Fullness of the Gentiles (Romans 11:25)

[darinhouston]

All Israel probably doesn't literally mean every single Jew.

Certainly not. All Israel does literally mean every single saved follower of Jesus, however.

[mikew]

I listened again to Steve's concept. He treats all who come to know Christ as being part of Israel. As such, people added today are part of the All of Israel concept. I instead propose that the All of Israel is the fulfilled by the remnant bloodline mentioned in Rom 9:27-29 in order to fulfill the promises to the forefathers -- which would speak essentially from Jacob through to the last of the prophets (perhaps).
Thus, Steve is similar not to see an eschatological future fulfillment, as I also note. He differs by giving the phrase a continuing operation. But the inclusion of gentiles does not really fulfill Isa 10:20-22 (as quoted in Rom 9:27-29), where gentiles were not in view. Paul's proof of God's faithfulness to Israel is the essential purpose of Rom 9 - 11, and that argument leads to the fact of Rom 11:25-27 -- that all Israel was saved in accord with that faithfulness.

did you come to this understanding after hearing Steve or did you come by totally independently?

I'm constantly out on a limb but I always am glad to find where someone like Steve or a commentary confirms the same thing. When I figured out that Romans was written to a gentile-only audience back in 2007, I was curious who else found that. Just a handful did. That gave me confidence that I could be figuring stuff out decently.

I'm not sure I'd call it an understanding - just a consideration. Steve seems to have a fairly conventional (yet not dispensational) eschatological view of this passage. I haven't found anyone even hint at this sort of position.

[mikew]

Just wanted to make sure it is clear, namely that I agree with all you have said in the first post.

I think the way that your determination on the passage has been missed is due to a weakness in the general interpretation methods used. The methodology involves a focus on extracting the wisdom and teaching of each verse instead of getting the broad scope of Paul's letters -- especially Romans. I have found it useful Paul to for reverse engineer what Paul is saying -- to see what statement he makes at the end of a passage. Then, the preceding text often is setting up the context for that final statement. This is sort of like looking at the last chapter of a book to see where the author is leading the reader. This approach may mostly just help in Romans. I didn't need it so much for Galatians. And I have not delved so deep into any of his other letters.

Reading through Romans, I am struggling with Romans 11:25.

Every commentary (including Steve) I can find sees this as eschatological in some way even if they disagree on the future meaning. ... He seems deeply concerned about the Jews as he saw them then and I don't see a thought towards anything like a concern for today's nation of Israel with thousands of years of mixed breeding and so forth of a nation that had walked away largely not only from their culture and traditions and ethnicity but also of God.

The term "pleroma" does not necessarily (or even primarily) mean "full number" but seems to me that it could refer to that time period where their "time" had fully come - in Jesus and in the gospel. And that the hardening in part referred to those Jewish leaders and others who the gospels spend a great deal of time describing their foolish and irrational misunderstandings of things leading up to the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus. Is it possible that he's saying that this was up to then and going forward, then, all are on equal footing and can come to God without hardening? In that way, all can be saved through Christ - not skipping over millions of Jews who have no excuse due to their hardening over thousands of years. ...
I hope Steve sees this and can provide a considered response - there may something that precludes this but it always makes me nervous when I see zero (and I mean zero) commentators or scholars even consider this being anything other than eschatological.

[darinhouston]

I listened again to Steve's concept. He treats all who come to know Christ as being part of Israel. As such, people added today are part of the All of Israel concept. I instead propose that the All of Israel is the fulfilled by the remnant bloodline mentioned in Rom 9:27-29 in order to fulfill the promises to the forefathers -- which would speak essentially from Jacob through to the last of the prophets (perhaps).
Thus, Steve is similar not to see an eschatological future fulfillment, as I also note. He differs by giving the phrase a continuing operation. But the inclusion of gentiles does not really fulfill Isa 10:20-22 (as quoted in Rom 9:27-29), where gentiles were not in view. Paul's proof of God's faithfulness to Israel is the essential purpose of Rom 9 - 11, and that argument leads to the fact of Rom 11:25-27 -- that all Israel was saved in accord with that faithfulness.

did you come to this understanding after hearing Steve or did you come by totally independently?

I'm constantly out on a limb but I always am glad to find where someone like Steve or a commentary confirms the same thing. When I figured out that Romans was written to a gentile-only audience back in 2007, I was curious who else found that. Just a handful did. That gave me confidence that I could be figuring stuff out decently.

I'm not sure I'd call it an understanding - just a consideration. Steve seems to have a fairly conventional (yet not dispensational) eschatological view of this passage. I haven't found anyone even hint at this sort of position.

While Steve does see an immediate and ongoing application of the general teaching on who is Israel, I think he does not see the reference to the "fullness of the Gentiles" in 11:25 as being in that context but in a future only context.

[mikew]

While Steve does see an immediate and ongoing application of the general teaching on who is Israel, I think he does not see the reference to the "fullness of the Gentiles" in 11:25 as being in that context but in a future only context.

I got focused on the wrong part of the verse. Listening again... Steve presents the idea that this fullness of gentiles has not been reached in 2000 years.

Several stumbling blocks happen with this verse

• The text often has been interpreted within the assumption of a mixed Jew-gentile audience. That lends to the idea that the gentiles are mentioned as the pool of people coming to Christ.
• The fullness then is defined as a number of gentiles saved.
• The translation as "come in" is chosen in the translation, which perpetuates that concept
• The idea of "come in" is then interpreted to be the complete number of gentiles coming in to the church or, with Gregg, entering into all Israel.

An option for translation of the Greek (εἰσέρχομαι) is
(2) to enter into an event or state, of pers.: come into someth. = share in someth., come to enjoy someth. (Jos., C. Ap. 2, 123 εἰς τοὺς ἡμετέρους νόμους) εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τ. θεοῦ (τ. οὐρανῶν) Mt 5:20; 7:21; 19:24; Mk 9:47; 10:15, 23ff; Lk 18:17, 25; J 3:5; 2 Cl 6:9 al. (cp. Da 11:9).
William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2000), 294.

The same entry in the lexicon all uses "attain" as used of eternal life: Mt 18:8f; 19:17; Mk 9:43, 45. I cannot however authoritatively state the sense I mention here is good translation, but it is an option that could be investigated further.

We see in Dan 11:9 "Then the latter shall come into the realm of the king of the south but shall return to his own land." The LXX translates from εἰσέρχομαι. So, the idea of "coming in" is stated explicitly in that text. But in Rom 11:25, the place entered in is not specified. So it could be "entering into fullness of numbers" or "attaining the fullness of reach of the Empire (into the middle of Jerusalem)." The last one could be "attaining the fullness of serving God's purpose via the Roman Empire."


The idea of "coming in" may be more a reference to the Roman Armies coming into Jerusalem. The gentiles (Roman Empire soldiers) then are attaining the fullness of their task against first-century Jerusalem. That reading then fits with the verse I quoted in an earlier post: Luke 21:24 -- "They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled."(ESV)


So we can see a possible tradition of translation that makes the verse appear to speak of gentiles getting saved. That then biases the reading of the passage but the common direction of that reading lacks support from any passages. The prophecy in Luke 21:24 then seems a better source for understanding or translating the phrase in Rom 11:25.