In our last discussion, Paul had turned his attention to the Gentiles and invited them to consider and not lose sight of the mystery of their inclusion. He painted the picture of a cultivated olive tree, pruned by the Gardener who also grafted in branches that didn’t belong — branches from a wild olive tree! These branches represented the Gentiles who had been included in the covenant community of God’s family. Paul had asked his Gentile readers to keep themselves from arrogance, thinking that the story was all about them and forgetting that it was they who had been scandalously included on the basis of faith.
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
Paul asks the Gentiles to keep in mind the kindness and sternness of God. The kindness of God is seen in His radical inclusion and faithful mercy shown to all people, and He wishes to hold a stern standard to His own people, a kingdom of priests, who represent Him to the world around them. Having already warned them that they too would face the same dangers of the pruning process, he now reminds them again. But this time, Paul couples it with a positive observation: If God would not hesitate to prune the grafted branches as well as the natural, it only stands to reason that this same God would love to graft the natural branches back in. Realizing that this metaphor breaks down (what kinds of branches bear fruit after being chopped off?!), Paul insists that their repentance is still a good possibility.
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
Again, Paul calls this inclusion of the Gentiles a “mystery.” For the Jewish people, this idea is a scandal; it is hard to accept and even Paul says he doesn’t understand it in its fullness. But Paul reiterates: he wants to make this known so the Gentiles won’t become conceited. This struggle and stumbling on Israel’s part has taken place so they (the Gentiles) could be adopted into the family of God.
And again, in some of the older translations we have an issue that has led to much confusion and the horrible spread of “replacement theology.” Replacement Theology espouses the idea that God abandoned Israel as the chosen people of covenant and began working with the “Church” in the New Testament. It encourages the idea that God started a “new thing” and now all people are invited into that new thing.
Please note, this is clearly not what Paul is arguing. Paul did not say God planted a new tree. Paul said God pruned the original, cultivated tree, is constantly tending it and giving it life, and decided to graft into that same original tree some wild olive tree branches. Paul states this more than once so the Gentiles would understand this clearly and not become conceited or arrogant. Replacement Theology is the fulfillment of that conceited arrogance Paul warned against.
In some older translations, it read: “until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved.” This rendering is not only inaccurate to the Greek, but it reads incorrectly in the English, giving the impression there is a ‘new Israel’ being saved through the Gentiles. As the translation we saw earlier renders appropriately, the passage should read “in this way (or in this manner) all Israel will be saved,” preserving a reading that maintains God’s original story, original plan, original people, and original promises — let alone Paul’s clear argument.
The inclusion of the Gentiles is intended to provoke God’s people to repentance, remembering their story and mission in the world. In this manner, all of God’s people will find salvation.
And if there were any doubt about the above argument, they should be put to rest after a reading of Paul’s next statement.
As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Indeed this God is out to redeem all nations. His promises, His gifts, and His call are irrevocable, and He has incredible ways of using our brokenness and mistakes to help bring redemption to others — if we will only be humble enough to remember where we come from. I find Paul’s doxology at the end of chapter eleven to be a fitting conclusion to our discussion today:
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
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