Subject: “Consider the goodness and severity of God” Romans 11:22
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.
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?
Romans 11:22-24
TWO ASPECTS OF GOD’S ACTIONS
1. They exist simultaneously
a) The goodness of God’s actions
i) Kindness
ii) Graciousness
b) The severity of God’s actions
i) Sternness
ii) Antonym of “goodness”
iii) But not “badness”
2. Those who respond to God and His grace
a) They experience His goodness
b) All believers
c) Especially the Gentiles
3. Those who reject the grace of God
They experience the severity of God
THE TURNING POINT FOR THE JEWS
1. If they do not continue in unbelief
2. They will be grafted in
3. God is able to graft them back
A WORD OF WARNING TO THE GENTILES
1. They are to continue in God’s goodness
2. The danger of being “cut off” is very real to Gentiles too
a) If Israel can be cut off
b) How much more Gentiles
THE WORD “CONSIDER” Romans 11:22
1. It is an exclamatory expression
2. “Behold” is usually the translation of this Greek word “ide”
3. Meaning of the word
a) To behold
b) To think and ponder carefully
c) Therefore, the word “consider” was the translation chosen
THE IMAGERY OF A CULTIVATED OLIVE TREE
1. Emblems of Israel
a) The Vine
b) The Olive Tree
2. Gentiles
a) Imagery of a wild Olive Tree
b) Wild by nature
c) But God grafted the Gentiles into the cultivated Oilve Tree
3. Israel
a) Natural branches
b) They can be grafted back into the cultivated olive tree easily
VITAL LESSONS
1. A deeper understanding of the Jew-Gentile tension