Powerful to Save

Paul here adds weight to his statement in verse 22 that God can switch the focus of His effectual call from gentile to Jew as easily as He once switched it from Jew to gentile. But as has been the case throughout this chapter, we must handle these verses with special care lest we arrive at erroneous conclusions.

Paul has made clear throughout Romans 9–11 that God has begun bypassing the great majority of the Jews in judgment upon their unbelief, a point he reiterated in verse 20: “Because of unbelief they were broken off.” Now, as part of his efforts to help gentiles keep a proper perspective on their own call and salvation, Paul states the obvious for the Romans: “If they do not continue in unbelief, they will be grafted in.” Simple enough, right? All the Jews must do is get over their rejection of Christ and believe. But, of course, that is beyond the ability of any Jew (or gentile) to do on his or her own initiative. If God does not call the Jews, none will believe, for salvation depends on Him. But God is more than able to bring Jews into the household of faith, Paul says (indeed, He is continuing to do it in a small way, as Paul argued in 11:1; the difference is a matter of degree). When it comes to the Jews, He who successfully grafted wild branches (gentiles) into His olive tree will have no trouble grafting the “natural” branches (Jews) back in. If God chooses to call them, the Jews will come en masse.

Perhaps we should say, “When God chooses to call them,” for Paul here moves from what seems to be a conditional statement—“If they do not continue in unbelief, [they] will be grafted in”—to one that seems definite—“If you . . . were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?” This is another of Paul’s tantalizing hints of what lies ahead for the Jews, a topic he will take up in greater detail in the verses we will examine tomorrow.

We have now come to the end of Paul’s sixth argument to show that the failure of the mass of the Jews to accept Christ does not mean God’s redemptive purposes have failed. The truth of the matter is that, while God is bypassing the Jews, He is calling gentiles to provoke the Jews to envy. In His wise providence, He uses even judgment to carry out His plan to redeem a people for Himself.