Chapter 10. The Wild and the Domestic Olive Tree
Chapter 10
1. He made that statement so that we would not gratify the flesh and reject the graft on to the Spirit. He said, You, a wild olive shoot, were grafted on a good olive and have become a sharer of the richness of the olive tree. So, just as a wild olive, after being grafted, if it remains the wild olive it was before, it will be cut off and cast into the fire. But if it holds fast to the graft and is changed into a good olive, it becomes a fruitful olive tree, as if planted in the king’s garden. In the same way, if men have through faith made progress toward what is better and have received God’s Spirit and produced his fruit, they will be spiritual, as if planted in God’s garden. But if they reject the Spirit and continue to be what they were before, wishing to belong to the flesh rather than to the Spirit, quite rightly is it said of such, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That is like saying that the wild olive is not received in God’s garden. Wonderfully, therefore, did the Apostle manifest our nature and God’s entire economy in the passage about flesh and blood, and the wild olive.
By way of explanation, suppose that a good olive has been neglected and left for a time in a wilderness, it produces wild growth and of itself become a wild olive. On the other hand, suppose a wild olive is cared for and grafted, it returns to its pristine fruit-bearing. In the same way, if men have been neglected, as wild growth they produce carnal lusts and by their own fault become unfruitful in righteousness. For, while men are sleeping the enemy sows weeds. That is why the Lord commanded his disciples to be vigilant. Again, men who are unfruitful in righteousness and, so to say, covered with brambles, if they accept care and receive the Word of God as a graft, they return to man’s pristine nature—that which had been made according to the image and likeness of God.
2. Moreover, when the wild olive is grafted, it does not lose its nature of wood, but changes the quality of its fruit and gets another name, since it is no longer a wild olive but a fruitful olive, and it is called such too. In like manner, when man is grafted by faith and receives God’s Spirit, he does not lose his nature of flesh but changes the quality of the fruit of his works and gets another name, which signifies the change into something better, since he is no longer flesh and blood, but a spiritual man, and he is called such too.
Another point, if the wild olive is not grafted, it remains useless for its master, because of its wild quality. It is cut off as an unfruitful tree and is cast into the fire. In like manner, man who by faith does not accept the graft of the Spirit remains what he was before, flesh and blood, and he cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
So, the Apostle has expressed it well, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Not that he rejects the substance of the flesh, but he adds the infusion of the Spirit. And for that reason he says, For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable; and again, But you are not carnal but spiritual, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. He makes that still clearer: The body it is true, he says, is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you. Again, in the Letter to the Romans, he says, For if you live according to the flesh you will die. By that he does not reject their living in the flesh, for he was in the flesh as he wrote to them; but he cuts off the lusts of the flesh that kill man. So he continues, But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.