Dr. Jason Staples on "All Israel Will Be Saved"

Part 1: Deuteronomy 30 and Romans 10

Staples begins with Deuteronomy 29:4. Israel in the wilderness lacked "a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear." Deuteronomy 30 then promises that God himself will one day "circumcise their hearts" so they can love him fully and live. Staples argues that the line usually translated "this command is not too hard for you" should be read in the future tense: once the heart is changed, it will not be too hard.

He reads Sinai as a wedding. In Exodus 19 the people were meant to go up the mountain, but they were afraid and sent Moses instead. Moses became their go-between, and the written law followed. Staples' broader principle is that laws come after disobedience, the way speed limits exist because people drive too fast.

He defines Paul's word pistis as "fidelity," meaning loyalty within a relationship, rather than mental belief. He illustrates it with the opening scene of The Godfather: God does not want payment, he wants allegiance. Some Jewish teachers held that Israel had to keep the Torah correctly first and the Messiah would then come. Paul, in Staples' reading, argues the reverse: God acts first by changing hearts, and obedience follows.

Staples notes that the Torah ends by saying no prophet like Moses had yet "arisen." The Greek word is the same one used for resurrection. Jesus is presented as the prophet like Moses who rose. At Shavuot (Pentecost), the holiday that remembers the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the fire comes down to the people because they would not go up to it.

Part 2: Romans 11 and the Restoration of All Israel

The second talk asks why non-Israelites are receiving promises made to Israel. Staples explains two images:

• The dough and first fruits:

   holiness can spread by contact. When something holy is mixed with something common, the whole batch becomes holy.

• The olive tree:

   the tree is holy because it is planted in God's ground, so branches grafted into it become holy too.

He then retraces Israel's history. The northern kingdom, Israel, was led by Ephraim, and its tribes were not Jews, since "Jew" comes from Judah. When Assyria scattered them, they assimilated within a few generations, as immigrant families do. Hosea told them, "You are not my people." Paul quotes Hosea's promise that "not my people" will again be called "my people" and applies it to Gentiles. Staples argues this is deliberate: the lost northern Israelites had become Gentiles.

His key text is Genesis 48:19. Jacob says Ephraim's descendants will become "the fullness of the nations." Paul echoes that phrase in Romans 11:25–26: a partial hardening has come on Israel "until the fullness of the nations has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved." For Staples, Gentiles coming in is how the scattered tribes are restored. They do not replace Israel. They are absorbed into it, like immigrants becoming citizens. Israel "died" among the nations, as Deuteronomy warned, and is being raised like the dry bones of Ezekiel 37, bringing the nations along with it.

Staples stresses that this is not a search for people with Israelite ancestry. Because the tribes were scattered among the nations, the door has been opened to all nations.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/live/wNSBpTxQre4?si=2l5zyD9vJzSMeW7J