Romans 11:24, commentary and pictures

The good olive tree is Christ Himself and His true people and church sharing His root and richness, the wild branches cut out by nature are the Gentiles outside God's people, and the natural branches are the Jews, so grafting Gentiles in is contrary to nature. A person is grafted in when he repents, believes the gospel, and receives Christ as Saviour, being joined to Christ and admitted to the true church to share its life. Israel as a nation was broken off from its covenant place through unbelief and rejection of Christ, yet God is able to graft the Jews in again if they do not remain in unbelief but accept Christ, and since Gentiles were grafted contrary to nature this regrafting into their own tree will happen much more readily. Believing Gentiles who are grafted in partake of the root and fatness and covenant blessings given to Abraham as a new Israel joined to the old tree rather than a separate people, and they stand only by faith so they must not boast against the branches or despise the Jews but fear and continue in God's goodness lest they also be cut off. Branches grafted into the parent stock receive its nourishment and must bear fruit like that stock in character, words and actions, which is a living union with Christ kept by self-renunciation, faith and obedience, and there is a great work to give the Jews everywhere every opportunity to come to the light and be grafted in again.

Meaning of Olive Tree

The good olive tree is Christ Jesus Himself, the true stock into whom branches are grafted. He is the foundation and chief cornerstone of the church and the parent vine stock in whom all branches center, not Peter and not ministers alone but all believers. The good olive tree is also the remnant in Israel who remained true to God, the true people of God and His church, now sharing its root and richness. Gentiles once outside God's people were joined to that true people, while the seed of Israel separated through unbelief may be grafted back into their own olive tree, which is Christ, when they leave unbelief and accept Christ. Since Gentiles as branches of the wild olive were cut out and grafted contrary to nature into the good olive, it is much more fitting and certain for Israel to be restored to its own tree, for God is able to graft them in again.

The wild branches cut out by nature are the Gentiles, and the natural branches are the Jews, Israel as a nation. Gentiles are branches cut out of a wild olive tree by nature and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree to partake of its root and fatness. To graft wild branches into a cultivated tree is contrary to nature, yet Gentile believers were so grafted and made one with the original branches, sharing the covenant blessings given to Abraham. The Jews are the natural branches of their own olive tree who were broken off because of unbelief and disobedience. If branches from a wild olive can be grafted into a cultivated tree, the natural branches can much more readily be grafted back into their own tree.

Grafting takes place when a person repents, believes the gospel proclaimed by God's servants, and receives Christ as Saviour. By that conversion both Jews and Gentiles are admitted to the true church and joined to Christ the living vine stock. Those so joined share the life that nourishes the vine, for Christ has power to engraft the penitent into the vine stock and invigorate that life with the life of the Eternal One. Those joined to Christ by faith receive a changed nature, receive His life, are pruned to bear fruit, receive peace with God and a sanctified conscience, dwell together in peace and love and unity because of oneness with Christ, are renewed in love to God in and through Jesus Christ, and are transformed in character and temper by His Spirit to become partakers of the divine nature in disposition, words, and works, bearing fruit in good works. The Jewish nation as a fruitless branch is separated from Him, while Israelites cut away because of impenitence when Christ was revealed in human likeness are again given the privilege of being engrafted into the church of Christ.

The vine that Israel despised, cast out, bruised, and trampled, believing it destroyed, was removed and replanted by the divine Husbandman beyond human reach. Its stock was therefore protected, while its branches remained accessible so that grafts could still be joined to it. In this way new branches could be joined to the protected stock.

The verse belongs to the mystery of the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles. That mystery reveals the deep things of God, which finite minds comprehend very little and few try to ascertain. The truth there is beautiful and open for all to understand, and at the same time it is deep doctrine that requires deep thought to understand. Like all Scripture it is fully inspired, and it must not be misinterpreted, misapplied, or weakened as lightly inspired, nor exalted above or taken away from other portions of God's Word.

Israel Broken Off and Restored

Israel as the natural branches was broken off and cut away from its covenant place because of unbelief. This breaking off came through disobedience and through impenitence when Christ was revealed in human likeness, through rejection of Christ and refusal of His love and counsel. As a nation Israel was in this way divorced from God and lost connection with Him and with His purpose.

Blindness in part happened to Israel only until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. Then all Israel shall be saved when the Deliverer comes to take away ungodliness from Jacob, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. God is able to graft the Jews in again if they do not remain in unbelief. That regrafting takes place when they leave unbelief and accept Christ, and since Gentile branches were cut out of what was wild by nature and grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, this restoration of Israel into their own olive tree will happen much more readily and fittingly. Their natural place among God's people makes that restoration possible.

Their receiving again will be as life from the dead, and as the riches and fullness of the world. For among the Jews the Lord has mighty men who will be converted, come to the light, accept present truth, and proclaim the immutability and unchanging law of God with wonderful power. God is abundantly able to transform Jew and Gentile alike to grant every believer in Christ the blessings promised to Israel.

Gentiles Grafted Into Israel

Gentile believers cut from the wild olive are grafted contrary to nature into the good olive tree to partake of its root and fatness. They are made one with the original branches and share the covenant blessings given to Abraham. The good tree into which they come is the remnant in Israel who remained true to God.

Believing Gentiles who gladly receive the gospel with intelligent faith become a new Israel grafted into the old olive tree. They join Israel in the community of faith rather than forming a people separate from God's continuing work. God's individual, personal Israel, brought out step by step from the world onto the platform of Bible truth under His leading, has become grafted into the tame olive tree, which is Christ Jesus, and will bear fruit of that genuine tree, giving ground for clear and decided confidence that He is their leader still and that He who keeps Israel keeps them with continual watchcare and providence embracing all their ways. This gathering was foretold by Hosea, that people once called not my people would be called God's children.

Jewish unbelief and malice do not turn aside God's purpose to bring the Gentiles into His people. That purpose stands though Jews reject the word in unbelief, malice, bigotry, blindness of mind and hardness of heart, and though they exclude the apostles. Christ prepared for this grafting during His life by seeking to lead the Jews out of exclusiveness through direct work outside acknowledged Israel, as with the centurion and the Syrophoenician woman. It continued as the apostles turned from rejecting Jews to rejoicing Gentiles who received the gospel gladly, rejoiced that Christ recognizes them as children of God, and glorified God for the light of an intelligent faith, so that when synagogues were closed against the apostles the word was preached in private houses and in Gentile public buildings. Because believers become the Israel of God through being grafted into the olive tree, the Sabbath sanctified and blessed by God as a sign and perpetual covenant between Him and Israel throughout their generations remains to be observed by them forever as a memorial of His creating heaven and earth in six days and resting on the seventh day.

Humility Unity and Fruit

Gentiles grafted contrary to nature into the good tree stand only by faith and must not boast against the branches, be highminded, be wise in their own conceits, or despise the Jews, but must fear and continue in God's goodness. God did not spare the natural branches broken off through unbelief and disobedience, and He will not spare boastful Gentiles but will cut them off, showing goodness toward those who continue and severity toward those who fell. The Jews are the natural branches of their own olive tree, and Gentiles cut from the wild olive by nature partake of the root and fatness only as made one with the original branches in the covenant blessings given to Abraham.

Branches grafted into the parent stock receive nourishment from it and must bear fruit exactly like that stock, revealing in words and actions at all times what the truth is doing for them. Holding the truth in righteousness is giving evidence of partaking of that nourishment, which requires the Spirit of Christ, for only then can the branch truly represent the preciousness of the vine. Those who claim to be children of God, especially messengers sent with the word of life to save the perishing, must put away all that is harsh and coarse and rough in character and express God's goodness, mercy, compassion, tenderness and lovingkindness in deportment and character in harmony with divine truth. The company joined shapes the fruit of character, and those who hold the truth are to show that branches not yet enlightened, worked with by the Lord until convicted truth is rejected, receive that nourishment and bear its like fruit.

Receiving the Word without leaving a wild, untransformed nature produces only wild olives. When the Word as seed is grafted onto a wild olive, or false human theories take the place of truth, the fruit is wild and opposite to that borne by branches abiding in the vine, bringing centuries of darkness and ignorance. That bitter, unpalatable fruit is a hard, unsympathetic, selfish, unchristlike character in marriage and family life, and bearing it brings bitterness to the bearer himself. Merely joining truth to a natural, unrenewed character leaves natural and inherited tendencies in control, and without faith that works through love and purifies the soul the person bears fruit leading to death, for genuine spiritual life requires the truth to shape the character in living connection with God.

All as individuals are to be grafted into one parent stock, which is Jesus Christ Himself as foundation and chief cornerstone and parent vine stock in whom all branches center, with unity in diversity. No person is to sink individuality in another, for God forms people differently and a life consecrated to His service is developed and beautified in its individuality, with abundant room for all in harmonious diversity to act the part assigned them under His direction rather than be shaped into another's likeness. Believers and ministers, including both broken branches gathered out of the world in the last days and Gentiles admitted to the true church through the gospel by repentance and receiving Christ as Saviour, must not stand apart as independent branches but receive earnest care with no slackness and work together. Ministers and teachers who have received the light God has given on health reform for these last days contradict that common grafting if they work away from that light and apart from one another; they must gather up its precious rays, place themselves on the right side of the question, and go forth together to give that light to others and to the churches, for preparing the way for the Lord to work requires heeding the light and advancing with it in united labor.

Mission to the Jews

Romans 11:24 means there is a great work to be done for the Jewish people to bring about their grafting, for the seed of Israel as the natural branches will be grafted back into their own olive tree, which is Christ Jesus the true stock, when they leave unbelief and accept Christ, and since Gentiles as branches of the wild olive were cut out and grafted contrary to nature into the good olive, it is much more fitting for Israel to be restored to its own tree. Jews everywhere are to be given every opportunity to come to the light and accept present truth, and many among them will come to the light and proclaim the immutability of God's law with wonderful power, for among them are mighty men who will proclaim the truth with power, so Gentile believers must not despise the Jews. This work for the Jews must not be ignored but must be treated with special wisdom, and God's people must receive the wisdom of God and in all wisdom and righteousness clear the King's highway to give the Jews every opportunity of coming to the light.

A refuge and home is to be provided for Jews who accept Christ and are cut off from their people because they accept Him, where they can be sheltered and learn how to work for their own people and be trained there to work for them. This grafting takes place through work in behalf of the Jewish people carried on by men of their own nationality with the help of fellow laborers, a work that is to be given every encouragement and all possible encouragement and not bound about with many forbiddings. The Lord works through men of different nationalities to labor for their fellow countrymen, and this includes the efforts of Brother Gilbert and his fellow laborers.

If Jews receive Christ as their Saviour, there is power in the gospel to graft them in again into their own tree, for the Jewish nation was broken off so that Gentiles might be grafted in, and Jews can be grafted back. They are children of the heavenly birth, so Gentiles must be interested in their salvation, make special efforts for the Jewish race, and are responsible to proclaim the gospel to them. Work for the Jewish people may help many of Israel's descendants be joined to Christ Jesus as the true stock of the good olive tree.

Those who have not yet received the light of truth are also described as natural branches grafted into the good olive tree. The Lord is working with them and does not withdraw His grace until they are convicted of the truth and reject the evidence that was given to enlighten them. Those who hold the truth are to show by their words and actions at all times that these branches receive nourishment from the parent stock and bear fruit exactly like it.

Personal Union with Christ

Like a dry branch grafted into a living tree, one who is by nature at enmity with Christ may be joined to Him and become a living branch of the True Vine. That union is entered through self-renunciation, faith, and obedience, so that Christ's fruit is then borne in the follower. It begins when the heart renounces self and resists temptation, and it is kept by continual, earnest effort in complete dependence, with Christ guarding the bond while the believer resists sin. Each branch draws its life directly from Christ and not from another branch.

God grafts a person from a wild olive into a good olive when, though born of a wicked father and surrounded by temptation and wickedness with few right counselors, he refuses to repeat his father's sin. He instead determines to climb upward rather than descend to sin and degradation, walking in the right way and turning not aside to the right hand or to the left. That obedient course makes it possible for God to graft him, giving him grace to do what is right in the Lord's sight and making him a chosen vessel. Those who claim to be children of God, especially messengers sent with the word of life to save the perishing, must in this way be grafted into Christ the living vine. They put away all that is harsh and coarse and rough in character, and express God's goodness, mercy, compassion, tenderness, and lovingkindness in words, deportment, and character in harmony with divine truth, for grafted branches must bear the same quality of fruit as the vine bears and only then truly represent the preciousness of the vine.

The verse belongs to the great privileges given to understand and know God's will. It calls for increase in faith and righteousness and for growing up in Christ the living Head. It leads into praise of the depth of the riches of God's wisdom and knowledge, whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out. It leads also into presenting the body a living sacrifice and being transformed by the renewing of the mind to prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, with every member doing his fitted part in the church.