Of olive trees and arrogance

Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider, therefore, the kindness and sternness of God… Romans 11:20-22

Let’s be honest, there are times when, reading Paul, we find ourselves wondering “What is he going on about!” This applies particularly to Romans 9-11, a substantial chunk of the letter where he is grappling with the place of Israel in the outworking of God’s purposes.

Is Israel, the descendants of Abraham, still the chosen people of God? Has their rejection of God’s intended purpose for them – to be “a light to lighten the gentiles”, a fulfilment of the Old Testament prophets – resulted in their final dismissal from the stage of world history? Has God, so to speak, given up on Plan A and, in Jesus, moved on to Plan B?

You only have to skim-read these three chapters to see how distressing such an idea is to Paul. He reaches something of a climax in 11:1-6, where he vehemently rejects the very suggestion: “I’m a Jew myself!” he exclaims; as if to say, “God hasn’t cast us off! He knows exactly what he is doing, and it’s only a matter of time before everything becomes clear”.

In 11:17-24 he uses the illustration of the olive tree to explain what God is doing, and what he is going to do in the future. This is a part of the letter where we can get seriously lost, if only because most of us, I suspect, haven’t got a clue about the growth and cultivation of olive trees. Suffice to say: they are a vital part of the Mediterranean world,  greatly valued by local people; valued for their fruit, for the shade their branches give from the heat of the sun, for their life-span (possibly even hundreds of years), and for their wood. It is hardly surprising that over the centuries they became a symbol (along with the vine and the fig-tree) of prosperity for the nation of Israel.

We need to be clear about the context here: in these verses Paul is addressing specifically gentile rather than Jewish Christians (11:13), and he is keen to ensure that they don’t (as an old friend of mine might have put it) “get ideas above their station”, in other words, become arrogant. “Oh”, they might think, “God has finished with Israel; they’ve let him down too often. Now it’s us - former heathens, pagans! - who have entered into the grace of God through faith in Jesus, and Israel is consigned to the scrap-heap of history”.

Not so! replies Paul. Think of the olive tree. Yes, many Israelites have indeed lost touch with the purposes of God and so have lost their way and become like a dead, fruitless tree. And yes, you gentiles, though nothing better than wild, uncultivated trees, have indeed been “grafted in” to draw sap and produce good fruit. This is indeed wonderfully so, but – and here comes the punch-line – “do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches” (verses 17-18). And then a dark warning: “If God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either”.

In a word, don’t take your new status in Christ for granted; more specifically, don’t let it engender in you spiritual pride… because if you do, the day might come when you’re in for a nasty shock.

Paul then goes on to suggest something that such arrogant gentile Christians have obviously not so much as dreamed of: if the people of Israel “do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again”. Now, taken as it stands, that sounds pretty unlikely to me! – can dry, withered branches lying on the ground really be re-grafted onto a fruitful olive tree? Surely not! (Though admittedly I haven’t had a chance to check with a professional horticulturalist.) But that is the point: God is a God of miracles, and Paul, putting it in plain words, is holding out a hope that the Jewish people might yet return to their ancestral God.

Sorry if this has all got a bit complicated. Let’s boil it down to two simple things we need to get hold of…

First: Christian, pray for God’s ancient people Israel.

God called Israel to be his special people - but not in terms of privilege so much as in terms of service. And that calling has never been revoked, however much Israel may have failed.

That doesn’t mean we should become “Zionists”, and certainly not that we should always be on the side of modern Israel in terms of the politics of the middle-east. Not at all. Every nation on earth is blighted by the reality of sin – and that sad truth applies to every area of conflict, whether Ukraine and Russia or, just in the last few days, India and Pakistan or, of course, the terrible situation in Gaza. Every nation needs to know about the love of Jesus, and wrongs done on every side fall under the judgment of God.

So pray for Israel of course (and avoid like the plague every hint of antisemitism). But pray too for the suffering people of Gaza.

Second: Christian, avoid arrogance.

As we have seen, part of Paul’s concern in this part of Romans is that the gentile Christians tended to look down on their Jewish brothers and sisters as rejected by God. From what we have seen from the olive tree illustration, we must put that suggestion firmly to one side.

But we must be careful. There are plenty of other issues on which it is easy for Christians to look with contempt on their fellow-Christians. The main one is probably doctrinal correctness, the attitude of those who are convinced that they have got every jot and tittle of teaching sorted out, and who therefore hold themselves arrogantly aloof from fellow-Christians who hold different views on certain things. (What things? Well, the Holy Spirit, the return of Jesus in glory, the authority of scripture, church government, baptism, styles of worship will do for a start…)

It's a strange irony that, of all strands of Christianity, the one that most emphasises the pure grace of God towards sinners, and which should therefore be most noted for its humility, can come across as arrogant and self-important in keeping its distance from those it considers to be in error.

May God help us all, however confident we are in our faith and understanding, to have the humility to recognise that it could just be us who are the ones in error on certain things!

Father, I want to be right in my understanding of your word in scripture, but my understanding is very limited and I know that it’s easy to be deceived by unreliable and even false teachers. Teach me the humility to be open to correction, and never to look down on those who, as I see it, have got certain things wrong. Amen.

Father, we look with sadness upon present-day conflicts in our world, especially in the middle east. We pray for Israel, who have suffered so much; we pray too for the Palestinian people of Gaza, who likewise have suffered untold injustice and misery. O Lord, send peace and hope, we pray! Amen.