It’s been almost two thousand years since God “sent salvation to the Gentiles” (Acts 28:28) and set the nation Israel aside for the foreseeable future.

Yet, stubbornly, most Christians refuse to recognise this huge dispensational change that led to the bringing in of the dispensation of the grace of God and the Mystery (Ephesians 3:1-4).

The result is that many mistakenly believe that as Gentiles they are wild branches grafted into Israel’s “olive tree” and that the Jewish rites of repentance and water baptism are still required for salvation. They are not because as Ephesians 2:8-9 states:

For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should boast.

And in case anybody should doubt that the whole process of salvation today is by God, and God alone, without any human religious assistance, it pays to read the next verse, Ephesians 2:10:

For we are HIS workmanship, CREATED in Christ Jesus unto good works, which GOD hath BEFORE ordained that we should walk in them.

BEFORE what, you might ask? Answer: BEFORE the foundation of the world. As Ephesians 1:3 declares:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as He hath CHOSEN US in HIM BEFORE the foundation of the world; that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Being chosen before the foundation of the world was never said of Israel. If the nation Israel was indeed chosen before Isaiah 14:1 was written, the Prophet Isaiah knew nothing of it:

                “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will YET CHOOSE Israel” he wrote.

According to the Oxford University edition of the King James Bible the above verse was written back in 735 BC. It is only many decades later that in Isaiah chapters 44-45 God is found saying He has(now) chosen Israel.

This much has been said to strongly assert that the fact that those saved today in the dispensation of the grace of God and the mystery (Ephesians 3:1-5 were chosen by the Lord before the world began to be quickened out of sin and death (Ephesians 2:1).

Consequently, their calling is no way connected to that of Israel. God’s dealings with and through the once chosen nation ended (temporarily at least) with the Apostle Paul’s pronouncement in Acts 28:26-28 of her setting aside and the sending of salvation to the Gentiles.

Bible chronology gives 62 A.D.as the date of this divine dismissal of Israel. Just eight years later in 70 A.D. God’s wrath against the stubbornly blind nation was poured out in the brutal sacking of Jerusalem, destruction of the temple, the slaughter of a third of remaining Jews and the enslaving of the rest.

And it was then and there in that awful “desolation” unleashed by the Lord Himself, that according to Jesus, the “times of the Gentiles” began. Thus (Luke 21:24) insists:

And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nation: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

The Old Testament prophets repeatedly warned of this judgement to come, and Jesus confirmed it in his three-and-a-half ministry on earth. The King would destroy both the temple and city, He warned, saying:

These be (i.e. will be, after his departure from them) the days of vengeance, that all things that are written may be fulfilled (Luke 21:22).

We should be thankful that in God there is an end to everything (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) no matter how bad it is. In a day yet to come the “times of the Gentiles” will end when the faithful ancients of Israel are resurrected and the favoured nation is “born again”.

For if the casting away of them (the Israelites) be the reconciling of the world, what shall the RECEIVING of them be but LIFE FROM THE DEAD? (Romans 11:15).

In this verse Paul firstly teaches that Israel as a nation has been “cast away” by God. This took place when the Lord through Paul pronounced judicial blindness upon Israel and took from that nation the message of salvation and sent it to the Gentiles for them to believe and share it (Acts 28:26-28).

Secondly, the apostle teaches that Israel will remain in partial blindness (or hardening) until “the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25). Plainly put, not until God has “quickened” (Ephesians 2:1) and caused faith to arise in the last Gentile He has chosen (before the foundation of the world) to save, will the “times of the Gentiles” end and the faithful dead of Israel be resurrected to form the nation anew.

And so, all Israel (i.e. all Israelites the Lord counts worthy to enter his kingdom) shall be saved: as it is written: There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Romans 11:26).

This verse is quoted from Isaiah 59 20-21 in which the Lord says, “as for me this is my COVENANT with them”. Importantly, we Gentiles never were, nor are now, a party to this covenant. Instead, we are “saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

But who is the Deliverer referred to in Romans 11:26? Obviously, it must be Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, who will save Israel “at the last day”, that wonderful day of resurrection for God’s chosen Hebrew people. Mary clearly understood this when she said she knew Lazarus would “rise at the last day”. In Luke 20: 35-36 the Lord explains what that meant in his and will still mean in a yet future time to come.

...they that be accounted WORTHY to obtain THAT WORLD (i.e. the world to come), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage. Neither can they die anymore: for they are equal to the angels; and are the children of God, being the CHILDREN OF THE RESURRECTION.

Why does all this matter? Because when the faithful Israelites of old are resurrected to become the “born again” nation together with believing Jews alive at the time that signals the end of the “times of the Gentiles”.

Meanwhile God is saving the “Gentile world”, one believer whether Jew or Gentile, at a time. Not under any covenant made with Israel nor under rituals required of her in the past. His message of free salvation through grace still delivered in our time through the Apostle Paul is to all men, but specially to Gentiles. As Paul said:

For I speak unto you Gentiles inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office (Romans 11:13).

And we would do well to magnify both God and the Apostle Paul for the message the Lord gave him to save us Gentiles who were not and are not included in God’s covenant plans for the chosen nation of Israel.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: johndaldworth42@gmail.com