Section 10
the graft is completed, the transplanted skin will grow organically with the tissue to which it has been grafted. This growth is possible because both the skin and the tissue have life. The organic ele ment in the life enables them to grow together.
In Romans Paul uses the illustrations of vessels, married life, and grafting. The illustration of the vessels shows that we are God's containers with God as our content. The illustration of marriage shows that a man and a woman with different minds, emotions, wills, personalities, characters, and dispositions are joined to form one unit. The illustration of grafting shows that two lives are joined and then grow together organically.
A stanza in a hymn written by A. B. Simpson (Hymns, #482) speaks of grafting:
This the secret nature hideth, Harvest grows from buried grain; A poor tree with better grafted, Richer, sweeter life doth gain. No doubt, when Mr. Simpson wrote this hymn, he had Romans 11 in mind. I do not believe that A. B. Simpson would teach that the Christian life is an exchanged life. According to this hymn, he realized that it is a grafted life, a life in which two parties are joined to grow organically.