How did God respond after Israel cut off the bud, and how did Israel continue to respond?
God in His sovereignty put the bud back on, carrying it through the post-resurrection and into Acts. Israel, however, continued to reject it and would not let the bud come into full flower. Instead of clipping it off again, God raised up another apostle and revealed the full flower through Paul’s revelations.
Les explains the analogy: Genesis is the bulb, the Old Testament is the stem, and Christ’s first advent is the bud ready to bloom. Israel cut off the bud—Scripture describes Messiah being cut off in Daniel—and it seemed everything fell apart. But God in His sovereignty put the bud back on, carrying it into the post-resurrection period and the book of Acts. Israel still would not let the bud come into full flower; they kept rejecting it. So instead of clipping it off again, God did something totally different: He raised up another apostle, and through the revelations given to Paul, the full flower is now seen. It is not Paul himself but his revelations; Christ is the flower, revealed in a way nowhere else in Scripture can be found.