Who is grafted into whom?

[JohnD]

Romans 11:16–28 (NASB95)

¹⁶If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.

¹⁷But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,

¹⁸do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.

¹⁹You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”

²⁰Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;

²¹for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.

²²Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

²³And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

²⁴For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

²⁵For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in;

²⁶and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”

²⁷“This is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”

²⁸From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers;

 

What is grafted into what?

 

The Church grafted into Israel?

 

Israel grafted into the Church?

 

Wouldn't that make the Gentiles the natural branches?

[Marilyn C]

Hi JohnDB,

 

You left out another possibility - that Israel & the Body of Christ are both partakers & supported by ....the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Blessings, Marilyn.

[JohnD]

That is a good point. But by (his human) nature Christ is Gentile or Jewish?

 

The overall purpose / point of the Olive Tree example is the spiritual outcome or distinction in the end. But it begins with the fleshly distinctions of Jew and Gentile (wild versus natural branches).  

 

For the "natural branches" of the text refers to the Jewish born people / their human nature which makes them "natural branches" does it not?

 

And would the point you made justify expunging everything Jewish from the natural replacing it with Gentile traditionalism?

[missmuffet]

Question: "What does it mean that the church has been grafted in Israel’s place?"

Answer: In Romans 11:11–24 Paul compares Israel to the natural branches of a cultivated olive tree and the Gentile believers to the branches of a wild olive tree. The natural branches (Israel) were broken off, and the wild branches (Gentiles) were grafted in (verse 17). The Gentiles, then, have been made partakers of the promises and inherit the blessings of God’s salvation.

It is important to understand how God called Israel to be His people and how they failed to fulfill that calling. As the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel were chosen by God to be a separate people, holy to the Lord. God’s design was for them to be a light to the Gentiles so that they, too, might know God (Genesis 18:17–19; Isaiah 42,49). Instead, the Israelites chased foreign gods and betrayed their calling (Ezekiel 23; Hosea 11). But God, who knew they would do this, had already promised to restore His kingdom to Israel after they rebelled and then eventually repented (Deuteronomy 30:1–10). So God sent His Son, preceded by a forerunner, to invite Israel to “repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2; 4:17).

However, when Jesus revealed Himself as the promised Davidic King who would restore Israel (Matthew 11—12;Acts 3:19–22), He was rejected by the Jews, exactly as Isaiah had prophesied (Isaiah 52—53). Jesus therefore called His disciples to fulfill Abraham’s commission to bless the nations (Genesis 12:2–3) by preaching the gospel of the Kingdom to all nations until the end of this age (Matthew 28:18–20). Paul thus preached the gospel of the Kingdom to the Jews and was repeatedly rejected (Acts 13—28); in consequence, Paul brought the good news to the Gentiles, who in turn became Abraham’s spiritual seed by faith and heirs of the promises to Abraham and his seed (Galatians 3—4). This is what Paul meant in Romans 11 by the Gentiles being “grafted” into the “olive tree” and nourished by the “root” (the promises to Abraham). The tree thus signifies the collective people of God; the “wild branches” grafted in are Gentile believers; the “natural branches” that are cut off are the Jews in unbelief. Jewish believers remain in the tree but are joined with Gentiles and “made” into a “new body,” the Church (Ephesians 2:11–22).

Paul anticipated a question that would surely arise among his Gentile readers: “I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall?” (Romans 11:1)—Gentile believers would be tempted to dismiss Israel because it appeared they would never recover. Even today, there are those who advocate supersessionism or replacement theology, which holds that the Church has completely replaced Israel and will inherit the promises to be fulfilled only in a spiritualsense. In other words, according to this view, ethnic Israel is forever excluded from the promises—the Jews will not literally inherit the Promised Land. What then would happen to Israel? What about the Old Testament prophecies that Israel as a nation would repent and be re-gathered to the land in the last days as a permanent possession (Deuteronomy 30:1–10)?

Romans 11 thus conclusively shows Gentile believers that God is not yet “done” with Israel, who has onlytemporarily lost the privilege of representing God as His people. Since “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (11:29), “all Israel will be saved” in order to fulfill God’s covenant with ethnic Israel (11:25–28), including the promise of land inheritance (Deuteronomy 30:1–10).

While the “natural branches” were cut off because Israel failed, God’s purposes are not complete until Israel is also grafted back into the people of God to share in the promises to Abraham and his seed. This brings full circle God’s larger redemptive plan (Romans 11:30–36) for both Jews and Gentiles as distinct populations within the people of God in the Davidic (or Millennial) Kingdom. Indeed, the prophets saw this Kingdom as the “final form” of the olive tree, so that Israel—reversing roles—would then bless the Gentiles, enabling them to join the people of God (seeZechariah 8:13, 20–23).

 

 

 

http://www.gotquestions.org/grafted-Israel.html

Edited November 5, 2015 by bopeep1909

[Marilyn C]

Hi JohnDB,

 

`...that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.` (Matt. 1: 20)

 

`..through these you may be partakers of the divine nature,...` (2 Peter 1: 4)

 

Marilyn.

[JohnD]

http://www.gotquestions.org/grafted-Israel.html

 

 

Summed up in three Bible passages:

 

Galatians 3:24–28 (NASB95)

²⁴Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

²⁵But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

²⁶For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

²⁷For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

 

Ephesians 2:12–22 (NASB95)

¹²remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,

¹⁵by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace,

¹⁶and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

¹⁷And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near;

¹⁸for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,

²⁰having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,

²¹in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,

²²in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

 

Galatians 6:13–16 (NASB95)

¹³For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.

¹⁴But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

¹⁵For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

¹⁶And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

[JohnD]

Hi JohnDB,

 

`...that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.` (Matt. 1: 20)

 

`..through these you may be partakers of the divine nature,...` (2 Peter 1: 4)

 

Marilyn.

 

Matthew 1:20? You lost me.

 

There is no doubt Jesus is God the Word incarnate (John 1:1, John 1:14). If that is what you are driving at.

 

Jesus is also human.

 

1 Timothy 2:5 (NASB95)

⁵For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

 

Philippians 2:6–11 (NASB95)

⁶who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

⁷but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

⁸Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

⁹For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 

Verse 6 in the Greek establishes his deity is unchanging even in his becoming also human.  Morphe Theos Huparchon (never ceasing to be God). So he is 100 %  God the Word and 100 % human (the last Adam see 1 Corinthians 15:45).

[Marilyn C]

Hi JohnDB,

 

Yes we know that Jesus was a man, but He did not have a sin nature as His father was not Joseph from Adam`s blood line. The blood in a baby comes from the father & is separate from the mother`s by a thin sheath. The `life` is in the blood, thus Jesus always had a divine nature. His lineage is taken from Mary & Joseph in the natural but in reality He was always from the Father.

 

Marilyn. 

[Marilyn C]

Hi JohnDB,

 

You said,

And would the point you made justify expunging everything Jewish from the natural replacing it with Gentile traditionalism?

 

I don`t think I ever said or indicated this.

 

Blessings, Marilyn.

[JohnD]

No, I lept ahead  to the conclusion of the points being made.