Posted by
Jeff Morton on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 4:10:55 AM
I have been studying Replacement Theology for some time now and
have decided to write about it in a way that many will resent…oh well!
Replacement Theology is basically (very basic) that the Jews have been
replaced by the Christian church as a result of the fulfillment of the
law and the resurrected Messiah. Replaced as those who were (as
premised in most everything I have read,) God’s First Born, God’s
chosen and finally, the Apple of HIS eye. The Hebrew Scriptures declare
all of the three to be truth. However, over the last 2000 years men
argue the point. We do so because of doctrine, interpretation and the
literal anti-Semitic insistence of the church.
Many have written on the subject. I was referred to Luana Fabri who has written a three part study on the subject (
http://www.endtimepilgrim.org/antisemchurch.htm).
Equally, I have read various articles, books and the like. Two that
come to mind rather quickly are Don Fintos’ Your People shall be my
People and Copernicus and the Jews by Daniel Gruber.
I have been to Messianic functions and gatherings albeit where Israel
is supported and replacement theology is discussed but, largely these
folks are rather extreme or nuts!
The last thing I want to do is dress as Jewish people did, who lived a
bazillion years ago, and pretend that I am in the very courts of King
David. I don’t agree with much of that focus nor do I grasp the two
houses of Israel jargon.
Furthermore, the many groups that declare support for Israel who are
practicing Christians, almost across the board do so without knowing
TORAH.
I have found that the Christian is unyielding and quick to hostility to
even discuss the possibility that for two thousand years they may be
wrong. They are, with lightning speed I might add, very quick to point
out the error of the Jews. Really though, the issue is not one of who
is right or who is wrong, it is an issue that has a history full of
life or death.
I have gone from church to church and most have a sermon based on how
we all can apply God’s word to our lives. The Synagogues do much the
same with one difference, the Torah Portion. Christians are scratching
their heads at this very moment. (?)
To quote Pastor Mark Blitz of El Shaddai Ministries “The progression of
what has happened: The church said, Jews cannot live among us as Jews.
The nations said, “Jews cannot live among us. Hitler said, "Jews cannot
live"
The Islamic nations are now preparing to wipe this people off the map! It just goes on and on and on! Notice the repetition (?)
My purpose is to address the end result of Replacement Theology or at
the very least open up the discussion about why God’s word has a
ridiculous amount of interpretation, doctrine, and confusion. For
example, virtually every Christian I have spoken to about the covenants
will readily agree that Christians or the church were/was grafted into
the covenants made between God and Abraham, ultimately Israel.
In the minds of most Christians, it is almost a foregone conclusion
that the church is new and that the synagogue is old. Many don’t or
won't recognize that the Jews have gathered/assembled for centuries.
Christians almost (and with out even a moment of hesitation) begin to
justify their position by quoting scripture. When I ask them about
Torah I hear the following, what?
I have heard, “Well, I am a New Testament Christian” or that stuff is
irrelevant. I have heard too, “Why would I want to know anything about
a failed religion” Probably the most amazing response I get is, “Jeff,
I am concerned about your salvation!” I simply asked about TORAH!
Incidentally, what part of God is old and what part is new?
Furthermore, what part of his gift to all of us is irrelevant?.
Finally, where did King David or Moshe (Moses) regenerate as a result
of accepting Jesus. Mind you, both experienced an enormous amount of
grace and both were men of faith. Moses didn't know the Law but he was
obedient as he walked up the mountain following God's instruction.
Abraham set the tone.....
Many Christians, certainly not all could not have a conversation on the
subject. Almost everyone of the seminary trained Theologians, Pastors;
Ministers etc get angry or indignant when I ask about the Feast days or
the Hebrew Calendar. I generally hear, “YOU assume that I don’t know
anything.” I always ask at this point, “Okay what is the 9th day of AV
and how has it affected Israel. To date, none have answered the
question, not one. This is never my aim or purpose. I don’t chose to
belittle or berate after all, most know a thousand times more then do I
on the subject of Christianity. For a variety of reasons, many think I
am talking about the LAW.
After 2000 years, Christianity has a mixture of paganism, Judaism and
just about everything else intertwined into the various doctrines that
cover the globe. Amazingly, many don’t even know it…I didn’t. But what
is God’s instruction?
Well, Replacement Theology has made God’s instruction open for
interpretation and boy, did we do some interpreting! We shall know the
end from the beginning, right? All we have to do is cast off the Jew.
This is improbable but, it is what happened.
Pardon the sarcasm but…here goes my opinion>
In the beginning (after the exodus), a Jewish guy sat down and began to
write God’s Torah or instruction meant for a redeemed people. These
impatient, oppressed slaves needed to learn what God expected of them
for their own good. Incidentally, HE has been chasing after Israel ever
since. Anyway, these instruction get written upon stone tablets and the
Jewish people become an amazing nation…Go ask Josephus if you don’t
believe me. Or you can read all about it in the annuals of King David.
So this Jewish guy is leading these people into a new life. The problem
is they walked around in circles for forty years because, truth be told
they were stubborn, willful and disobedient. [Is anyone looking at
their kid right about now?] Moses had a taste or two of this attitude
as well…He never left the desert!
So fast forward to King Herod (He was a piece of work) He starts
replaying what the Egyptian Pharaoh was all about many years earlier.
He actually orders the killing of the first born or kids two years and
younger. He is terrorizing his own people just like that old lunatic
Pharaoh was doing in Moshe’s day. Joseph took Mary to Egypt (God has
such a sense of humor) for her safety. Summary, she was pregnant,
Joseph is like, “What in God’s name is going on?” and Herod was killing
little boys.
So during all of this and for several centuries the Jews are doing some
of the commands God told them to do way back from when Moshe made the
first tabernacle. You know, the one made of Lamb skin, nailed to wooden
pegs where the presence of the Lord was and the sacrifice was done.
Does any part of this sound familiar?
Lamb (pierced skin), nailed, wooden cross, Lord, sacrifice, “Without
spot or blemish” no broken bones! (That was for my Jewish friends.)
So, a Greek professor walks into the class and finds ten Jews who have
signed up for the class out of curiosity. He has a copy of the
Septuagint and proceeds to explain the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. The
Jews listen intently for all of 20 minutes and excuse themselves
leaving because they have to get to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths.
(Among themselves they don’t know what the professor was talking
about!) The Greek professor is all alone. In walk ten Gentiles who
listen intently hour after hour. At the conclusion each of the ten has
a firm understanding of the Tenahk.
The 1st becomes a Baptist, the 2nd a Catholic, the 3rd Quaker, the 4th
Pentecostal, the 5th Methodist, the 6th Atheist, the 7th Greek
Orthodox, the 8th Evangelical, the 9th Reformed and the 10th becomes
deranged! None know what jots or tittles are.
The Jews leave so as to do what God commanded. Meanwhile a little boy
is born in a manger. The Romans were doing a head count and the Jews
were doing the booth thing. Nobody could get a room! The little boy
grows up and pick 12 fellow Jews and he begins to instruct them about
HIS word. He teaches Torah, imagine that. He quotes the prophets and
speaks in parables. The teachers of the Law...are clueless?They were
accustomed to breaking all of them.
So we move into the ministry of Saul, who was walking down the road,
"KABAM" the Lord starts talking to him as he is laid out in the dirt, in Hebrew no less. He gets a hold
of Paul, on the road to Damascus, about 25 years after the RELIGIOUS
leaders pulled a fast one on Yeshua, in the middle of the night;
fulfilling a prophecy or two. Paul begins to tell the Jews, that the
Gentiles don’t need to be circumcised in order to partake in the
covenants. The Jews don’t think too much of this idea. After all they
had their own doctrine by now…Let us not forget those religious
leaders. The Sanhedrin and the Pharisee were operating in a time where
they were about as corrupt as is our Chicago politicians. I don’t think
they were leading by God’s Torah, now really!
Rome, by the way, is getting just about fed up with all the fighting
going on among the Jews. Eventually, we get to the Great Jewish Revolt.
Eventually this leads to the complete destruction of the second temple.
You all know the story about Vespasian and his kid, Titus right? They
slaughtered thousands of Jews. If you are Christian and you don’t know
this stuff, shame on you! This is taking us into the doctrine of
Replacement Theology.
Okay so now approximately 60 years later this dude named Hadrian
utterly destroys the land, kills most of the Jews and scatters the rest
to the four corners of the globe as slaves. He completely wipes the
Jews out of the land renaming it Philistia. Hadrian was quite a
character, he liked his men too! See the Bar Kokhba's revolt. So now we
have the land of Palestine. To put it in a way that explains the
current Islamic lie. A bunch of Romans turned themselves into a people
called Palestinians and CNN was born!
Okay, so the church starts growing, filling up with Gentiles. The Jews
are learning how to live everywhere else and Rome is literally falling
apart. The powers that be begin to come out of the church and the
church begins to become very powerful. The church begins to ostracize
everything Jewish:
“The Church sought to conquer the Synagogue which in their view
continued to cling stubbornly to its ancestral faith. Frustrated and
embittered, the Church Fathers set out to prove that Judaism was a
legalistic, dead and superseded religion. By reversing the Biblical
image of the Jews, the Church claimed to be the “New Israel”, the
“Jacob”, whereas the Jews were Esau and Cain, the murderers of their
brother. Israel was portrayed as blind and divorced by God. This
theology of replacement, which evolved into a theology of displacement,
stated that the Jews had forfeited what God had given them and now
Christianity was the new “heir” to the promises and blessings of God.
The Jews, however, could keep the curses.”
Well to summarize, God allows the destruction of both of his temples
and kicks the Jews out of the country a few times. The church pops up
and says, “You can come and be apart of us but you have to become
Christians 1st. The Jews respond with, are you nuts, we have to start
doing what God told us to do! So the church began to kill the Jews!
As a result of the killing and vilification of Israel the Jews said,
take your Messiah who kills us in the name of Christianity and shove it!
The Olive tree and those grafted into it are the epitome of dysfunction.
While Islamic children strap bombs onto themselves and kill us both. Now, I ask you…whose wrong and whose right?
Getting back to TORAH or God’s instruction, HE gave it to this Jewish
guy who handed it down through a redeemed Jewish people. The Messiah
was born and he gave instruction to a redeemed world. The Jews are
getting ready to cry out for his return. Millions of Muslims are about
to see to that and the mightiest of Christian nations is broke and
falling apart.
Here is the thing to consider: In 1948 God restored the Jew to the
land. He is also restoring his instruction to those who are watching. I
think that since he started all of this with a Jewish guy named Moshe
and since Yeshua was Jewish we should probably look at what God is
doing and we should probably listen to HIM talk to us in Hebrew or at
least with a Hebraic mindset. I think he really intends to keep his
promise to Abraham and changing Jacobs name to Israel was probably our
introduction to the concept he was creating with his chosen, the apple
of his eye.
Remember, HE said, “I will make you into a great nation and I will
bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 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 12:2-3)
He did not say, “Until the Christian Church takes over!”
I have some advice to the Church that has woven replacement doctrine
throughout the last 1700 years into it's Sunday morning service. The
Jews were meant to illuminate God's word and to take Torah to the
nations. At some point you all lost that illumination because you
kicked the family we were adopted into to the curb, tossed them under
the bus. Embrace your adoption and watch what the Jews have been doing
for 3500 years begin to illuminate the word of God. Remember the UNITED
Nations (against Israel) are trying to kill not only a people, a land
but a concept that leads to the King of the Jews!
IT is impossible to know the truth if you refuse to accept Israel and
don't worry about the Jews...they are not strapping bombs to their kids
and killing much of the free world!
Now imagine if Noah or Noach had said, "Your joking right?" (and then went fishing)