²⁵ For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; ²⁶ and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.” ²⁷ “This is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”

The full discussion of Covenant theology versus Dispensational theology spans lengthy volumes and divides seminaries and Bible colleges, not to mention denominations and individual churches. Some dismiss this debate as mere academics, better left for the doctors of religion to fuss over. Others snidely remonstrate that there are more important things, like winning souls. Yet the apostle Paul, inspired by the Spirit, taught that these issues are quite important. To be sure, these are “things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scripture…,” as the apostle Peter wrote (2 Peter 3:16). But their difficulty means we ought to study them even more carefully.

A few more observations about the text are in order before we move on. Notice Paul calls this relative positioning of Israel and the Gentiles before God a mystery. This is the same word he used when writing to the Ephesians about “the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known … to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:4–6). What he writes about as being complete in his letter to the Ephesians (and Colossians), he describes in process form in his letter to the Romans.

To the Jews such a mystery was absolutely unthinkable. Yes, they were sinners who had been hardened—but no way were they on an equal level with the Gentiles! Or so they were given to think. But from the very beginning and throughout Israel’s history, God had given clues to this, though He had not fully revealed it until Christ.

God’s promise to Abraham was a blessing to the entire world, not exclusively to his descendants, the Jews. The Gospel does not negate that. Neither does it spell out the complete rejection of the Jews because of their disobedience. God has not transferred a false exclusionism from the Jews to the Gentiles. In fact, the Gospel message expands on Isaiah’s prophecies in Isaiah 59:20-21, that a deliverer would one day take away the sins of Israel. The hardening is only partial; the rejection is temporary. It is all part of God’s plan.

Lord, help me keep from trivializing the distinctions You treat as important.