Is there any hope for the people of God who have turned a stubborn and stiff neck against Him? Paul emphatically says yes, but it is by grace and not works. As in the days of Elijah who appeals before God for judgment upon the rebellion of Israel, God maintains even among His own people a remnant who have not turned to worship the world. This Old Testament picture does not speak of those who had no knowledge of God who by His grace have come into possession of the saving graces of Christ. Rather this illustration highlights the preservation that God’s covenantal love provides against apostasy. Based within the Jewish context of God’s giving of the Law and prophets to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, Paul is pointing out that those who are the Lord’s are preserved from falling away while those who are not part of God’s elect are in fact hardened. Again, one must not lose sight of the fact that Paul is discussing how the universal saving nature of the gospel that has now gone out into the nations applies to God’s beloved people of Israel. Paul’s point is to demonstrate the sovereignty of God over all things pertaining to salvation and that no circumstance has gone beyond His notice or control. The rebellion of Israel in their sense of entitlement has not been outside of God’s ordination but is part of what God has purposed to reveal His divine activity. The inclusion of the Gentiles has not replaced all of those who are of the nation of Israel but stands as the demonstration that salvation is by God’s ordination and grace and not by human agency. Paul serves to prove this point as he gives an illustration of the grafting on of olive branches that are not by nature found on the cultivated olive tree. To understand the illustration, one must first recognize that God is the creator of the tree in the first place. It was the agency of man through the process of cultivation that a distinction between cultivated and wild olive trees has even come about. In this way, Paul pictures for the Jews that though they are a nation created by God just like the gentiles, they none-the-less have been “cultivated” by the Law. This is a necessary point to highlight so that one may not misunderstand Paul’s point here; salvation is a work of God. The olive tree, as a general concept, is God’s work of salvation; in some instances this salvation is expressed in the formality of the cultivated olive tree in others the wild olive tree. Here cultivation depicts the teaching and training of the Law. The wild olive tree is no less a creation of God but has not been subjected to the formality of instruction; this is gentile believers who have not been given the Law. As Paul’s illustration goes, some cultivated branches are cut off and other uncultivated branches are grafted in. By necessity, some branches must be removed so that others may take their place but it is important to note that some cultivated branches remain while some wild branches are never grafted in. Caution must be taken at this point to not focus too closely on the trees themselves and miss the greater process that is in play. It is short sighted to think that within any olive grove there is only one cultivated tree and one wild tree. In the process of olive production there are numerous trees of both types; so the focus is not the tree, they are only offered as examples of the two different types of persons involved in the salvation process. Paul’s point here is that the arrogance of the Jews, that is the hardness of their hearts through entitlement, has resulted in some being cut off. This has made way for those who would not be expected to be found on the cultivated olive tree to be grafted in. However, Paul offers a stern warning that the gentiles not think more highly of themselves than they ought for if God cut off the natural branches for unbelief, He certainly will cut of the unnatural, wild branches for the same reason. Paul’s discussion of the two olive trees serves to illustrate what he has been discussing ever since the beginning of chapter nine; God’s work of salvation is not dependent on or limited to just one group of people when gauged by ethnicity. Rather, God’s divine work of salvation is universal to all kinds of persons based on His regenerative work of faith and belief in the gospel. Why then this process at all?
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