SPIRITUAL GRAFTING
‘The engrafted Word.’
The figure is that of grafting a good shoot upon an inferior stock. Without pushing the figure too far, we may learn from it something concerning the nature of the change produced by Christianity upon the individual and upon society.
I. Grafting interferes with the order of nature.—Human wisdom and skill are brought to bear upon the living but unconscious tree; a change is effected in it by a power from without acting upon it. The process of degeneration in human nature is arrested by Christianity; a Divine wisdom, power, and love are in it, brought to bear upon our race, and a measure of spiritual progress and attainment made possible which could not have been reached by man’s unaided efforts.
II. Grafting implies that there is affinity between the Divine and the human.—In the natural world only those trees that are of the same order or family can be utilised for the purpose of grafting; an oak cannot be grafted on an apple-tree, or an orange on a pear-tree. In the same way human nature must be akin to the Divine for the spiritual process corresponding to grafting to succeed. Man is created in the Divine image, and in a mysterious but real sense of the term is a partaker of the Divine nature. However sunk in sin he may be, there is always a possibility of his rising to holiness and communion with God.
III. The purpose of grafting is to change and improve the inferior stock.—It is not done simply as a curious experiment. In like manner, the interposition of God in human affairs has in view the redemption of man from evil, and the creation of the race afresh in righteousness and true holiness.
Illustration
‘A gardener has a tree that bears small and inferior fruit and wishes to improve it. He lops off a considerable number of branches and inserts into the stock a slip taken from another tree of the same kind, the fruit of which is large and delicious. If the graft succeeds, the slip inserted ultimately forms a tree similar to that from which it was taken, and the portion which remains of the original tree becomes assimilated to that which was inserted in it, and its leaves, blossoms, and fruit are improved in quality. In this process we have a parable of spiritual things.’