Scripture Daily

Context No. 563 of 4322 · Romans

Context · Reflection

Romans 11:13-24: in context

13For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry, 14if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. 15For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead? 16If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches. 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 root and of the richness of the olive tree, 18don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, remember that it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. 19You will say then, “Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” 20True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear; 21for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

Paul is writing to Gentile Christians, and he reaches for an image from horticulture to keep them humble. Israel, he says, is a cultivated olive tree. Some of its natural branches were broken off through unbelief, and you Gentiles, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the remaining branches to share the richness of the root. It is a picture of astonishing grace: outsiders, wild branches with no natural claim, cut and grafted into the tree of God's people to draw life from a root they did nothing to grow. And then Paul, knowing exactly how the human heart responds to such favor, issues a sharp warning: do not boast over the branches that were broken off.

The danger he is guarding against is spiritual pride, the smugness of the newly-included toward those who fell. It would be so natural for the grafted-in branch to look at the broken ones and feel superior, to think, they were cut off so that I could be put in, I must be the better branch. Paul cuts it off at the root: if you boast, remember that you do not support the root; the root supports you. You are not the source of anything. You stand only by faith, drawing life from a root you did not create and cannot sustain, and the same God who did not spare the natural branches will not spare you either if you grow arrogant. So do not be conceited, but fear. The only fitting posture for a branch saved by grafting is humility and reverence, never superiority.

That aims straight at a smugness I am prone to. It is easy, once I count myself among God's people, to look down on those outside the faith, or those who have fallen away, with a quiet sense of superiority, as though I stand by my own merit and they by their own failure. Paul says I stand only by grace, a wild branch grafted into a root that holds me up, and the moment I boast over anyone I have forgotten what I am. Do I look down on those broken off or still outside with a superiority that forgets I was grafted in by sheer mercy, supported by a root I did nothing to deserve?

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