Appendix Objection A2

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

Romans 11 promises the future national salvation of Israel, the modern state is its staging ground.

Whatever one's reading of Romans 11, the verse will not carry a political state. "All Israel" in Paul's argument is either (a) the complete elect remnant of ethnic Israel gathered across the whole age, the "remnant according to the election of grace" (11:5) being brought in alongside "the fulness of the Gentiles" until the full number of both is complete, or (b) the whole Israel of God, Jew and Gentile together, the one olive tree of Paul's own extended metaphor (11:17-24): natural branches broken off, wild branches grafted in, natural branches grafted back "if they abide not still in unbelief", one tree, one root, one fatness, membership by faith throughout. On either reading, the salvation in view is by the Deliverer turning away ungodliness, regeneration and redemption, not by a UN resolution, a war, or a border. Nothing in Romans 11 mentions land, statehood, or 1948; the chapter's own summary is about mercy upon vessels of mercy: "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all" (11:32). And note what the olive tree does to the two-peoples scheme: Gentile believers are grafted into Israel's tree, sharing Israel's root, they are not planted as a separate orchard with a separate destiny.