Romans 11:17-21

[psalms109:31]

Romans 11:17If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." 20Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
22Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

What we have is Israel is the intended to be in Christ, they are the original branches for the return of the Holy Spirit through Christ to make us one in Christ. Jesus came into His own, but His own received Him not. The believing Jews remained, but the unbelieving Jews were cut out for unbelief. Saul before he became Paul was cut out for unbelief. We Gentiles were crafted in when we heard the Gospel of our salvation having believed. Now the Jews are not without hope they can be crafted back in if they do not continue in their unbelief. Like Saul after he became Paul.

Who is the Natural branches?

 

[Skandelon]

Romans 11:17If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." 20Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
22Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

What we have is Israel is the intended to be in Christ, they are the original branches for the return of the Holy Spirit through Christ to make us one in Christ. Jesus came into His own, but His own received Him not. The believing Jews remained, but the unbelieving Jews were cut out for unbelief. Saul before he became Paul was cut out for unbelief. We Gentiles were crafted in when we heard the Gospel of our salvation having believed. Now the Jews are not without hope they can be crafted back in if they do not continue in their unbelief. Like Saul after he became Paul.

Who is the Natural branches?

Great question. The natural branches are the same group Paul talked about in Romans nine when he said, "God will have mercy on who he want to have mercy and he will harden whom he wants to harden."

Who has God hardened or cut off?
Israel.

Who has God reserved as the "remnant from Israel?"
Apostles.

Who is God grafting into the vine by inviting them to faith and repentance?
Gentiles.

I wonder how Calvinist explain this since they interpret those hardened in Romans 9 to be the "non-elect reprobates" who would certainly be condemned. How do they reconcile that in this passage Paul clearly explains that those hardened/cut off might be grafted back in if they don't continue in unbelief? Isn't that impossible for those non-elect hardened reprobates?

 

[psalms109:31]

scripture

Hebrews 3:
Warning Against Unbelief
7So, as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
8do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
9where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
10That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.'
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.' "[Psalm 95:7-11]

12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion."[Psalm 95:7,8]

16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed[Or disbelieved]? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Jude 1:5Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord[Some early manuscripts Jesus] delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.

 

[Skandelon]

psalms, in my experience discussing these matters with Calvinists over the years I have found they rarely engage with discussions involving Romans 11 and Israel's temporary hardening and subsequent possiblities of being saved. It doesn't fit their system. Bring up Romans 9 and they are drawn like a moth to a flame, but they don't care for the context of those hardened folks actually being able to be grafted back in.

 

[Skandelon]

i hear crickets... revealing.

 

[Whitetail09]

I for one find Romans 11 very comforting. I feel these verses give comfort in the fact that if and when we do sin, we can still confess our sins, repent from our ways, and God still has a place for us with him.

 

[Winman]

Skanelon, I don't believe the apostles only were the remnant, many thousands of Jews believed on Christ, 3000 alone on the day of Pentacost, another 5000 in Acts 4.

Acts 4:4 Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.

I read many years ago that one year after Christ was crucified they estimate there were about 50,000 Jews who converted to Christ in Jerusalem alone. I do not know how they arrived at this figure.

But the remnant was much more than the apostles who saw Jesus with their eyes.

But the vast majority of Jews did not believe and God did harden them as you say.

 

[Winman]

psalms, in my experience discussing these matters with Calvinists over the years I have found they rarely engage with discussions involving Romans 11 and Israel's temporary hardening and subsequent possiblities of being saved. It doesn't fit their system. Bring up Romans 9 and they are drawn like a moth to a flame, but they don't care for the context of those hardened folks actually being able to be grafted back in.

Yes, you never see the Cals/DoGs come back and explain to us how we misinterpreted these scriptures. They just pretend like they didn't see the post.

And you are correct about Romans 9, they love to pull a passage out of context to argue their doctrine. Reminds me of witnessing to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, when you show them scripture that proves their doctrine false they simply ignore it and run to a pet passage or verse they believe supports their doctrine. That is all they want to know.

 

[psalms109:31]

Trust in Christ

After penticost the natural branches that remained, and the one's that was crafted into the body of Christ there is no being cut out. After having the knowledge of what Christ did for us and leave, you were never in Him in the first place.

1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

 

[Skandelon]

Skanelon, I don't believe the apostles only were the remnant, many thousands of Jews believed on Christ, 3000 alone on the day of Pentacost, another 5000 in Acts 4.

Acts 4:4 Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.

I read many years ago that one year after Christ was crucified they estimate there were about 50,000 Jews who converted to Christ in Jerusalem alone. I do not know how they arrived at this figure.

But the remnant was much more than the apostles who saw Jesus with their eyes.

But the vast majority of Jews did not believe and God did harden them as you say.

I agree. I just believe that the "firstfruits" of the spirit Paul refers to were his chosen apostles, who were the most known of the Remnant. And while Christ was walking on earth he kept that number of "believers/followers" very low. He wouldn't entrust himself even to those at that time who were expressing a measure of faith in him.

23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men.

So, my point is that the Remnant of Israel grew in number, but the only real significant growth was after Christ's death, not before.

 

[psalms109:31]

We ought to be teachers

Hebrews 5:
Warning Against Falling Away
11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 6
1Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death,[Or from useless rituals ] and of faith in God, 2instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3And God permitting, we will do so.

 

[psalms109:31]

continue

Hebrews 6:
4It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because[Or repentance while ]to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

 

[psalms109:31]

1 Corinthians 3
On Divisions in the Church
1Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?

5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.

10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

18Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"[Job 5:13]; 20and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."[Psalm 94:11] 21So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas[That is, Peter] or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

 

[psalms109:31]

James 5

James 5:

17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.