ROMANS 11:17-24

This whole presentation by Paul has been called an analogy (Campbell), an allegory (France, Allen), a picture (Embry) and a metaphor (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery). Paul's olive tree imagery makes sense up to a certain point. Thus, some branches of the olive tree (Jewish unbelievers) were broken off due to their disbelief so that wild olive shoots (Gentile believers) could be grafted in. But then in vv. 23-24 Paul states that if these broken branches turn from their unbelief, they can be grafted back into their original tree. Both the physical picture and its underlying meaning are subject to various interpretations. Thus, these verses would probably be a good example of what Peter had in mind when he said that some things in Paul's letters are difficult to understand. (II Peter 3:15-16)

The olive tree imagery employed by Paul in this chapter is actually introduced in v. 16. The statement there is based on Numbers 15:17-21 in which the author says “If the root is holy, so are the branches.” (Link and Brown) DBI adds, “The grafting image depends directly on the OT picture of Israel as God's olive tree.” Hosea 14:5-7 is one such passage. “It also recalls Christ's own metaphor of the vine and the branches recorded in John 15.”

Embry: In v. 17f, “the olive tree stands for both the old and the new communities and there is the same root...It would be wrong to regard the 'holy root' (v. 16) as Christ as some of the early fathers did.”

Romans 11:17-22 These verses apply to the process whereby the Gentiles were grafted in to the people of God. The physical picture is not the norm practiced by horticulturalists since it is generally the cultivated branches that are grafted in to the wild plant. One prominent example is what happened in the late 1880's in France when their vineyards were infected with a blight that came close to wiping out all wine production in that country. Scientists were able to stave off this event by taking wild mustang grape plants from Texas and grafting in branches from the cultivated plants.

Something akin to what Paul is talking about here actually did occur in the ancient world whereby oleaster (wild olive) branches were purposely grafted in to cultivated trees in the mistaken belief that it would strengthen the plant. Thus, the picture that Paul utilizes would not have been totally foreign to his audience at the time.

France explains it thus: “Many commentators assume that Paul's theology is better than his knowledge of horticulture. But while modern agriculturalists would look askance at the attempt to graft the oleaster on to the olive, this is independently attested in ancient times as a device to rejuvenate an unproductive olive.”

Witmer: “He knew that grafting the wild into the cultivated was not the norm (though it was done), for later he said it was 'contrary to nature' (Rom. 11:24).”

Romans 11:23-24 Now the picture gets even more strange since Paul talks about taking the broken-off branches and re-grafting them on the original plant. Commentators weigh in on these verses also, with somewhat similar conclusions.

DBI calls this reverse of the normal order “supernatural.”

“Perhaps the tension between Paul's picture and approved horticultural practice is intended to underline the miraculous nature of this work of God which is contrary to nature.” (Embry)

Elliott states, “If ingrafting a wild olive tree is unusual, restoring branches that have been broken off is nothing less than miraculous.” But of course that is just what Paul refers to in v. 23 when he says that “God has the power” to accomplish it. As Barrett says, “He is arguing from God to nature, not from nature to God.”

Davidson and Martin: “Here Paul implies a spiritual, if not horticultural, reality; the original branches are more akin to the tree than the wild shoots and should therefore be easier to graft into the stock from which they were originally taken...Where Paul does, quite consciously, go beyond nature is his belief that after branches have been cut off, God has the power to graft them in again. This is the miracle of God's grace.

Leslie Allen says, “The very unusualness is no doubt an intended part of the allegory. God has acted in grace that transcends human custom and expectation.”

Campbell points out that the “basic process of grafting itself is unnatural only in the sense that it is an interference with the natural order, but when Paul goes on to speak of the grafting in again of branches that had been deliberately cut off, he is referring to something which has no parallel in normal oleiculture.”

Campbell draws five lessons from these verses:

    1. The branches remain only by faith, not ethnicity.

    2. The roots support the branches, not vice versa.

    3. The in-grafted branches are to share the root, not displace the other branches.

    4. Even the in-grafted branches can be broken off it they do not live in humble faith.

    5. Even the broken-off branches can be grafted back in by God – “a truly unnatural, even miraculous activity.

It is this last point that Paul will develop further in the rest of the chapter. But of that discussion, it is vv. 25-26 in particular that have caused the most division among theologians and expositors. Therefore I will discuss them in a later blog post.