briefly survey four Reformed theologians—two amillennial and two postmillennial—who hold to this interpretation while firmly rooted in covenant theology.

Four Views of Romans 11:26

To set the stage, we must first understand the four Reformed views of the passage at the heart of this debate, Romans 11:25–26a, which reads, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved…”

The first view, and the one presented in this article, understands the phrase to refer to the people of Israel (Jews), who will be converted as a people in the future, after the fullness of the Gentiles has been gathered in. This position has come under scrutiny, for it is also shared by dispensationalists. The second view interprets this phrase to refer to the total number of elect Jews saved throughout history, with no special reference to a national or future event. The third view, which is one of the interpretations being put forth by some today as the Reformed alternative to dispensationalism, understands “all Israel” to be the Church, all of God’s elect Jews and Gentiles, saved throughout history.¹ Lastly, the fourth view is a preterist reading of the passage, which sees this promise to the Jews fulfilled in the first century.² This position has also gained recent popularity among those who oppose dispensationalism.

Reformed Amillennialism

While an expectation of a future national conversion of the Jews has been popularly associated with the old historicist postmillennialism of the Puritans,³ it is also held today by many mainstream Reformed amillennialists.

In his esteemed commentary on Romans, John Murray (1893–1975) of Westminster Theological Seminary, wrote, “…it is exegetically impossible to give ‘Israel’ in this verse any other denotation than that which belongs to the term throughout this chapter. There is the sustained contrast between Israel and the Gentiles… It is of ethnic Israel Paul is speaking and Israel could not possibly include the Gentiles.”⁴ He continues, emphatically declaring that “all Israel shall be saved” is to be “interpreted in the terms of the fulness, the receiving, the ingrafting of Israel as a people, the restoration of Israel to gospel favour and blessing and the correlative turning of Israel from unbelief to faith and repentance.”⁵

Likewise, Cornelius Venema, president emeritus of Mid-America Reformed Seminary concurs with Murray, arguing that, “‘Israel’ in this phrase must refer to the special people of God, not all the elect, whether Jew or Gentile, gathered throughout the entirety of redemptive history. This is because the term is used no less than eleven times in Romans 9–11, and in every instance it refers to the people of Israel… To take ‘all Israel’ as a reference to the total number of the elect among the people of Israel throughout all of the history of redemption would be anti-climactic and largely irrelevant to the Apostle Paul’s interest in Romans 9–11.”⁶

Reformed Postmillennialism

The great Reformed theologian Charles Hodge (1797–1878) also held to this view of the Jews, in the same vein as his Puritan forefathers. For as he strongly argued, the “simple meaning” of Romans 11:25–26 is “that the future restoration of the Jews is, in itself, a more probable event than the introduction of the Gentiles in the church of God.”⁷ Hodge claimed this view was the one received in nearly every age of the church,⁸ writing in his Systematic Theology that “the second great event, which, according to the common faith of the Church, is the national conversion of the Jews…”⁹

Likewise, the late R.C. Sproul continued in this Reformed tradition. Writing in his Romans commentary, he states, “I believe Paul to be saying that the full complement of God’s elect from Israel will be saved and that this will come in a new redemptive-historical visitation by the Holy Spirit when the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled.”¹⁰ His reasoning for this is that “If Paul is referring to spiritual Israel, he is departing from the way he uses the term Israel here and in the preceding three chapters.”¹¹ Therefore, “the reason we can be absolutely certain God is not finished with the Jews is that God predicted it.”¹²

Conclusion

You may now be wondering at this point what importance this subject has. What does it matter if we believe in a future salvation for the Jews over against other interpretations?

First, when our online discourse and private group chats are increasingly being filled with genuine hatred for the Jews, this belief serves as a curb to keep us on the path of gospel-hope, that we would not “boast against the branches” (Rom. 11:18). When we are confronted with confusing claims that “the holocaust didn’t happen… but they deserved it” or “modern Jews are LARPing as biblical Jews… and they killed Jesus,” we can remember and hold together the Apostle Paul’s teaching that “concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Rom. 11:28).

Second, our Reformed forefathers considered that a concern for the scattered and cast-off Jews to be “a necessary part of Christian piety.”¹³ As the English Puritan Edward Elton wrote, “We are bound to love and honour the Jews, as being the ancient people of God, to wish them well, and to be earnest in prayer to God for their conversion.”¹⁴ Likewise, Robert Leighton, a 17th-century Scottish minister, declared that “they forget a main point of the Church’s glory, who pray not daily for the conversion of the Jews.”¹⁵

Therefore, we ought to think soberly and clearly regarding this teaching, considering it in light of Scripture and tradition. And may God be pleased to one day gloriously restore our “greater sister, that Kirk of the Jews” through His saving grace.¹⁶

1. Cornelius P. Venema, The Promise of the Future (Banner of Truth, 2000), 135–136.

2. James B. Jordan, The Future of Israel Re-Examined, Biblical Horizons, No. 27, July 1991.

3. See Iain H. Murray’s The Puritan Hope for an outstanding and encouraging treatment of the Puritans and their eschatological hope.

4. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1968), 96.

5. Ibid. 98.

6. Cornelius Venema, The Promise of the Future (Banner of Truth, 2000), 136.

7. Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Eerdmans, 1947), 371.

8. Ibid.

9. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology Vol. 3 (Eerdmans, 1986), 805.

10. R.C. Sproul, Romans: An Expositional Commentary (Ligonier, 2019), 387.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid. 390.

13. Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope (Banner of Truth, 1975), 59.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid. 75.

16. Samuel Rutherford, as quoted by Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope (Banner of Truth, 1975), 53.