“You say, Will you please inquire if it is true, that the wild olive grafted into a good olive, makes the wild olive become good and fruit-bearing? In reply, I assure you that the olive is wild by nature, and instead of grafting the wild into a good one, it is the very reverse: they graft the fruit bearing into a wild stock.” The process is then described, similar to the grafting of the apple, or the rose. “The apostle says that what God did in the case of the Gentiles, that is, in grafting the wild olive into the good, was contrary to nature.” (Rom. 11:2424For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? (Romans 11:24).) For the natural process is just the reverse. If you get a copy of a book called, ‘The Land and the Book’ by Dr. Thompson, an American Missionary who resided here for about forty years, it will tell you the same.
“By the way, I have for a good while doubted the correctness of even using the process of grafting to illustrate the two natures in the believer.”
I know it has often been thus used, when there was no thought of any wrong use that might be made of it.... The word for ‘engrafting’ in the New Testament is only found in this passage (Rom. 11), where, as you know, the thought is dispensational, and has no reference to the new birth at all. James says ‘The engrafted word,’ but it should be ‘the implanted word.’ Really there is no such thing as grafting a new nature on the old; nor is there anything in common between the two, save that they are both existing in the one responsible person. Nor is there such a thing as cutting off the stock of the old, that it may yield its power to the new. The old is there in its entirety; and, as we know to our daily sorrow, if not practically mortified, it yields its fruit. The wild, and the good olive, are but two states of the one kind; but the old and new natures are two different kinds.
“The error of Dr. M. you refer to is simply current theology, that makes the new birth the reformation of man as he is: the only point of difference between him and other theologians being the degree to which this reformation can be now carried. I learned it in my boyhood in our Presbyterian Catechism, where the question is asked, ‘What is baptism?’ the answer there given is, ‘Baptism is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein the washing of water in the name of Christ doth signify and seal our engrafting into Christ,’ &c. In fact the framers did not gee the distinctness of the new birth at all.”
“You will be glad to know that the word from Upper Egypt is still very cheering. Thus far the Lord’s hand is very manifest, and it seems a point has now been reached when separation [from evil] must take place. I think in my last I stated they had attacked the work, and published (or, at least sent written copies) of their official answers to these erroneous doctrines. Last month some five or six of those prominent in the work met together to give their answer on all these points. That is? they met to agree together on a written reply, and spent a month together. I had a letter from one of them this week. He closes by saying, ‘The Lord is working in every direction. He first awoke His saints, and is now loosing the bonds which bound them to human systems, that they may worship in spirit and in truth.’”
“I hope to see them when the Lord will. [He is now there] Communication between here and Egypt is still impeded by strict quarantine regulations. Added to this difficulty, there is now much anxiety about the general state of things in that country; and in fact the minds of Mahomedans everywhere are now much exercised about the expected ‘guide,’ or ‘Mahdi,’ whom it is alleged their prophet foretold God would raise up for them in the last days when the faithful would be in perplexity, and not know what to do.”
Other letters have come since from this servant of the Lord, relating to the deeply-interesting work of God in Upper Egypt. The world may not be able to understand the great wave of Satanic power in the Sudan; but those who know of the blessed work of the Holy Ghost in Upper Egypt amongst the Copts, will not fail to see it is the dragon’s old hatred and effort to destroy that which is to the glory of Christ. May we all be much in prayer for these dear young converts to Christ and awakened Christians, and for the brother who has gone with his life in his hand.
A word of explanation may help the reader to understand the question of the wild olive. We were speaking lately with a great teacher of what we believe to be false views of holiness, namely, the improvement of man’s sinful flesh into perfection, instead of God’s judgment upon it in the cross of Christ as taught in the word. He denied the two natures in the believer as taught by the Lord Jesus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” and said the two natures in the stock rose, and the apple, were not the correct illustration of the believer; but the olive was the true illustration; that it was contrary to all other trees—the bad was engrafted into the good olive, quoting Rom. 11. Thus the bad sinner was engrafted into Christ, and became all good, no bad left; no bad root, or shoots. As scripture was so sadly misapplied by this leader, we felt led to question the fact as to the olive as stated by him; and we wrote to a beloved brother in Lisbon, who made careful inquiries. The answer we got from him was precisely in substance the same as this answer from Syria. The whole character of Christianity is involved in this question. Is the new birth the reformation or improvement of the old nature, or an entirely new creation? We quite agree with our brother: the mode of engrafting of the rose may be pressed too far, as explaining the mode of the new birth. But we have used it solely for the purpose of showing that just as there is brier and rose in one stock rose, so there is the flesh, or the old nature, and the new in every Christian. His remarks are very valuable, as showing that the two natures are far more dissimilar, in the one responsible person, than the two which are of a kind, in the stock rose, the olive, or the apple.
Surely such persons as Dr. M. can never have thought or meant what they say. If he reflects for a moment, he would not say it was possible for a sinful nature like ours, to be engrafted in the sinless Christ? Yet we have often noticed where there is a wish to glory in the flesh, to exalt human nature in its self-righteous perfection, there is also a similar tendency to depreciate Christ. He was made sin for us once, on the cross—He bore the sins of many. There He, the holy One, was forsaken of God. But did not God raise Him from the dead and receive Him to glory? But for a sinful human nature to be engrafted into Him now, in order to make that sinful nature all good, like this untrue statement as to the olive—could anything be more heretical?
We do trust all who are in danger, or may have imbibed these unscriptural views of holiness, will ponder this well. It is also a proved fact that if a bad or wild olive be engrafted into a good olive, the wild or bad overcomes the good. It would be so if this dreadful view of the new birth were true. If our sinful nature were engrafted into the sinless Christ, He would no longer be the holy, holy One. Oh Christians, beware! never was there a time when we needed to be more diligent in holding fast the truth of the spotless sinlessness of Him who is the Holy and the True. We scarcely need say there is no such thought in Rom. 11 as the engrafting of Gentiles into Christ, but into the olive-tree of promise or Abrahamic privileges.