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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Israel—Spirit and Flesh, #19
And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; (Romans 11:17)
Paul states that the unbelieving Jews were broken off from the good olive tree and that the Gentiles were removed from their wild olive tree and grafted on the good olive tree.
What is the "good olive tree"? The good olive tree cannot represent the land and people of Israel, the physical Jews, because the Jews who did not receive Jesus as Christ were not broken off from the land and people of Israel. The land and people are not the olive tree.
If the olive tree does not symbolize the land and people, what does it symbolize?
The good olive tree represents the Seed of Abraham, Christ—Head and Body, the elect, the Lord's saints, the Church (another name for the elect), the Servant of the Lord, the royal priesthood, the Kingdom of God, the Wife of the Lamb.
The good olive tree represents Israel—not the physical land and people of Israel, nor a Gentile Church, but the anointed, Divinely blessed Seed of Abraham.
Now consider this: if the unbelieving Jews were broken off from the good olive tree they must have been part of it at one time. It is not possible to be broken off from something of which one never has been part.
Originally the people of Israel were the anointed of God, having the Law of Moses, the Scriptures, the Tabernacle, the Prophets. They were the members of the Seed of Abraham, of Christ, of the elect, of the saints, of the true and only Church, of the Servant of the Lord, of the royal priesthood, of the Kingdom of God, of the Wife of the Lamb.
The Spirit of Christ spoke through the Hebrew Prophets and the Glory was with them. But the Israelites continued to sin against the Lord until He removed them from their land and scattered them throughout the nations of the earth. They did not abide in the Lord who had been among them. They were broken off from the olive tree.
The "tree," Israel, the Seed of Abraham of which we are speaking, at one time had Jewish branches only (or primarily). Today the "tree" has both Jewish and Gentile branches. The branches no longer are distinguished by race for it is one olive tree, one anointed servant of God.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ [Messiah]. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (I Corinthians 12:12,13)
We see, therefore, that the tree of God is not the land and people of Israel. Neither is the tree of God a "Gentile Church."
The tree of God is the anointed Seed of Abraham.
To be continued.