Stolen property
The scriptures and prophecies no longer belong to the Jewish people, but to the church. Is that what you believe?
It is obvious that differing views exist within the church concerning the place and role of the Jewish people. A major issue concerns their right to live in their ancient homeland as well as the assertion that the Scriptures and prophecies no longer belong to the Jewish people, but are now the property of the church.
These ideas are popularly known as Replacement Theology or supercessionism and, as will be illustrated, are based on a departure both from the Scriptures and history. The following explains the six major areas from whence such errors arise.
Replacement Theology is the erroneous concept that ‘the church’ has supplanted the biblical role of Israel in the purpose of God.
The church is thus viewed as ‘spiritual Israel’ and ‘spiritual Jerusalem’. The Biblical prophecies, promises and blessings given to Israel now belong to the church while Israel and the Jewish people retain the curses and judgments and are now theologically irrelevant.
One stream of RT thought contends that the Jewish people were used to prepare the way for the Messiah. So with the Christ’s coming, this particular period of salvation history came to an end and the church is a new expression of God’s election and saving power. The unbiblical, anti-Semitic teaching of Replacement Theology comes in differing degrees and spans all denominations. Needless to say, the matter was not really an issue until the 20th century, when the question of a national Jewish homeland began to emerge as a reality.
Yet Replacement Theology is not a new phenomenon. It finds its roots in the Second Temple period from 400 BC to 70 AD when different groups were asking the question, ‘Who is the true Israel?’ Whereas originally it was an internal question following the failure of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome in 135 AD and the subsequent break between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, it took on a new dimension.
The trouble with Trypho …
Replacement Theology finds its first expression in Dialogue with Trypho the Jew written by the church’s first apologist, Justin Martyr, in the 2nd century AD. According to Justin, the Jews have forfeited the Scriptures and the prophets, which are now the property of the church. In a similar vein, the popular apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas, written around 130 AD, warns its audience against the Jews, stating that they have ‘lost’ the covenants.
RT has six strands that are either based on theological grounds or on a misreading of history with attendant post-modernism. Its extreme right wing supports the view that as the Jews rejected Jesus, God has now rejected them. The Jewish people have no destiny, no elective distinction, no calling, no future. This view holds that we should no longer speak of the Jews in terms of salvation history. Jesus ended Jewish history as may be evidenced by the exile beginning with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD. Jews who live in Israel are Israelis, Jews in America are Americans, Jews resident in France are French, and so on. The only way a Jewish person has any relevance is when he accepts Jesus as personal Saviour and becomes a member of the church.
A misreading …
Yet Paul commences his discourse on the Jewish people and their salvation in Romans 9-11 with the clear statement, “Did God reject his people? By no means!” (Rom 11:1) Replacement Theology insists that passages such as Isa 11:11f, Isa 43:4-8; Jer 23:3-8, Jer 31:7-11, Jer 32:37-42; Ezek 11:17-19, Ezek 20:41-42, Ezek 36:16f, Zeph 3:19-20 were fulfilled following the return from the Babylonian exile in the 500s BC.
But this interpretation is a complete misreading of the relevant passages. The record clearly states that only the southern tribes of Benjamin and Yehuda returned to the land, along with a number of priests and Levites. The number of returnees is somewhere between 15,000 and 55,000 (Neh 7:8f, Ezra 8:1f). The prophecies of restoration concern all the tribes, not just a representation of the southern tribes and religious functionaries.
In the New Testament, the term ‘Israel’ is used on 79 occasions. In every case, it is used to refer to physical Israel and never as a substitute term for the church, nor can it legitimately be applied in this way. The expression ‘New Israel’ is not to be found within the New Testament. The one reference which is sometimes cited is in Romans 9:5, where Paul uses the expression “the Israel of God”. But in view of the fact that ‘Israel’ never refers elsewhere in Scripture to the Christian church, it is far wiser to interpret this passage as referring to the body of Jews who believe in Jesus. A believing Jew is a member of two covenant peoples – the church and Israel.
Politics!
The second strand of Replacement Theology is in a sense not theology at all, but a misunderstanding, misreading, or revisionist form of history focusing on the Arab-Israeli conflict which is dragged into the theological arena under the guise of ethics and justice. The overarching problem with this approach is that it is selective and applies the notion of justice in a secular fashion and not by biblical standards. And the question of justice is only applied to nations and peoples other than Israel.
End times!
The third strand is eschatological (i.e. concerning the end times) and arises out of the doctrine of dispensationalism. Briefly, this doctrine originated in the 1880s and early 1900s from J. N. Darby, C. I. Scofield and other Christian clergymen and proposes that there are seven dispensations of God’s dealings with mankind; and that we are living in the sixth dispensation, the seventh being when Jesus returns. In this scheme of things, the Jewish people return to the land and find salvation after the Second Advent.
To uphold this teaching, the Scriptures are divided into three groups: those for the church, the Jews, and the Gentiles (neither Jews nor Christians). The Scofield Bible lets the cat out of the bag with its chapter heading for Isaiah 40 being ‘God comforts his Church’ whereas the passage specifically applies to the nation of Israel.
Covenant?
RT’s fourth strand is an essential misunderstanding of biblical terminology, initially arising from the use of the term ‘covenant’. A covenant is, essentially, a forensic entity – something more than a handshake agreement. Covenants were for the safety and protection of its participants. God’s covenants with His people called for exclusive worship and obedience in exchange for their protection.
His covenant with Abraham concerning the land was eternal, as is indicated in Psalm 105. The Davidic Covenant, some 1,000 years later, did not replace the Abrahamic Covenant but was simply added to it. The New Covenant, first introduced not in the New Testament but in Jeremiah 31, is not directed to the Gentiles, even though they are to benefit from it. As British scholar John Wilkinson pointed out 100 years ago, long before Israel became a nation again, the Gentiles were not to monopolize the spiritual blessings in Christ – only to partake of them.
Prophecy?
The fifth strand concerns the area of judgment and promise in prophecy. Nearly all biblical prophecy contains two elements operating in concert with each other. For a prophecy to find its authentic fulfilment, it must, in most cases, first find an expression of realization within the community towards which it was directed. Prophecies concerning the land of Israel and the Jewish people cannot simply be removed from their context and setting and then reapplied en-bloc elsewhere.
In the same way that the promises are to be realised in the land, the judgments will also be enacted in the land or against the people group to whom the judgments were made. Supporters of supercessionist and replacement theology fall into the same error as the early Church Fathers by turning the two elements of prophecy into separate entities rather than leaving them co-joined as originally intended. All the blessings and promises are allocated to the church who, in their estimation, should now be considered as Israel. In a like manner, all the judgments are retained or directed to the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, who are outside the scope of any spiritual blessing.
Anti-Semitism
RT’s sixth strand is intentional in that it’s not the result of distorted Bible teaching or ignorance, but is plainly anti-Semitic, heretical and atheistic. But when we turn to the Scriptures we find a very different picture. The burden of the prophets is the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel by grace, there to be reconciled to God in the messianic kingdom. Passages such as Jeremiah 32:37-41, Jeremiah 33:24-26 and Ezekiel 36:16f express this burden most lucidly.
Those who hold that God is not faithful to, or capable of, fulfilling his word to Israel have a theology built on sand.
For a list of scriptures used to support Replacement Theology and their refutation, see Words from the Scroll of Fire, Father Forgive Us and Within the Pale by Fred Wright available from Ezra UK.
(‘Ezra’ is the English equivalent of a frequently used Hebrew word that, in its three main structures, Azer, Ezer, Ezrah or Ezra(t)h, has various meanings of ‘to help’. Many of these meanings are related to rescue, offering protection or giving military, material or non-material aid. The term is applied both to God and individuals in the sense of helper, supporter, rescuer or servant and may be used as a picture of God and man coming together to help the Jewish people in their hour of need. The general usage carries a sense of urgency on occasions, as in ‘running to bring help’. The ministry of Ezra UK seeks to be the true kingdom dynamic of the above in all their activities.)