Space-Filling Thoughts

  Elijah Challenging the Prophets of Baal, from a third century A.D. synagogue.  God has a plan for the Jewish people.  It is not just a past plan that evaporated with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.  It is yet future.  For what we will see as we go through this chapter is that God is going to bring about a national conversion of the Jews to Christ.  This is what Paul is driving at in verse 26 when he writes, “And so all Israel shall be saved.”   Recall that chapters 9-11 deal with the issue of the Jewish people, especially in light of their widespread rejection of Jesus as the Messiah.  We’ve seen that Paul has argued that this does not mean that God has been unfaithful to his promises to Abraham, but rather that he is actually fulfilling his purposes, that Gentile inclusion and Jewish unbelief were both predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures.  We’ve noted that in chapter 9 as part of his answer to the charge that God is unf...