Grafting

Grafting appears in scripture as an extended figure for how Gentile believers come to share in the covenant inheritance of Israel. The image is drawn from horticulture: branches cut out of one tree and joined into another to draw on its root.

The Olive Tree of Romans 11

Paul develops the figure at length in Romans 11. The cultivated olive tree stands for Israel; some of its branches have been broken off through unbelief, and Gentile believers — wild olive shoots — have been grafted in to draw life from the same root. "But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became copartners with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree; do not glory over the branches: but if you glory, it is not you that bear the root, but the root you" (Rom 11:17-18).

The grafted branches have no ground for boasting. The natural branches were broken off precisely "by their unbelief," and the grafted ones stand only "by faith" (Rom 11:20). What removed Israel's branches can remove the new ones too: "for if God didn't spare the natural branches, lest neither will he spare you" (Rom 11:21). The same severity that cut off the original branches keeps the grafted in only insofar as they continue in God's goodness (Rom 11:22).

Reversibility of the Graft

The figure is not one-way. Branches that have been cut out can be put back. "And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again" (Rom 11:23). The argument turns on the unnatural direction of the original Gentile graft: a wild olive joined to a cultivated tree runs against ordinary horticultural practice. "For 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" (Rom 11:24). What was harder — the wild graft "contrary to nature" — has already happened; the easier work — restoring the original branches to their own root — remains entirely possible.