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Replacement Theology: What It Is and Why It Matters for Christians

Compiled by ICEJ USA Director Susan Michael and ICEJ USA Managing Editor Karen Engle


Replacement Theology teaches that “the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan, in that the church has transcended and fulfilled the terms of the covenant given to Israel that Israel lost because of disobedience.”[1] Those who accept Replacement Theology as true believe God’s covenant with the Jewish people ended in AD 30 and all the blessings given to Israel have been transferred to the gentile church. (However, most people who subscribe to this view are reluctant to say the church also inherited the curses and judgments God pronounced for her apostasy.)

According to this view, God has and will continue to save individual Jews who accept Jesus, but He has no present or future place for national, ethnic Israel in His plan of redemption. “Supersessionism” is the technical term for Replacement Theology; it is sometimes referred to as Fulfillment Theology.

God also promised a particular piece of land to the Jewish people. However, Replacement Theology proponents believe that land is unimportant to God now, and references to the promised land mean the whole world.

Former International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) Executive Director Malcolm Hedding argues that Replacement Theology rests chiefly on the idea that the whole or part of the Abrahamic covenant has been abolished, for it is this covenant that promises to Israel eternal ownership of the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:7–8):

Once this “promise” has been removed, the present-day restoration of Israel means nothing, and her only hope is in the church. Now, it must be made clear that we believe that only in Christ Jesus can there be salvation for Jews and gentiles alike (Romans 1:16–17). However, we do not believe that the promise of God in the Abrahamic covenant bequeathing the land of Canaan to Israel has been removed, and therefore, Israel’s modern restoration to the land of Canaan is indeed fulfillment of that promise and constitutes a milestone on her “way home” to her Messiah. (Ezekiel 36:24–28)[2]

How prevalent is Replacement Theology, and when did it start? What theological basis is there for this belief—if any? Keep reading to learn the answers to these questions and more, or skip to a specific topic below:

Theological Basis of Replacement Theology

The early church was initially Jewish (Jesus was Jewish, all the Bible writers were Jewish, and Jesus’ disciples were Jewish—even the first congregation in Jerusalem was Jewish!).

Yet ironically, by the seventh century, the church required that Jewish people who believed in Jesus denounce their Jewish ancestry and heritage to be baptized, and anything Jewish was viewed as trying to “Judaize” Christianity. The now gentile-dominated church had adapted centuries of anti-Jewish views, many taught by church fathers, which eventually transformed into full-force antisemitism.

Reformed Theology and Replacement Theology

Replacement Theology is closely associated with Reformed (also called Covenant) Theology, which leans toward an amillennial end-time view that prioritizes spiritualizing certain Scriptures and prophecies over-interpreting them literally and historically.[3] Interpreting Scripture in a non-literal way naturally leads to reading God’s promises to Israel as allegory, the belief that God is finished with Israel as a nation, and that there is no prospect of a future, literal kingdom on Earth.

Reformed Theology is historically linked to French Reformer John Calvin (1509–64), considered a great reformer of the Protestant Reformation. Calvin believed that because of the Jewish people’s disobedience and their rejection of Jesus, God removed the covenant He made with them. The outpouring of his theological beliefs is part of the theological tradition known today as Calvinism. Thus, Reformed Theology and Calvinism have replacement views.

The Catholic, Lutheran, and Anabaptist Traditions

Roman Catholics adopted Replacement Theology from the fourth century (but since post-Vatican II, has emphasized more of a balance) and Lutherans from the sixteenth century. Anabaptists tend to have a replacement view of the Jewish people as well.

“Israel” in the New Testament: Does It Refer to the Church?

The New Testament gospels show Jesus descended from the first Hebrew, Abraham, the Jewish King David and his son, Solomon, and then a long list of other Jewish people leading to His mother, Mary. Her prayer, a song of praise in Luke 1:46–55, recalls God’s mercy toward her people Israel and longs for the fulfillment of what He had promised back in Genesis to Abraham. According to Anglican scholar Gerald McDermott in his book Israel Matters, Mary’s prayer concludes in verse 55 with a clear focus on Israel:[4]

He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.

Mary’s reference to Israel and Abraham and his descendants is as a literal, ethnic people descending from one man; to interpret her words as a reference to the church makes no literary sense in this passage.    

The “New” Israel

Some with a Replacement Theology mindset argue that the gospels refer to the church as the “new” or “true” Israel, but a quick search of them reveals this cannot be true. When it was used, the word “Israel” meant one of two things: 1) the “geopolitical entity controlled by Rome” in the first century or 2) the Jewish people “known collectively as Israel.”[5] Substituting the word “church” for Israel in the New Testament only invites confusion. “Try reading Romans 9–11, and every time it says ‘Israel,’ replace it with the word “church,” an article by One for Israel states. “You will quickly see that it makes no sense at all.”[6]

According to McDermott, each New Testament use of the word Israel refers to the Jewish people or land or polity. When Nathaniel meets Jesus, for example, well before Pentecost and the inception of the church, he exclaims in John 1:49, “Rabbi, you are the king of Israel!”—in context, the king of a certain place.

Historical Roots of Replacement Theology

Within a few decades after the church began in the early AD 30s, the unbelieving Jewish community started persecuting the early Christians. Because the early church was primarily Jewish, it was initially an internal debate among Jews. Over the years, the divide widened, and persecution increased. Part of that separation was because the Roman Empire persecuted anyone proclaiming another king, so Jews didn’t want to be associated with Christians knowing that relationship would negatively impact them.

As persecution intensified, many early Christians scattered from Jerusalem and began spreading the gospel among the gentiles until the church was predominantly non-Jewish. Though most gentile Christians believed the Jewish Scriptures were authoritative, according to Kenneth Latourette in A History of the Expansion of Christianity, by the second century, some started to think they were the Israel of God—the true spiritual heirs of Israel—and claimed for themselves all the promises given to Abraham and his descendants as their own.[7]

As the church became increasingly more gentile, the debate that had been an internal squabble between the believing and unbelieving Jewish community expanded to one between the Jewish and gentile believers.

Sadly, many respected church fathers throughout history played a part in this shift away from the biblical understanding of Israel and her relationship with God. These men did much good for the church, but concerning Israel, they unfortunately helped steer the church in the wrong direction.

Though not an exhaustive list, click the plus sign below to read about some whose theological views contributed to the church embracing a Replacement Theology view.[8]

In his work Dialogue of Justin Martyr with Trypho a Jew, Justin Martyr—a second-century Christian apologist and philosopher—called Christians the true Israelite race, and according to Latourette, declared that the expression “the seed of Jacob” in the Bible that previously referred to the Jews now referred to Christians. McDermott writes that Justin was the first prominent leader to say the church was the true Israel. He argues that for Justin, the law given at Sinai was already “old” and belonged to the Jews alone:

The new law from Christ had made the old one cease, and now the new one belonged to everyone. God’s relationship to Israel, therefore, was physical and temporary, but His new relationship to the church was spiritual and permanent. The old Israel of the Jews was no longer Israel in any permanent sense. Now the church, which in Justin’s day was being filled with more and more gentiles, had taken over the term “Israel.” Israel was no longer something that was essentially Jewish, and one day, would become overwhelmingly gentile. Since this was a new thing God was doing, and God had left behind the old Israel, the new Israel was good and the old was bad.[9]

The church father Irenaeus rightly helped the church disengage from Greek philosophical beliefs about God. However, he also believed that the history of Israel was an “unnecessary distraction from the history of salvation” and that God had ended His covenant with disobedient Israel.[10] His teachings played a part in the church’s slide away from its Jewish roots and the “temporary” law God gave Israel.[11]

This early Christian theologian denied the authority of the Old Testament and its God. He carried on a theological crusade to rid the church of the influence of what he considered dangerous Jewish teachings. (Marcion was eventually excommunicated as a heretic.)

Tertullian was a prominent second-century Latin theologian, polemicist, and moralist from North Africa who shaped the language and thought of Western Christianity. Unfortunately, he also authored the antisemitic discourse An Answer to the Jews, in which he interpreted Scripture concerning Rebekah’s twins as Esau, the older brother, representing the Jewish people, and Jacob, the younger, as representing Christians—for Tertullian, proving that Christians would one day lord over the Jews, who would serve them.[12]

This Greek Christian theologian and preacher was the president of the school of theology in Alexandria, Egypt, and influenced the church’s acceptance of the allegorical (spiritualizing) method of Bible interpretation. This method allowed him to read meaning into Scripture, which included the presumption that “Israel” always means “church” and not national, ethnic Israel, leading to the belief that God is no longer working through the nation of Israel. Ronald E. Diprose writes in his book Israel and the Church: The Origin and Effects of Replacement Theology:

Origen’s contribution to Replacement Theology is particularly incisive because of his exegetical prowess and because he was the first Christian writer to attempt making a complete statement of the Christian faith. … Thus, for churchmen who read his commentaries and homilies during subsequent centuries, the idea that true Israel had always been the church appeared to be something taught by the Bible itself.[13]

Chrysostom was the archbishop of Constantinople, an early church father, a gifted speaker and preacher, and a biblical interpreter—but he also loathed the Jews because they represented competition to the gentile churches as late as the end of the fourth century. In his “Eight Homilies against the Jews,” he attacked Jewish teachings and the Jewish way of life, accused the “morally degenerate” Jews of killing Jesus and being against the church, and declared, “I hate the Jews.”[14] The Jewish Encyclopedia says Chrysostom, along with Cyril (bishop of Alexandria) and Ambrose (bishop of Milan), “potently affected the fate of the Jewish people.”[15]

This brilliant Bible critic, church doctor, musician, writer, teacher, and bishop of Milan is credited with converting the great Christian theologian Augustine and taught that the church was rising above the ruins of the Roman Empire. Though in 388 he rebuked the emperor for punishing a bishop for burning a Jewish synagogue, he regarded the Jewish soul to be “irrevocably perverse and incapable of any good thought,” declared that burning a Jewish synagogue was not a crime and called the Jews a type of infidel.[16]

Augustine was the bishop of Hippo (Annaba, Algeria) from 396 to 430, a Latin Church Father, and one of the most famous Christians in history—considered by many to be the most influential Christian thinker next to the apostle Paul. He wrote numerous well-respected books, including Confessions and The City of God—a philosophical treatise that “would become a keystone of medieval Christian thought and inform European attitudes toward Jews and Judaism for the next 1,000 years"—and Tract against the Jews. In it he claimed Jews murdered Jesus for which Jonathan Judaken writes they were “forever doomed to exile and subordination.”[17] Ironically, at the same time, Augustine believed Jews should be protected because "Wherever they lived, they carried the Old Testament, which testified to Jesus’ fulfillment as the Messiah and to Jewish blindness and rejection. This ensured Jewish survival but at the cost of subjugation."[18]

Augustine applied an allegorical method to his interpretation of the prophets and the book of Revelation and developed the amillennial eschatological view, which denies a future, earthly political kingdom ruled by Christ for the last 1,000 years of present history. This view led to his view that the church (then the Roman Catholic Church) is the kingdom of God in the Bible.

Image caption: The earliest known picture of Augustine, sixth-century fresco, Lateran, Rome (Wikimedia Commons)

Luther was a German professor of theology[19] and the catalyst of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, which reformulated certain basic principles of Christian belief. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity. In the early years of his work, Luther was sympathetic toward the Jewish people. However, in his later years, after unsuccessfully trying to convert Jews to Christianity, his views darkened, believing God had permanently punished and rejected the Jews for not believing in Jesus.

In his book On the Jews and their Lies (a work Hitler reprinted in millions of copies to justify his murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust), Luther called for violence against Jewish communities as well as forced manual labor. In it he wrote that the Jews are a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.”[20]

He also wrote:

There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses—namely, that God has struck [the Jews] with “madness and blindness and confusion of mind” [Deuteronomy 28:28]. So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them.[21]

Here are just a few other quotes from the same book:

      • “Set fire to their synagogues or schools.”
      • “I advise that Jewish houses should be razed and destroyed.”
      • “I advise that their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, [should] be taken from them.”

martin luther's on the Jews and their lies, which fed into replacement theology

Luther also urged that “safe conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews” and that “all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them.” Though some argue Luther was “not antisemitic in the racist sense, and that his arguments against Jews were theological, not biological, Luther’s hostile views toward the Jews and their resulting consequences influenced generations to come—including Hitler, who in his book Mein Kampf, commended Luther as a great reformer.

Luther positively impacted the church in many ways, but his antisemitic views further fueled the fire of Replacement Theology that continues to burn today.

 

 

Image caption: Title page of Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies, Wittenberg, 1543 (Wikimedia Commons)

The seventeenth-century English Deists were profoundly antisemitic, calling Jewish sacred books blasphemous and the Old Testament full of made-up miracles and prophecies. Although some American Deists, such as Jefferson and Franklin, believed that God intervened to help the colonies, most Deists rejected divine intervention in history and any special revelation beyond what can be discerned from nature and universal reason. Deist antisemitism influenced French philosophers (such as Voltaire), German philosophers (such as Kant), and German theologians (such as Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of liberal Protestantism). Schleiermacher declared that the Old Testament should have no place in Christian worship. It is no surprise that many German Christian churches declared Judaism “antithetical to Christianity” and deleted the Old Testament from their services, convincing millions of German Christians that Hitler’s anti-Jewish legislation made theological sense.


Learn more about the historical roots of Replacement Theology:


The Council of Nicaea and Its Influence on Replacement Theology

The Council of Nicaea—called together in AD 325 by Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity—played a pivotal role in the early church, establishing Christian doctrine that churches continue to uphold today.

It put forth a set of beliefs leaders could agree on, uniting a divided church threatening the newly Christianized Roman Empire. It established agreements about key church issues like baptism, the Eucharist, and what to do about people who lapsed in their faith. Most importantly, it clarified Jesus’ true identity as both God and man and settled on a creed [Nicene] that churches repeat throughout the world today.

Icon from the Mégalo Metéoron Monastery in Greece, representing the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea AD 325 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
 

Despite its positive impact on the church, the Council of Nicaea also played a major part in the severing of Christianity from its Jewish roots leading to a schism between Christians and Jews and between Christianity and Judaism. It marked the conclusion of a long, drawn-out process referred to as the “parting of the ways.”[22]

Background

The early church was primarily Jewish, but as more and more gentiles came to faith, the focus on Jewish law and customs decreased. After Rome destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70, temple rituals stopped, and two conflicting systems emerged: rabbinic Judaism (which focused on the study and interpretation of Mishna, the oral law in which Jesus and Paul were steeped, and then committed to writing around AD 200) and Christianity (a distinct religion from Judaism with bishops, priests, and deacons modeled on the Jewish order of chief priests, priests, and deacons). For a time, Christianity held on to some Jewish concepts. But during his reign, Constantine began to enact anti-Jewish legislation and deemed it improper to adhere to Jewish customs.

Constantine had convened the Council of (non-Jewish) bishops in Nicaea to consolidate the Christian faith—but a lesser-known reason was to establish the church’s non-Jewish identity. (The Jews had persecuted the Christian church for centuries, but an anti-Jewish view had also characterized Constantine’s life.) The Council separated the date of the Jewish Passover from Jesus’ resurrection, banning that Jewish feast and substituting for it Easter. It condemned Sabbath-keeping, established the first-century transition of the Lord’s Day to Sunday, and established sun worship. 

Replacement theology art "Marriage of the Virgin"
Robert Campin’s “Marriage of the Virgin” captures the split of early Christianity and Judaism.
(Scala/Art Resource, NY; Wikimedia Commons)

Writing to bishops who were not present at the Council, Constantine said:

“It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. … Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. … Let us … studiously avoid all contact with that evil way.”[23]

The Council of Nicaea’s impact on Christianity continues today. But it also opened the already cracked door to Replacement Theology and blinded centuries of Christians to the Jewish roots of their faith—which are key to understanding biblical prophecy. The church’s Messiah was stripped of His Jewishness, and Jewish believers who saw Jesus as the fulfillment of their Scriptures could not accept the changes because they were told they had to renounce all Jewish expressions of their faith in the Jewish Messiah. Soon, any remaining Jewish presence in the church ended.

Former ICEJ Executive Director Malcolm Hedding compares what happened at the Nicaea Council to the story of biblical Joseph, who was unrecognizable to his own Hebrew family because he looked Egyptian. Hedding says “The Nicaea Council ‘dressed Jesus up as a gentile,’” and as a result, like Joseph, Jesus was and continues to be unrecognizable to His own brethren, the Jewish people.


Is Fulfillment Theology the Same as Replacement Theology?

Fulfillment Theology is a new form of Replacement Theology that in effect replaces the Jewish people in God’s plan, not with the Christian church but with Jesus. This theology gives literal, ethnic Israel some recognition for God choosing them for His redemptive purposes but sees that calling as already “fulfilled” in Jesus’ first coming and the church’s birth (Acts 2). However, in his article “Israel and Fulfillment Theology,” ICEJ’s David Parsons writes that adherents to Fulfillment Theology “are generally uncomfortable with being identified with classical Replacement Theology, due to its malevolent fruit—namely the pogroms, inquisitions, expulsions, and the Holocaust.”[24] 

So to scripturally back their “theology,” Parsons says they emphasize the “ever-expanding ‘inclusiveness’ of God’s salvation plan as it culminated in the gospel being preached to all nations.”[25] However, Fulfillment Theology ends up at the same place as Replacement Theology, concluding that “God is finished with Israel, albeit with less inherent hostility toward the Jews.”[26]

Ecclesia and Synagoga are statues representing a replacement theology mindset.
Ecclesia and Synagoga (“Church and Synagogue”) are two statues personifying the church replacing the Jewish synagogue. Ecclesia is adorned with a crown and looks confidently forward, while Synagoga is blindfolded and drooping, carrying a broken lance (which may allude to the Holy Lance that stabbed Jesus on the cross). The tablets of the Law are slipping from her hand.
No God-Given National Destiny

Hedding writes that like Replacement Theology, Fulfillment Theology ends up contending that since the time of Jesus, “the Jews no longer enjoy a God-given national destiny” in the land God promised them in Genesis 12:

This time around, it is not the church that replaces Israel and takes over all her promises in Scripture but, in fact, Jesus. He fulfills in His life and redemptive work all the promises that God ever made to the Jews—even the promise that Canaan would be the everlasting possession of the Jewish people. Jesus is the promised land. This allows the proponents of this theory to distance themselves from the awful evil (as in the apartheid state) and antisemitic consequences (as in the Christian pogroms of history) of Replacement Theology. However, they end up believing the same thing.[27]

Fulfillment Theology proponents argue, among other things, that when Jesus claimed to have fulfilled (correctly interpreted, not nullified) the Law and the Prophets in Matthew 5:17, He was referring to all of the law and the promises to natural Israel. In truth, Matthew 5–7 is a discussion about the Mosaic covenant. Hedding writes Jesus was “expounding the inward nature of the law and our failure to keep it. … When Jesus said that He came to fulfill the Law, He meant just that! That is, He would perfectly fulfill in His life the moral demands of the Law on behalf of a fallen world. He would thus prove to be a perfect man and would give His life on the cross so as to remove the curse of the Law from our lives” (Galatians 3:13).[28]

Learn more about Fulfillment Theology:

Paul and Replacement Theology

Did Paul contradict the idea of Replacement Theology?

The short answer is yes. Before arriving at Romans 11, Paul reviewed Israel’s sin and disbelief in the revelation of Jesus as Messiah. Then, in Romans 11, Paul responds to God’s stance with Israel considering this disbelief, stating in Romans 11:28–29 that God’s gifts and calling upon national Israel are “irrevocable”: they cannot be altered. The context of the surrounding Scripture affirms Paul is talking about corporate Israel: there remains a special, unique, and irreversible calling upon Israel as a nation. Adherents to Replacement Theology argue the opposite—that God has revoked that calling on Israel and transferred it to the church.

God Has Not Cast Away His People

However, consider more of Paul’s argument in Romans 11:

Has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. (vv. 1–2)

I say then, have they [Israel] stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! (vv. 11–12).

For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (v. 15).

According to Paul—a Jewish man himself—God has not cast away Israel, and he was proof of it. Daniel Juster writes in his work on Replacement Theology:

Like all biological members of the nation, [Paul], too, was an Israelite—a biological descendent of Abraham and a biological member of one of Israel’s tribes. The fact that God accepted Paul into right relationship with Him through faith in the Messiah was evidence that God had not rejected Israel as a nation. Apparently, Paul’s point was as follows: If God had rejected Israel as a nation, then He would not have accepted me.[29]

Gentiles Brought Near

In fact, gentiles—whom Paul said in Ephesians 2:12 were “without God and without hope”—have been brought near to God because of Israel’s stumbling. But it doesn’t end there: if there was no future for Israel in God’s plan of redemption (as Replacement Theology adherents claim), what does Israel’s future “fullness” mean at the end of verse 12? And what did Paul mean by saying they would be resurrected and accepted by God?

The apostle Paul, who did not teach replacement theology, in Ephesus
The Preaching of Saint Paul at Ephesus, a 1649 portrait by Eustache Le Sueur (source: Wikipedia Commons)

Paul was referring to a future resurrection of literal, ethnic Israel, what the prophet Ezekiel envisioned in 37:1–4 when he described the “dry bones” of the whole house of Israel that will one day live. Zechariah alluded to this spiritual restoration, too, in 12:10: “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”

And of the nation of Israel, Isaiah says: “It is too small a thing for you [Israel] to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (49:3).

Isaiah says about this coming time that it will be the nation of Israel “in whom I will be glorified” (49:3). Even Jesus says Israel will one day be restored (“you will not see me again”)—but not until His people repent (Matthew 23:39).

Restoration is coming for the children of Israel. On that day, they will pick up the mantle given to them in Genesis 12:3 to be God’s servant nation to bless all the families of the earth. They will fulfill their calling to be “a light to the gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6) so that they might “be My salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

Types of Replacement Theology

Replacement Theology (Supersessionism) has several forms, according to Michael J. Vlach, PhD, assistant professor of Theology at The Master’s Seminary and R. Kendall Soulen in his work The God of Israel and Christian Theology.

Click the plus signs below to read about three:

God is punishing Israel by replacing her because of her rejection of Christ. This form emphasizes Israel’s disobedience and punishment by God as the reason He has displaced the people of God with the church.[30] Because the Jewish people rejected Jesus as Messiah, they are cut off from God’s covenant love, and because of this, provoked Him to anger, leading to their punishment.

This is the type of Replacement Theology Martin Luther subscribed to, writing in his book On the Jews and Their Lies:

Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty, together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for 1,460 years? … For such ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they assuredly have erred and gone astray. … 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.

This variation, less harsh than punitive, believes God’s plan for the people of God has transferred from an ethnic group (Israel) to a universal group (the church). Israel is not replaced because of disobedience but because her role expired with the advent of Christ and the birth of the church. Jesus is seen as the ultimate Israelite, fulfilling all promises and plans related to Israel. This is seen in comments like that of N. T. Wright in his book The New Testament and the People of God: “Israel’s purpose had come to its head in Jesus’ work” and “Jesus intended those who responded to Him to see themselves as the true, restored Israel.”

This form of Replacement Theology sees God’s engagement with human creation in more universal terms and neglects the Hebrew Scriptures (outside of Genesis 1–3), which Soulen argues requires making a “leap” over Scripture. In this form, the biblical narrative includes God’s engagement with Adam and Eve as Consummator and how His plan for humanity was disrupted at the fall, but it then skips the rest of the Old Testament narrative (including God’s workings with Israel) and picks up again with the New Testament apostles and deliverance of sinful man through belief in Jesus.[31] This “structural” nature of supersessionism has established, according to Craig Blaising, “the deep-set tradition of excluding ethnic, national Israel from the theological reading of Scripture.”[32]

Flaws in the Thesis behind Replacement Theology

In his work “An Assessment of ‘Replacement Theology,’” Dr. Walter Kaiser sees five “fatal flaws” in the Replacement Theology thesis:

Flawed Belief #1: God made the “new covenant” with the church.

God’s word indicates God made the “new covenant” with the house of Israel and Judah, not the church, as seen clearly in Jeremiah 31:31:

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Flawed Belief #2: Israel rejected Jesus as Savior, so God devised a new plan.

The Jewish people’s failure was always part of God’s calculated plan. As Hendrikus Berkof says, Israel was, is, and will be “the link between the Messiah and the nations,” even in her disobedience. Israel’s rejection of salvation actually had positive results:

For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15 NIV)

Flawed Belief #3: God “cast off” disobedient Israel.

Scripture is clear that God has not cast Israel off—as Paul states clearly:

The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)

I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. … For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Romans 11:1, 25–26)

Paul used himself as an example: if he—a descendent of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin, an Israelite once disobedient and in a state of unbelief—could be brought into God’s fold by faith, so could other Israelites.

Flawed Belief #4: God’s promise to Israel that the land was theirs as an “everlasting” possession was not speaking about linear time but rather “to the end of the age.”

This flaw misinterprets the term “everlasting” (or in some translations, “forever”) regarding the land promise in verses like Genesis 17:7–8:

I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God. (Genesis 17:8)

The eternal aspect of the land promise in 17:7–8 (as well as Genesis 12, et al) is not just an expression meaning “the end of the age.” Daniel Gruber writes:

The claim that the Hebrew word for “forever” or “everlasting” really means “to the end of the age” is only partially true. In some cases it does mean that, but that is not all it means. The English word “always” provides a helpful parallel. It means “every time,” but it also means “as long as” and “forever.”

Kaiser agrees:

The word “forever” is not limited in every instance of its usage, for there are numerous examples of its meaning that transcend such boundaries. When the additional phrases that are used in numerous contexts about the land being given in perpetuity to Israel and of the enduring nature of God’s promises to Israel as a nation are all added up, the impression of all the contexts is overwhelmingly in favor of an oath delivered by God that is as enduring as the shining of the sun and moon (see Jeremiah 33:17–22).

Flawed Belief #5: Paul’s allegory in Galatians 4:21–32 teaches that the church replaced national Israel in God’s plan.

Using this passage as evidence that God replaced Israel with the church misunderstands what Paul intended in Galatians 4 and the audience to whom he made these remarks, writes Gruber.[33] In its proper context, Paul was expositing the difference between justification by works versus justification by faith and grace.

Consider verses 21–23 and 30 and Paul’s example of Hagar (the slave woman) and Sarah (the free woman):

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman [Hagar] and the other by the free woman [Sarah]. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. … Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son. (21–23, 30)

Paul’s audience was primarily non-Jewish, and he wrote his letter to them to “explain the relation of the law to gentiles—which for Paul, is no relation at all.”[34] He was addressing whether gentiles should be circumcised to be righteous before God using the example of the two sons—not declaring that the Jews were cast out:

To say this would be to confuse the opposites that Paul is using: the opposite of the Jew is not the church, but the gentile. If one wants to learn what Paul’s opposite for the church is, it must be the “unbeliever,” not the Jew. For even Paul himself was once a persecutor of those who believed in the Messiah. In that action, he was much like Ishmael [son of the slave woman] born of the flesh and destined to be cast out.

But when he believed, he became like Isaac [son of the free woman] destined to be an heir and part of the persecuted seed of promise. … the same could be said for a gentile like Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, who at first persecuted Paul in Corinth (Acts 18:17). … when he, too, became a believer, he moved from one side of this allegory to the other side (1 Corinthians 1:1).[35]

Paul’s remarks were directed to legalistic gentiles who were making the wrong choice—to be circumcised in order to be justified by the law—which Paul declared would only take them “back into bondage and a disinherited state.”[36] The law couldn’t save them. Galatians 4:21–31 teaches that “the quest for justification by works leads to bondage whereas justification by faith and grace leads to freedom and salvation.”[37]

If we miss this key point, writes Kaiser, “the meaning of Paul’s allegory will be lost, and wrong meanings will be found where they do not exist.”

Why Is Replacement Theology Dangerous?

1. Replacement Theology makes a Christian susceptible to antisemitism.

Believing in Replacement Theology doesn’t make a person an antisemite, but the concept has produced ideas that have inspired some of the most horrible acts in history against a group of people. ICEJ USA Director Dr. Susan Michael writes: “Though Replacement Theology is not necessarily antisemitic, it makes a Christian vulnerable to antisemitism. If we believe the Jews were so bad that they lost their standing in God, then we will believe any antisemitic slander against them that comes around.”[38]

But eventually, incorrect theology births bad practice, and this is how Replacement Theology has affected Christians’ understanding of Israel in God’s plan. From the early centuries of the church, the theology that God has replaced Israel with the church created a place for antisemitism to grow and is what has fueled it into the wildfire it is today. As Michael Vlach states in the book What Should We Think about Israel, “Replacement theology has been the soil from which antisemitism grows and flourishes.”[39] It makes sense. If God has given up on the Jews, shouldn’t we too? This is how millions of Christians have reasoned since the fourth century.    

2. Replacement theology can blind us to the signs of the times.        

Here is Vlach:

Replacement Theology holds that the Jewish people have lost their standing with God, due to their rejection of Jesus as Messiah, while the church has assumed their place. Therefore, their return to their ancient homeland in the last 100 years is just an anomaly—a political accident—and has no theological significance. These Christians deny that the God of Israel has brought the Jews back to the Land just as the Hebrew prophets said He would. This return prepares the way for the next great act of God in which the Messiah returns to the planet to defend Jerusalem, judge the nations for their evil treatment of His people, and establish the kingdom of God on earth. A blinded church will not understand the times we live in and may find itself outside the move of God in our day.[40]

3. Replacement Theology has tarnished the image of Jesus.

Norman Manzon writes: “Instead of provoking Israel to jealousy for the Messiah that the church is meant to do (Romans 11:11), the antisemitism that has resulted from Replacement Theology has provoked Israel to revulsion at the thought of Jesus being their Messiah.”[41]

Ultimately, writes Paul Sharf of the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, replacing Israel with the church can dull our consciences to God’s “imperative of understanding and transmitting the gospel for the Jew first” (Romans 1:16) and muddling our senses to the importance of Israel in its prophetic future: “When we replace Israel, we miss the true, literal intent of the inspired author and minimize its biblical importance in every way,” he writes. “Ultimately, left unchecked, such minimization will lead to antisemitic sentiments, if not worse.”[42]

Learn more about antisemitism in the below resources:



Replacement Theology and the New Testament

Biblical support in favor of Replacement Theology is mostly drawn from the New Testament. Below are several New Testament passages supersessionists use to support their belief that God has replaced Israel with the church and all the eternal promises made to Abraham and his descendants—literal, ethnic Israel—have transferred to the church too.

The Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers: Matthew 21:33–45

Supersessionists’ favorite proof text is the parable of the wicked tenants in Matthew 21. They interpret Jesus’ parable where the vineyard owner replaces the evil tenants with “other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons” (v. 41), as evidence that Israel (God’s vineyard) is being replaced by the church (“other tenants”). Consider Matthew 21:43:

The kingdom of God will be taken from you [wicked tenants] and given to a people producing its fruits.

This interpretation groups all Jews over all time, believers in Jesus or not, as the original, wicked tenants. However, McDermott argues that the logic behind this view is flawed:

The Gospels distinguished between faithful and unfaithful Jews, just as the Old Testament prophets distinguished between faithful and unfaithful Israelites. So too here: the two sets of servants sent by the vineyard owner are also Jews, probably representing Jewish prophets who were martyred, according to most scholars. So the parable does not condemn all Jews, just as the Gospels do not condemn all Jews. After all, the apostles were Jews, and most of the early church in Jerusalem was Jewish. There is no need, therefore, according to the inner logic of the parable, to think that it teaches a replacement of Jews by gentiles. Quite the opposite: it probably suggests that the corrupt Jerusalem establishment will be replaced with the new messianic Jewish leadership that Jesus authorized just three chapters earlier.[43]

Romans 2:28–29

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

Some use this passage as support for the idea that the church is now “spiritual Israel,” emphasizing internal faith while disregarding God’s unique role set out for literal, ethnic Israel.

However, in this passage, Paul was not teaching that the church became a spiritualized version of Israel. He was showing the Jews of that day that their outward conformity to the law could not save them; what mattered to God was a person’s heart condition, a concept rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures:

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord. … Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. (Deuteronomy 10:12, 16 ESV)

Abraham, Samuel, David, Deborah, Jeremiah, Mary, and Joseph are just a few examples of Jews “no longer stubborn” whose heart loved God and His Word.

Galatians 3:28–29

This verse underscores the universal nature of faith in Christ, suggesting that the promises to Abraham extend to all believers, not just ethnic Jews:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Rather than interpreting this passage as an example of the universal nature of faith in Christ, some say it suggests that the promises to Abraham belong to all believers, not just ethnic Jews.

Yet David Pawson writes in his commentary on Galatians that verse 28 is dealing with the Christian’s vertical relationship with the Lord, not horizontal relationships with others. Jews and gentiles who believe in Jesus are one person in Christ but with distinct roles:

There are still differences of function within the body. It does not mean we can all do the same thing, because within one body there are different limbs and organs and there are different functions. And within the one body, male and female still have different functions; they do it in a Christian family. But they are doing it as members of one individual … not as separate individuals. They are doing it as different parts of the whole, not different whole people.[44]

Galatians 4:21–31

“Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. (Galatians 4:30–31)

Adherents of Replacement Theology argue that this passage, which makes comparisons between “pairs” (two sons, two cities, two covenants), proves Paul is contrasting ancestry that leads to bondage or freedom. For them, it is evidence God has replaced national Israel with the church. Yet Paul’s audience in Galatians was gentile, and the topic at hand was whether they should submit to circumcision to be righteous. Kaiser argues the importance of not “confusing the opposites”: the opposite of the Jew is not the church but the gentile.[45]

Daniel Gruber writes of this passage in his work The Church and the Jews that the real issue Paul was arguing was justification through works-based salvation:

The point is not that one’s physical ancestry necessarily leads to bondage, for neither gentiles nor Jews need remain in a lost state. It is the quest for justification through the works of the law (by both Jew and gentile, we might add), rather than through grace and faith, that leads to bondage. Paul was writing to gentiles in Galatia who were making the wrong choice, which would eventually lead them back into bondage and a disinherited state, and eventually turn them into persecutors.[46]

Galatians 6:16

Replacement Theology followers also point to Galatians 6:16 as proof that the church has replaced or superseded Israel, specifically as “the Israel of God”:

And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

However, this idea can be undone by examining one Greek word. Dr. S. Lewis Johnson (former professor of Greek and New Testament Exegesis at Dallas Theological Seminary) writes that proper interpretation rests on how the second instance of the Greek conjunction kai, translated normally as “and.” Most English translations interpret the phrase as “and upon the Israel of God,” which lumps together gentiles and Jews without distinction.[47] However, kai can mean “also,” and reading it as such changes the translation:

And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and [Gr. kai] mercy be upon them, and (also) [Gr. kai] upon the Israel of God.

Lewis argues,

If it were Paul’s intention to identify the “them” of the text as “the Israel of God,” then why not simply eliminate the kai after “mercy?” The result would be far more to the point, if Paul were identifying the “them,” that is, the church, with the term “Israel.” The verse would be rendered then, “And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them and mercy, upon the Israel of God.” A case could be solidly made for the apposition of “the Israel of God” with “them,” and the rendering of the NIV could stand. Paul, however, did not eliminate the kai.[48]

Paul was pronouncing peace to the early gentile followers of Jesus and upon the Israel of God. Lewis says:

If there is an interpretation that totters on a tenuous foundation, it is the view that Paul equates the term “the Israel of God” with the believing church of Jews and gentiles. To support it, the general usage of the term “Israel” in Paul, in the New Testament, and in the Scriptures as a whole, is ignored.‍[49]

Ultimately, context is paramount when interpreting Scripture, including this passage in Galatians. Regarding Galatians 6:16, Hebrew Scholar Arnold Fruchtenbaum says:

Galatians is concerned with gentiles who were attempting to attain salvation through the law. The ones deceiving them were the Judaizers, who were Jews demanding adherence to the law of Moses. To them, a gentile first had to convert to Judaism before he was qualified for salvation through Christ. In verse 15, Paul states that the important thing for salvation is faith, resulting in the new man. He then [in verse 16] pronounces a blessing on two groups who would follow this rule of salvation by faith alone.

The first group is the “them,” the gentile [believers] to and of whom he had devoted most of the epistle. The second group is the Israel of God. These are Hebrew believers who, in contrast with the Judaizers, followed the rule of salvation by faith alone. Again a distinction between the two groups is seen, for the Hebrew [believers] alone are the Israel of God. It is a matter of position, which here acts out a definite function.[50]

Hebrews 8:8–12

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. (Hebrews 8:8)

In verse 8, the writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:31 about the new covenant and how it contrasts with the old covenant God made with Israel. Supersessionists will use this as support that the church has inherited the new covenant that replaced the old covenant with Israel. However, as we have seen from Kaiser, God never made a new covenant with the church. The gospel was not the end but a continuation of God’s dealings with Israel:

It was from the Old Testament that the early church got her message of good news that she proclaimed with such joy in all those years from approximately AD 30 to AD 50–70, before the New Testament was revealed by God.[51]

Peter and Replacement Theology

Peter was writing to the “remnant of Israel,” a mostly messianic Jewish congregation. Replacement Theology folks mistranslate words in 1 Peter—like “Dispersion” in verse 1:1, where Peter writes “To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Replacement Theology adherents interpret those dispersed to mean gentile Christians from their heavenly homeland, not the literal, scattered Jews, to prove their claim that the church is Israel. Yes, Peter established a parallel between Israel and the church. However, D. Edmond Heibert writes:

It does not naturally follow from the parallel between Israel and the church that Peter believed that the church has permanently replaced Israel and that the latter will not again enjoy a separate existence under the favor of God. Israel’s future is inseparably connected with its acceptance of faith of the returning Messiah” (Zechariah 12:10–14:11; Acts 3:19–26; Romans 11:25–27).[52]

For Peter, the church’s call was an extension of the calling on Israel to be a witness to the nations (Acts 1), with the understanding that God is going to restore His kingdom to Israel, not to the church. Jesus’ own word affirm this: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

Replacement Theology and the Abrahamic Covenant: Two Points of View

Excerpted from “Replacement Theology: Why We Reject This Theological Concept” by Former Executive Director of the ICEJ Malcolm Hedding.

The Replacement Theology “camp” is divided into two opinions concerning the Abrahamic covenant: the abolitionist camp and the reconstructionist camp.

1. The Abolitionist Camp

This camp sees the covenant with Abraham as being entirely abolished. However they have serious difficulties because Paul writing to the Galatians states that Jesus died in order to bring to our lives the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant and if we belong to Jesus, we are Abraham’s children according to the promise (Galatians 3:13–14, 29).

If the covenant has been abolished, then what Paul says is wrong! Moreover the writer of the book of Hebrews states that we can trust God to be faithful to the new covenant because He has always been faithful to the Abrahamic covenant (Hebrews 6:13–20). This constitutes a serious problem for the abolitionists because if the Abrahamic covenant has been abolished, then God is a liar and indeed is not faithful, though the writer of Hebrews affirms that He is!

Many abolitionists have perceived this problem and have consequently moved to the reconstructionist camp.

2. The Reconstructionist Camp

This theory states that the Abrahamic covenant has indeed not been abolished but it has been reconstructed—that is, the part that promises land to Israel now means spiritual promises and not literal ones. The problem with this theory is:

(a) It is a total presupposition, and the Scriptures nowhere affirm it.
That all nations would be blessed in Christ was actually the intention of the Abrahamic Covenant from the very beginning, but this does not remove from the Jewish people a national destiny in the Holy Land.

Reconstructionists lay emphasis on Paul’s teaching in the book of Galatians concerning God’s promise in Abraham being made not to his “seed,” plural—that is the people of Israel, but to his “seed” singular, meaning Jesus (Galatians 3:15–18). Therefore, they conclude that since the “seed” Christ has come, the promise to the “seed” of Abraham as in plural—meaning the people—has been removed! They have forfeited the land!

The truth is that Paul also uses the term “Abraham’s seed” in the plural in the New Testament (Romans 9:6–7). Therefore both interpretations of the term “seed” are true! Abraham’s seed is singular and plural. The blessing God promised in Abraham is only in Christ Jesus because He died for the whole world, but the mediation or means by which this blessed “seed” comes into the world is through the “seed” plural—the people of Israel. The one truth does not contradict the other. Both truths are, in fact, interdependent (Romans 9:1–5), hence the extensive genealogy of Jesus given in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Matthew 1:1–17; Luke 3:23–38) (just as the English word “seed” can refer to one grain or many grains of seed).

The Bible nowhere states that the promises of God in Abraham concerning Israel’s everlasting possession of the land of Canaan are removed. In fact, everywhere it affirms the opposite—that a day is coming when Israel will be restored to the land and to her Messiah (Ezekiel 36:24–32). This passage from Ezekiel teaches the very opposite of Replacement Theology, in that Israel’s rebellion and sin has not led to land forfeiture but to judgment and correction, yet in the end, God will, for His Name’s sake, restore Israel to her ancient land and to Himself! He does this despite her history of rebellion and sin. The truth is that Replacement Theology reflects the heart of man and not that of God!

(b) The Scriptures refute it.
Jesus came to confirm the promises to the Fathers, not to reconstruct them (Romans 15:7–9). Confirm means CONFIRM! He takes away nothing but reinforces every promise that God made to the fathers (Acts 3:22–26). Peter affirms that there must be a time of “restoration of all things” before Messiah returns. This “restoration of all things” is spoken about by all the prophets—meaning a final regathering to the land of Canaan and repentance leading to salvation in Jesus (Amos 9:11–15; Jeremiah 36:26–28).[53]

___

Was Israel’s Failure the End of Her Calling?

Though as a nation Israel did not recognize Jesus as Messiah at His first coming, her disbelief never ended God’s purpose for the nation He created for great purpose. Kaiser writes:

Israel’s disobedience and dispersion were not the end of her calling, for God had announced in the New Testament that his “gifts and his call were irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). In fact, rather than Israel’s disobedience serving as a signal that her usefulness in the divine plan had ceased, the reverse was asserted by the apostle Paul. As Hendrikus Berkof put it, “She is and remains the link between the Messiah and the nations. She could be this link through her obedience, but even now, in her disobedience, she still fulfills her functions as a link.”[54] That is why Paul claimed that “because of [Israel’s] transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:11).

Life from the Dead

Paul argues if Israel’s rejection of Jesus and her present disobedience means the reconciliation of the world (meaning, Kaiser writes, that gentiles will have an opportunity to come to Jesus as never before), then her acceptance will be “life from the dead”—echoing an image in Ezekiel 37:11 when dead bones, “the whole house of Israel,” will one day come to life.

Again, Kaiser argues:

The plan of God had deliberately calculated the failure of Israel and her people. Romans 11:8 affirmed, using the informing theology of Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:10, that “God gave [Israel] a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they should not hear, to this very day.” Thus, the spiritual slumber in which Israel currently tosses is divinely induced! God thereby insured, in that sense, that all Israel would not believe so that salvation might come to the gentiles through those Jews who did not believe. And so it happened that “because of [Israel’s] disobedience,” divine mercy was shown to the gentiles — and that condition persists down “to this very day,” Paul adds.

Of course there are a large number of Jewish people that do believe; however, the “full number” of Jewish believers (Romans 11:12) will not come “until the full number of the gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25). Therefore, it was not a matter of Israel’s faithfulness, or her ability to retain what was stated with her—nor has it ever been. That assessment would need to be made of all the peoples of the world, for as the psalmist said, “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O LORD, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.”

An Irrevocable Calling

The inclusion of gentiles through the new covenant never invalidated Israel’s call, writes Juster in his book The Irrevocable Calling. Rather, it “extends the priesthood and the meaning of being the people of God to those called from the nations”[55] who are grafted into a Jewish olive tree (Romans 11:24).

Hedding writes:

Israel has always been God’s vehicle of world redemption (Romans 9:1–5). In a way, she is God’s microphone, the means by which He speaks to a lost world. Moreover, she has birthed all God’s covenants into the world and has now come back to her ancient homeland, by the promise of the Abrahamic covenant, to birth the final great covenant of history, the Davidic covenant. Herein lies the ultimate purpose of her modern-day restoration. Jesus will return to Zion as the root and offspring of David (Revelation 22:1–6; Psalm 2:1–12; Psalm 72:5–11).

No wonder the conflict over Zion is so great. … Replacement Theology is thus an instrument of the powers of darkness to frustrate the purpose of God, by disconnecting the church from this final great redemptive initiative in history.[56]

How Should Christians Respond?

God has a unique role for literal, ethnic Israel established before time began; He has not cast away His people He set apart to be a light to the nations and bring blessing to the whole world. With a proper understanding of this role, Christians have an obligation to respond. The best first step is to learn about Replacement Theology and why it is so dangerous. Learn about God’s promises to Israel and the nation’s role in God’s end-time plan. Seek a proper understanding of the church’s role in that irrevocable call—and pray to that end.

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:29)

Conclusion

Israel always means Israel. The New Testament never uses the word “Palestine.” No New Testament writer indicates that Israel refers to anything other than the Jewish people or the land to which God promised them. Though God made an everlasting covenant with the children of Israel in Genesis 12:1–3 (magnified in Genesis 15, 17, and elsewhere in Scripture), Replacement Theology implies He broke that covenant in the New Testament. It paints God out to be indecisive, unfaithful, and a promise-breaker.

The false teaching of Replacement Theology is what led to antisemitism throughout history and is why we see such hatred toward the Jewish people today—even among some Christians. The belief that the Jewish people have permanently fallen from God’s grace and that God has disowned them leads to normalizing Jew-hatred instead of, with humility, elevating the Jewish people to their proper place and loving and blessing the set-apart nation through whom God still intends to bring blessing to the entire world.

Endnotes

[1] Kaiser, Walter. “An Assessment of ‘Replacement Theology’: The Relationship between the Israel of the Abrahamic–Davidic Covenant and the Christian Church,” Mishkan 21 (1994) 10. Kaiser is an Evangelical Old Testament scholar, writer, public speaker, and educator. He is a distinguished professor of Old Testament and former president of Gordon-Conwell Theological School in Massachusets.

[2] Hedding, Malcom. “Replacement Theology: Abolitionism and Reconstructionism,” www.icejusa.org/replacement-theology/, Accessed 16 May 2024.

[3] “All scholars and theologians realize Scripture is to be interpreted not only literally but also figuratively. Jesus did the latter when saying Jonah was about his death and resurrection. The debate is not over literal versus figurative but which to take first before the other. Calvin himself talked about the importance of the literal but then used the figurative alone in reference to Israel” (Gerald McDermott).

[4] McDermott, Israel Matters, 20.

[5] McDermott, Israel Matters, 21. (See Mark 15:32; Matthew 2:20–21; 9:33; 10:23; Luke 4:25; 7:9; John 12:13.)

[6] https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/replacement-theology-undone-by-one-greek-word/?

[7] Latourette, Kenneth Scott. The First Five Centuries, Vol. 1 of A History of the Expansion of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), 70.

[8] Not everything these fathers of the faith should be condemned; however their antisemitic views did contribute to the increase and normalization of Jew hatred over time.

[9] McDermott, Gerald R. Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land (Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 2017), 6.

[10] McDermott, Israel Matters, 8.

[11] McDermott, Israel Matters, 8.

[12] Roberts, Alexander and James Donaldson, eds. Anti-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 1:267.

[13] Diprose, Ronald E. Israel and the Church: The Origin and Effects of Replacement Theology (Waynesboro, GA, 2004), 73.

[14] McDermott, Israel Matters, 9. Quoted in John Chrysostom, Homily VI, “Against the Jews.”

[15] The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1907), s.v. “Chrysostom, Cyril, and Ambrose,” 4:82).

[16] Showers, Apocalypse,14.

[17] Judaken, Jonathan, “The Historical Roots of Anti-Semitism,” My Jewish Learning.

[18] Judaken, “Historical Roots.”

[19] “Martin Luther,” Tameside, www.tameside.directory/people/martin-luther/ Accessed 5 May 2024.

[20] Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 111.

[21] Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, translated by Martin H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 47:267.

[22] Ipgrave, M. (2023). “Nicaea and Christian–Jewish Relations.” Ecumenical Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/erev.12784

[23] Ecclesiastical History by Theodoret. Book 1 Chapter 9

[24] Parsons, David. “Israel and Fulfillment Theology,” ICEJusa.org, 2011.

[25] Parsons, “Fulfillment Theology,” 2011.

[26] Parsons, “Fulfillment Theology,” 2011.

[27] Hedding, Malcolm. “The Folly of Fulfillment Theology,” ICEJusa.org, 2012.

[28] Hedding, “Folly,” 2012.

[29] Juster, Daniel. The Coming Apocalypse: A Study of Replacement Theology vs. God’s Faithfulness in the End-Times (Friends of Israel, Inc., 2009), 32.

[30] Vlach, Michael J, PhD. Various Forms of Replacement Theology, The Master’s Seminary Journal, 20/1 (Spring 2009) 57–69.

[31] Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, 31.

[32] Craig A. Blaising, “The Future of Israel as a Theological Question,” JETS 44/3 (2001):442.

[33] Gruber, pp. 339–341.

[34] John G. Gager, Reinventing Paul (New York: Oxford University Press), 2000, quoted in Gerald R. McDermott, Israel Matters, 65.

[35] Kaiser, Assessment, 18.

[36] Gruber, pp. 339–341.

[37] Kaiser, Walter. “‘An Assessment of Replacement Theology’: The Relationship between the Israel of the Abrahamic–Davidic Covenant and the Christian Church,” Mishkan 21 (1994): 12.

[38] Michael, Susan. “A Dangerous Theology—not Irresistible at All,” Susan’s Blog, icejusa.org, 6 March 2019.

[39] Vlach, Michael J. What Should We Think About Israel? ed. J. Randall Price (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2019), 189.

[40] Michael, Susan. “A Dangerous Theology,” 2019.

[41] Manzon, Norman. “Replacement Theology.”

[42] Sharf, Paul. “The Danger of Replacing Israel,” Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Accessed 10 May 2024.

[43] McDermott, Israel Matters, 23.

[44] Pawson, David. Unlocking the New Testament: A Commentary on Galatians (David Pawson, 2013), 55–56.

[45] Kaiser, “Assessment,” 8.

[46] Gruber, Daniel. The Church and the Jews: The Biblical Relationship (

[47] Johnson, Lewis. “Paul and the ‘Israel of God,’ an Exegetical and Eschatological Case Study,” 3.

[48] Ice, Thomas D. Liberty University Scholars Crossing. “The Israel of God,” 2009; quoted from Lewis Johnson, “The Israel of God,” 49,

[49] Toussaint and Dyer, Pentecost Essays, “Paul and ‘The Israel of God’: An Exegetical and Eschatological Case Study” by S. Lewis Johnson, 181–182.

[50] Fruchtenbaum, Arnold. “Replacement Theology and the Epistle of First Peter,” (Ariel Ministries), 13.

[51] Kaiser, “An Assessment,” 2.

[52] D. Edmond Heibert, 1 Peter (Moody, 1992), 147.

[53] Hedding, Malcom. “Replacement Theology: Abolitionism and Reconstructionism,” Accessed 16 May 2024.

[54] Berkhof, Hendrikus. Christ, the Meaning of History, tr. by Lambertus Buurman. (Richmond: Knox 1966),

144–145

[55] Juster, Daniel. The Irrevocable Calling (Lederer Books, 2007) 2.

[56] Hedding, Malcolm. “Replacement Theology: Abolitionism and Reconstructionsim,” Malcolm Hedding, 2019–2020.