“Mystery” definition: revelation from God that the Old Testament did not clearly reveal, but has now been clearly revealed in Jesus Christ – particularly the saving, salvation purposes of God now effected in Jesus, and summed up in the gospel itself (see Rom. 16:25; 1 Cor. 2:1,7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51; Eph. 1:9; 3:3,4,9; 5:32; 6:19; Col. 1:26,27; 2:2; 4:3; 2 Thess. 2:7; 1 Tim. 3:9,16).

Point 1: The inter-relationship of Jews and Gentiles, and a warning against Gentile pride (16-24).

Paul’s "olive tree” metaphor achieves at least three pastoral goals:

1) It instills godly fear into Gentile Christians against being arrogant and presumptuous since they enjoy God’s spiritual blessings only through the Jews and solely on the basis of God’s grace, not because they earned them. God is under no obligation to spare them if they do not persevere in faith. Gentiles must not be proud for being engrafted, especially since the original branches could be engrafted much more easily than they. Gentile Christians are part of Israel’s spiritual heritage, so they must not despise or look down on Israel. This is the primary exhortatory point of the metaphor.

2) It instills hope regarding the future of ethnic Israel because “God as the power to graft them in again” (11:23).

3) It exalts God’s sovereign grace by highlighting surprising turns in God’s salvation-historical plan, which is “contrary to nature,” namely, his plan to include many gentiles as part of the people of God (11:24)

Romans 11:26: “and in this way all Israel will be saved.”

Three Interpretative Options for “all Israel”
# 1: Elect Jews and Gentiles from both covenants (Gal. 6:16)
# 2: The nation of Israel
# 3 The elect within Israel.

Paul is not saying that every single Jew without exception will be saved. He’s speaking more generally of the corporate entity of ethnic Jews – a large representative number - as they exist in a particular point in time, in the future.

We sometimes use the word “all” to mean a large representative number. We would say, “All the nation – the whole nation – was outraged by the incident.” Or: “All the students – the whole school – went out to watch the game.”

***** Following Option # 2, Paul is telling us that when the full number of the Gentiles come into the kingdom, there will be a MASSIVE shift - a majority shift - in Jewish outlook . . . and ALL Israel will be saved through faith in Jesus Christ