Grafted into…

Recently my wife was having a discussion with another individual and he was telling her that as Gentile believers we had to be grafted into Israel.

I know that this is a widely held belief among many different groups but I would suggest that this doctrine is not according to what the Apostle Paul writes, nor is it accurate even according to how  grafting is done.  Let us look at this together briefly.

Paul speaks of this in Romans the 11th chapter.  I’m going to be quoting from the English Standard Version.  Let us begin reading with verse 11.

Rom 11:11  And so I ask, "They have not stumbled so as to fall, have they?" Of course not! On the contrary, because of their stumbling, salvation has come to the gentiles to make the Jews jealous. 12  Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their fall means riches for the gentiles, how much more will their full participation mean! 13  I am speaking to you gentiles. Because I am an apostle to the gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14  in the hope that I can make my people jealous and save some of them. 15  For if their rejection results in reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance bring but life from the dead? 16  If the first part of the dough is holy, so is the whole batch. If the root is holy, so are the branches. 17  Now if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive branch, have been grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, 18  do not boast about being better than the other branches. If you boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19  Then you will say, "Branches were cut off so that I could be grafted in." 20  That's right! They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you remain only because of faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid! 21  For if God did not spare the natural branches, he certainly will not spare you, either. 22  Consider, then, the kindness and severity of God: his severity toward those who fell, but God's kindness toward you—if you continue receiving his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. 23  If the Jews do not persist in their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, because God is able to graft them in. 24  After all, if you were cut off from what is naturally a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much easier it will be for these natural branches to be grafted back into their own olive tree!

Notice that I have bolded a few things in these verses.  If the root is holy, so are the branches, share the rich root, you do not support the root, but the root supports you.  This becomes a bit easier to understand when we know a bit about grafting.  There are many good articles concerning grafting found on the internet but I’m quoting from one written by the people at Stark Bro’s Nursery, who have been propagating and selling fruit trees for well over 100 years.

“Grafting involves taking a scion or bud chip cut from the desired parent tree and physically placing in onto a compatible rootstock.”  You may not be acquainted with the word ‘scion.’  Scion derives from the Middle English sioun and Old French cion and is related to the Old English cith and the Old High German kidi (meaning "sprout" or "shoot"). When it first sprouted in English in the 14th century, scion meant "a shoot or twig." That sense withered in horticultural contexts, but the word branched out, adding the grafting-related meaning we know today.  So, what is being said is that a small branch or slip from the tree that we want to propagate, i.e. the branch cut from the wild olive tree, is joined to the rootstock of another tree.  A rootstock is defined as a plant, sometimes just a stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, onto which the cutting (or scion) from another plant is grafted.

In Paul’s analogy in Romans 11 he states that the root is holy and that it is the root that supports the branches.  It is clear that the Gentiles are referred to as branches broken off of the wild olive tree.  Israel he states were branches from the cultivated olive tree that, notice verse 20, were also broken off.  One does not graft a broken off branch into another branch that has also been broken off.  They will just lie there and dry up and totally die.  To receive nourishment they must be both grafted into a rootstock, the holy root.  Guess who that is!  Jesus, the Messiah!  He tells us straight out in Revelation 22:16, “...I am the root and the offspring of David,...”