INTERCESSORS  FOR  CYPRUS

                                      This 10 minute video below may be a good start to the subject of Israel.  It is only one of a series.

                                                       Beneath that is a study document on the subject of Replacement Theology.

DEFINITIONS:

 Replacement Theology: can also be called Supersessionism. Summed up, it says:

1. Israel (the Jewish people and the land) has been replaced by the Christian Church in the purposes of God ….the Church is the historic continuation of Israel to the exclusion of the Jewish people and their land.

2. The Jews are no longer a ‘chosen people.’ The Jewish people have no future, no hope, and no calling in the plan of God.

3. Jews are the same as any other people group apart from repentance, the new birth, and incorporation into the Church. (Agreed).

4. Since Pentecost (Acts 2), the term ‘Israel’ as found in the Bible, now refers to the Church.

5. The promises, covenants, and blessings ascribed to Israel in the Bible have been taken away from the Jews and given to the Church, which has superseded them. The Jews are still subject to the curses found in the Bible, due to their rejection of Christ.

Anti-Semitism: is hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as a nation, religious, ethnic or racial group.

The Crusades: were any military expeditions undertaken by Christian powers in the 11-13th Centuries to win the Holy land from the Muslims. Both Muslims and Jews were targets, as both were considered heretics and thus imposters in the Holy land.

The Inquisition: was a Roman Catholic tribunal for discovery and punishment of the Jews for heresy, marked by the severity of questioning and punishment, and lack of rights for the accused.

Pogroms: were organised persecutions or massacres of minority groups, especially the Jews.

Holocaust: The systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

The Church has figured in some way in all the above persecution of Jews, even ignoring them, so Jews are suspicious of the Christian Church. God has a plan for both the Jews and the gentiles in Christ. Paul cautions those ’grafted in’ to God’s Olive tree (i.e. gentile believers), not to boast over the ‘natural’ branches of the olive tree (Israel), that were in part broken off: Romans 11:17-21. If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you.’

HISTORY:

The early Church was made up of primarily Jewish believers in their Messiah, Jesus Christ, (Yeshua HaMashiach). They understood scripture from a Hebraic perspective and mind-set. Context was of primary importance. However, unbiblical error crept into the Church as the number of Gentile believers grew during the first century and beyond of Christianity, forgetting their Jewish roots.

Early centuries AD: In AD 70 Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed and Jewish people scattered to the four quarters of the earth. After the Bar Kochba Revolt against the Romans (132-136 AD), all Jews were expelled from the Jerusalem area and the Church lost its Jewish leadership. Messianic believers gradually lost their Jewish roots in the dispersion. Alexandria, Rome and Antioch became the new (gentile) centres of Christianity. The Church began to teach that God had revoked His covenants and promises concerning Israel’s restoration to a prophetic role and destiny, and that His blessings were now all transferred to the Church. Instead of taking the normal literal interpretation and context of bible passages, the Church broadly took an allegorical path, as with the parables of Jesus. [Cf Psalm 114v4.] It was taught that when God used the word ‘Israel’ in the OT, that He now meant Christians to read it as ‘the Church.’ It is true that there is implied spiritual truth for the Church in these promises to Israel, (for example, when Israel is told to ‘take the land’ under Joshua, for it is promised to them, the Church can believe for spiritual and physical ‘land’ or premises to be taken by faith and action as God leads). However, these OT promises were made to ISRAEL, not to the as yet unformed Church, which came hundreds of years later. Jesus said, ‘I will (future) build (not rebuild) My church.’ (Matthew 16v18).The plain sense of scripture towards Israel makes common sense. The literal meaning of scripture is the meaning, unless it is clearly allegory or figurative. NOTE 1. (Even then, the symbolism within figurative statements is often used to portray literal events). The truth is that BOTH Israel AND the Church are God’s people, and His promises and blessings are for both. Having said that, we are careful to recognise that in Christ we are set free from the Mosaic Law given to the Jews, and are free to serve God in the way of the Spirit. (Romans 8v2-4; 6v22).

By the third century, the dominant gentile Church had begun to disregard the warning of Romans 11 (above) and reject the Jews as recipients of a future restoration God had promised. The Church lost sight of her Jewish roots and the blessing of Genesis 12v3…’I will bless those who bless you’…ceased. The branches of the Olive began to wither. The conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity deepened the separation. The new state religion endorsed Replacement Theology. In the Council of Nicea, called by Constantine, the 318 attending Gentile bishops established Sunday as the Sabbath and separated Easter from the Jewish Passover. Jewish converts to Christianity were required to reject all Jewish practices, all Jewish identity, and disassociate from all Jewish contacts. For the Church, the result was that revelation faded out and the Dark Ages moved in.

In the Dark Ages, Replacement Theology birthed anti-Semitism in the religious, and the cross, a symbol of love, became a sword, a symbol of hate. Anti-Semitism towards the Jews through the Crusades, Spanish Inquisitions, Russian Pogroms, and the Holocaust taint and mar both the history of nations and the Church, as the Church often stood against the Jews at these times. The so-called ‘Christian’ Germany under the Nazis killed two thirds of European Jews. The root problem in the Church was of biblical blindness, and wrong attitudes and actions towards Israel. May the following be a corrective in our day.

Throughout history, there have been satanic attempts to exterminate the Jews….the Book of Esther is a case in point as well as the above, but thankfully there has always been a remnant who have loved and blessed the Jewish people, even when it was not popular to do so. I am one such person. The revelation of God’s love for the Jews came to me in 1981 at a conference in the USA, when I was given a song by the Holy Spirit about God’s love for His ancient covenant people, Israel. Shortly after, my friends had arranged for me to sing it to the 5000 people at the America-wide conference! At the end, you could have heard a pin drop…it was one of those ‘God moments.’ After that, I began to read my bible with un-blinkered eyes, and discovered the faithfulness of God to His covenant promises both to the Jewish people and to the Church. Consider this: if He changed His mind towards the blessings and promises He made to the Jews, then he could also do the same towards the Church.

Unfortunately, Replacement Theology is actually an attack on God’s name, His character, the One who is utterly faithful to His own. Replacement theology can only exist in truth if the Abrahamic covenant can be proved to be abolished. That covenant was made with and to Abraham and his physical descendants….the Jews…as an eternal covenant (see Genesis 12v3; 15v4-6 & 18-21; 17v7-8 & 19-21; 26v2-4; 27v29). The Law could not supersede the promise. The Mosaic Law simply revealed that man could not be justified by his own works, his own righteousness, but needed Christ to be his righteousness. Christ fulfilled the demands of the Law. The Jews looked forward to salvation through their Messiah by faith. The Church looks back to the cross and His salvation, again by faith. From God’s perspective, He sees the Jews saved (as a people) in a time yet to be fulfilled, (see Zechariah 12v10; 13v1 & 9). Also Romans 11, following: Romans 11:25-27. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."

He also sees the Church.…all saved since the cross. In due course the two, the Jews who have and will believe and the Church will become one people, saved through Yeshua, the Jewish ‘Messiah’, who is Jesus, the gentile ‘Christ’ (Ephesians 2v11-22). Being also God’s people, the Church enjoys the benefit of the Abrahamic blessings and promises as well as the Jews.

He is the God of both the Jews [the literal Israel, the offspring of Abraham, to whom the promises of physical descendants and a land were made –Genesis 15v4-6 & 18] and the Jewish and gentile Church [the spiritual Israel, which is the ‘one new man’ of Ephesians 2v11-22 through Christ, the Jewish Messiah, and the Seed of Abraham.] (See also Galatians 3v16 NOTE 2. & 28-29). The Mosaic Law was made towards the Jews and was superseded by the New Covenant – also made to the Jews - see particularly Jeremiah 31v31-36, and also Ezekiel 36v22-29a - and into which we gentile believers are grafted. The revelation concerning God’s eternal purposes for Israel and the Jewish people, together with a proper scriptural understanding of the Church’s relationship to Israel and the Jews should lead many in the Church to repentance, and a renewal of blessing as promised: Genesis 12v3. “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Genesis 22:17-18. “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

How true it is that the Jewish people have been a blessing to the nations…so many Nobel Prize winners, inventions, etc. How true it is also that the Church has blessed the nations through the transforming Gospel in people’s lives. Our Christian heritage is that we are redeemed by the Jewish Messiah, taught by Jewish prophets, and by Jewish apostles, and grafted in to the Israel’s olive tree (Romans 11v17). The book of Romans uses Paul’s understanding of Israel as an example of God’s mercy towards the Jews (Romans 9-11) after his treatise on what God has done for those who are in Christ, and His mercy towards us (Romans 1-8). The ‘doxology’ at the end of Romans 11 highlights this. The final chapters of Romans show us how to extend that mercy to others in a practical way.   

In later centuries, following Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity (4th century AD), the Church, now with a predominantly Greek mind-set (Hellenism), and with increasing pagan elements, rejected the Jews and began to persecute them. Even the Renaissance and Reformation failed to remove the prejudice against the Jews in the Church. Despite Martin Luther’s great influence in the Reformation, he turned against the Jews because they did not receive the Gospel. He wrote a tract, ‘Concerning the Jews and their lies’, which promoted setting their synagogues on fire, destroying their homes, forbidding their religion and travel, etc. It is amazing what a mind-set can do. Yet God makes it clear through a number of verses in Romans 11 (e.g. v1-2, 11, 15, 23-26, 31) that His own rejection of the Jews was to be for a season in His eternal purposes.

There are many confirming scriptures of this to be found in both the Old and New Testaments. Ezekiel 37v1-14 speaks of the dry bones of Israel coming to life and being given the life of the Spirit. Zechariah chapters 12-14 reveal God’s intention to bring a national revival to Israel together with salvation in the end days, agreed by Paul when he says that ‘all Israel shall be saved’ (Romans 11v25-27). Paul also warned of Church elitism and the exclusion of the Jews in God’s purposes in the same chapter of Romans. He ends the chapter by saying that the gifts and calling of God (context Israel) are ‘irrevocable’. (Cannot be undone, revoked, never withdrawn, unchangeable.)

Ephesians chapter 2v11-22 makes it clear that the destiny of Jewish and Gentile believers is to become ‘one new man’ in Christ Jesus. Let us remember that from God’s eternal perspective, He already sees the End Times great outpouring on Israel as accomplished, when all Israel will be (is) saved. They and we are destined to become the ‘one new man’ in Christ. That is why many of us pray for the salvation of the Jews, and witness in love to the Jewish people to be saved. Even the last chapters of the Bible support the Jewish roots of Christianity by the fact that the ‘New Jerusalem’ has foundations to its walls on which are written the twelve apostles of the Lamb (all Jewish), and twelve gates in the walls on which are written the twelve tribes of Israel! (Revelation 21v12-14).

In the 20th & 21st Centuries, Consider Europe now….the new Europe disregards its Judaeo-Christian God in favour of man being God, and the Church is persecuted. Could this have been different had the Church kept to the revelation and blessing of our Jewish roots?  

However, as we see God’s prophetic scriptures regarding the Jews returning to their own land being fulfilled before our eyes, there are a growing number of Christians who believe in Zionism…the belief that God has given the land of Canaan to His people Israel as an everlasting possession. God’s faithfulness to His covenant promises to Abraham and his physical descendants is being worked out in our day. 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 are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

Many prayer groups for Israel are emerging worldwide, and visits to Israel and to Jewish communities around the world are promoting friendship between Christians and Jews. A recovery of our Jewish roots is occurring. (However, we still have to resist the tendency to come under Mosaic Law by some misguided messianic believers). God is also mobilising many Christian churches and ministries to help the Jews as they make ‘Aliyah’ - return to Israel from ‘the four quarters of the earth’ (Isaiah 11v12), fulfilling His promise to them. I attended a conference in Jerusalem January 2017 where many nations were represented in both helping Jews right now to make Aliyah, and in preparing for a further great push of Jews from the nations to Israel. Cyprus will have its part to play. Will you, your church or ministry be available to God in this?  The promises of God for Israel’s salvation are becoming reality as Christians befriend Jewish people, help them, and pray for the salvation of the Jews. More and more Jews are finding their Messiah, spoken of so graphically in Isaiah 53. Israel is unique as the nation God promises to save as a whole people, after His refining (Zechariah chapters 8 & 13). Let us expect a great move of God to bring the Jews finally to salvation (Romans 11; Zechariah 12 & 13).  

IN SUMMARY

I believe Replacement Theology needs to be replaced. I believe that the Lord is setting a plumb line in His worldwide Church regarding Israel and the Jewish people (Amos 7). From that chapter, we see that God does set a plumb line amongst His people, so if we claim to be His people, then we must allow for such activity of God. This brings a tension into the Church as we have to decide whether or not to side with a growing international movement against Israel, as prophesied in Scripture (Ezekiel chapters 38 & 39; Daniel chapters 8, 11 &12; Zechariah 12; Luke 21; Revelation chapters 11 & 20). This movement is in direct opposition to God’s word, promises, name and character. May we be amongst those who read and believe God’s word, and stand for His government and the authority of His word against the prevailing world system. The Holy Spirit must be our guide as we study the word of God. If we humble ourselves before God, and ask Him to reveal His word concerning His people Israel to us, He will surely do so.

        NOTE 1. Easton’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary: ‘Allegory’. Used in Gal 4:24, where the apostle refers to the history of Isaac the free-born, and Ishmael the slave-born, and makes use of it allegorically. Every parable is an allegory. Nathan (2Sa 12:1-4) addresses David in an allegorical narrative. In the eightieth Psalm there is a beautiful allegory: "Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt," etc. In Eccl 12:2-6, there is a striking allegorical description of old age. My favourite example is Psalm 114v3-4: ‘The sea looked and fled, the Jordan turned back; the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.’

        NOTE 2. Galatians 3v16 is in parenthesis. The covenant of promise was not spoken (Greek: ‘made’) to Abraham alone, but “to Abraham and his seed.” The usual Greek word used for seed is a collective noun, σπερμα (sperma), used of natural offspring and in terms of posterity. But here, it is used in the singular for seed. Isaac was Abraham’s natural offspring by divine promise and intervention, as are we Christian believers His spiritual offspring. Maybe God deliberately ensured the use of this word, referring to Christ, and that which is inseparable from Him, the literal Israel and also the spiritual body, the church, both being descendants of Abraham, one by natural descent, the other by faith…from the time of Abraham to now cf John 8. The promises involved earthly blessings to the literal children of Abraham in Canaan, and spiritual blessings to his spiritual children; but both promised to Christ, “the Seed” and representative head of literal and spiritual Israel alike. However, to the literal seed, the promises still in part remain to be fulfilled (Romans 11v26). [ Sources: Vines, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown. Barnes notes.]       

References: 1) the Holy Bible.  2) ‘When the Cross became a Sword’ (Merril Bolender).

http://www.kkcj.org/teaching/article/replacement-theology  

https://www.aglow.org/resources/global-leader-development-resources/israel-mandate    

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