Wild Olive Tree

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Eleven
THE WILD OLIVE TREE

Scripture Reading: verses 13-21

FOR I SPEAK TO YOU GENTILES, INASMUCH AS I AM THE APOSTLE OF THE GENTILES, I MAGNIFY MINE OFFICE: IF BY ANY MEANS I MAY PROVOKE TO EMULATION THEM WHICH ARE MY FLESH, AND MIGHT SAVE SOME OF THEM. FOR IF THE CASTING AWAY OF THEM BE THE RECONCILING OF THE WORLD, WHAT SHALL THE RECEIVING OF THEM BE, BUT LIFE FROM THE DEAD? FOR IF THE FIRSTFRUIT BE HOLY, THE LUMP IS ALSO HOLY: AND IF THE ROOT BE HOLY, SO ARE THE BRANCHES. AND IF SOME OF THE BRANCHES BE BROKEN OFF, AND THOU, BEING A WILD OLIVE TREE, WERT GRAFFED IN AMONG THEM, AND WITH THEM PARTAKEST OF THE ROOT AND FATNESS OF THE OLIVE TREE; BOOST NOT AGAINST THE BRANCHES. BUT IF THOU BOOST, THOU BEAREST NOT THE ROOT, BUT THE ROOT THEE. THOU WILT SAY THEN, THE BRANCHES WERE BROKEN OFF, THAT I MIGHT BE GRAFFED IN. WELL; BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF THEY WERE BROKEN OFF, AND THOU STANDEST BY FAITH. BE NOT HIGHMINDED, BUT FEAR: FOR IF GOD SPARED NOT THE NATURAL BRANCHES, TAKE HEED LEST HE ALSO SPARE NOT THEE.

As attorney for the defense, Paul now presents an intricate argument in this courtroom drama addressed directly to the Gentiles. It sets in juxtaposition the national status of Jew and Gentile. Paul indicates that Israel’s fall from their national place of privilege before God has meant enrichment of the Gentile world, yet, at the same time he looks forward to the time when Israel will again be in her fulness. The argument in this passage is that if their diminishing brought riches to the Gentiles, how much more their fulness. Paul is careful to present before the court that there is no room for boasting either on the part of the Jew or Gentile.

All of these dealings find their origin in the rich grace of God’s heart. It recalls the blessing pronounced on the head of Joseph. “Joseph is a fruitful bough planted by a well whose branches run over the wall.” In the Lord Jesus Christ we have the fountainhead of divine grace, and He is the fruitful bough, whose luxuriant branches, laden with fruit, reach over the wall of partition that at one time separated Jew and Gentile. He brings divine blessing into the realm of darkness where Gentiles sat in the shadow of death. However, there is no room for boasting on the part of either one. So Paul asks in verse 15, “If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”

Paul now comes back to the important subject that Gentiles must not boast because they have come into the spiritual benefits which have directly accrued from the setting aside of Israel. He says,

If some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

Everything depends on the root of a tree.¹ That is what Paul means in the sixteenth verse by saying, “If the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches.” Look at an apple tree in late summer. It is laden with the firstfruits of large rosy apples. If the firstfruits are holy, that is, if there is no disease or leanness but only large luscious fruit, then one may be sure the entire lump, the whole of the tree, is in good shape. On the same line of argument, if the branches are luxuriant with foliage and laden with fruit, one may depend on the root’s of the tree doing its work in an efficient manner. So there is no room for boasting. God has been pleased to take away some of the branches of the tree, namely that part of Israel that has refused His loving-kindness, and He has grafted the Gentiles into this wonderful tree of His own promise. As Gentiles, we are getting the benefit, not of our own inheritance or of anything we have done, but by drawing sustenance from the root itself – God’s rich grace. So verse 19:

Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.² Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.³

Again we must revert to the picture presented in the blessing of Joseph. He is the tree planted by the well whose branches run over the wall. Everything depends on the tree, and the tree is the antitype of Joseph, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a wonderful New Testament picture of this in the fourth chapter of John where the Lord Jesus meets the woman at the well.

The Lord there is the antitype of Joseph. He is a fruitful bough planted by a well, and His branches have literally run over from Judea down to the land of Samaria, where a poor sinful woman becomes the recipient of rich divine grace. However, everything depends on the fruitful bough. That woman had nothing of her own, nothing but a disgraceful past, an unhappy present, and a black future. Like Joseph, the Lord Jesus Christ (revealer of secrets and the Savior of the world), put a wellspring in her heart that sprang up unto eternal life.

Everything depended on the Lord. So it is in the economy of divine grace, whether in relation to Israel nationally or to the Gentiles, and that narrows itself down to the individual, to us. Everything depends on the Lord Jesus. We who are Gentiles are a wild olive tree. We must be grafted into the real olive who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. We draw from Him eternal sustenance, salvation, life, peace, joy. There is no room for boasting here. If we do boast, Paul cautions us to fear, for just as God cast off the unfruitful branches of Israel, so He will cast off, i.e., “spare not,”4 those who are not real in their hearts; those who make a profession of being Christians without bearing fruit.

Footnotes:
¹ Salvation had come to the Gentiles through the Jews, Jesus Himself having pointedly declared that “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Our Lord was Jewish, as were the apostles and practically all the original Christians. Judaism was the matrix in which had been formed the priceless jewel of Christianity, and no full understanding of Christianity is possible without knowledge of its Jewish origins. That the pagan-bred, low cultured Gentile, reeking with the stink of Bacchus and Aphrodite upon him, through his conceit at having been accepted as a child of God, should already have begun to manifest an attitude of superiority and disdain for the Jews, is a consideration demanded by Paul’s introduction of these warnings here. What a pity they were not heeded, except, possibly, for a little while. The Gentile should have recognized that his blessings were of the grace of God and not of any merit on his part, but the general failure of people of all ages to comprehend this, and the specific failure of the Gentiles to grasp it, a failure exactly like that of the Jews, were doubtless the underlying reason why Paul diligently strove in Romans to prove the absolute unworthiness of all people, and to establish the golden premise that salvation is of grace through an obedient faith, as positively distinguished from all human merit. Paul’s awareness of the encroaching attitude of superiority in Gentile Christians must have produced emotions similar to those of a mother, whose entire family were ruined through alcoholic debauchery, beholding the start of the alcoholic habit in her only remaining son. In just a moment Paul would formally pronounce a doom upon Israel that should not be lifted for two millenniums. What must have been his thoughts as he contemplated the same godless self-righteousness which had destroyed fleshly Israel rearing its viperous head in the church of the living God? Alas, the Gentile Christian, proud and boastful of his hope of heaven, fell into the trap of supposing that he deserved it, whereas the truth was that he deserved it even less than the Jew whom he came to despise, disdainfully ignoring the truth that neither he nor the Jew could ever be saved except upon the basis of God’s unmerited love and favor. The Gentile’s wickedness in this regard produced the Medieval Church with its apparatus of inquisition and its engines of torture.
² This was the Gentile’s way of saying, “God prefers me to the Jews; he broke them off and put me in their place.” Oddly enough, that is exactly what some would make Paul say in Romans 11:17; but the Gentile boast was an arrogant lie, as proved by Paul’s reply. While admitting that branches were broken off (Rom. 11:20), the apostle, refused to admit that any preference was involved.
³ How instructive. Admitting, of course, that branches had been broken off, as the Gentile indicated in his boasting, Paul would not emphasize the fact that God broke them off, but shifted the emphasis to the fact that it was Israel?s unbelief which had been the provocative cause. ?And thou standest by faith? ... means that the Gentile had not been accepted in place of anyone, and that it was not his merit at all, but God?s grace that enabled him to stand. The standing of the Gentile in the church of God was totally without reference to anything that Israel did or did not do, and was and is exactly the same as it would have been if Israel did not exist. The Gentile?s place in the church was due to the unmerited favor of God, and came to him following his faith and obedience of the Gospel, but, even so, being absolutely undeserving of so great salvation. ?Be not highminded, but fear? ... is an eloquent warning, founded upon the long history of Israel as God?s covenant people, who, at last, had forfeited it all through unbelief; and the argument is that ?If it could happen to them, it could happen to you.? Back of this lies the divine principle that ?God is no respecter of persons? (Acts 10:34). 4 In the event that Gentiles should manifest the same qualities of unbelief and obduracy which marred the life of fleshly Israel, the consequences for them will be the same, there being here another hint of the superiority of the Jews, as represented in the degree of preference pertaining to the natural branch over the wild branch. This verse shouts the conditional nature of God?s favor. Far from there being any such thing as an everlasting decree that this or that shall happen, people are endowed with freedom of the will to act as they choose to act; and the immutable election is to the effect that whichever way they act will determine their destiny. This verse shows that exactly the same principles of God?s judgment are applied to Jews and Gentiles alike with impeccable impartiality. It is God?s intrinsic righteousness, the basic theme of Romans, which required Paul to spell out the immutable quality of the eternal justice of the Creator, as in this passage.