After Israel rejected the Messiah, did Paul say the promises passed to the church?
Question 3 of 5. What Paul wrote about Israel after the cross, chiefly in Romans 9 to 11.
Where it begins
Paul wrote Romans after the cross, after Israel's leaders had rejected Jesus. That is exactly when the transfer of Israel's promises is said to have happened. If it did, Paul is the writer who would say so. He devotes three chapters, Romans 9 to 11, to the question of Israel's unbelief, and he begins them with grief for his own countrymen.
The answer Settled
Paul says the opposite of a transfer. Unbelief does not make God's faithfulness void. He calls his own countrymen Israelites and says the covenants and the promises are theirs. Throughout Romans 9 to 11, "Israel" means Paul's own people, never the church. When he says "they are not all Israel who are of Israel," he explains it by the line of promise through Isaac and Jacob, inside Israel's own family.
He asks directly whether God has cast away His people, and answers, "Certainly not!" He points to himself as an Israelite and to a remnant chosen by grace, as in Elijah's day. Israel has stumbled, but not so as to fall for good; Paul looks for "their fullness" and "their acceptance." In his picture of the olive tree, Gentile believers are grafted in among the natural branches, not in place of them, and the natural branches can be grafted in again.
Paul then speaks of Israel's future. The blindness that has come on Israel is partial, and it lasts until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Then "all Israel will be saved," which God calls His covenant with them. Even while they oppose the gospel, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, because God's gifts and calling are irrevocable. Their present disobedience is headed toward mercy.
Galatians does not reverse this. Believers in Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, and Paul blesses "the Israel of God." Neither verse says the church became Israel or that Israel's promises changed hands.
Dive deeper
Each page below takes one part of this answer and shows the passages it rests on.
- Who does Paul mean by Israel? Romans 9, and the name Israel through all three chapters.
- Has God cast away His people? Romans 3 and : unbelief, the remnant, the stumble, and the olive tree.
- Will all Israel be saved? .
- Doesn't Galatians make the church Abraham's seed and the Israel of God? and .