Israel’s Spiritual Rebirth: The Church’s Role
What Does All Israel Mean?
It also may help us to better understand what the all Israel actually means. While it is obviously a remnant, the Scriptures here relating to the all Israel are different from the others in Romans; the key word being UNTIL, which means up to the time of. When you tie this verse into other Scripture like Zechariah 12:10, which speaks of a mass awakening of Israel, we know that their hardening will come to an end.
If you word search remnant in Romans, two references come up. The first in 9:27 tells us that as a total only a remnant will be saved and that is true, because many rejected over all time. The second reference is more specific to a particular time, which not only includes all of the apostles and all of the Jews who founded the church from the time of Messiah up until the time of Israel’s awakening. But it also includes Jews like myself who have been chosen during this time of ingathering and focus of the rest of God’s sheep from the nations (John 10:16). We are a remnant chosen by grace. However, the awakening at the end is different, as the hardening is lifted when the Father’s work is completed in the nations. Just like at one time, the Gentiles ingathering into the kingdom was still a mystery (Col.1:27), so with Israel’s awakening another mystery is revealed. The last shall be first and the first last. In addition verse 26 in Romans 11 ties in perfectly here to Ezekiel’s prophecies (Ezekiel 36:22-28; 37:9-11). “Where God will turn godliness away from Jacob. And this is my Covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
As we near the time of the fullness of the Gentiles, which I believe we are quickly approaching, something different takes place with the people of Israel. The veil, the hardening that has been in place for over 2,500 years, gets removed (Isaiah 6:9-10), and they are fully awakened. This is the mystery revealed, as Israel is also part of the bride that must be prepared for His coming. In this manner the spiritual family becomes complete between Jew and Gentile and Israel along with her commonwealth from the nations are in place to rule and reign as co-heirs with Yeshua/Jesus, when He comes!
Even here though there is a falling away if we believe the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecies to be taking place at the end here, as opposed to 135 AD (Zech. 13:8), when Jerusalem gets ransacked right before the end and two-thirds perish, with only one-third remaining. However, whoever is left, obviously a remnant, MUST be fully awakened and restored, because once that veil gets lifted, every Jew will come into repentance, so that the broken off branch gets re-grafted back in and the family is then complete for Jesus’ return. But this does not happen on its own, just with the Father and Israel as the church now thinks and believes.