Posted on 06/01/2004 9:12:10 AM PDT by fishtank
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Dr. Thomas McCall, the Senior Theologian of our ministry, has written many articles for the Levitt Letter. He holds a Th.M. in Old Testament studies and a Th.D. in Semitic languages and Old Testament. He has served as Zola’s co-author, mentor, pastor, and friend for nearly 30 years.
This article appeared orignally in the May 1996 Levitt Letter.
One of the great theological battlegrounds of orthodox Christianity throughout the centuries has been the nature and character of the Church, especially in relation to its biblical predecessor, Israel. The two major views are that:
The predominant view has been that the Church is the “new” Israel, a continuation of the concept of Israel which began in the Old Testament. In this view, the Church is the refinement and higher development of the concept of Israel. All of the promises made to Israel in the Scriptures find their fulfillment in the Church. Thus, the prophecies relating to the blessing and restoration of Israel to the Promised Land are “spiritualized” into promises of blessing to the Church. The prophecies of condemnation and judgment, though, are retained literally by the Jewish nation of Israel.
This view is sometimes called Replacement Theology, because the Church is seen to replace Israel in God’s economy. One of the problems with the view, among others, is the continuing existence of the Jewish people, especially with regard to the revival of the new modern state of Israel. If Israel has been condemned to extinction, and there is no divinely ordained future for the Jewish nation, how does one account for the supernatural survival of the Jewish people since the establishment of the Church, for almost 2,000 years against all odds? Furthermore, how does one account for Israel’s resurgence among the family of nations as an independent nation, victorious in several wars and flourishing economically?
The other view, we believe, is clearly taught in the New Testament, but it has been suppressed throughout most of Church history. This view is that the Church is completely different and distinct from Israel, and the two should not be confused. In fact, the Church is an entirely new creation that came into being on the Day of Pentecost after Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and will continue until it is taken to Heaven at the Rapture return of the Lord (Eph. 1:9-11). None of the curses or blessings pronounced upon Israel refer directly to the Church. The Church enters into the Abrahamic and New Covenants, for instance, only by divine application, not by original interpretation (Matt 26:28).
This leaves all the covenants, promises, and warnings to Israel intact. Israel, the natural Jewish nation, is still Israel. To be sure, Israel has been side-lined during these past 1,900 years of the Diaspora. The Church has taken center stage in the Lord’s affairs as the Gospel has spread throughout the world. Nevertheless, God has carefully preserved the Jewish people, even in unbelief, through every kind of distress and persecution. Sometimes, the professing Church itself (I speak to our shame) has been a cause of these persecutions to the Jews.
Not only has God preserved the Jewish nation, but He has also kept His promise to save a remnant of Israel in every generation. The remnant of Israel in this age are the Jewish believers in Christ who have joined the Gentile believers, and form the Church, the Body of Christ (Rom. 11:5). In this respect, then, a part of Israel (the believing remnant) intersects with the Church during the Church Age. But this does not make Israel the Church, or vice versa.
In the future, both God’s warnings and promises to Israel will come to pass. After the Lord is finished with the Church Age, and has taken the Church to Heaven in the Rapture (1 Thess. 4:16-18), God will restore Israel to center stage on the world’s divine theater. First comes the devastating “Time of Jacob’s Trouble” (Jer. 30:7) also known as the Great Tribulation. This is a dreadful period of seven years, which begins relatively lightly during the first half, but intensifies into full focus during the latter half. During this time the world is judged for rejecting Christ, but, more specifically, Israel is judged, purged and prepared through the fiery trials of the Great Tribulation for the Second Coming of the Messiah. This is the bad news.
The good news is that, when Christ does return to the earth at the end of the Tribulation, Israel will be ready, willing, and eager to receive Him, and proclaim, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23:39). As the stumbling of Israel brought blessing to the world at Christ’s First Coming, the reception of Israel to Christ at His Second Advent will be like “life from the dead” (Rom. 11:15). The remnant of Israel which survives the Tribulation (some one-third of the Jewish people who enter the Tribulation), will be saved, and the Lord will establish His kingdom on the same earth and the same capital city, Jerusalem, that rejected Him centuries before. Israel will be the head of the nations, and no longer the tail, and all nations will send representatives to Jerusalem to honor and worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Isa. 2:2-3; Micah 4:1). The Church will return with Christ, and will rule with Him for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-5). He Himself told His disciples that they would rule over the 12 tribes of Israel in the restoration (Matt. 19:28). Thus, Israel has not been forgotten in God’s plan. While the Jewish nation still has a dark period facing it, there is a glorious finale to Israel’s long history.
The New Testament Church was very much involved with the vicissitudes of Israel. Jesus is an Israeli, as were all the apostles, and the concerns of Israel, spiritually and politically, were very much a part of their lives. The greatest struggles the early Church had were over the relationship between Israel and the Church, law and grace, and the fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ (Galatians). Many of the Jewish believers were not comfortable with the Gentile believers at first; and as time went on and Gentiles began to predominate numerically, the attitudes were reversed. Galatians shows how the Jewish party tried to impose the Mosaic Law on Gentile Christians, and Romans shows how the Gentile party began to “boast against the branches” (Rom. 11:18), resenting the place of Israel in history and theology.
It took some time, perhaps a couple of centuries, but eventually the vast Gentile majority in the Church began to view Israel as a vestigial organ that had outlived its usefulness. In fact, the predominant Christian view was that the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD signaled the official and divinely-ordained end of the Jewish nation, never more to be re-instituted as a national entity. The fact that Jerusalem lay in ruins and the Jewish people were scattered over the world was seen as conclusive evidence that God was forever finished with national Israel. If there were any purpose for the existence of the Jewish people, it was to remind the world of the severe judgment of God upon a disobedient people.
If this harsh view of Israel were true, though, what of the promises of God to Israel in the Old Testament? For those who claimed to believe in the entire Bible as the Word of God, this was a great problem. How could a faithful God not keep His promises to His ancient people? To deal with this took extraordinary theological dexterity and alchemy. The theologians had to propose that Israel in the Scriptures did not really mean Israel, especially when it came to the promises of eternal blessing. Instead, Israel meant something else, something that came to be known in the New Testament as the Church. The Church became the new Israel, and through this remarkable transformation, wherever blessing is promised to Israel in the Old Testament, it was interpreted to mean the Church. This is Replacement Theology, in which the Church has become Israel.
Replacement Theology was already around before the end of the First Century, but did not become the official position of professing Christian leadership until Augustine popularized the concept, primarily in THE CITY OF GOD, in the latter part of the Fourth Century. Augustine actually states that he was previously a Chiliast, meaning that he was a believer in the thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth after His return. This is the same as our current description of Premillennialism. However, he had come to the conclusion that this view was “carnal,” and had adopted the view that the reign of Christ would be something more “spiritual,” and would actually occur during the Church Age. Such a view necessitated the extinction of Israel, and the cancellation of all promises God made to the Jewish nation. These promises of blessing would now be fulfilled within the framework of the Church.
This view, which had been latent in Christendom, now flourished throughout the Byzantine world. From this point on, the theological legs were cut out from under Israel, and the predominant Christian theology was that there was no future for Israel. Replacement Theology has been the rule that has survived the Middle Ages, the Crusades and the Reformation in Church History. Only during the last Century or so has the Premillennial concept of the future of Israel come to the forefront in evangelical Christianity. Even so, it is a minority view.
Some suggest that if Israel has not ceased to exist in its covenant relationship to God, and if Israel still has a future in the divine plan, this somehow diminishes the position of the Church. Is such a concern valid? It is almost as though the Church has been jealous of Israel, and afraid that if it recognized Israel’s future promises, it would somehow demean Christ and the Church. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is when the Church recognizes Israel that the true distinctiveness and glory of the Body of Christ becomes evident. This called-out body, composed of believing Jews and Gentiles during the Church Age, is the highest entity the Lord has created, superior to the universe, all the Angels, the nations, and Israel. Our Head, our Husband, our Friend is the Son of God Himself. We shall reign with Him when He rules the earth, and our 12 Founding Apostles will rule over the 12 tribes of Israel. The Angels themselves will study us forever as the greatest exhibit of God’s grace, and we will actually judge the Angels. This is our destiny, and this writer, for one, would not trade his position in the Body of Christ with any creature in the universe! Why, then, be disturbed over what God has promised the Jewish people? Why be jealous over the future destiny of Israel? How short sighted of us! Indeed, the Church’s finest and most distinctive hour will be when Israel is restored nationally and spiritually to the Lord at the Second Coming of Christ. We will return from Heaven with Him as His glorious Bride to rule Israel and the world. What more could we ask?
So, if we are not to suffer from spiritual myopia, we must recognize what the Lord is doing with Israel, not shrinking from it as though our own interests will be overshadowed. Rather, we rejoice in these developments, with full assurance that our own redemption draws ever closer.
This article is scheduled to appear in the Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, to be published by Kregel Publications.
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Zola Levitt Ministries
It's totally without support, scripturally, historically, etc. It's only slightly more plausible than Mormonism.
BTTT
Do you believe that this particular modern incarnation of "Israel" is necessarily of prophetic significance? In other words, must this Israel eventually become the Jewish nation that comes to faith in Christ? Or is it possible that this modern state of Israel could pass away, and that some future Israel, perhaps thousands of years in the future, might set the stage for the believing nation?
The Zola article gets the ball rolling.
The Bible passage is the stumbling stone.
This is possible, but can you deny that God sets the times and the boundaries of all nations, and that He has SOME plan now for Israel?
I believe that God is sovereign and has a plan for every nation. But I also believe that plan is part of His secret will which He has not revealed to man.
I thought Christ was the stumbling stone? :-) Seriously, I have no issue with Romans 9-11 when properly understood. I don't think it goes as far as some futurists would like. E.g., there is nothing about a future restoration of national Israel in the middle east.
"Replacement theology" is not a term that is used by anyone but those who hold to a "two people" theory. I suggest you would learn more about the classic Christian theology of the relationship between the church and Israel by reading those you believe it, not those who are afraid of it. There are a lot of little boys crying wolf out there.
I have even heard some reformers who hold to a belief that because they are believers - that their children DO NOT have to ever make a personal decision of belief in Christ! That they are born into salvation through their parents faith!!! I was shocked when I heard this!
Who are these terrible people. Please name names!!
According to dispensational theology there may be some very huge ramification for erroring on the other side, quite the understatement!
Such as??
Dispen-sensationalism.
So you believe in replacement theology? I thought I read this as the author saying the Church and Israel are two different things, not that the Church has replaced Israel. The view he says he agrees with is the second one, that we are different, not the first which is replacement theology. Unless of course, I read this with blond eyes, which is possible! :-)
This, then is the end of the matter. Every other position is a human construct, and of no authority.
DG
What follows is only for discussion, not necessarily what I believe. What if Ezekiel 37, dry bones, were to be taken literally and all Jews throughout history came back to life, in mortal bodies, before the Kingdom age?
To be perfectly honest I've never thought about it before. If I've learned anything from this board it's that Christians have a name and theology for just about everything.
I've always felt that when the Gentiles were grafted onto the branch of Israel we were a continuation of what God had started with Israel. Israel was broken off. (Romans 11) We are not a replacement. I think Romans is very clear in the branch analogy. It also fits with "I am the vine, you are the branch...".
I never knew there was a theology of different views on this.
http://www.cwi.org.uk/Heralds/Archives/Provan.htm
Boasting against the Natural Branches
A Review of Charles D. Provan's The Church is Israel Now
"Some books", said Francis Bacon, "are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested." Charles D. Provan's The Church is Israel Now contains enough truth to make it palatable to the unwary but enough error to poison their system, making it unfit for human consumption.
The book, claims Charles Provan, is "one of the end products of several years of research into the topic of the Old Testament and its relationship to the New Testament." Puzzled by the number of Old Testament references to Israel which, in the New Testament, are attributed to Christians, Provan concluded from his studies that, "The only hypothesis which explains how this could be is that the Israel of the Old Testament (so called 'Racial Israel') had been replaced by the Israel of the New Testament, the Christian Church."
To be fair to Mr Provan, he allows "racial Jews" a place in the Church and, unlike some replacement theologians, expresses the view that the responsibilities as well as the privileges of Israel have been transferred to the Church.
Illogical premise
The author purports to let Scripture speak for itself by juxtaposing sets of Old Testament and New Testament texts which say the same things about the Jews and Christians. Charles Provan assembles sets of verses that show, for example, that in the Old Testament Israel was beloved of God and that in the New Testament Christians are beloved of God and that in the Old Testament the Jews are called God's people and in the New Testament Christians are called God's people. The author, however, appears unable to think in categories other than "either/or". If Mr Provan's system of biblical interpretation was applied to the biblical teaching about God one would have to conclude that the Jehovah of the Old Testament has been replaced on the grounds that in the New Testament the Old Testament divine titles are all accorded to Jesus. It does not seem to occur to the author that the Church may indeed be the beloved Israel of God without having replaced the nation of Israel.
While appearing to be scriptural, Charles Provan's method is ultimately unscriptural in that he attempts to fit Scriptures into his own preconstructed framework. Nowhere is this more evident than when he avers that Matthew 21:43 "demonstrates ... quite clearly" the transfer of Israel's privileges and responsibilities, "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit."
At first sight the words of Christ appear to support Mr Provan's hypothesis. But Matthew goes on: "When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them." (Matthew 21:45). Jesus was not saying the kingdom would be taken from Israel but from the rulers of Israel.
Conditional love?
The Church is Israel Now is simplistic; a classic example of adding two and two together to make five. To his credit the author acknowledges that his conclusion is a "hypothesis" (albeit the only possible one, as far as he is concerned) according to which, when "the Israelites obeyed God, God loved them. But when they turned from Him He hated them, stripping them of their Israelite status." While it is true that in certain Old Testament passages, God speaks of His hatred for disobedient Israelites those passages must be modified by other statements. If God's love is conditional upon obedience, it is difficult to pinpoint a time when God could possibly have loved the nation, not to mention the Church.
Apart from a reference to a select number of verses from Romans 11, one would think Mr Provan was unaware the chapter exists, for he nowhere considers what Paul means when he says that "the Israelites are beloved for the fathers' sakes" and that God's "gifts and calling are without repentance".
The book's subtitle, "The Transfer of Conditional Privilege" reveals the writer's lack of understanding of the unconditional nature of God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15.
Only one olive tree
Moreover, he fails to understand that the Church is not a new entity which came into being on the Day of Pentecost. During the Old Testament period Israel was God's church and continues to be so in the New Testament era. Israel was God's qahal, a Hebrew word that in the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament appears as ecclesia, the same word translated "church" in English versions of the New Testament. To say, therefore, that the Church is the Church now is hardly profound thinking.
The book states that in the Old Testament, "Israel Is An Olive Tree" (Jeremiah 11:16-17; Hosea 14:5-6) and in the New Testament, "Christians Are An Olive Tree" (Romans 11:17-24). Though acknowledging that in Romans 11, "The Olive Tree under discussion ... is clearly Israel" Provan's bold-type sub-headings give the wrong impression. Paul does not say in Romans 11 that Christians are "an olive tree". Gentile believers, says the apostle, are branches from a wild olive tree that have been grafted on to the olive tree of Israel. If Charles Provan's hypothesis is, as he believes, the only possible one, Paul's olive tree illustration is misleading. If the Church has replaced "Racial Israel" a more fitting illustration would be that one olive tree has been cut down and another planted in its place.
But God has not cut down one olive tree and planted another in its place. Nor are there two separate olive trees. Instead, God has broken off some branches from the olive tree of Israel because of their unbelief and has grafted in branches not native to the tree. This is a vital and important distinction and it is inexcusable that a book purporting to be serious biblical scholarship should fail to see that distinction.
Theological anti-Semitism
Nowhere in the book does the writer take into account Romans 11:1: "Did God reject his people? By no means!" Nor does he engage with Old Testament verses such as Deuteronomy 4:31: "For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath." Nowhere does Charles Provan take into account Jeremiah 31:35-37:
This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - the LORD Almighty is his name: "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight," declares the LORD, "will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me."
This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD.
At best, the claim that the Church is Israel now demonstrates an utter disregard for the apostle's warning to the grafted-in branches of the Olive Tree not to boast themselves against the natural branches. At worst, Mr Provan's thesis is a particularly arrogant example of theological anti-Semitism. If it falls into the hands of Jews it will serve only to alienate them from the Church which has supposedly replaced them.
This article first appeared in our special Israel at Fifty issue of the Herald in Summer 1998
And here I thought you were going to stick to the Scriptures. Oh well.
Provan should have looked at THESE Scriptures that the author of this review wrote. He's pointing out the blind spots in Provan's book.
"Nowhere in the book does the writer take into account Romans 11:1: "Did God reject his people? By no means!" Nor does he engage with Old Testament verses such as Deuteronomy 4:31: "For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath." Nowhere does Charles Provan take into account Jeremiah 31:35-37:
This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - the LORD Almighty is his name: "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight," declares the LORD, "will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me."
This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD.
At best, the claim that the Church is Israel now demonstrates an utter disregard for the apostle's warning to the grafted-in branches of the Olive Tree not to boast themselves against the natural branches. At worst, Mr Provan's thesis is a particularly arrogant example of theological anti-Semitism. If it falls into the hands of Jews it will serve only to alienate them from the Church which has supposedly replaced them."
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