The Olive Tree
A Riddle for the Logical Mind
Three verses. One logical answer. Can you find it?
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Numbers 15:16 (KJV) One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.
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Romans 11:17 (KJV) 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;
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Ephesians 2:19 (KJV) Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Read all three. Lay them side by side. What must be true?
Yahushua counted the folds.
John 10:16 (KJV) And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
- One law for the homeborn and the stranger. — Numbers 15:16
- Wild branches are grafted into the same tree. — Romans 11:17
- Gentiles are fellowcitizens, not strangers. — Ephesians 2:19
One tree, one people, one law.
Why It Matters
The church teaches that Elohim has two peoples, Israel under the Law and the church under grace, each with its own plan. Moses gave one rule: "One law and one manner shall be for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you" (Numbers 15:16; see also Exodus 12:49). Paul says the Gentile believer is a wild branch "graffed in among them," sharing "the root and fatness of the olive tree" (Romans 11:17). And he says they are "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints" (Ephesians 2:19). One tree, one household, one law.
Jeremiah names the tree: Yahuah called Israel "a green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit" (Jeremiah 11:16). Paul tells Gentiles they were once "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12), so being brought near means joining that commonwealth, not starting a second one. Those who belong to Messiah are "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29), heirs through the one Seed, who is Messiah (Galatians 3:16).
The two-peoples system is young. John Nelson Darby developed it in the 1830s, and the Scofield Reference Bible (1909) carried it into American seminaries and pulpits. Its mirror image, "replacement theology," says the church replaced Israel. Both make two trees. Paul planted one. The branch is grafted in. It neither replaces the tree nor grows beside it.
This matters because the two-peoples teaching hands the Gentile believer a separate rulebook. The commandments become "Jewish" and are set aside, while the promises are kept. But a grafted branch lives on the same root and bears the same fruit. Paul warns the branch, "thou bearest not the root, but the root thee" (Romans 11:18). A Gentile who cuts himself off from Israel's Law cuts himself off from the sap that feeds him.
Revelation's city has twelve gates, and on them "the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel" (Revelation 21:12). Its foundations carry the names of the twelve apostles (Revelation 21:14). There is no thirteenth gate for a second people.