INTRODUCTION
A subject that has long perplexed Christians and preachers alike is the identification of the olive tree in Romans 11. Who or what is this tree? Can we identify it with any degree of certainty? Or does it have some mystical conception whose meaning can’t easily be pinned down?
FALSE IDENTIFICATIONS
Many have insisted over the years that the tree is the church. But this makes no sense. First of all, the tree existed before the church began with the stripping of most of the Jewish branches and the grafting in of the Gentile branches, so the tree can’t be the church. Remember, according to Ephesians, the church is one new man, composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers. The church didn’t exist prior to Pentecost. Secondly, if the tree is the church, how come the Gentile Christians are wild olive branches? If the tree was the church, the Gentile branches should be cultivated olive branches. It may seem a convenient simplification to call the tree the church, but like all over-simplications, it tramples on obvious facts.
The Hebrew Roots movement insists that the tree is Israel. According to their theory, there is no such thing as the church. The church is a Roman Catholic fiction. Israel is the only redemptive body that exists. At the time of Jesus, they say, God expanded Israel to include Gentiles and began grafting them into Israel. But this position faces two problems. First of all, the wild olive branches (the Gentiles), according to Ephesians 2, combined with the remaining natural branches to form “one new man.” This forbids regarding the whole tree with branches as Israel. Secondly, notice that the natural branches are distinguished from the olive tree in Romans 11:24. The text plainly states, regarding the restoration of Israel, that the believing Jewish branches will be “grafted into their own olive tree” during the tribulation. This language is telling. If Israel has a special relationship with the olive tree, she can’t be the olive tree.
VITAL OBSERVATIONS
Another point to be observed is that the branches don’t support the root, but the root supports the branches (Rom. 11:18). The roots draw nourishment from the ground to feed the branches. This nourishment is carried to the branches by the trunk. The same relationship is expressed in John 15:5. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” This is a qualitative distinction. The tree and the branches are not different aspects of some homogeneous whole. The tree is the Nourisher. The branches are the nourished people. This distinction holds true whether we are talking about Israel prior to the breaking out of branches or the mixture of Jews and Gentiles in the church after the Gentiles were grafted in. The tree is Jehovah Jireh, man’s provider. The branches are those who believe in him.
Similarly, we read, “If the root is holy, so are the branches” (Rom. 11:16). Notice that the root has its own intrinsic holiness. The branches derive their holiness from the roots. Here again we have the qualitative difference between the tree and the branches highlighted. The branches are mere humans. The tree can only be Jesus the Messiah, the promised Redeemer of mankind. He is man’s holiness. There is no other source of holiness. No earthly institution imparts holiness. No earthly institution possesses holiness. In him alone is holiness. He alone is holy.
THE BIG PICTURE
So what then is the big picture of the olive tree and the olive branches? The tree as a whole—roots, trunk, branches—represents the testimony of God here on earth. God has anchored himself to this planet to bear a testimony down here, no matter how dark and foul the world around gets. God is the sustainer and provider of this testimony. The roots and trunk remain unchanged because the Lord does not change. But the branches can and do change. They represent the human aspect of God’s earthly testimony.
Prior to the church age, Israel was the people of God on earth, and she bore the testimony of God to the world. But Israel was a mixed multitude, hence there were unbelievers that needed to be removed from the tree when the Lord moved from Israel to the church. The church is “one new man” composed of both Jewish branches and Gentile branches. This testimony has continued for nearly two thousand years. When the church testimony is removed by the rapture, God will graft the Jews back in, but only those who believe (Rom. 11:23). The Jews, with Gentile proselytes, will be the testimony of God during the seventieth week.
But the testimony of God did not begin with Israel. It extends all the back to the garden. Adam and Eve were the original branches. From the very beginning this testimony focused on the Messiah, first presented as the promised seed of the woman. God selected the line of Seth, and the testimony focused on the Messianic line, though it was not limited to it. God later focused the testimony on the people and nation of Israel. Even the godly Gentiles in the surrounding nations realized that the testimony was with Israel, and they served the God of Israel.
The tree, then, in short, is the Messianic testimony on earth. Eventually, the promised Messiah arose from the nation of Israel, and the New Covenant in the Messiah’s blood was made, first and foremost, with Israel, the people of the Messiah. This is why the olive tree is peculiarly called “[Israel’s] own olive tree.” They do not have exclusive rights to the tree. But they do have a unique relationship to the tree that transcends that of all other peoples and nations on earth.
For more on the subject, see my video The Olive Tree in Romans 11.
Eyes wide open, brain engaged, heart on fire,
Lee W. Brainard
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