and had been restored at that time, no Gentile would ever have shared it with

them, even temporarily.  It was something exceptional that was in view.  It

is clear that Paul cannot be referring to the great promise of justification

by faith, for two reasons.  In the first place, he warns the believing

Gentile that he might be `cut off' -- a warning that cannot refer to

justification by faith, for Romans 8 makes separation for ever impossible;

and secondly, Abraham himself was an uncircumcised Gentile when he was

justified by faith, and so can be the father of all who believe, whether Jews

or Gentiles, without any necessity for a grafting in `contrary to nature'.

So far as justification was concerned, the oneness of all believers, whether

Jews or Gentiles, was so close, that many have taken the words of Galatians

3:27-29 as though they were written in Ephesians.  `Contrary to nature'

cannot, therefore, be used of the great doctrine of Romans 1 to 8, it can

only apply to the dispensational teaching of Romans 9 to 11.  The doctrinal

truth remains; the dispensational aspects change, and pass away.  We have now

seen enough, we trust, to convince us that `Church' truth is not in view in

Romans 11.  Before passing on to the great conclusion, however, we must

examine more carefully the apostle's figure of the olive tree, and discover

why he speaks of the process of engrafting into the olive tree, branches of

the wild olive, contrary to nature.

If the reader will glance back at the structure of Romans 11:11-32, he

will see that the word `provoke' is given three times.  Two of these

references actually occur (in verses 11 and 14), while in verses 17 to 24

instead of stating the fact for the third time, we find that the apostle uses

the figure of the olive tree.  It is the usual custom in grafting to take a

slip of the choice variety, whether it be apple, or pear, or rose, and graft

it into the stock of some stronger, though not so choice a variety.  For

example, in the case of the standard rose, the tall stem is the briar, and

upon this is budded the more fragile flower.  Paul appears to reverse all

this, and there are many who bluntly say that he did not know anything about

the culture of trees, and must not be taken literally.  This, however, cannot

be.  He hangs the whole argument of Romans 11 upon this figure, and if he is

wrong in this, he may be wrong altogether.  Paul himself recognizes that the

process is `contrary to nature', but those who criticize and suggest that he

is using a far-fetched illustration, are themselves in error.  While the

engrafting of a wild olive into the true was `contrary to nature', it was by

no means contrary to practice.  Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, a Latin

writer on Agriculture, Gardening and Trees, deals with the cultivation of the

olive tree, and speaks of the very practice under consideration.  It was

found that when an olive tree began to cease fruit-bearing, the insertion of

a wild graft had the same effect upon the tree that Paul hoped the insertion

of the Gentile would have had on Israel; it `provoked' the flagging olive

tree to `emulation'.  The practice has been revived in our own day to provoke

certain shy-bearing pear trees to fruitfulness and came under the present

writer's notice while studying for his qualifications to use the letters

F.R.H.S.  Columella flourished about a.d. 40, so that Paul was not speaking

`without the book'.

The fact that the Gentiles who believed had received `the blessing of

Abraham' in the form of the promised `spirit' (Gal. 3:14), and that they

possessed the gifts associated with Pentecost (1 Cor. 14:21), was intended to

provoke Israel to wake up to the fact that their unique position was going.

The whole point of the olive tree in Romans 11 lies in the purpose with which

the wild olive was grafted in -- namely, to provoke the flagging tree