Ye Chosen Seed of Israel's Race, Part 3: In Defense of Replacement Theology

This is part 3 of a continuing series. To read part 1, click here. For part 2, click here.

If you have followed this series so far, I have labored to show that the New Testament underscores how Jesus the Messiah fulfills and recapitulates in himself the history and identity of Israel. I have also sought to, as carefully as I can, define terms and represent all sides fairly, despite the inadequacies of many popular labels. In this post, I will attempt to make a brief, positive case for "Replacement" Theology. It is a big job to be sure in a blog post, but I am going to give it my best shot.

As I have stated before, this is a very emotionally-laden and charged topic. I am extremely aware of the strong passions that this debate can arouse. My goal is to enlighten and challenge even as I embark on a very difficult task.

My goal here is not to be complicated. To be honest, my case is fairly simple. I will show that, flowing from the truth that Jesus himself is the true Israel, he reconstituted the people of God through his Apostles. In a related vein, I also hope to show that the New Testament deliberately extends to the gentiles the covenant blessings promised to Israel. Lastly, I will briefly consider Galatians 6:16 and whether the "Israel of God" rightly refers to the Church as a whole or not.

As I indicated in part 1 of this series (which you can read by clicking above), Jesus Christ himself is the true Israel. He succeeds in fulfilling the identity and mission of Israel in his life and person where the people of old had failed. In his earthly life, he originated in the Holy Land, went to Egypt, was called out of Egypt, then went through the waters and the desert on His way to the Mountain where the Law was expounded.

But there is another sense in which Jesus shows himself to be the anti-type to Israel; that is in choosing the Apostles. In the Old Testament, the Patriarch Jacob had his name changed to Israel:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

(Genesis 32:22-28 NIV)

Israel then went on to have twelve sons (Ephraim and Manasseh were the sons of Joseph which Jacob/Israel adopted; Genesis 48:12-16). These twelve sons went on to become the nucleus of the earthly nation of Israel. So here we see the pattern: Israel has an offspring of twelve men who then proceed to father a nation bearing the name Israel. We find this pattern repeated with Jesus, Israel par excellence. Out of all of his disciples, Jesus chose twelve men whom he designated as "Apostles":

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means “sons of thunder”), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

(Mark 3:13-19 NIV)

The choosing of exactly twelve men is not a coincidence (it also explains why Judas Iscariot had to be replaced so as to bring the number of Apostles back from eleven to twelve; Acts 1:12-26). In doing so, Jesus is continuing to recapitulate the history of Israel. He has an "offspring", so to speak, of twelve men who then go on to form the nucleus of a completely renewed and reconstituted Israel, known as the Church (Matthew 16:18). 

But this reconstitution of Israel goes further. So far, we might be led to believe that only Jews partake in these blessings. After all, Jesus did tell his Twelve Apostles, "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel..." (Matthew 10:5b-6 NIV). Also, Christianity began as a sect within Judaism. Jesus, the Twelve, and all of the first believers were Jews. Even in including the Samaritans, there was still a common root from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The real surprise of the New Testament was the full inclusion of the gentiles as full partakers of the covenant blessings, without them first converting to Judaism and undergoing circumcision. This was what blew the minds of the early Church. 

But what was so special and surprising about including the gentiles? The Old Testament clearly describes how the coming of the Messiah would bless the gentiles, who would stream to Jerusalem to learn from the God of Israel (Isaiah 2:1-5; 42:4-6; 49:6). So the idea that gentiles would benefit from the coming of the Messiah was not what so surprised the early Church. What so shocked them was the equal footing that the gentiles would now enjoy along with the restored people of Israel! The gentiles would now become a part of Israel no less than Jews. This is seen most clearly in Ephesians 2:11-3:6:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—  remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—

 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

I have to spend some time on this passage, both because of how important it is to my case and because of how it has been abused by those of the Dispensational persuasion. It is ironic that this has become the "go-to" passage by Dispensationalists as if it proves their contention that the Church is somehow this new entity completely distinct from Israel. In reality, this is one of the most damning to their position. The Dispensational perspective basically says that this passage describes a new body of Jews and gentiles that was previously unknown in earlier times, but now revealed to Paul. 

Lewis Sperry Chafer had this to say about the Church and the "mystery": "The word church is not found in the Old Testament because of the fact that the Church did not then exist, and being a mystery or sacred secret of the New Testament (Ephesians 3:3-6), it is not even a subject of Old Testament prophecy."

(Lewis Sperry Chafer, "Major Bible Themes", chapter 35)

This is a half-truth, which is worse than a lie. The true part is that Paul (along with the other Apostles and Prophets; Ephesians 3:5) had received new revelation that was unknown prior to that time. But Dispensationalism assumes that the subject of the mystery is the existence of the Church. But in actuality, the subject of the mystery is the gentiles! It is not the existence of the Church, it is the constituency of the Church! You see, something has shifted in the status of the gentiles in their relationship to the Jews. We know all about God's plans for the Jews from the many Old Testament prophecies concerning them. But whereas before gentiles were completely separated from Israel (see 2:11-12), now because of the Gospel, gentiles are fellow sharers with Israel! Gentiles are now part of the same body as Israel! There is no more distinction - ever again.  And what is it that Israel partakes of that the gentiles now equally share in? In short, the gentiles are now equal sharers WITH Israel of all the wonderful promises that God had made TO Israel! Everything that is promised to Israel - salvation, forgiveness, land, kingdom, et al. - is now the equal possession of gentile Christians. 

With this in mind, it becomes much easier to understand how Paul, in Galatians 6:16, can refer to all believers - Jews and gentiles - as the "Israel of God". This passage has been a source of controversy recently. Does it really refer to the Church? If so, then Dispensationalism (and its derivative theologies) is disproved and shown to be a house of cards. But if it doesn't refer to the Church, then RT is seriously undermined.

While a full exegesis is not possible given space, I will simply point out Paul's entire line of argumentation in his letter to the Galatians (for a more comprehensive defense of my reading of Galatians 6:16, see this article). In the course of defending the Gospel of Justification by Faith Alone, Paul brings over many of the wonderful titles and privileges of Israel of old and applies them equally to the gentiles. He can refer to gentile believers as "Sons of Abraham" (3:7), "heirs according to the promise [made to Abraham]" (3:29), "sons of the free woman [Sarah]" (4:23), "children of promise, like Isaac" (4:28) and citizens of the Heavenly "Jerusalem" (4:26). So how can any believer - Jew or gentile - be a son of Abraham, an heir of Abraham's covenant, likened to Isaac in his birthright, and a citizen of Jerusalem, and not be a part of "Israel"? I don't mean to be rude, but it truly boggles the mind.

Messianic Jewish author Michael L. Brown attempts to get around the force of all these titles by pointing out that the Church is never referred to as "Jacob" in the New Testament. He writes: "But where in the New Testament is the Church ever called Jacob? Yet Jacob was used to refer to the people of Israel in the Old Testament more than 140 times! Would anyone ever think of calling the Church Jacob? NO! That's because the Church is no more the New Israel than it is the New Jacob. For that matter, the Church is not the New Yeshurun either. (Yeshurun was used four times in the Old Testament as a special title for Israel - not the Church as a whole.)"

(Michael L. Brown, Our Hands Are Stained With Blood: The Tragic Story of the "Church" and the Jewish People; page 214, note 3)

In response, I should point out that the New Testament is not pedantic. In other words, it is not as if literally every single name must without exception be explicitly repeated. That would quickly become redundant. The titles used in Galatians above, along with "the circumcision" in Philippians 3:3, the "Twelve Tribes" in James 1:1 (compare with 5:14, in which sick believers call for the elders of the Church), the "dispersion" in 1 Peter 1:1 (Peter's readers are called Christians in 4:16) should be sufficient to prove the point that all believers - Jews and gentiles - are rightly called "Israel". 

These points are really just scratching the surface. This is a massive subject, and one that my small contributions are not going to solve overnight. Nevertheless, it is a topic that I feel very strongly and passionately about. With Dispensationalism and its cousins still maintaining a strong presence is many different contexts, I feel that now is the time to address this issue. 

In my next installment, I will tackle the issue of the Land of Promise that God has sworn to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and how it will be fulfilled. After that, in the following post, I will also address the issue of the ethnic Jewish people. Has God forever cast them off, or do they still hold a vital place in God's plans?