Which is certainly a major point of contention between dispensational and non-dispensational systems.
The nation/people of Israel will not have a separate means of salvation, it will have to repent and accept Jesus as the Messiah
Agree totally ... but a dispensationalist makes a distinction between individuals (I think you use the term "people" of Israel) and the nation of Israel. While individual Jews can receive Christ and become members of the church ... the OT talks about the entire nation of Israel coming to Christ. A dispensationalist sees this event, the conversion of the entire nation of Israel, occuring at the 2nd coming of Christ. Only then can we say the OT prophecies of the repentance of Israel and the restoration of the kingdom have been fulfilled.
The OT prophets that talk about the days when Israel will return to God and their land are specific to say that it is a remnant of Israel that will return to the LORD in faith in their Messiah, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior. When it says, “all of Israel” will be saved, it means all of those who believe will be saved—a remnant—not the whole nation of Israel.
Zechariah 12 talks about 2 parts being cut off and perishing, but a third being left in the land (of Israel). It seems that at the end 2/3 of the people of Isael will perish and 1/3 will be the remnant. The timing is when you speak of, during the events preceding and encompassing the time when the Messiah returns to set up His kingdom.
I am speaking from a view point of studying God’s Word from OT to NT, and taking it literally, that is, in a plain, normal sense, allowing for figurative language when it is obvious, not from a presupposed dispensational or covenant theology view point.
Until the times of the end, as Romans 1:16 says, the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Gentile).
Some reasons why I don’t think that Israel will be incorporated into “the church” at the end is because of God’s promises to Abraham, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah’s references to the end events, and Romans 9, 10, and 11, that all show that Israel will return to God and will come back to the land and to Jerusalem when The Branch (Jesus) comes to rule and reign there. Nations will come up to Jerusalem to be taught by God’s people, the believing Jewish remnant.
Jeremiah, for one, talks about how the nations, if they really learn the ways of His people...will be built up in the midst of His people—His people being literally Israel (Jer. 12:14ff). So, I believe the Bible teaches that the church and Israel are separate now and at the end, and that the remnant of Israel will come to the same Lord in the same way, by faith. Meanwhile, any person, Jew or Gentile is as Romans 1:16 states, saved by believing the gospel and a member of the body of Christ, the Church.