From the Wild to the Cultivated (Romans 11:11-24)

Like the opening verses of this chapter, Paul once again uses a rhetorical question. "So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?" (v.11a).

Paul has already told us that Israel missed their calling. They held to a works righteousness, becoming blind to the truth of redemption. They tripped over their Messiah. He was a rock of offense and a stumbling block to His own people. Paul is exploring the reason for their stumbling, what was God's purpose and design of it? Did God want His people to fall and not be able to get up? Did He want them to fall totally? "By no means!" (v.11b).

As I wrote in the previous post, we should not conclude that God's purpose in the stumbling and failure of Israel was to be their permanent fall into destruction. This is what Paul is emphasizing here once again. "Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles," (v.11c). Later in verse 25, Paul will elaborate on this calling it a "mystery". This is something that Paul writes often about in his epistles. When we think of the word mystery, it usually involves the realm of the unknown; whether it be in science or narrative. There is a whole genre in fiction called mystery, the whodunit.

The New Testament understands this term "mystery" as referring to something that was at one time hidden but has now been revealed and made plain. The most important mystery the Apostle (Paul) grapples time and time again in his writing is this: "To them [the saints] God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:27).

The grand mystery so heavily veiled in the Old Testament is now made clear: the Gentiles are included in the people of God. Even though it was veiled in Old Testament history, it was not fully hidden. God made a covenant with Abraham in which Abraham would be blessed in order to be a blessing to all the nations of the world. In that promise was that, at some point, the non-Jews would participate in the blessedness of the covenant. This was not completely unknown that this was God's intention, but it was vague and in the shadows. The grand design of God, the mystery of the stumbling of Israel, is "to make Israel jealous." (v.11d).

The vast majority of believers today are of Gentile descent. We are the Gentiles who are now a part of the mystery that has been revealed. Salvation has come to us, and the means through which that salvation has come is the fall of the Jews. God has done it. He has worked through the disobedience of one group to bring a larger group into His household of faith. Paul then uses a comparison , a comparison that Jesus often used himself; not of bad and good or good and better. Jesus' comparisons were in the nature of "how much more", a phrase he used frequently.

In the parable of the unjust judge [Luke 18:1-8a], in which a widow seeks her justice from a judge that had no regard for man or God. The judge would not see her case, but in her persistence in her request he relented and for the sake of peace and quiet heard her case. He did not care for the woman, but he gave her a favorable outcome. Jesus said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily." (vv.6-8a).

Jesus' point is that if an ungodly judge will render a just verdict, how much more will God, who is just, vindicate His people who cry unto Him day and night? Paul uses the same device here as he says, "Now if their trespass means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!" (v.12). If God brings a good thing out of the failure of Israel, how much more blessedness will He bring through their restoration? "Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles..." (v.13a). Paul was Jewish and Christ called him to be a missionary and apostle to the Gentiles. He is not trying to magnify himself, but reminding his Roman audience that Christ chose him for the work, of which they were part of. "I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them." (vv.13b-14).

Paul articulates passion for his kinsmen, using the term jealousy. The Jews were hostile, bitter in their opposition to the Christian Church, but Paul hopes that as glory of the church is continually made manifest, his kinsmen will see the greatness of the Gospel. If that happens, his kinsmen will be jealous rather than angry and will try to pursue what believers enjoy.

Paul wants to break through those barriers. He wants to cut through the hostility and resistance by making the Jews jealous of what God has given to us. "For if their rejection means reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" (v.15). Some commentators say that Paul is giving an eschatological hint, that the final sign of Christ coming and consummation of His kingdom will be the conversion of Israel. Yet, there could be another image that Paul is invoking to his audience. "What will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" This image is tied to the Old Testament where we find Ezekiel's vision of the valley of the dry bones: Ezekiel 37:1-2 ...

"The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the spirit of the LORD and set me down int he middle of the valley; it was full of dry bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many of the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry."

The bones laid out across an arid valley, covering the surface to the point of covering the ground. In the arid environment they had been dried to a state of hopeless death. God asked Ezekiel, "son of man, can these dry bones live?" (v.3). When God's word came over the valley of dry bones, suddenly there was a stirring and the bones began to rattle. Muscle, sinew, and flesh covered the bones and they were brought to life. From death in the valley came life, and that is the image that Paul has in view here when he declares that if rejection brings salvation, the acceptance will bring so much more.

Paul then changes metaphors: "If the dough offered as first-fruits is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches." (v.16). Pauls says first-fruits, lumps, and roots. First-fruits refers to offerings that were brought into the temple in the Old Testament. They were the initial blossoming, the best of the fruit, but the whole crop was consecrated as scared unto the Lord. The lump is an analogy for bread leaven. A small amount of leaven causes a whole loaf of bread to rise. When the leavening agent was made sacred to God, holy and set apart, so too was the whole loaf.

Paul also uses a tree metaphor: "If the root is holy, so are the branches." The branches are not holy on their own, it is their connection to the root that makes them sacred. He continues the tree analogy: "But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches." (vv.17-18a). The broken branches are the disobedient, apostate Jews, the ones who stumbled and were cut off from the promises of God and thrown into the fire, just as Jesus said.

One of the most important products in all of Palestine was the olive tree and its oil. The olive tree is a durable tree too, its roots grow deep, and the tree lives for three or four hundred years. The Mount of Olives separates the village of Bethany from Jerusalem. Jesus went to Gethsemane often to pray, it was where he was the night he was betrayed and arrested. His prayer was in agony, Gethsemane means "olive press", Jesus was in an olive tree grove and was sweating blood as he was being pressed with the weight of what he was sent to accomplish.

One of the many tragedies in 70 A.D. was also the felling of those trees as during the Roman siege, the Roman soldiers cut every tree down and burned them to stay warm. Yet the symbol of strength and durability to the Jew was the olive tree. If an olive tree grew wild and was not cultivated like the ones on the Mount of Olives, they would bear no fruit. They were worthless, giant weeds, which is how Paul describes us: "Some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them."

God cut off the branches of the precious, durable, valuable olive tree and made a graft. The graft He put on the tree was taken from wild, worthless olive trees that could not be commended before God. "You... now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree." They were given access to the sap, the nutrients. They were not valuable and became valuable from the root of the cultivated olive tree. Salvation is of the Jews, and we must not forget that.

It should be to the detriment of anti-semitism among Christian people. "Do not be arrogant toward the branches." (v.18b). We must remember our lives before our conversion and remember the grace of God in bringing us where we are. "Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear." (vv.19-20).

Sometimes Christians read this text and puff out their chests and boastfully discount the Jews; Paul warns us against that mentality. Just as apostasy polluted Israel, it can pollute us. We have seen the corruption of mainline churches that have become monuments of unbelief and apostasy. Just as God cuts off the branches of Israel, He will cut off the unproductive Gentile branches. "For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off." (vv.21-22). We are to think of the kindness [other translations have goodness] of God, yet while we are doing that, we consider the severity of God. Our God is an all-consuming fire, and when His judgement comes, it is severe.

The principle of cutting is rooted in the Old Testament faith. When covenants were made in the Old Testament, they were cut. Cutting rites were associated with the most important covenants of the Old Testament. The sign of the Old Testament covenant was circumcision.

It may seem crude when we think about it, but cutting the foreskin of the Jewish male children had a twofold symbolic significance. First, they were cut to symbolize being cut out of the world, separated from the rest of lost humanity and consecrated to God through this covenant. Second, circumcision signified that failure to keep the terms of the covenant meant being cut off from God's blessing. That negative sanction was contained in the symbol that every Jewish boy carried on his body. The worst thing to befall a human being is being cut off from God.

When we join a church, we agree to submit to its discipline. If we become in gross sin or public scandal, the church is responsible to call us to account and plead with us to repent. If we refuse to repent, we are first suspended from the sacraments in hope that it will make us jealous to get back into the safety of the fold. If we persist in sin and remain unrepentant, the final punishment is excommunication, meaning that the church of Jesus Christ turns us over to Satan by cutting us out of its fellowship. We practice excommunication because Jesus commanded us to do so.

Many do not take church discipline seriously, but Jesus was speaking about the church when He said, "Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 18:18). We take that seriously.