“And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.” -Romans 11:23–24
As Paul has already demonstrated by his own testimony, God is not finished with Israel. They are not hopeless. If they repent of their unbelief, they will be grafted in again. Such an miracle is not above God’s power. As an example, the Gentiles were unnaturally grafted into a cultivated olive tree, that is they belonged to a different tree, a wild tree, and God grafted them in without any trouble. How much more would the natural branches take to grafting if they were added back to the tree they belonged to by nature.
There are a few points of implication worth noting in Paul’s argument. First, the Gentiles are seen as unnatural branches because they are from a wild olive tree, which is contrasted with Israel who is seen as naturally belonging to the cultivated olive tree. The contrasted use of natural and unnatural, wild and cultivated, are meant to show the Gentiles as belonging to the class of unbelievers while Israel belongs to the class of believers who are recipients of the privileges of God’s grace.
Second, Paul does not imply, let alone ever state, that unbelieving Israel will be grafted back into the tree. Those who repent of their unbelief will find a place back in their natural tree, nourished by the cultivated root alongside the unnatural branches (Gentiles) who were grafted in because of their belief.
Finally, it is noteworthy that Paul says olive tree and does not say trees (in the plural). There is one tree in which all the faithful branches—natural and unnatural—receive the nourishment of the root of grace. Regardless of one’s origin, there is only one tree, One Lord, one baptism, one church to which all believers—Jew and Gentile alike—belong. The assembly of the redeemed of God is one.
Paul lays this out again, but more straightforward, in his letter to the Ephesians. And it’s worth reading carefully.
“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” -Ephesians 2:11–22
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