Romans 11:24

For if thou wert cut--"wert cut off" from the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, &c.--This is just the converse of Rom 11:21 : "As the excision of the merely engrafted Gentiles through unbelief is a thing much more to be expected than was the excision of the natural Israel, before it happened; so the restoration of Israel, when they shall be brought to believe in Jesus, is a thing far more in the line of what we should expect, than the admission of the Gentiles to a standing which they never before enjoyed."

The apostle, having reconciled that great truth of the rejection of the Jews with the promise made unto the fathers, is, in this chapter, further labouring to mollify the harshness of it, and to reconcile it to the divine goodness in general. It might be said, "Hath God then cast away his people?" The apostles therefore sets himself, in this chapter, to make a reply to this objection, and that two ways: - I. He shows at large what the mercy is that is mixed with this wrath (v. 1-32). II. He infers thence the infinite wisdom and sovereignty of God, with the adoration of which he concludes this chapter and subject (Rom 11:33-36).

11:24 by nature . . . contrary to nature: The usual method of enhancing the yield of olive trees involved grafting a shoot from a cultivated tree onto a wild olive tree to benefit from the wild tree’s vigor. By grafting wild olive branches (Gentiles) into the cultivated olive tree (the people of God), God has done what is contrary to nature.