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These are challenging and confusing times. With all the numerous and varied “winds of doctrine” that are blowing around us these days, many Christians find it difficult to discern the difference between truth and error. Here at CJF Ministries, one error we frequently encounter is Replacement Theology. Actually, it’s nothing new: in fact, it’s been around for centuries. Some of its roots are traceable to the writings of some of the Early Church fathers. And even today, oddly enough, this pernicious error is taught as a fact in many Bible colleges and seminaries worldwide. So let me ask you – how much do you know about Replacement Theology? If you were called upon to refute it, could you?

Definition

Replacement Theology – reduced to its simplest form – teaches that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s plan. The term “Replacement Theology” is relatively new and unfamiliar to many people (in some cases, even those who believe in it). Among theologians, the older and more widely used term is “supersessionism.” The Church “supersedes” Israel. Its proponents teach that God has set aside Israel and made the Church “new Israel,” the new and improved people of God. There are many variations within the broad spectrum of Replacement Theology, but two of the main approaches are these:

1. Israel’s role as the people of God was completed (economic supersessionism). This is the kinder and gentler way of stating the basic thesis of Replacement Theology. It says that once the Messiah came 2,000 years ago, Israel’s mission was completed. A transition occurred at that point, and the Church took over as the people of God and became the focal point for the outworking of God’s plan and purpose in redemption. God is no longer working administratively through ethnic Israel.

2. Israel’s place as the people of God was forfeited (punitive supersessionism). Other Replacement theologians are more straightforward and actually say that the supposed replacement of Israel was a divine judgment on the nation for its rejection of the Messiah in the first century. This is what some writers have called “punitive secessionism.”

Perhaps Martin Luther articulated this position most eloquently when he wrote: “For such ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they [i.e., the Jewish people] assuredly have erred and gone astray. Even a child can comprehend this. For one dare not regard God as so cruel that he would punish his own people so long, so terrible, so unmercifully … Therefore this work of wrath is proof that the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither is he any longer their God” (“On the Jews and Their Lies,” Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971], p. 265).

Common threads that weave their way through the numerous variations of supersessionism are (1) that God is finished with Israel as a nation, and (2) that the promises He made to Israel in the Old Testament have been inherited by the Church. (However, most Replacement theologians are reluctant to say that the Church – which is largely in apostasy today – has also inherited the curses and judgments that God pronounced on Israel for her apostasy.)

One defender of Replacement Theology writes: “The Jewish nation no longer has a place as the special people of God; that place has been taken by the Christian community which fulfills God’s purpose for Israel” (Bruce Waltke, “Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Testaments, Ed. John S. Feinberg [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1987] p. 275). This is how one evangelical theologian summarized the essence of supersessionism in a paper he presented at the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting a few years ago: “The issue is whether national Israel as an administrative structure is still in the plan of God” (“A Future for Israel in Covenant Theology: The Untold Story” by R. Todd Mangum, Instructor in Historical and Systematic Theology at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, Pennsylvania [November 16, 2000], p. 20.

Theological Basis

Replacement Theology is closely associated with Reformed (or Covenant) Theology, the brand of theology historically linked to John Calvin (1509-1564) and the Protestant Reformation. Reformed/Covenant Theology, in turn, is closely associated with amillennialism, an eschatological view with a spiritualized (rather than literal-historical) interpretation of the prophetic Scriptures. The natural affinity these views (that is, Replacement Theology and amillennialism) seem to have for each other is understandable because Replacement Theology relies so heavily on a non-literal and allegorical interpretation of the biblical promises to Israel.

Although many of the early Reformers and Puritans – including even Calvin himself – wrote about the nation of Israel one day being restored by the grace of God and experiencing a national regeneration, that is an increasingly marginalized, minority view in Reformed Christianity today (which is ironic, since we have seen the amazing rebirth of the nation of Israel, just as the Word of God predicted!). And even among those who allow for an end-time work of the Spirit of God among the Jewish people, there is still a reluctance to acknowledge that God is not finished with His people Israel as a nation, or to acknowledge the prospect of a future Kingdom on the Earth.

This view stands in contrast to the teachings of Dispensational Premillennialism, which affirms the continuing role that Israel plays (in tandem with the Church) in the outworking of God’s plan of redemption.

Historical Roots

Elements of Replacement Theology can be traced as far back as Marcion (A.D. 160), who carried on a theological crusade to purge the Church of what he perceived to be dangerous Jewish errors and influences. Later, many of these same anti-Judaic sentiments found their way into the thinking (and writings) of the Early Church fathers. Irenaeus (c. 180), for instance, wrote, “The Jews have rejected the Son of God and cast Him out of the vineyard when they slew Him. Therefore, God has justly rejected them and has given to the Gentiles outside the vineyard the fruits of its cultivation” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, [1885-1887], Volume 1, p. 493).

Over time, statements like these became the basis for full-blown anti-Semitism in some sectors of Christianity. Anything Jewish was renounced as an attempt to subvert and “Judaize” the Church. Teachings like chiliasm (millenarianism), for instance, were denounced as “Jewish fables.” The Early Church, which was clearly and undeniably Jewish, was described as “primitive,” unenlightened, and beset by erroneous notions that were carry-overs from ancient Judaism.

By the seventh century, Jewish people who came to faith in the Messiah were required to denounce their Jewish ancestry and heritage before they could be baptized. Professor Paul Halsall of Fordham University cites the following Visigoth profession from c. A.D. 680-687: “I do here and now renounce every rite and observance of the Jewish religion, detesting all its most solemn ceremonies and tenets that in former days I kept and held. In future I will practice no rite or celebration connected with it, nor any custom of my past error, promising neither to seek it out or perform it. In the name of this Creed, which I truly believe and hold with all my heart, I promise that I will never return to the vomit of Jewish superstition. Never again will I fulfill any of the offices of Jewish ceremonies to which I was addicted, nor ever more hold them dear. I altogether deny and reject the errors of the Jewish religion, casting forth whatever conflicts with the Christian Faith, and affirming that my belief in the Holy Trinity is strong enough to make me live the truly Christian life, shun all intercourse with other Jews and have the circle of my friends only among honest Christians. With them or apart from them I must always eat Christian food, and as a genuinely devout Christian go often and reverently to Church. I promise also to maintain and embrace with due love and reverence the observance of all the Lord’s days or feasts for martyrs as declared by the piety of the Church, and upon those days to consort always with sincere Christians, as it behooves a pious and sincere Christian to do. Herewith is my profession of faith and belief as given by me on this date …” (“Professions of Faith Extracted from Jews on Baptism,’ from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook compiled by Professor Paul Halsall of Fordham University [www.fordham.edu/halsall/sources/jewish-oaths.html]).

The incredible irony here is that only a few centuries earlier, the Church had been almost exclusively Jewish! The Messiah was Jewish; the writers of the Bible were Jewish; the apostles were Jewish; the earliest Christians were Jewish; the first congregation was Jewish (located in Jerusalem); and the first missionaries were Jewish!

In fact, a council of Church leaders – including Paul, Barnabas, Peter and James – was convened at Jerusalem (Acts 15) so the leaders of the new and growing Messianic Movement (known first as “the sect of the Nazarenes,” Acts 24:5) could decide upon what conditions non-Jews would be admitted into the fellowship of the saints! But here, within just a few generations, the shoe was already on the other foot! Non-Jews were in control of the Church now. Jewish doctrines (the earthly Kingdom in particular) were considered erroneous and even seditious. And non-Jewish Church leaders were laying down the terms for Jewish believers in Jesus who wished to be baptized.

Exegetical Problems with Supersessionism

Did the sins of the Jewish nation result in her rejection? read more