Scholars will agree that the early Church
and the early Church apologists taught some form of “replacement
theology,” the teaching that the Christian Church has replaced natural
Israel as the Holy nation of God, with the Christian Church evolving from a mid
1st-Century CE sect of Judaism to a separate and distinct
theological paradigm that was “a logical outgrowth of late classical
thought and, at the same time, an astonishingly brilliant fulfillment of the
best traditions of ancient philosophy” (D. W. Robertson, Jr.
“Translator’s Introduction.” Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine).
Yes, the evolution of the Christian Church was away from Judaism and into
previously uncharted paganism: before the Apostle John died, the Christian
Church had ceased being Christian and
had become an extension of philosophical paganism. Yet from Justin Martyr, who
throughout his life wore his philosopher’s robes and who in 160 CE, in
speaking to a Jew said, “The Scriptures are not yours but ours,” to
Irenaeus who said, “Jews are disinherited from the grace of God,”
to Tertullian who in his treatise, Against
the Jews, said that God had rejected the Jews in favor of Christians, to
Eusebius who argued that the Christian Church was the continuation of the Old
Testament and had superseded Judaism, the early Christian Church in its
youthful rebellion against God declared itself to be the true Israel, heir to
the covenants of promise. This early Christian Church, which had not walked as
Jesus walked since Rome sacked Jerusalem
in 70 CE, argued that Israel
according to the flesh had been cast away and that God had transferred His
love for Israel
to Christians.
There is certainly adequate scriptural support to
argue that the Church is the successor to the covenants of promise:
1. Paul writes, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are
Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29).
2. Elsewhere Paul writes, “For the promise to Abraham and his
offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but
through the righteousness of faith” (Rom 4:13).
3. After Jesus enters Jerusalem as the Passover Lamb of God, He tells the
chief priests and elders of Israel, “‘Therefore I tell you, the
kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its
fruits’” (Matt 21:43).
4. Paul writes, “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor
is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision
is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Rom
2:28-29).
5. Paul also writes, “If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so
is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches” (Rom
11:16). Paul goes on to say that some
of the natural branches were broken off so that wild olive branches could be
grafted onto this root of righteousness, with these wild olive branches being
Gentile converts. This root of righteousness is neither the Church nor Israel, but Christ
Jesus. And if the natural branches are of Christ, then what the writer of
Hebrews says applies: “For good news [the gospel of Christ] came to us
just as to them [Israel
in the wilderness], but the message they heard did not benefit them” (Heb
4:2). Therefore a partial hardening came over Israel
until the fullness of the Gentiles has come to God (Rom 11:25); so until the
fullness of the Gentiles has come to God, natural Israel will mostly remain as broken
off branches.
In all of these points, the assumption is that the
Church will walk as Jesus, an Observant Jew, walked (cf. 1 John 2:3-6; 1 Cor
11:1; Phil 3:17) … Paul writes, “For circumcision indeed is of
value if you obey the law, but if you break the law your circumcision becomes
uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the
law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision” (Rom
2:25-16). Elsewhere he says,
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies,
to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as
instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who
have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments
for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not
under the law but under grace. / What then? Are we to sin because we are not
under the law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present
yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you
obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, with leads to
righteousness? (Rom 6:12-16)
The Christian who presents him or herself to sin as
its willing servant has voluntarily given sin dominion over the person. This
person is no longer under grace, but is under the law even if this person is a
Gentile convert who was not before under the law.
Christ will not be mocked—and the person who
voluntarily returns to sin after being set free through being born of spirit
mocks Christ by not valuing His sacrifice enough to strive to keep the commandments,
the reasonable expectation of everyone of the house of God. Therefore, the
Church as the continuation of Israel bears no relationship to the visible
entity in this world called Christian
by the prince of this world … Justin Martyr wore philosopher robes
throughout his later life because he never ceased being a philosopher. He
expressed love for Jesus, but he was never willing to do as Jesus said, a
subject to which we will return.
Although the early Church, a practicing sect of
Judaism as the Pharisees and Sadducees were, taught that through Jesus Old
Testament prophecies pertaining to Israel were being and would be fulfilled,
19th-Century theological revisionists mostly abandoned replacement theology,
the teaching that the Church superseded Israel as the holy nation of God, and
taught instead that God would save Israel through the law but saves the Church
through grace, making two paths to God. This heretical teaching expanded to
make salvation a many spoke wheel by which persons of good character of all
religions are saved, but has recently contracted back to where only through
Christ Jesus is a person saved. However, this teaching allows for Christianity to
be a many spoke wheel by which good persons of every denomination are saved.
Replacement theology became entangled in civil
governance early in the 4th-Century CE, and remained entangled even after
Luther and Calvin separated themselves from the old Roman Church. As ancient Israel was a
theocracy, Western European governance was theocratic until the Age of
Enlightenment threatened to expose all theocracies to scientific criticism of
the sort that trumps the Ptolemaic universe. And what becomes apparent is that
the history of natural Israel
[i.e., physically circumcised Israel]
here on earth serves as an informing metaphor for the history of the Church
[spiritually circumcised Israel]
in the heavenly realm, where mortal men cannot enter to see the Church as God
sees the Church.
In a salvation tango, the dance of love, the dance
of dispensationalists with Judaism, replacement theology became an ugly
concept; for if replacement theology is true—if the Christian Church is
endtime Israel, the holy nation for which endtime prophecies about being
recovered from captivity in the north country pertain—then the Christian
Church must go into captivity and be scattered and then return to God and be
recovered from the far corners of the world. Christianity will cease being
“important” theologically until God sets His hand to recover the
Church from where He scattered it. To dispensationalists, this cannot be! Therefore,
in the minds of dispensationalists who were certain that they were
theologically pure, replacement theology must be a false teaching that infected
the early Church as the flu bug infects the nation every winter. And these
Evangelical dispensationalists (and a few others who utterly lack spiritual
understanding) have made replacement theology one of those dirty labels they
can verbally hurl to shout down disciples advocating what the Apostle Paul taught
about endtime Israel being the new creatures, born of spirit, that dwell in the
tents of flesh of the old man.
2.
The
arguments against replacement theology distill down to one point: God never
says that natural Israel
has been replaced by the Christian Church as His holy nation (Ex 19:5-6) or as
His firstborn Son (Ex 4:22). This is true. Israel continues as the holy nation
of God just as the covenants of promise mediated by Moses continue on even
after the offense of circumcision has ended so that Gentiles will not balk when
drawn and called by God. But not all who have descended from Israel belong to Israel (Rom 9:6). Natural branches
have been broken off and wild olive branches have been grafted to the root of
righteous (Rom 11:17-18), which isn’t Israel but Christ Jesus, the last
Adam. And in a really inadequate translation, Paul writes: “Now the
promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring [seed]. It does not say,
‘And to offsprings [seeds],’ referring to many, but referring to
one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (Gal 3:16)
… the promises are to Christ, and to those who belong to Christ.
All of humankind has, in Christian theology,
biologically descended from the first Adam and as such are of the house of
Adam. Their paternal ancestry can be traced back to Adam—with one
exception, Jesus of Nazareth, whose Father was the Logos, Theos, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt 22:32).
Thus, Jesus was not born as a man into the house of Adam, for He was of the
house of God.
Sin entered the world through one man, Adam (Rom
5:12), who covered Eve’s transgression by being her head, her husband.
Because of Adam’s transgression, all of humankind has been consigned to
disobedience so that God could have mercy on all (Rom 11:32), mercy coming in
the form of being liberated from disobedience and given “life”
residing in the tent of flesh of the old self. For the firstfruits of God, this
giving of life (or being raised from
the dead — John 5:21) began when Jesus breathed on ten of His disciples
and said, “‘Receive the Holy Spirit [B<,Ø:" –(4@<]’” (John 20:22), and this giving of life will continue until He comes again
to also give life to whom He will through the mortal flesh putting on
immortality. So both the Father and the Son must give life to a person born
physically of the house of Adam before this person
will enter into the heavenly realm … this person must mentally leave the
house of Adam and begin to identify him or herself with the house of God, for
the new creature dwelling within the tent of flesh—the new creature that
is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek—is of God and of His house.
The life
that the Father gives or will give to a person through receipt of His divine
breath [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] was foreshadowed when this divine breath descended
as a dove, lit and remained on the man Jesus of Nazareth (Matt 3:16), the only
Son of the Logos. The man Jesus now
became the beloved Son of the Father (v. 17)
through receipt of a second life within the tent of flesh that was the man Jesus.
Literally, Jesus was born of Mary as the only Son of the Theos of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and He became the firstborn Son
of the Father, Theon, the Host of
heaven, when the divine breath of the Most High descended upon Him as a dove to
cause Him to be born again, or born a second time to fulfill all righteousness
(v. 15).
Jesus was never of the house of Adam; He was not
born consigned to disobedience. Thus, He was free from birth to keep the
commandments of God—and by keeping the commandments, He did not sin, so death
had no claim to His life. He was a mortal man, but not a man under sentence of
death. He could walk on water because death had no claim on his life. He had to
choose to be made sin—He had to choose to take on the sins of Israel—before He could die at Calvary. Thus, He chose to lay down His life for Israel,
the second son of promise descended from the patriarch Abraham, to whom God had
promised to make of him a great nation if he left his father’s house (Gen
12:1-2) … to be of a house is to be of a lineage, so every son of Adam is
of the house of Adam, and every son of Terah was of the house of Terah. But
Abraham, of the house of Terah, was told to leave his father’s house, and
by faith, Abraham [then still Abram] left his natural father’s house
where he was certain to receive an inheritance to journey into a Promise Land
where he awaited the coming of the city [a house grown large] of God. Abraham
left the house of Terah for the house of God.
The city for which Abraham waited was New
Jerusalem, the house of God grown very large and glorified, the great nation
promised to him. His descendants would be numbered through Christ Jesus, a life-giving
spirit (1 Cor 15:45), the spiritual Abraham whose son of promise was a
spiritual Isaac, according to Paul (Gal 4:21-31).
Every descendant of Abraham is of the house of
Abraham, who was to become the father of many nations as well as the father of
a single nation, two promises that are conjoined through Israel: every son of Israel
is, now, of the house of Israel
and is known simply by the name of the house, Israel. Therefore, Israel
continues generation after generation regardless of righteousness and
regardless of circumcision and regardless of biological ancestry, for Caleb was
of Abraham through Esau but was not of Israel by biology. Yet Caleb
represented the tribe of Judah as a spy into the Promised Land so it
isn’t and has not been biology that makes an Israelite, but adoption
through choosing to live by faith as an Israelite; hence, not all of Israel belongs
to Israel, for those who are Israel by biology but who do not choose to live by
the commandments and statutes of God are not of Israel regardless of their
ancestry.
Extending this argument Paul makes that was not
well understood in the 1st-Century nor well understood today, every
son of God is of the house of God; thus, Jesus as the beloved Son is of the
house of God and is known simply by the name of that house, God. Likewise,
disciples who have been born of spirit are sons of God and as such are of the
house of God. Jesus uses this logic when He cites Psalm 82:6 to Jews determined
to stone Him: Jesus said, “‘Is it not written in your Law, “I
said, you are gods”? If he called them gods to whom the word of God
came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of him whom the
Father consecrated and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming,”
because I said, “I am the Son of God”’” (John
10:34-36).
Those Jews who sought to kill Jesus knew they were
not of the house of God. They claimed to be of the house of Abraham (John
8:39), not the house of God. And Jesus confirms that they were not of the house
of God when He said they were of the house of the devil (v. 44).
Gentiles have been grafted into the household of
God through faith that will have these Gentiles
living as Judeans who believe that Jesus is Lord and that the Father raised
Jesus from the dead. And there is the error in both so-called replacement
theology and in all arguments against replacement theology: the visible (in
this world) Christian Church is not of God. Just as the Pharisees of the 1st-Century
were not of God (a claim that rabbinical Judaism will vigorously dispute), the
Christian Church is neither of Israel
nor of God, and hasn’t been since mid 1st-Century CE.
How can the Christian Church not be of God? How, by
what John writes: “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also
practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. … Whoever makes a practice of
sinning is of the devil” (1 John 3:4, 8). … Jesus said Pharisees
were of the devil because they sought to kill Him, and John said lawless
Christians are of the devil because they practice sinning. The defining
characteristic of the visible Christian Church is its open transgression of the
law, visible for all to see every Sunday morning.
It is, for Sabbatarian disciples, sometimes too
easy to dismissed well-intended Sunday-observing Christians as being of the
devil through their continued sinning, apparent by when they attempt to come
into the presence of God. But John would have identified—going back
farther then Justin Martyr—those who practicing sinning by transgressing
the Sabbath commandment as being of the devil, and again, this would place all
the visible Christian Church in a similar relationship to Sabbatarian disciples
as Pharisees had to Jesus and His disciples. Judaism, now, might be compared to
the Sadducees.
Biological Israel
is not replaced by another Israel,
but is pruned by God. Its dead wood is stripped away to be burned. New
branches, like Caleb who had about him a different spirit, have been grafted to
the root of righteous so as to make the natural branches jealous (Rom 11:11,
14)—and no wild olive branch will make a natural branch jealous by
continuing to live as a wild olive. Thus, the Gentile convert who will not live
as a Judean (who will not live as a natural Israelite should have been living)
is not of God but is of the devil, who has deceived the entire world (Rev
12:9).
The visible Christian Church has not and will not
ever replace Israel as the
holy nation of God, but—and this is a very large
“but”—natural Israel
is no longer the holy nation of God. The Church is; for long ago the prophet
Jeremiah recorded, “‘Behold the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the
flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in
the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these are uncircumcised,
and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart’” (Jer
9:25-26). Those days are both still coming and are upon Judah and all of the
house of Israel, in that circumcision of heart was offered to Israel as a
condition of the second covenant, the Moab covenant, but Israel never turned to
God by faith when in a far land and began to love God with heart and mind,
keeping the commandments and all of God’s laws and statutes. Rather, a
remnant of Israel returned
to Jerusalem to rebuild the house of God by
decree of Cyrus, king of Persia
and king of Babylon.
But this house lacked having the presence of God in it because the Ark of the
Covenant was not returned, nor were the Urim
& Thummim—this second temple did not know the presence of God
until the man Jesus, twice born, entered it to cleanse it from the mercantile
buying and selling that typifies the kingdom of this world (John 2:13-22). And
then He entered at Passover rather than on Yom
Kipporim [as Yom Kipporim is the
compression of the Passover season when Israel eats bread of affliction—Jesus’ cleansing of the house of
God began the spiritual fulfillment represented by Passover and the Days of
Unleavened Bread].
Understand! Jeremiah records,
“‘Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because you have not
obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares
the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will
bring them against this land [Israel] and its inhabitants … [t]his whole
land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of
Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish
the king of Babylon
and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity’”
(25:8-9, 11-12). Although the physical king of Babylon was punished long ago, but not
immediately after the seventy years, the spiritual king will not be punished until
he is cast into the pit (Isa 14:4-21).
Cyrus isn’t king of the Media-Persian Empire
when the seventy years transpire: Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, is (Dan 9:1-2).
So the remnant of Israel that returned to Jerusalem to build for Cyrus a house
for God (Ezra 1:1-2) by the hand of Zerubbabel did not return after seventy
years, but returned earlier. The first temple was razed and its debris burned
in 586 BCE, and Zerubbabel’s temple was dedicated in 516 BCE, exactly
seventy years later, but a remnant of Israel had returned to Jerusalem more
than two decades earlier—so a remnant of Israel was not
absent from Jerusalem for seventy years. Rather the house of God in any form
was absent for seventy years … the remnant of Israel that returned to
Judea as servants of the king of Babylon—Cyrus is identified as
“king of Babylon” by Tattenai the governor of the province (Ezra
5:13)—were not the house of God;
they were not of God; and they still were not of God when Jesus, centuries
later, said they were of the devil, the prince of this world and the spiritual
king of Babylon (again, Isa 14:4).
The tango of love that dispensationalists and
Judaism perform nightly for the world to see and admire is the dance of the
dead … the prophet Haggai asks the priests about the law:
“If someone carries holy meat in the fold of
his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind
of food, does it become holy?” The priest answered and said,
“No.” Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact
with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The
priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” Then Haggai
answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation
before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what
they offer there is unclean [Israel
was a dead nation]. Now then,
consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple
of the Lord, how did you fare? … I struck you and all your products of
your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to
me, declares the Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-forth day
of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s
temple was laid … from this day on I will bless you.” (2:11-19)
The remnant of Israel
that returned to Jerusalem were an unclean
people, unclean through touching a dead body, that of the nation of Israel in Babylon.
Zerubbabel was the holy meat hid in the fold of the garment, but this
Zerubbabel wasn’t the man by that name but Christ Jesus, for Jesus is the
reality or substance of all of the Old Testament. Therefore, when foundational
stones for the temple were laid, blessing would return to Israel but only
on the condition of obedience.
The house of God is the lineage of God, and this
“house” goes from being a physical structure built of timber and
stone to being the tents of flesh in which the divine breath of God [B<,Ø:" 2,@Ø] dwells, what Paul understood but others
apparently did not (1 Cor 3:16-17; 2 Cor 6:16). Likewise, Israel goes
from being a physically circumcised nation to being the spiritually circumcised
nation, with the former forming the lively representation (Jonathon
Edwards’ words) of the Church. And the physical Ark of the Covenant that
lay under the Mercy Seat goes to being disciples in whom are the commandments
of God written on two tablets of flesh, the heart and the mind, the jar of
manna in the form of the Spirit of Christ, and Aaron’s budded staff in
the form of the promise of resurrection. Beside the Ark of the Covenant was the
book of Deuteronomy as a witness against Israel; beside or in the hand of every
disciple is the book of Deuteronomy as a witness against every Christian (John
5:45). Jesus said, “‘If you believed Moses, you would believe me;
for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you
believe my words’” (vv.
46-47).
Only one tribe of Israel served in the physical house
of God: the sons of Levi. Today, the inner new creature born of spirit as a son
of God is the spiritual equivalent to a son of Levi, not any of the other
tribes of Israel.
As the Promised Land shrank through Israel’s
lawlessness until it was no larger than the polis Jerusalem before
Nebuchadnezzar razed the city (Ezek 12:9, 21-28), Israel as the firstborn son
of God (again, Ex 4:22) shrank until it was no larger than the man Jesus of
Nazareth when He entered the temple as both the only Son of Theos (John 3:16) and the firstborn Son
of Theon—to repeat, the
circumcised nation of Israel left Egypt as the first son of “I Am,”
but this firstborn son broke covenant with the Lord over and over again, so
Israel was sent away from God and out of His presence; God’s glory left
the temple not to return until Jesus as the Wave Sheaf Offering entered in the
presence of the Most High. Here on earth, not until Jesus as the firstborn (and
only) Son of the Logos who was Theos and was with Theon from the beginning (John 1:1-2) entered the second temple did
Israel return to the house of
God. Glory did not return to the house of God until the glorified Jesus
breathed on ten of His disciples and said, Receive
the Holy Spirit. Then, at that moment, the glory that the prophet Ezekiel
had seen leave returned.
And Israel
was no larger than the ten upon whom the glorified Jesus had breathed, thereby
directly transferring the Holy Spirit to them.
All ten upon whom Jesus breathed were Galileans,
Israelites by birth and by faith. Paul was an Israelite by birth and by faith.
The Circumcision Faction with whom Paul battled were Israelites by birth but
here problems enter, for they professed to be of Christ but they lacked
spiritual understanding. They would have made dispensationalists wonderful
tango partners. There were like the alleged scholar, a Sabbatarian who, when a
disciple mentions that Israel is today a nation circumcised of heart, a nation
that is the Christian Church, immediately responds with some variation of,
“That’s replacement theology,
you have to be careful of that.”
Yes, a person has to handle replacement theology
carefully, for the physicality of the creation concealed the Logos, the beginning and end (Rev
22:13), from Israel
throughout its recorded history (Eccl 3:11), leaving natural Jews out of
covenant with the Creator-of-all-that-has-been-made. Inevitably, those alleged
scholars who are too fearful of replacement theology to pick it up and handle
it as mature disciples will end up claiming that the Father is the Creator, not
the Son—or these alleged scholars will take the Passover sacraments on
some night other than the night on which Jesus was betrayed, thereby leaving
themselves with no covering for their sins other than their own obedience. They
will feel good about themselves, but they are spiritual bastards, claiming the
Most High as their Father but in reality they are of the Adversary.
When Israel as the firstborn son of God left Egypt,
it was a nation of about 600,000 adult males of which only two entered into the
Promised Land, and one of these two was of Esau by birth and Israel only by
adoption. So by biological descent, the firstborn natural son of God that left Egypt entered
into the Promised Land as one man, Joshua. And Israel, the firstborn son of God,
spiritually entered into the Father’s presence as only one man, Jesus of
Nazareth. The second “man” to enter into the Father’s
presence will be adopted into Israel
by faith, and this second man—a spiritual Caleb—will have a
different spirit about him than have all of those others who today say they are
of God.
Disciples, regardless of their biological heritage,
will only enter into God’s presence through adoption by faith, this
adoption displayed through the presence of a different spirit that has them believing God.
The natural descendants of Israel are as the nation that left Egypt. They are
of Israel but they do not
belong to Israel, for Israel is no
larger than the Christian Church, which is not today visible in this world.
What is visible is the Trojan horse built by Greek philosophers to win by
deceit a empire from Rome that Greeks could not win by swords or triremes, a
spiritual horse like the wood horse Odysseus built so long ago … beware
of Greeks bearing gifts, especially the promise of salvation.
At another time, more will be said about physically
circumcised Israel
being the spiritually lifeless shadow of the nation that is today circumcised
of heart, with the first Elijah’s lament that he alone was all that
remained of the faithful nation serving as the shadow and type of the Church
prior to life being returned to the Body of Christ. Until then, let those who
fear to handle replacement theology—the
serpent isn’t in the theology, but in the weeds surrounding the Promised
Land—ask to have their diapers changed, for they are spiritual newborns
regardless of how many years they have been hiding in the bushes.
* * *
"Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©
2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved."
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