Olive Branch Theology

All Israel Shall Be Saved

by

Dr. Charles Bryant-Abraham

Lamentably, Paul’s position on the "Jewish Question" has been completely disregarded by historic Christendom in the furtherance of political and economic interests vested in the temporal and ecclesiastical hierarchies of every generation, including our own.

In his letter to the early Roman community of faith, Paul unequivocally sets forth his own position on the enigmatic Judenfrage, "the Jewish Question." Lamentably, his position was completely disregarded by historic Christendom in the furtherance of political and economic interests vested in the temporal and ecclesiastical hierarchies of every generation, including our own. (Our commentaries to these passages are italicized within block parentheses.)

"For I speak to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my office . . . For if the first dough be holy, the whole loaf is also holy; and if the root be holy [Israel’s sacred history and destiny,] so are the branches [individual Jews]. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree [Gentile] wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness [blessings] of the olive tree, boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, ‘The branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.’ Thou sayest well! Because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee."1

The Vatican Council II Bishops’ Conference recognized that the historic infrastructure of European anti-Semitism is retraceable in no small measure to one specific doctrine of early ecclesiastical, residually Marcionite, dogma, supersessionism, a dogma unchanged by the Protestant Reformation. Popularly called Replacement Theology, the doctrine holds that Christendom has become the chosen of God and that the Jewish people are accursed, condemned and cut off from a meaningful relationship with believing mankind, with all that is divine and, indeed, with its own literary and spiritual past. Replacement Theology is demonstrable as a false doctrine against which even from the beginning the early Church is warned: "Be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines."2 Jesus’ own teaching must be reconsidered and applied against such historic "strange doctrines." To reapply Jesus’ timeless message self-critically we may cite:

"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, ‘This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoreth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."3

Moreover, Replacement Theology has perennially been the banner of all the crusades, inquisitions, pogroms and ultimately the Holocaust itself against the Jewish people. Jesus’ message was too often forgotten: "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."4

Paul’s position unmistakably affirms the scriptural relationship of believers to Jews, the people of Jesus. It is that of a wild olive branch grafted into God’s own olive tree, Israel. In this way only can believers truly understand themselves as Spiritual Israel, maintaining a distinct role in the divine plan for human history, yet fully sharing in the hardships and rejoicing in the successes of the Jewish people as an integral part themselves of Israel’s sacred destiny. Indeed, it is this scriptural realignment that is the very heart of Olive Branch Theology, overdue since the "parting of the ways" almost 2,000 years ago.

Contemporary academic theologians are ever more acknowledging that Paul’s writings have been grossly misunderstood, and worse, perhaps willfully misread, throughout the ages. With the keen eye of doctrinal deconstructionism we shall now consider one of the many examples, Paul’s specific guidelines on Jewish-Christian relations.

"For I brethren would not have you to be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits: that a kind of obstinacy has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And then

all Israel shall be saved [it will happen] as it is written: ‘There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away impiety from Jacob. For this is My covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins.’ " 5

Look at this closely. Romans 11: 26b cites the Septuagint Greek text of Isaiah 59:20: "And the deliverer shall come for Zion’s sake, and shall turn away impiety from Jacob." However, Romans 11:27 only partly paraphrases the Septuagint text of Isaiah 59:21: "And this shall be My covenant with them, said the Lord: ‘My spirit which is upon you, and the words which I have put in your mouth, shall never fail from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed, for the Lord has spoken it, henceforth and for ever.’ " 6

The Masoretic Hebrew text of Isaiah 59:21 makes plain that the Greek words, ho Kyrios, "The Lord," in this verse translates the Shem haMephorash, the "Tetragrammaton," (Y/H/W/H). Paul’s Greek inerrantly conveys his understanding of the divine intent when he alters Isaiah 59:21 to drive home his point, ". . . when I [God] take away their sins." Paul could have rephrased Isaiah to read, "When I cause their sins to be taken away by others," but he carefully and specifically used here the Greek first person singular future of the middle voice, aphélomai. The nuance is expressible in Latin and German with the "dative of reference" and means: "When I take away for My own purpose their sins." Paul states here bluntly that God and God alone will take away Israel’s sins; and it will be for His own purposes that God and God alone does it, specifically, that He may be "sanctified in them in the sight of many nations"7

On this point all other Biblical proof texts concur: it is God alone, and no extrinsic, man-made ecclesiastical body, authority, or representative member who will "redeem and save" Israel.8 "Let Israel hope in the Eternal [Y/H/W/H], for with the Eternal [Y/H/W/H] there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." 9

At a sublime moment in our not too distant future, through the dynamics of restoring Christianity’s Hebraic roots, we will all yet come to understand Paul’s existentially authentic meaning. It will no longer be the false doctrine of supersessionism, Replacement Theology, that will be taught throughout the Christian world, but Paul’s original, scripturally sound, insight into the Godly relationship between Gentiles, the believers in Jesus, and Jews, the family of Jesus. Abraham himself taught and practiced a ministry of hospitality; he never shut the door on any guest. Neither should we. However, Paul teaches us that not until "the fullness of the gentiles be come in" should anyone think to actively interfere with God’s special care and concern, His own timetable, for His people, Israel. These words of Paul reverberate with confidence in God’s ultimate fulfillment of His own plans beyond every human calculation and endeavor. Cannot Spiritual Israel share this faith and vision of "the Apostle to the Gentiles" in a loving relationship with Jesus’ own Jewish people? It is very much as Roger Cardinal Etchegaray of Marseilles taught at the Plenary Session of the Synod of Roman Catholic Bishops of Reconciliation, Rome, October 4, 1983:

"Is not this connection, which can only be lived in a peaceful tension, one of the elements of the dynamism of the history of salvation? As in the parable, it recalls that neither of the two sons can gain possession of the entire inheritance; each one is for the other, without jealousy, a witness to the gratuitousness of the Father’s mercy. It is also a demanding emulation between the one who awaits a messiah to come and the one who awaits his return. Franz Rosenzweig, after quoting the midrash which says: ‘At the death of a Jew, he will only be asked one question: did you hope for redemption?’ used to add: ‘All other questions are for you Christians–From now until then let us prepare ourselves together in faithfulness to appear before the heavenly Judge!’ "

At that moment in our future when the Restoration will have become a paramount, world-wide reality, we will then understand the esoteric meaning for both Christians and Jews–"to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile"–resident in the verses penned so long ago by John exiled on the island of Patmos: "And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: ‘Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints! Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou only art holy. For all nations shall come and worship before Thee for Thy judgments are made manifest.’ "10

To make certain his meaning is not misunderstood, Paul concludes his explanation of this issue with these words: "Concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sake [because of you, not because of the Jewish people.] But concerning the election [as specifically chosen by God for their unceasing role in human history], they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes [God’s Promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob]. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance [God will never go back on His word]. And were it otherwise, to what confidence, to what hope, could any hold fast?11

"And all Israel will be saved"–all in God’s good time and by God alone. Until then those consecrated to Restoring the "Ways of the Lord" to the Body of the Christ have a world of work to be done "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in."12

Dr. Charles Bryant-Abraham is a widely-published scholar of Biblical Hebrew, Imperial and middle Aramaic, Syriac, Koinè Greek, and Ecclesiastical Latin. As a fellow of the AMI Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research, Jerusalem, he has taught internationally in German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, and English. Charles, his wife Lu Ellen, and their sons, Daniel Isaac, and Joshua Jedidiah, divide their time between Jerusalem and San Diego, California.

For information on seminars of the AMI Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research, Jerusalem, Israel, for information on Bibles for the Former Soviet Union Project, and for correspondence courses and publications write:
P. O. Box 8017, Jerusalem 91080, Israel or FAX: 011 972 2 563 5426.

Footnotes:

1 Romans 11:13-21.

2 Hebrews 13: 9.

3 Matthew 15: 6b-9.

4 Matthew 24: 40b.

5 Romans 11: 25-29.

6 Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton. Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), p. 895.

7 Ezekiel 39: 27.

8 Cf. Exodus 15: 2; Psalm 118: 14; Isaiah 12: 2.

9 Psalm 3O: 7-8.

10 Revelation 15:3-4.

11 Romans 11: 28-29.

12 Romans 11: 25b.

N.B. Biblical citations herein are adaptations by the writer from The 2lst Century King James Version (KJ21), the use of which has been expressly authorized by Deuel Enterprises, Inc., of Gary, South Dakota. For information on the KJ21, e-mail: kj21@kj2l.com; homepage: Error! Bookmark not defined. The writer serves as Chief Linguistic Consultant for Deuel Enterprises, Inc., publishers of The 21st Century King James Bible and The Third Millennium Bible with Apocrypha. For information on these magnificent Bibles, e-mail: joshua@sdcoe.kl2.ca.us

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