Ye Chosen Seed of Israel's Race, Part 5: Anti-Semitism and God's Faithfulness to the Jewish People Through the Church

This is the Conclusion to my 5-Part series on the topic of "Israel". To read the previous installments, click here for Part 1, here for Part 2, here for Part 3, and here for Part 4.

Happy New Year to my readers! I decided to take a break from blogging throughout the holidays, but now I am back at it in 2019. Today, what I hope to do is to finish my series on the identity of Israel as she is now presented in the New Testament. I have argued previously that in the New Testament, Jesus the Messiah Himself is understood to be the embodiment of Israel who fulfilled perfectly all that the nation should have been, but failed to be. From there, I made a case for understanding the Church to be the true "Israel of God" in contradistinction to Dispensationalism's definition (Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:11-3:6). In my last post, I tackled the issue of the land of promise and showed that the New Testament understands it to ultimately be a type and shadow of the New Heavens and New Earth. Today, I will focus on two issues. Firstly, is my understanding of "Replacement" Theology inherently Anti-Semitic? and secondly, how should we view the Jewish people today? Has God totally rejected them with finality? If not, then what is God's plan for them in the New Covenant age?

Firstly let's address the elephant in the room. Am I Anti-Semitic for believing that the Church is the true Israel? To be sure, if you ask ten people, ten will probably say yes. To say that my position on this issue is unpopular would be the understatement of the year. It often generates a very visceral response. But let's be honest, Supersessionism can be Anti-Semitic. In some of the early centuries of the Church, and especially after Christianity became the religion of the state, Supersessionism was used as the theological justification for the use of the power of state in ostracizing and even killing Jewish people throughout history. Martin Luther's treatise "On the Jews and Their Lies" was even referenced by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Let's face it. This has happened. I will not try to excuse or deny what has happened.

But my question is this: is Supersessionism necessarily Anti-Semitic? I would argue in the negative. Again, it has been and can be abused that way, but that is what that is - abuse. Interestingly, I found a very valuable tool for showing this through the efforts of someone who is actually very much opposed to my theological position. Michael J. Vlach Ph.D. is a professor of theology at the Master's Seminary in California. In this article, Dr. Vlach - following the lead of Richard Kendall Soulen -notes that there are three distinct forms of Supersessionism, or Replacement Theology:

1. Punitive Supersessionism: “Punitive” or “retributive” supersessionism emphasizes Israel’s disobedience and punishment by God as the reason for its displacement as the people of God. Or in other words, Israel is replaced by the church because the nation acted wickedly and has forfeited the right to be the people of God. (page 4)
2. Economic Supersessionism: A second form of supersessionism is “economic” supersessionism. This view is not as harsh as punitive supersessionism since it does not emphasize Israel’s disobedience and punishment as the primary reason for its displacement as the people of God. Instead, it focuses on God’s plan for the people of God to transfer from an ethnic group (Israel) to a universal group not based on ethnicity (church). In other words, it was God’s plan from the beginning that Israel’s role as the people of God would expire with the coming of Christ and the establishment of the church. (page 5)
3. Structural Supersessionism: This is a deeper form of supersessionism than both the punitive and economic positions, [Soulen] claims, because it involves how the unity of the Christian canon has been understood...Whereas punitive and economic supersessionism are “explicit doctrinal perspectives,” structural supersessionism concerns how the standard canonical narrative as a whole has been perceived. According to Soulen, “Structural supersessionism refers to the narrative logic of the standard model whereby it renders the Hebrew Scriptures largely indecisive for shaping Christian convictions about how God’s works as Consummator and as Redeemer engage humankind in universal and enduring ways.” (pages 7-8)

This third form, Structural Supersessionism is complicated. But in a nutshell it says that in God's redemptive plan, we should think of things in terms of 1) creation 2) fall 3) Christ and the formation of the Church 4) consummation in the end times (page 8). Note how between points 2 and 3, we jump all the way from Genesis 3 to the New Testament, bypassing entirely the rest of the Old Testament. Personally, I find that definition to be unhelpful and somewhat of a caricature. I am of the mind that point 3 should read something like "redemptive history of God's people climaxing in Christ and His Church". But that's just me. Going by the chart above, I would endorse a combination of Economic and Structural Supersessionism.

So how does this answer our question concerning Replacement Theology/Supersessionism and Anti-Semitism? As I see it, only the first form of Supersessionism - the punitive kind - is intrinsically Anti-Semitic. The two other forms are not. Punitive Supersessionism seems to have been the default position of the Church from about the 4th century perhaps up until the first generation of the Protestant Reformers, especially Martin Luther. Certainly we could charge Martin Luther with Punitive Supersessionist views. Speaking for myself, I deny and repudiate any and all forms of Supersessionism/Replacement Theology which punish all Jews everywhere and at all times with damnation, or otherwise promote hatred of Jews. Certainly the generation of Jews in Palestine which directly rejected Christ met with its deserved fate (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). But as I will show very soon, God has not rejected the Jewish people entirely. Indeed, God has been and continues to be faithful to His covenant, all the while expanding that covenant and including believing gentiles. 

So how should New Covenant believers view the Jewish people today and throughout history? My argument will be that God has kept His promises to Ethnic Israel by restoring the remnant at the first coming of Christ, and He continues to do so via His sovereign, unconditional election during the present era. 

While a full exegesis of Romans 9-11 is beyond the scope of a single blog post, I will simply summarize the teaching of these chapters.

Paul spent the first eight chapters of Romans setting forth the Gospel that he preached and the implications that it has for Christian living. In chapter 9, he now somewhat shifts gears and reflects on the sad state of his own people - the ethnic nation of Israel. The issue at hand is how can God's promises stand when Israel as a nation has largely rejected their own Messiah. Paul says that, [T]heirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. (Romans 9:4-5 NIV). Following this, he lays out his doctrine of the remnant of Israel who are saved through unconditional, predestination and election (9:6-13). After defending God's absolute sovereign right to do with His own creation as He pleases (9:14-29), Paul takes up the issue of Israel's widespread unbelief (9:30-10:21).

At this point, Paul anticipates the obvious question we all have:

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don't you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah - how he appealed to God against Israel: "Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me"? And what was God's answer to him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11:1-6 NIV). 

So Paul's answer to the question of whether God has rejected ethnic Israel entirely is to give a resounding "No!" and to point to himself as the evidence! In other words, Paul is essentially saying that we know that God has not rejected finally the Jewish nation because now - in the present time - God is still saving Jewish people, of which Paul himself is a constituent member. Sam Storms summarizes: "Does this mean, then, that God has rejected (emphasis author's) his people whom he foreknew? That is the question Paul addresses in Romans 11. In other words, does widespread unbelief among ethnic Israelites mean that God has withdrawn his covenant promise, reneged on his word, forsaken his beloved, and rejected the people whom he foreknew? God forbid! But indignant denial is not proof. We feel compelled to ask Paul, "What evidence do you have to prove your point?" "Me," (emphasis author's) says the apostle... The suggestion that God has rejected his people is falsified by the salvation of Paul himself. Paul is an example of the remnant with the nation as a whole, an individual who is both an ethnic and elect Israelite." 

(Storms, Sam. Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative. Christian Focus Publications, 2013, p. 306.)

The rest of Romans 11 expands on this theme. God hardened the majority of ethnic Israel in order to bring the gentiles to faith and graft them into the Olive Tree of Spiritual Israel. In so doing, Jewish people would see gentiles partaking of the blessings of the New Covenant, become jealous and come to faith in Jesus themselves. And so the process repeats throughout the present age. In this way, shall the Jewish nation find salvation (11:26). All of this must take place precisely because, God's gifts and his call are irrevocable (11:29). God must fulfill His promises to the Jewish nation. Through Jesus and the Gospel, that is exactly what He does in the present age! And along the way, he saves gentiles too, uniting them together into the Church - the Israel of God! This is what brings Paul to such rapturous praise to God:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable his judgments,

and his paths beyond tracing out!

"Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?"

Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay them?"

For from him and through him and for 

him are all things.

To him be the glory forever! Amen.

(Romans 11:33-36 NIV)

By the way, in the midst of this argument, Paul warns the gentile believers not to become conceited and arrogant toward the Jews (11:18-21). Paul is simultaneously teaching an Economic Supersessionism and warning against Punitive Supersessionism!

So to bring it all to conclusion, Paul tells us that we should always, in the present era (Paul does not direct us toward any future time surrounding the return of Christ) expect that there will always be a remnant of Jewish people who believe in Jesus the Messiah. Even though the Jewish people have, as a majority, spurned and rejected Jesus, there will ever and always be some who embrace Him as Lord and find their place as natural branches in the Olive Tree of Israel. Amen.