Consider this passage from Romans: Paul is talking about grafting in wild and cultivated olive shoots. Gentiles are the wild shoots and the cultivated ones are the Jews, who have grown up with a belief in God. Paul says that they were cut out of the tree because of unbelief (in Jesus) and we were grafted in, but we shouldn't take pride in this fact, because they can easily be re-grafted into the tree (of faith in Christ). Romans 11:30-32 states "Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."
That last sentence always confused me because of the word 'bound'. But we have to understand it not as an involuntary sinfulness, but as voluntary. God has allowed us to be disobedient (by our own choice), but in our sin he comes near and provides a way out - salvation by grace through Christ - and thereby shows his glory and majesty to all men.
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