[Spencer Mumme shared the following essay with me. I found it so brilliant and succinct, I asked him if he would allow me to post it here. Spencer has summarized what I think are the key issues in reading Romans 11 properly. While I find much that is attractive in Jordan’s preterist interpretation of Romans 11, it simply does not seem to fit with the flow of the text – or what we know about first century history. Jesus gave along list of signs that would precede the destruction of the temple in 70ad, but he did not include a wide-scale conversion of the Jews among those signs. Likewise, Calvin’s interpretation, while rightly capturing the truth that the church is the new and true Israel, does not seem to make sense of the Jew/Gentile interplay in the text. The first shall be last — the first people group to enter into covenant with God shall be the last to re-enter covenant with God — and so the conversion of the Jews will be the capstone of the Great Commission. Like Spencer, I hold to a future conversion of the Jewish people — which is a very common position over the course of history. For now unbelieving Jews are enemies of God, but God is not done with them. For more, see my recent sermon and essay on the same topic.]
A Reformed Catholic Reading of Romans 11:26
By Spencer Mumme
“And so all Israel shall be saved.”
Let me just speak plainly, the way I actually understand this passage after wrestling with it for years. I’m not trying to fit into anyone’s system. I’m not trying to force it into Calvin, or Jordan, or Lusk, or some confessional bumper sticker. I’m just being honest: this is where I land as a Reformed Catholic, meaning I’m deliberately holding the Church’s historic breadth while staying anchored in covenant theology, typology, and the Resurrection pattern that runs through all of Scripture.
—
⭐ 1. AD 70 matters — it really does.
When I read Romans 11, I can’t ignore the elephant in the room.
Jesus told them judgment was coming.
Paul warned them about it.
Hebrews is practically screaming about it.
And in AD 70, it happened.
Old Covenant Israel — the nation in the flesh, the priestly order, the temple system, the genealogical identity tied to land and sacrifices — died.
It wasn’t a metaphor.
It wasn’t symbolic only.
It was real.
That’s why I resonate with James Jordan when he says the “Israel” of that age — the Old Covenant body — was brought to an end. The faithful remnant survived. The unbelieving majority didn’t. And yes, that remnant was saved, just like Paul says:
> “A remnant chosen by grace.”
So, in one very real sense, Israel’s salvation already happened — the remnant embraced their Messiah before the hammer of judgment fell.
But that’s not the end of the story.
—
⭐ 2. Yet Paul speaks too big for this to be ONLY about the 1st century.
Here’s where Jordan stops short and where I can’t follow him all the way.
Paul uses future tense, forward-facing language that won’t shrink down into a pre-70 box:
“UNTIL the fullness of the Gentiles comes in.”
“And THEN all Israel shall be saved.”
“God is able to GRAFT THEM IN AGAIN.”
“They are BELOVED for the sake of their forefathers.”
“The GIFTS and the CALLING of God are irrevocable.”
This isn’t the language of “one generation left and that’s the end.”
This is long-haul, forward-looking, multi-century, covenantal-history language.
Paul sees something after the destruction.
He sees mercy on the far side of judgment.
AD 70 is not the last chapter — it’s the hinge.
—
⭐ **3. Opposition #1: Calvin says Israel = the Church.
I don’t buy that here.**
Calvin says “all Israel” simply means “the elect Church,” Jew and Gentile.
Good man. Brilliant man. But I think he forces Romans 11 into Romans 9 too tightly.
In Romans 9, Paul absolutely redefines Israel around election.
But Romans 11?
Paul suddenly shifts back to talking about:
my flesh
my people
Israel according to lineage
branches broken off from Abraham’s tree
beloved for the sake of the patriarchs
Calvin collapses the distinction Paul is deliberately holding.
If Paul wanted to say “the Church is Israel,” he already said that in other places.
Here he is talking about the descendants of Abraham who stumbled — and how God is not done showing mercy to them.
This isn’t supercessionism.
This isn’t two-covenant theology.
This is covenantal continuity after judgment.
—
⭐ **4. Opposition #2: Jordan says Romans 11 was fulfilled by the remnant before AD 70.
He’s half-right — but not fully.**
Jordan nails the judgment pattern.
He nails the AD 70 reality.
He nails the typology of death → resurrection.
But when he says Romans 11 is completely fulfilled in the apostolic generation, I hit a wall.
Paul speaks of a future fullness of Gentiles and a future mercy toward Israel that is bigger than the remnant.
Paul describes a grafting-in event that reads like a hinge moment in history, not a leftover detail in the first century.
Paul doesn’t say the remnant IS “all Israel.”
He says the remnant is part of a future picture.
Jordan sees the death.
But he misses the resurrection motif that Paul is pointing toward.
—
⭐ **5. Opposition #3: Dispensationalism says modern Israel has a prophetic destiny.
No. Absolutely not.**
I reject that completely.
Romans 11 is not about:
the State of Israel
a rebuilt temple
a revived priesthood
geopolitical timelines
end-times speculation
or any Zionist program
Paul is not talking about a nation-state.
He’s talking about a people — Abraham’s physical descendants — encountering mercy in the future as a people, not as a political kingdom.
—
⭐ 6. What I affirm: the resurrection pattern applies to the Jewish people, AFTER AD 70, INSIDE the New Covenant, not outside it.
If Israel died in AD 70 — and it did —
then the only consistent biblical pattern is:
> God brings life from death.
Not political life.
Not temple life.
Not Old Covenant life.
But covenantal, ecclesial, spiritual life.
In other words:
Not the resurrection of a nation
But the resurrection of a people
Into the Church of Jesus Christ
Through the gospel
As part of the worldwide discipling of the nations
This is where Rich Lusk gets it exactly right.
He sees the movement that Jordan cuts off.
He sees the future mercy that Calvin downplays.
He sees that Paul is describing a moment of grafting back in, not under Moses, not under land promises, but under the risen Christ, as the Church grows to maturity in history.
—
⭐ 7. So what is “all Israel shall be saved”? Here’s my Reformed Catholic view — plain and simple.
> I believe “all Israel” refers to a future, covenantal turning of the Jewish people to Christ —
not as a revived nation, not as a political entity, not as a separate plan,
but as a people who, after the death of their Old Covenant order,
are shown mercy at a future point in history as the nations come under Christ’s reign.
This honors:
the AD 70 judgment
the remnant salvation
the future-movement language
the resurrection typology
the mission of the Church
the unity of Jew & Gentile
the postmillennial sweep of the gospel
the Catholicity of the Church across the ages
This is why I call it my Reformed Catholic reading —
because it honors the Old, honors the New, honors the Church, and honors the covenant story without falling into nationalistic errors or flattening the text into a single-century fulfillment.
It is the story of mercy after judgment,
life after death,
and the God who keeps His promises even after He tears down the old structure.
That’s where I stand.
Fully convinced.
Fully covenantal.
Fully Reformed Catholic.
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