God’s Purpose in Romans 11

To prove this we see the end of the chapter:

For God has concluded them all under sin, that He might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out. (vs. 32-33).

This is what the chapter is all about. That God would have mercy upon “all” does not mean that all men will be saved, but all His people, whether the elect of the Jews or the elect of the Gentiles. It is twisting the whole chapter and the whole book, to say this means that all men will be saved.

Another point of debate is Paul’s statement in Rom 11:26, “And so all Israel will be saved.”. This is not hard to understand. We have already seen how Paul defines Israel in chapter 9 when he said “Not all Israel are Israel.”. He defined Israel several times in the book of Romans, explaining each time that Israel was the household of faith.

He did not mean that every Jew would be saved. In fact he said the opposite. (Rom 11:5) He said this again in Rom 11:14, “If by any means I might provoke to jealousy them which are of my flesh and might save some of them.”. Paul was talking about saving some of the Jews, the elect, not all. There is only one way of salvation and that is through faith in Christ. Many Jews have already perished without Christ, so they are not all saved.