Romans 11: Identify the Olive Tree

[J.D.]

The Romans 11 statement appears to be about "Standing by faith" where individuals in the Jewish group stand and some fall - and individuals in the Gentile group stand while others never even join to start with.

The warning appears to be about perseverance (just as we see in Romans 2:6-7) - and it is individual.

The "invisible" body of Christ - means that this text applies to every saint world wide - no matter what location or denomination or circumstance they may be in. There is nothing mentioned in Romans 11 about "disfellowshiping" unbelieving Jews - it is not an act of "an organization" but the act of God in "not sparing them". Non-believing Jews were not applying to Jewish Christians "for membership" or for "questions discipline questions".

Thus from that perspective -- it has to be the invisible church.

in Christ,

Bob

"Where two or three are gather in my name, there I am in the midst". When someone is "disfellowshiped" from the Church, they are ostensibly disfellowshipped from God. That is the "correlation" between the invisible God and His visible Church.

 

[BobRyan]

I agree that disfellowship from the church (officially) organizationally and formally is supposed to symbolize disfellowship from God - but as we know in the dark ages - when the Catholic church excommunicated the saints and then killed them - those saints were not in fact dissfellowshipped from God - though they were separated from a visible organization.

But in the case of the Romans 11 group of unbelieving Jews that "fell due to unbelief" we are not talking about their having been Christians nor is the text saying that the Jewish leaders had disfellowshipped unbelieving Jews. (The official organization was in fact disfellowshipping any Christian that dared to confess Christ.)

Paul asks in Romans 3:1-3 "What advantage is there to being a literal Jew" and then answers "great in every respect" - followed by a list of blessings given to the Jews.

Christ said that the kindgdom would be "taken from them" and given to someone else who WOULD honor and obey the Word of God.

But specific to Romans 11 - the reason that has to be invisible is that "He who did not spare them" is not a reference to any form of formal organizational person-by-person disfellowship action not by the Jewish "nation church" and not be the Apostolic "persecuted church".

in Christ,

Bob