Over the past eighteen years of living in Oregon I’ve learned a lot about roses. It’s not because of my own interest in and study of roses, but because of my wife’s. When she discovered how wonderfully roses grow and bloom in western Oregon’s mild climate, she became a rose gardener of the first order.
One of the interesting things Beth taught me is that almost every cultivated rose today is the product of grafting. The root stock is one sort of rose, while the main stems and flowers are another sort grafted on to the root stock. There are several reasons for this horticultural practice, but in general grafted roses are healthier and produce more blooms than the same varieties grown from their own roots.
At the center of Romans 11, our text for this Sunday, is the image of branches being grafted onto an olive tree. As part of Paul’s argument concerning the Jewish people in relation to faith in Christ, he uses this image to picture how Gentiles have been included in God’s people. He pictures Israel as a cultivated olive tree, with its roots in God’s election and grace to them. Now through Christ, it’s as if some of the cultivated branches have been broken off and branches from a less desireable wild olive tree have been grafted in. That’s us, the Gentiles.
Paul’s point is that Gentile Christians have no grounds for boasting or arrogance in regard to Jews. They are the root of the whole tree of faith. Yes, many of them rejected Jesus the Messiah and were then “broken off.” But Israel remains at the heart of God’s plan and at the root of the Church.
The whole chapter calls for a careful balance in Christian attitudes toward Jewish people. On the one hand, any prejudice or anti-Semitism is completely and absolutely unbiblical and un-Christian. As verses 30-32 emphasize, we Gentiles come from stock just as disobedient to God or more so. On the other hand, it must not be glossed over that many Jewish people did and still do reject Jesus and thus removed themselves from the people of God. It is only by faith in Christ that they can be grafted back in (verse 23).
Thus it is perfectly appropriate (even if not politically correct) to pray for and witness to our Jewish friends. They will not be saved without Christ.
This also means that we need to eschew two misguided interpretations of verse 26, “And so all Israel will be saved…” One one hand there is the liberal, universalistic understanding that literally every Israelite by birth will be redeemed, whether or not they have accepted Christ. This is completely contrary to the picture Paul has been painting throughout the whole letter to the Romans and contrary to his own pain expressed at the beginning of chapter 9 regarding his lost fellow Israelites.
On the other hand, there is an interpretation which makes “all Israel,” mean something like “most Jews alive when Jesus returns.” This is the dispensationalist, “Left Behind,”, Tim LaHaye, rapture theology which wants us to believe that Jesus will return twice, with a seven-year tribulation in between. During that time, in the absence of the raptured Gentile church, we’re told that Jews left on earth will convert to Christ until they number 144,000. But considering that there are an estimated 13-15 million Jews in the world today, 144,000 is a small percentage, not most of them.
What’s more this whole end-of-time picture for the salvation of Israel contradicts Paul’s own agony in chapter 9 over the fact that most of his people will not be saved. It hardly seems adequate to interpret the promise “all Israel will be saved” by pointing to the redemption of a limited number at the end of history. What about all those lost in the centuries before that happens?
No the best interpretation is to stay in line with Paul’s whole scheme of thought to this point. In chapter 9 verse 6, he’s already said that “not all Israelites truly belong to Israel.” In what follows and in Romans 2:28 and 29, Paul has already made clear that he is redefining Israel and what it means to belong to Israel. With the coming of Christ to have faith in Jesus is to belong to the “true Israel.” So the promise that “all Israel will be saved” is the promise that God will save everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, a promise that was repeated several times in last week’s text from Romans 10.
The close of the chapter invites to reflect on “riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” in creating His wonderfully variegated and subtle plan to bring people of all races and nations to Himself in Jesus Christ. As recipients and beneficiaries of this plan we have no reason to boast but only to marvel at God’s genius and mercy.