If Israel is the tree that we are grafted into then who are the branches that we cast out? They are Israel.
No this tree is Jesus and the only "natural" branches that stayed were the ones who had faith in Jesus. Remember the parable of the vine? Jesus is the vine, we are the branches.
Greetings
@A. Christian
I see your thinking my friend but that is not totally correct.
Yes, Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, this is perfectly true and what a wonderful way he had to describe how we are to abide in him as branches of the vine.
But we, gentiles, are by nature of the wild olive tree. The olive tree so important to the Jews, as were the olive groves, Jesus spent a lot of time in them.
So here we have a further explanation, we as a
wild olive, are grafted, contrary to nature, into
a cultivated olive tree.
No one grafts a wild branch into a cultivated tree, it is contrary to nature. But here we see this is the case so what is scripture telling us?
Jesus came to his own, the Jews, as a Jew himself, to correct their wrong thinking, but as we know, the Jews the chosen people, the
cultivated olive tree, rejected him. So Jesus made salvation and God's Grace and Mercy available to the Gentiles,
who were not of the cultivated olive tree, they/we being wild by nature. But by coming to God through Jesus, we can receive salvation through him, being grafted into (joined to)
the true olive tree, the one
cultivated by God for his people the Jews.
The two become one, Jews and Gentiles, ALL who repent and come to God through the Messiah, the Christ, can be saved, scripture confirms, there are no Jews, no gentiles, no male no female, we are all one in Christ.
In all things Jews first, then Gentiles scripture tells us, so we see this in the right order. The gentile is grafted into the
cultivated stock,
the lump, and thus fed by the sap from the roots of the cultivated lump.
The Holy sap of the cultivated Olive is fed to the
wild olive branches making us Holy too, and
joining us to the original cultivated Holy lump.
Romans 11:13-23 (NKJV)
13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy
those who are my flesh and save some of them.
15 For if their being cast away
is the reconciling of the world, what
will their acceptance
be but life from the dead?
16
For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches were broken off, (Jews) and you, (Gentile) being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them,
and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,
18
do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, "Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in."
20 Well
said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
21
For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
22
Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God:
on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in
His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
23
And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
Romans 11:24-27 (NKJV)
24
For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and 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?
25
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26
And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27
For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."
Who is Israel? Those grafted in to the lump, those natural and wild olive branches grafted into the cultivated olive tree.
Now as we move from the confirmation of the cultivated olive tree, and those grafted into it, we move to the NT, John 15.
Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, God is the one that grafts us in or prunes us out. But it is the Holy sap of the lump, the Holy Root that feed us, Jesus said abide in me and I will abide in you, the sap flows freely providing we abide in the cultivated lump.
John 15:1-27 (NKJV)
1
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
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.
6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
9 "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.
11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
18 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates Me hates My Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.
25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'
26 "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.