Did the Church Replace Israel? The Case Against Replacement Theology
Abram’s encounter with God is so important to the narrative I am sharing that I want to assure you that I am not being careless with the scriptural record.
As we consider the record of God’s interactions with Abram (later known as Abraham), we see that there are three primary benefits that God announced to him: people, place, and purpose.
We are introduced to the people aspect in Genesis 12:1-3. God said that He would use Abram to make a great nation. What is particularly important is that by this time we have already learned that Abram’s wife, Sarai, was childless (see Genesis 11:30).
Here is an incredible thing—a man whose wife was barren received a promise from God, whom he had never met and did not know heretofore, that he would become the pro-genitor of a great nation. There was no indication of when or how this would or could happen, yet Abram believed it!
The place aspect of God’s promise was made in Genesis 15:7, which we have also already seen: Abram was to travel to a specific place, the land God was promising to give him. These first two promises went hand in hand. It would take a lot of people to occupy the land that God was giving them. It was certainly not something Abram could do on his own. Now he had the promise of a people and a land where they could all live.
However, the remainder of Genesis 15 adds detail to this promise. Abram and God become involved in a covenant ceremony, which is described in Genesis 15:9-17. The burning lamp mentioned in this passage represents the presence of God, who passed between the pieces of the sacrifices in a solemn and binding agreement.
I want to particularly point out what God said next, in Genesis 15:18-21:
In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
Not only did God give Abram the boundaries of the land his descendants were to possess, but He also told Abram that his descendants would dispossess the various Canaanites who were already living there. All these promises were made before Abram had even one descendant. God was already talking to him as though he were the father of the multitude God had already promised.
We also find the purpose aspect of God’s covenant with Abram in Genesis 12. Genesis 12:2-3 says:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
This covenant promise is reiterated in Genesis 18:17-18:
And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?
By this time, God had already changed Abram’s name to Abraham, and his wife’s name from Sarai to Sarah. If this were not enough, God spells out Abraham’s purpose again in Genesis 22:18: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”
When God makes a promise once, that is sufficient: He is God, and He cannot lie. When He rehearses that promise a second time, it emphasizes its importance. When He reiterates it a third time, it reminds us that it is a promise of eternal significance.
The following is a summary of the three aspects of God’s covenant blessing to Abraham:
First, people: God said that Abraham would be the father of a great nation—a people too numerous to count. That nation is now known as the Jews.
Next, place: God said He would give Abraham’s descendants a place to live and thrive—the land of Canaan. This is the Jewish homeland forever (see Genesis 13:15). This is a promise made by God, not by diplomats or politicians.
Finally, purpose: God said that the reason for His blessing upon Abraham and his descendants was so that they would be a blessing to the nations of the world. Without considering the many natural blessings Jewish people have given to the world, the singular blessing to which God is referring is that out of the Jewish nation would come the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
Let me point out something that cannot be emphasized enough—not one of these three benefits that God gave to Abraham (often referred to as the Abrahamic covenant) was ever repealed, retracted, recalled, voided, nullified, or otherwise altered in any way.
Those benefits are still just as valid now as when God spoke them into existence. Even though Abraham is no longer living, the promises that God made were not just to him, but to his descendants. Abraham’s descendants (the Jews) are still very much alive, and that means the promises that God made to them live on.
Abraham was not a perfect man by any means. He made some grave errors of judgment in his lifetime, and the repercussions of at least one of those errors affect world events on a daily basis even now in the 21st century (Isaac and Ishmael, see Genesis 16).
However, Abraham believed God. That is what enabled him to move beyond his faults and find grace in God’s sight. That is also why he is still rightly regarded as the Father of our Faith (see Romans 4:16).
God’s Plan for the Nation of Israel
Let me move on to mention three additional aspects of God’s purpose for the nation of Israel, as it was known from the time of the Exodus from Egypt. God intended Israel to be:
Custodians of the truth
Examples of the truth
Evangels of the truth
Of course, Israel had a spotty record of success in fulfilling these functions, but that does not negate the reality of God’s intention for them as a nation among the nations of the world through their history.
Custodians of the Truth
The custodian aspect is perhaps the easiest to identify. Israel was given the weighty responsibility of receiving God’s law as they assembled at the foot of Mount Sinai shortly after their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. They accepted this responsibility as a body of people, having been charged by God and by Moses at the mountain. Exodus 24:7-8 says:
And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.
Examples of the Truth
The law of God was more than just two tablets of stone, or the five books of Moses. God intended that His law be held in their hearts, heard in their speech, and lived out in their behavior. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says:
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
They were to keep it, cherish it, and never let it go.
The results of Israel’s charge to be examples of truth varied as time went on. They were, after all, imperfect people (as all people are, with One notable exception!), and they were incapable of complying with all the requirements of the law. That is why God instituted a system of substitutionary sacrifices to cover their transgressions.
It was a rather elaborate system, overseen by the priests. Participation was uneven at best. Throughout Israel’s history, times of apostasy would be interrupted by times of national repentance and revival. This cycle went on through the centuries, but seemed to gain less spiritual altitude with every cycle.
One reason for this may be that when truth that results in freedom is received, it generally hardens into a conviction in the hearts of those who receive it. They will not compromise, and they will not give up their hold on the truth.
They count it as precious, and they will not abandon it without a fight. In fact, they would rather die than relinquish the truth, since it was the truth that brought them the life they now enjoy.
The next generation often regards the truth as a persuasion rather than a conviction. They are often removed from the conditions that existed before the truth became known and produced freedom for their forebearers. As a result, they can be easily persuaded that something else is true.
The further removed they become from the privation that their forefathers endured, and the less aware they are of the sacrifices that were necessary to obtain the truth, the more likely it is that they will be open to persuasion.
By the third generation, what was once considered a conviction or a persuasion can become nothing more than an opinion. Everyone’s opinion is given equal weight, regardless of its veracity or credibility. This creates an atmosphere where what was once regarded as the truth is counted as nothing more than a convenience. If an opinion becomes inconvenient for any reason, it can be easily discarded or exchanged for another opinion that is more popular or prevalent.
Evangels of the Truth
Israel’s behavior as evangels of truth is perhaps the most difficult to pinpoint of all.
The following is one indication of this purpose, from Deuteronomy 20:10-11:
When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
This instruction was for cities that lay beyond where the Canaanites lived. Israel had been instructed to destroy the Canaanites completely. Their failure to do so caused many problems for them in the future.
This created a situation that they would need to manage carefully, since Israel was supposed to be separate from other nations, and to maintain their distinctiveness at all costs. This principle was to keep them from being assimilated into other people groups, which would have made them indistinguishable from those around them, thus frustrating the plan of God for them as a people.
The Lineage of the Messiah
However, we must not overlook the reality that there were those from other nations who did decide to worship the true and living God. These people—called proselytes—became accepted as part of God’s people.
That those from other lands and belief systems would worship the true God was only a prophetic foreshadowing of what would happen in the future. First, it would happen in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Next, it would happen in the ministry of His disciples in the book of Acts. Now, it is happening today as revival spreads around the earth. Finally, it will happen during the great ingathering of the end times.
There are a number of specific examples I could mention, but here is one notable case where a certain proselyte became part of the direct lineage of the Messiah. Ruth 4:13 says: “So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bare a son.”
The book of Ruth details the story of Ruth, a Moabite maiden, who married into the family of Naomi, an Israelite. When both Ruth’s husband and Naomi’s husband died, rather than return to her people, Ruth chose to accompany Naomi back to Bethlehem, Naomi’s hometown.
There, Ruth married Boaz, a descendant of the tribe of Judah, and lived as a proselyte in the land of Israel. Their son, referred to in Ruth 4:13, was Obed, who became the grandfather of David, king of Israel. And we know that the lineage of King David led directly to the birth of the Messiah.
Throughout the historical sweep of the Old Testament, we see different pronouncements by God and His designated representatives that bring more and more clarity to the question of the Messiah’s appearance.
As we have seen, God created a nation from Abraham’s descendants. They began to be organized as a nation at Mount Sinai after their deliverance from Egypt. We see this from the arrangement of the tribes around the tabernacle in the wilderness, the institution of the sacrificial system, the organization of the priesthood, and the giving of the Law. God, in essence, was telling them, “Since you are going to be My people, this is how I expect you to live.”
However, their identity as a distinct group of God-worshipers had begun much earlier. One of several defining moments came when Jacob and all his family moved to Egypt to avoid the famine that had affected so many lands at that time.
He and all his family uprooted themselves from their historic homeland and moved to a strange land, but they did not lose their identity, even in the midst of extremity.
Another significant milestone occurred before Jacob died. He delivered a prophetic proclamation to each of his sons. One of these proclamations identified the tribe from whom an eventual lawgiver would come. That honor belonged to the tribe of Judah. Here it is from Genesis 49:10: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.”
Much later, God narrowed the focus even further when He pointed out a particular family within the tribe of Judah who would produce the promised and eternal King. Second Samuel 7:13 says regarding Solomon: “He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.”
We must not forget that the promise God made to Solomon was reiterating a promise previously made to King David.
Second Samuel 7:16 goes further, regarding David: “And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”
There is an apparent contradiction to this promise found in the book of Jeremiah, which I will discuss in the following chapter. Suffice it to say that God keeps His promises, regardless of how unlikely they may seem, or how undeserving those who receive them may appear to be.
Here is one more detail that further proscribes the boundaries of the promised Redeemer’s advent—God revealed the place where He would be born. Micah 5:2 says:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
This was well known to the scholars of the law at the time of Jesus’ birth. They referenced this passage when King Herod asked where the King of the Jews would be born (see Matthew 2:1-6).
You may be wondering what all this has to do with replacement theology, since it may seem as though I have gone far afield from that discussion. The revelation God provided about through whom and where the promised Messiah would be born gave our adversary the information he thought he needed to snuff out Jesus’ life before it began.
Herod made this decree, found in Matthew 2:16-18:
Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Of course, we realize from our vantage point far removed from these developments that Jesus and His family were long gone from Bethlehem by the time this ungodly decree was carried out.
Remember, the end result of replacement theology is antisemitism. Even though replacement theology may be a relative newcomer to the field of antisemitism, the fruit of its doctrine is not a new development. It has existed for thousands of years.
Although humans are involved in its proliferation, antisemitism in all its forms is not, and has never been, of human origin. It is a plan devised by the devil and his associates. All those who participate in it, whether or not they realize it, are partaking of a diabolical plot, conceived in darkness, to circumvent the plan of God for human history.
