²² Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. ²³ And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴ For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

God is not to be trifled with. Paul invites us to consider the Lord’s character: He is both kind and severe. We might expect God’s severity if our relationship with Him were based on the Law alone, but we would not expect kindness. People may hope for His kindness in their individual case, but His severeness should caution us against presuming his kindness or taking it for granted. Too many people gamble that somehow God will overlook the negative of their lives and make a special dispensation in their case.

Israel made that mistake; they treated their relationship with God as an entitlement. Indeed, they had a special relationship with Him as His “chosen” people. But exceptionalistic arrogance led them to think they were impervious to Yahweh’s stern anger. They presumed to follow God in their own ways, as exemplified by Uzzah, the unfortunate priest who went to steady the cart on which the Ark of the Covenant was being wrongly carried (2 Sam 6:6-7). God meant the Law to be followed in its detail. But Israel’s presumption can be seen in the more egregious examples of their continuously building altars on the “high places” to worship idols, which God expressly forbid. God cut them off as a nation, like cutting a branch off a tree.

In their place, God has now grafted in the Gentiles, as embodied in the church. However, human nature being as it is, we Gentile “people of God” must be warned not to take on the same arrogant exceptionalism as the Jews did. The fact is that the Lord can just as easily reverse things and cut us off like He did the Jews. In fact, it would be easier for God to graft Israel, the natural branches, back into the tree than the wild branches (Gentiles). The point is that Gentile believers should recognize that only the kindness of God, working through faith, gives them any position or status with God. There is no place for anyone to boast in his or her own merits. Christians are not superior to Jews.

We must emphasize that this passage is not talking about individuals, but to Israel and the Gentiles as a whole in relationship to God’s favor. God has not abandoned His people Israel completely, as Paul soon explains.

Lord, help me never forget Your kindness nor Your severity.