The Olive Tree

I can’t help but wonder, when Christians read the 11th chapter of Romans, what they understand from it. Paul makes the message very clear. Unbelieving Jews were cut off from the Jewish Olive Tree; believing Gentiles are grafted in. Jews, if they come to believe, are grafted in again. Yet it is never spoken about, never preached about. In fact, in the more than twenty years since I gave my life to the Lord, I have only heard it preached once, and that was on a half-hour TV program.

Why is this not preached in churches? It’s not as though I have only been part of one denomination in my Christian life. I’ve attended Baptist, Charismatic, Nazarene, Alliance, Evangelical and Pentecostal services throughout the years. But I have never heard this message preached in a church.

It is the ‘unpreached sermon’, and one that needs to be preached. Replacement Theology has done much damage to the Church, and needs to be refuted. The Church has NOT replaced Israel in God’s economy. Rather, we Gentile believers were grafted in to the olive tree, able to partake of the roots and sap of the patriarchs and prophets of the Jewish nation.

Without the Jews, we would have no Savior, no Christ, no salvation. For Jesus (Yeshua) was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died as a Jew, and will return again as the Jewish Messiah. No amount of Replacement Theology can deny that. When He returns to this earth, He will return to Jerusalem, God’s holy city. He is not returning to this earth to New York, or Washington, or London. He is returning to His holy city, the city of David.

Just as Paul mentions in this chapter, Jewish people all over the world are being grafted into their olive tree again, and becoming believers in Yeshua their Messiah, in numbers not seen since the first century! However, this is something that the Church cannot take credit for; rather, it is because of Messianic Jews witnessing to their own people.

Paul said in Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek" (emphasis mine). How many churches send missionaries to the Jew first? In fact, how many churches send missionaries to Jewish people at all?

Unfortunately, over the centuries, the Church has made Jesus into a Gentile God. Again, unfortunately, the Jewish people have been persecuted and killed, often in the Name of Christ, so that they fear the name! As Christians, we have much to repent of in this regard. Just as Daniel prayed and repented on behalf of his people (Daniel 9:3:19), so the Church, and even individual Christians, need to repent of the sins against the Jewish people on behalf of our forefathers in the faith.

God tells us to ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ (Psalm 122:6). There is even a promise attached to it – ‘May they prosper who love you.’ In Genesis 12:3, in speaking to Abraham with the promise of making him a great nation, God promises “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”