Romans 11:24– Back to nature

For if you were hewn out of an olive wild by nature, and, beside nature, are grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much rather shall these, who are in accord with nature, be grafted into their own olive tree!

The current state of affairs in which the nations instead of Israel serve as a channel of blessing is an unnatural situation. Paul illustrates this with the image of an olive tree where the natural branches (read: Israelites) have been broken away, while ‘wild’ branches (read: the nations) have been grafted into the trunk. That is rightly not natural or self-evident. After all, the primacy lies with Israel and through them the Gospel would reach the nations. But in the present tense the reverse is true. Israel is passed over and it is the nations that receive first place.

This switch of ’the first rights’ is very reminiscent of a well-known phenomenon in the book of Genesis. There the birthright never goes to the first, but by definition to the second. The natural line is deviated from and the last becomes the first.

But the current state of affairs has been inserted, a diversion and certainly not definitive. Natural Israel will yet be restored. Because sooner or later, God always keeps his word.

Delen: