https://youtu.be/c4y_wBKBfX0

“Therefore Consider the Olive Tree”

Romans 11:11-24

11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their [a]fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their [b]fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! 13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? 16 For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. 17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and [c]fatness of the olive tree, 18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” 20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. 22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, [d]goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

Here begins a new section of the discussion, lasting to the end of the chapter. Paul has shown that the rejection of Israel was never total; he now declares that it is not final. A time is to come when a remnant of Israel shall believe, and be restored to the Church.  God has reserved this remnant according to His promise. The gospel could not be preached to the Gentiles until it had first been offered to and rejected by the Jews. Their rejection opened the door for the rest of the world.

Paul uses the illustration taken from the practice of those who ingraft trees. The useless branches, or those which bear poor fruit, are cut off, and a better kind inserted.

The olive-tree was sometimes cultivated, and that cultivation was necessary in order to render it fruitful. The cultivated olive-tree is "of a moderate height, its trunk knotty, its bark smooth and ash-colored, its wood is solid and yellowish, the leaves are oblong, and almost like those of the willow, of a green color. The wild olive is smaller in all its parts." The wild olive tree was unfruitful, or its fruit very imperfect and useless. The ancient writers explain this word by "unfruitful, barren." This was used, therefore, as the emblem of unfruitfulness and barrenness, while the cultivated olive produced much fruit. The meaning here is, that the Gentiles had been like the wild olive tree, unfruitful; that they had grown up in the wild and according to their sin nature. The Jews had been like a cultivated olive tree, long under the training and blessing of God.

The process of grafting consists in inserting a young shoot into another tree. To do this, a useless limb is removed; and the ingrafted limb produces fruit according to its new nature or kind, and not according to the tree in which it is inserted. In this way a tree which bears no fruit, or whose branches are decaying, may be recovered, and become valuable.