“For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?”
Romans 11:24, KJV
“For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”
Romans 11:24, ESV
Table of Contents
- Romans 11:24 Meaning – For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree
- Romans 11:24 Meaning – how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
Romans 11:24 Meaning – For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree
That [the concept of possibility of the Jews being restored], however, is succeeded by probability in the sentence following.
The general idea conveyed by these words is, ‘The restoration of the Jews is, in some points of view, a more probable event than the conversion of the Gentiles was, previously to its taking place; just as, abstractly considered, it might seem less strange to re-insert into its own stock a branch which had been broken off, than to insert into that stock a branch from another tree, and a tree of another kind.’
The heathen nations, previously to their conversion, were utterly ignorant of the true God, and the devoted worshippers of idols they were in possession of few means to enable them to understand the meaning and evidence of the Christian revelation.
It is otherwise with the Jews. They are worshippers of Jehovah, and they have in their possession, and profess to believe, those sacred books in which Moses and the prophets testify to the Messiah, whom we have found in Jesus.
No change of economy is necessary for the restoration of the Jews, as was the case for the conversion of the Gentiles; no wall of partition needs to be taken down; no handwriting of ordinances needs to be blotted out. “The doors of the Church stand wide open for the admission of the Jews; nothing is wanting to their entering but their faith.” [Fry]
Brown, John – Analytical exposition of the epistle of Paul the apostle to the Romans (1857)
Romans 11:24 Meaning – how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
Paul shows also, by a comparison, how much easier it is to subvert the present appearance of things, than to establish them; how much more readily the natural branches, when restored to the place from which they had been cut off, derive substance from their own root, than the wild and unfruitful of a foreign stock.
The same relation and analogy take place between the Jews and gentiles.
Calvin, John – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans tr. Francis Sibson (1834)
Argument 13. If God implant the Gentiles, (as branches out of the Covenant of Grace) into the Church of the Patriarchs, much more will he restore the Jews, which are natural branches of that Church.
Dickson, David – An Exposition of All St. Paul’s Epistles (1659)
