Romans 11:16

And if the firstfruit is holy, so is the lump: and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Here are two simple parallel metaphors, both meaning exactly the same things, which is, that since God had so graciously accepted the first Jewish converts, all Jews who would accept the Lord would likewise be accepted.

Firstfruit ... refers to Numbers 15:20, in which passage the Jews were instructed to "offer up a cake" of their dough to the Lord when they first prepared bread from the new harvest. After the sacrifice of that first symbolical portion of it, the remainder, or lump, was considered to be ready for general use.

This illustration, by use of twin metaphors, is actually an appeal to the axiomatic truth that the whole partakes of the nature of its parts. Despite the obvious simplicity of this homely truth, it is true that

Few passages have been loaded down with more fanciful interpretations than has this, or made to serve more foreign ends.[20]

Barrett agreed that the firstfruit and the root in this verse "refer to Jewish Christians."[21]

It should be particularly noted that nothing is said in this verse about the "whole lump" being holy, nor "all the branches" being holy. Lenski noted this omission thus:

Paul does not write "the WHOLE lump ... ALL the branches," which he might have done but avoided doing, so as not to shift the emphasis and thus afford an occasion of misunderstanding.[22]

To construe this verse, therefore, as a support of the theory that the whole Jewish nation, now morally dead, and sentenced to perpetual hardening, will some day accept Christianity, goes extravagantly beyond anything the verse says. Pray God it might even be true; and yet, it is not so declared.

[20] Ibid.

[21] C. K. Barrett, op. cit., p. 216.

[22] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 703.