The title from today’s post comes from verse 26 of the following passage:
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved,[g] as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”[h]
28 Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God areirrevocable. 30 For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, 31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. 32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all. (Romans 11:25-32 NKJV)
This passage contains at least two profound mysteries that the Church does not understand. First, what is the identity of “all Israel?” Second, who comprises the “all” upon whom God will ultimately show mercy? The entire Bible concerns both of these mysteries. I will answer the second question first.
The Christian age began almost two thousand years ago when Peter began preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who killed him. In one of his first sermons he said,
13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 14 But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. 16 And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
17 “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before,[a] 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 22 For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’[b] 24 Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold[c] these days. 25 You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’[d] 26 To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” (Acts 3:13-26)
Today I want to focus on these two truths revealed here: 1) All of God’s prophets foretold that Christ would suffer, and 2) All of God’s prophets spoke of the restoration of all things since the world began. How is then that the Church, even two thousand years after this was spoken, still does not even understand what the restoration of all things is? I believe the answer lies in the word “all.” When Christians see the word “all” they do not interpret it with its normal meaning. “All things” to them means “some things,” for example, but definitely not “all things.” The following verse gives the consummate example of such faulty and disingenuous interpretation, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22)
Christians do not really believe Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:22. They do believe that “all” men have sinned and thus died “in Adam,” but they do not believe that “all” men will “be made alive in Christ.” Christians use the normal interpretation of the word “all” with respect to the men who have died in Adam, but they use their own special definition for “all” who will be made alive in Christ. They redefine “all” in the last part of verse 15:22 to be “all men who have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior.” But, that is not what the Scripture says, is it? This interpretation might carry some weight if this was the only place in Scripture that claimed that Jesus Christ brings actual new life to all men, but it isn’t. It is only one verse among many, very many other Scriptures.
First, consider that the way that God restores all things as prophesied by Peter is by bringing them new life in Jesus Christ. You and I, for example, cannot be restored to wholeness from a sinful and debauched life until and unless we repent of our sins and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. The first aspect of the restoration of all things relates to salvation in Jesus. And, Peter claims that God has spoken about this restoration “by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” Next we will begin to discover exactly what “all” his holy prophets said.
