The Olive Tree Metaphor Warning
Romans 11:11-18 · Roger Henderson · Dec 15, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 103
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261937373465

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So I've labeled this, actually this is from Merriman, this section, these verses, called the Olive Tree Metaphor Warning. So this is an interesting section. Actually, Mike's going to get to do even more to it with the olive tree. Actually, I learned so much about the olive tree this week. It really is, it occurs 44 times, some part of the olive tree in scripture, starting with Genesis to Revelation. Pretty interesting.

We'll see that as we go through here. Okay, so this outline I've used in the past. So basically we started back in verse 1, God has not permanently cast away Israel. Actually that should say through 18, the typo there. It should say 1 through 18. So 2 through 4 here are examples. Paul gives his own conversion as an example that God hasn't cast away Israel. He talks about Elijah in the 7,000. And then he talks about the permanent, the current in his, Paul's day, the remnant of Jews. Then he defines, we talked about that a lot, about the election of grace. Wonderful class there. Then he talked about in 7 through 10 that national Israel is not, is judicially hardened.

I kind of picked out just kind of the central points of some of these verses. Salvation has come to the Gentiles in 11 and 12. And then Paul wants to move his countrymen to jealousy so they'll be saved. And then today's topic is the olive tree metaphor warning. So let's look at, so here's some, I'll pick some verses out here and just try to, from what Mike taught in the previous weeks. So let's just read 11.11 again.

I say then, did they not stumble so as to fall, did they? may it never be, but by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous. So kind of the takeaway there is the blessing of salvation has come to the Gentiles as a result of Israel's sin. And people struggle with that. How can God, a holy God, use man's sinful activities? Well, he does. We were looking at the Old Testament. He does it a lot. He's a showman. He's in need of a Savior, really. Okay, another verse,

12. Now if their transgressions is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more would their fulfillment be? Kind of looking forward to the restoration. So a takeaway point here is Israel's disobedience and failure has meant riches for the Gentiles. How much more will Israel's future salvation be? God looks toward that, that Israel coming back to Him and being restored. And then the last verse, 15 here from previous weeks, for if the rejection is reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from death? And so the takeaway here is that their election resulted in the world's reconciliation.

So three points basically, the blessing of salvation has come to the Gentiles as a result of Israel's sin. Israel's disobedience and failure has merited riches for the Gentiles. How much more will their future salvation be? And rejection has resulted in the world's reconciliation. So now he kind of turns the corner a little bit when we get into these verses. So I kind of, I'm going to present these verses twice in two sets. You know, Jim read this already. But just observe here, I divided 16 into two parts.

Paul's going to be into metaphors big time. We're going to talk, we're going to define metaphor here briefly. You all probably know about metaphor, but notice the first 16a is one metaphor about the dough and the lump. Then 16b is the root and the branches. And he's going to carry that root and the branches all the way through 17-18 on into the next verses.

So let's just talk about metaphors, for example. So here's the dictionary definition of a metaphor. It's a figure of speech. in which a word or phrase that ordinarily is designated as one thing is used in another designation. So I was trying to think of, how about one like this?

Baseball in our society, just think about how many terms, if I say, Courtney, you hit a home run today in your class. Did Courtney hit her home run in his class? No. He had a great message, or whatever he did. Or if I say, three strikes and you're out, Courtney, he said, okay, I guess I messed up today, whatever. So we use terms all the time. So Paul's going to use that a lot here in this section.

So the first group is going to be this 16a talks about, depending upon the translation, the first piece of dough, the first piece of grain, the lump or the loaf. He's going to use those kind of metaphors. Then he's going to switch the metaphor of the root, the natural branches, the wild olive branches being grafted in. the fatness of the olives. And I realize there's actually a few more I didn't include in here as I looked at this. But we see the first metaphor is about the grain and the loaf. That's one metaphor.

Then we're going to move on to the root and the branches. And that's going to be pretty key. Because he's going to use that a lot, and it's going to be very meaningful in his expression of how the Gentiles are going to be grafted in. That's going to be a key part of this.

But think metaphor, think that these words are representing something else. Okay, so let's go and look at... I took the Weiss translation of the same verses, so I'm just going to read the Weiss translation, and I kind of marked it up a bit. Verse 16. Now in view of the fact that the first fruit is holy, also the lump, and since the root is holy, also the branches.

17. Now since certain of the branches were broken off, you, being a wild olive branch, were grafted in among them. and you became joint partakers with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree. Notice all the pronouns, you know, you gotta have the, you can't tell the players without a program, right? The yous and the thems, and who are all these people, right? It's pretty straightforward, I think, once you kinda get into it. Then verse 18, you stop boasting about the branches, but assuming that you are boasting, you are not sustaining the root, but the root you. So interesting verses here. This is kind of the quick view. So now we'll dive into it here. All right. So the first metaphor we involve with is the dough. He starts off, or actually, I found it better looking at the original language.

It's actually what's being talked about here is something called the first fruit, which is a pretty important phrase in scripture. Now, if the first fruit is holy, also the lump. So now, based on what he said before, and all the ifs in 16, 17, and I don't think 18 has one, but all the ifs are assumed to be true. They're assumed to be, so you can do sense if you like. So now, the first fruit, the first fruit here is, it's the first of the grain crop, the first of the fruit crop. And scripture talks about that a fair amount.

The first fruit is holy or set apart. And the thing to remember here when he has holy in these verses, it's not talking about some particularly, it's not holiness in the sense of absolute righteousness. He's talking about being set apart. Holiness is used in the idea that God has set apart certain things. He calls them holy because He set them apart. So that's the context here. So here's a case where we see that idea from Deuteronomy.

And they're talking about, you shall give him, and I believe this is talking about the, if I remember correctly, this is talking about the Levites. you should give him the first fruit of your grain, your new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep. And this is because the Levites had no portion, they were sustained by the other Israelites. Okay, so the next verse here is from Jeremiah. Thus says the Lord, I remember concerning your devotion of your youth, Israel was holy, or set apart to the Lord, the first of the harvest.

So I just wanted to kind of have another verse to kind of show this idea of first fruits. So a takeaway from this first part is, if the first fruit is holy, and he's going to build on that, so if the first fruit is holy or set apart, so what can we say about the lump? I found the lump was a little bit of a stumbling block. What is it standing for? The lump is also holy or set apart. So the lump can be thought of in a couple of ways.

It can be the idea of conceivably clay or mass or something, but Merriman was really good about, his approach, and I think it's right, it's a loaf, a loaf of grain, because you have the first fruit of the grain winding up in a loaf, right? So if the first of the grain is holy, then the whole loaf is holy is the point. And here, anything made from the first fruit of the grain is holy or set apart, since the grain itself is holy or set apart. Okay, so it seemed to me, and others kind of corroborated this, it's talking about, this is the idea of like begets life. If something is holy, if the first part of that is holy, the whole thing is going to be holy.

So in Genesis 1.25 we see God made the beast of the earth after their kind. the cattle after their kind, everything that creeps on the earth after its kind, and God saw that it was good." So what he's saying here is that if the first piece of dough is holy, then the entire amount of it, the loaf of it, will be holy as well.

So now we're going to change. So we had that metaphor, the metaphor of the grain and the loaf. We're going to move to the olive tree and the root. Okay, so if the root is holy, again assumed to be true, the root here in this case is going to be a metaphor for the origin of something, the cause of something, the source of something, instead of persons and of ancestry. And I believe it's going to be important to realize what the root is because we're going to use this through the rest of these verses and following verses.

The root here is going to refer to the start of the nation of Israel, the Abrahamic covenant, if you will. Abraham and the Jewish people are the root from which the gospel dispensation with its blessings has sprung. That was from Zodiates. You can think of it as a root is the covenant to Abraham. It started the whole process with God's dealing with the nation of Israel and ultimately dealing with the Gentiles as well. So if the root is holy or set apart, the branches are too. They're set apart and holy.

So the branches here are basically the ones, who first partook of this root of Abraham? It was the Jewish people, right? God called out the people of Abraham, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was that line of people. So the root was holy, the Abrahamic covenant was holy from God, therefore those who partook of it, or part of it, they were holy as well.

OK, so now he's talked about the beginning of this, right? Now we're going to move into talking about branches. We're going to talk about something that he did. Here's something that happened to the nation of Israel, if you will. And he's going to use this metaphor of the olive tree. But in this case, it's not so much a contrast. It's more of a continuous discussion about things being holy as a result of something else being holy. Soon to be true again. Some branches were broken off. The idea is to break off, to break apart. And this is gonna be the first of three statements he's gonna make.

And they're all gonna be heiress, indicative, passive. Or actually one is a middle. But they're gonna be heiress, indicative. And just not to be too technical, the idea of heiress is it's an event. So an event has happened. And there has to be a cause for that, right? And it's passive.

So God is acting upon, he's acting upon the Jews, basically. He's acting upon them, heirs, the branches are being acted upon by God. Some branches, and I believe these are the unbelieving Jews, were broken off. These are the ones that did not, were not part of the covenant. They're broken off from the rest of Israel.

So one of the key questions is, when did this happen? It's interesting, when I started looking through this, there was some difference of opinion. I was amazed by some. Some thought it was in 70 AD. Boy, that one, and maybe you, if you believe that, then talk to me. I don't know, I found that very hard to put my hands around. What I thought, and here's my take on it, it occurs, and I put these verses down, and this actually came from Chafer.

This is the description right after the... My mind's going here. When did it happen, Roger? This is Peter at Pentecost, and this is one of his sermons. And he describes the event, and you know the event very well, but his description, I thought, was just outstanding. And I used the Weiss translation here. So let's look at this. You know this event. Men, Israelites, hear these words at once.

Jesus, a Nazarene, a man who has been demonstrated to you by God to be that which he claimed to be. That kind of was neat. He was demonstrated by God to be that which he claimed to be. This demonstration, taken in the form of miracles showing the power of God, miracles that are startling, imposing, amazing, all-potent, all-impotent, miracles that have for their purposes attestations of divine mission of one who performs them, which miracles God performed through his intermediate agency in your midst, even as you yourself know positively." So what struck me about this was, Peter is saying, what God did, and you Israelites saw it, you know positively what happened.

There's no doubt in your mind what happened. This one, speaking of Jesus and Nazarene, this one, having been delivered up by the counsel of God, which had decided upon his destiny, even the foreordination of God, which is the act of fixing his destiny, and here's where he holds man accountable, by wicked hands you crucified and killed him. whom God raised up, having loosened the pangs of death, because it was impossible for him to be mastered by it." So I think, to my take on this, is that the breaking off occurred at the crucifixion. That's when the full ramifications weren't there, but that's the point that it occurred.

Okay, so let's go on here. So it goes on, but as some of the branches were broken off, we just talked about that, you being a wild olive were grafted in among them. You believing Gentiles, being a wild olive branch, and the idea in contrast to a natural olive branch.

So we're going to get here in a moment into a little bit of horticulture, grafting or whatever. Mike said he looked on the Internet, too. I started looking on the Internet, looking at olive trees and grafting and it's all kinds of crazy stuff like that. So, you know, Trees are, branches are grafted into other trees and stuff, and that's what he's talking about here. The natural branches, the ones that you plant the olive tree and it grows up and has branches, those are called the natural branches. But you can take other branches from other plants and graft them into trees. And that's what he's talking about here, the wild olive branches.

And that's talked about a fair amount. Actually, what's interesting is this whole metaphor of the olive tree is just an astounding thing through scripture, as I mentioned before. So here's a case where in Jeremiah, the Lord called you, called your name Judah, a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form. So many times you'll see verses that talk about the olive tree or parts of the olive tree of being something that God has created in the nation of Israel especially in terms of the olive tree. He says, you being a wild olive branch, so he's speaking about the Gentiles here, were grafted in among them, believing Jews, were grafted in is this idea to insert a slip cultivated into a wild one.

The metaphor is contrary to nature. So the picture here is that you take in a wild one and you put it into a cultivated one, which is opposite to what is typically done. So that's, if you start reading about the content, people go wild on pages and pages of writing about this. Well, that's contrary to this, and that's contrary to that, and so my head starts spinning after a while.

So I wanted to show you one thing here. So actually I found in Wiester, he points out, and there's a whole page of this stuff he talks about, but this Robertson, which I think is A.T. Robertson, he says, shows that the ancients used the wild olive graft upon older olive trees to reinvigorate the trees, precisely as Paul uses this figure. Some commented on that and didn't think he was right or whatever. But anyway, I like that because he said, okay, here's something that the ancients did that kind of matched what Paul's talking about here. So just for your, here's a picture I got off the internet.

There's a grafting in of one I'm not sure it's olive tree. It's one tree into another, basically, where they make a slit, they take a knife, they slit something, they slide it in, like you sharpen a sharp edge and you slide it in there, and hopefully it grows. And that one apparently was growing pretty good, right? So that's grafting.

Hopefully I haven't totally confused you here. Okay. So let's kind of review where we're at. So we'll talk about that in just a second. But if some of the branches were broken off, you being a wild olive branch, were grafted in among them. So again, when did this grafting in occur? We have the breaking off occurred at some time period, right? At a point in time. So when did this grafting occur?

And we're gonna see that actually, did I go back? Let me just go back here just for a second. Did I? Yeah, I didn't. Okay, the grafting in, both the grafting in and the breaking off are both errors. They're both being, that's by God's action, God's doing. They both occurred at an event in time. So is this going to be a different time? Let me go on up here. So when were the Gentiles grafted in?

So the verse that I could think of that kind of fit this is in Ephesians 2.13. But now in Christ Jesus, you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So I would contend that both the breaking off and the The grafting in occurred at the same time, the crucifixion of Christ. And then the third thing that happened, so there was a breaking off, a grafting in, and it says you, speaking of Gentile believers, you became partakers with them of the riches of the root of the olive tree. became to come into a new state of being something that the Gentiles never were before.

We were not part of Israel. We were totally foreign to Israel. Just many verses talk about that. And again, it's an event in time. So all these three things happen, this breaking off, this being grafted in, and becoming partakers. I just want to expand upon the idea of becoming partakers. So partakers is to jointly participate There are verses that talk about joint participation in the gospel, also in the grace of God, but this is joint participation with the Jewish nation and the blessings of the root. And this again is an event with the believing Jews.

Okay, so actually we have three, if you look at the original, the last little phrase there of 17 says, there's actually three statements. We are joint partakers of the root, of the fatness, and of the olive tree. Three things. Not quite as clear in the text from the New American Standard.

So let's talk about the root first. So the one I want to hear is Abrahamic covenant. We are joint participants in the Abrahamic Covenant, and it says in Genesis 12, 3, I will bless those who bless you, and the ones who curse you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Gentile believers are blessed because we have been grafted in to the Abrahamic Covenant, if you will. Secondly, the fatness. This is a little bit tougher. There wasn't as much about the fatness. It's literally a swelling. It speaks of abundance, if you will. This is one verse I came across that talked about this supply of full of fatness.

This is in Job. This is one of Job's friends. This is a positive statement for Job. Among the main negative statements for Job, it says, Even so, would he, God, have allured you out of the jaws of distress into a broad place where there is no constraint, and the supply of your table would be full of fatness." So he says, Job, God is for you, you would have this full of fatness. Later on he says, and you're a bad guy, you do all this, and you're actually in trouble with God. But here he's actually saying you're in good shape, Job. Okay, so that's of the root, of the fatness. Let's talk about becoming partakers of the olive tree.

Like I mentioned, if you look, there's 44 places I found, it talks about the olive tree itself, its leaf, its fruit, its branches, its root, and the Genesis passage is the one where Noah sent out the dove, and the dove comes back, and what does he have on his beak? He has an olive leaf.

And there are just so many more like that. The olive leaf, like when they went into the Promised Land, it was the olive trees and the fruits that would be there, just amazing. Here's one, a very encouraging one to David here. But as for me, I, David, am like a green olive tree in the house of God. your children are like olive plants around your table.

So it pictures this tree as kind of being your protection from God, and you're part of this tree, and everything about it is God's blessing, if you will. It goes on, in Jeremiah, the Lord called your name Judah, a green olive tree, beautiful in fruit and form. Now here's a verse that Mike's going to do after we do the Christmas message, a couple weeks out. This is Romans 11, 24.

More about the cultivated and the wild olive trees. For if you have been cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and against nature grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much easier will it be to these natural branches, I'm not going to, natural branches back on the original parent stock of their own olive tree. I probably didn't read that really well.

But anyway, the last part's amazing. He's saying when Israel Israel's going to return. They're going to come back. God has promised that. When they come back to Him, that's actually easier. Last part, how much easier will it be to graft these natural branches back on to the original parent stalk of their own olive tree?

That's an amazing statement. Mike's going to explain that, as Jim would say. Good luck, Mike. No, actually, it's amazing. That's an amazing statement. Okay, so let's go on here. So now, this part sounds like parents talking here to their kids. I'll show you in a second here.

So actually it says, in the original it says, assume something's going on. You stop boasting against the natural branches. You stop boasting against the natural branches. So the construction here is that because it's an imperative, it assumes the action is already going on, so it assumes that for some reason Gentile believers are boasting against the Jewish believers, so to speak, if you will. The reason I put this verse in was to show the construction.

That's the same construction you have like in Romans 6.12 where it says, Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, that you should obey its lust. Well, the more complete rendering would be stop. Stop, therefore, allowing sin to reign in your mortal body. So the idea is an action already going on, so Paul's assuming it's already happening. He doesn't want that to happen. The word for boasting is the idea to boast against, to exalt over.

It's a pretty strong word, and it's used here in James 3.14. But if, as is the case, you are having bitter jealousy and contentiousness in your heart, stop boasting and lying against the truth. So it's a very strong term for boasting. So here's my point. But assuming that you are boasting.

So Paul first said, he said, stop boasting. And then he comes back when he says, Now he says, I know you're boasting, but just remember this. It kind of reminded me like you tell your kids, don't eat that cake. But if you eat that cake, remember, you're going to spoil your supper. He says, stop boasting. He says, so now, assuming you are boasting, or I know you're boasting, but remember this.

Here's what. Remember, it's not you that supports the root, but the root that supports you. So the support here is to bear up, bearing up the branches, to bear something up. So a couple of points here. The root, the root is the Abrahamic covenant. That's the source of God's blessing, initially for the nation of Israel, but then for all mankind. It's the foundation of God's promise to Abraham and to the grafted-in branches. This root supports not only the grafted-in branches, but it supports the natural branches as well.

So he doesn't want to speaking against it or boasting against that. Okay, final thoughts. So this is just kind of a summary, if you will. Paul's figure is, in these passages, is the Jewish nation is a tree from which some branches have been cut off. Back to the olive tree is the Jewish nation. So some branches have been cut off. That which remains is living. The tree is still living because of the root. Therefore, all branches are connected to it and still alive.

Into this living tree, wild branches, the Gentile is grafted among the living branches, destroying life from the root. The insertion of the wild branches takes place in connection with the cutting off of the natural branches. bringing in the Gentiles in connection with the rejection of the unbelieving Jews.

So God, just kind of show me that God's plan, starting with Israel, when he established that plan with Israel, it was to bless all mankind. So we're all connected back through that to God's plan. And he's going to carry that out. When the church age is complete, he's going to bring back all the Jews to himself. And we'll see that fulfillment. All Israel will be saved. Pretty amazing thing that he's planning to do in the future.

So let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for the blessings we have on our Savior. Lord, we thank you for your care for us, Lord. Thank you that you've described this wonderful being part of the root, which is ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that that started with the covenant with Abraham and that we've been grafted into that and grafted into your work through all mankind. In Christ's name, amen.