THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: What Is It? 149
into that "good olive tree," thereby making them fellow-partakers
of the root (Christ) and the fatness
(the Holy Spirit, commonly typified in Scripture by
the oil derived from the olive) of that tree ; and finally
that the unconverted Jews are represented as branches
"broken off" from the olive tree, in other words, as
dead sticks fit only for the fire.
Verse 20 tells us it was "because of unbelief they
were broken off," but evidently Paul did not regard
their state as hopeless; for he says that "they also, if
they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graff ed in ;
for
God is able to graff them in .
again" (v. 23) Paul is
here speaking of the salvation not merely of an occasional
individual, but of the great mass of the people,
represented by the branches broken off from the
olive tree.
Thus, while the passage intimates, on the one hand,
that there may come a time when the Jews as a whole
will be much more receptive of the message of the
gospel than they have been during the centuries past,
it makes plain, on the other hand, that the only salvation
for them is the same olive-tree salvation whereof
Gentiles (as well as Jews) who believe in Jesus
Christ are made partakers, and that the condition of
their being saved is that "they continue not in unbelief."
The words "And so all Israel shall be saved" (v. 26)
have been strangely misunderstood. They have been
taken to mean that all natural Jews are to be saved
in a coming dispensation. But they cannot possibly be
made to yield that meaning. The adverb "so" declares
how (not when) "all Israel" shall be saved. It refers
to the process of grafting into the good olive tree