Romans 11:24

Romans 11:24. For introduces the entire verse as a proof of the probability that the Jews will ultimately be grafted in again, not of the statement that God is able to graft them in (against Godet). If God's power is in question, it is needless to prove that he could more easily do one thing than another.

If thou wast, etc. The fact in the case of the Gentiles is stated under the same figure; contrary to nature suggesting, not the greater difficulty, but the antecedent improbability of the fact, All notions of additional life imparted by the grafts are here shown to be foreign to the Apostle's thought.

How much more shall these the natural branches (the phrase above rendered ‘by nature'), those who sprang from the original patriarchal root. ‘In the former case, that of the Gentile, the fact of natural growth is set against that of engrafted growth: whereas in the latter, the fact of congruity of nature (“their own olive tree”) is set against incongruity, as making the re-engrafting more probable' (Alford). The tree is not merely ‘their own' but it is God's; He remembers His covenant. What is here shown by a figure to be probable, the Apostle next declares will certainly take place.