Moishe
Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus, and a
longtime friend and source of good counsel,
recently wrote the following article dealing
with the errors of Replacement Theology. It
is reprinted here with permission from the Jews
for Jesus Newsletter (copyright October 2006).
Every
serious Christian needs to ask, “Who and what
is Israel? What should it mean to me?” The answer
to those questions and the drawing of a proper
distinction between Israel and the Church is
important to one’s spiritual life and understanding
of the Bible.
Many
people in the Church use the approach, “Every
promise in the Book is mine,” which views the
nation of Israel as being the earliest Church.
But on closer examination, most Christians wouldn’t
actually want “every promise in the book.” Bible
promises include threats as well as blessings.
For example, the Scripture promised Israel national
punishment for disobedience: So you shall
not turn aside from any of the words which I
command you this day, to the right or the left,
to go after other gods to serve them. But it
shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice
of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all
His commandments and His statutes which I command
you today, that all these curses will come upon
you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in
the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading
bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body
and the produce of your land, the increase of
your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed
shall you be when you go out (Deuteronomy
28:14‑19).
Christians
who think the promises to Israel have all been
applied to the Church should be dismayed by
the many “unblessings” that God promised Israel
if they failed. Unfortunately, Christians
are not much better at the obedience thing than
Israel. And if the Church has all the promises,
it also has all the obligations either to obey
or to face pain and exile. It is a very good
thing that Y’shua (Jesus) obeyed and His obedience
was imputed to us when we became part of His
Body, the Church.
Still,
many Christians continue to have a case of mistaken
identity regarding the Church and Israel. Some
of this faulty thinking comes from logic which
says: Since Israel was the chosen people of
God, and now He’s chosen us in Christ, the Christian
Church as the new chosen people must be the
continuation of Israel. The Puritans thought
that way, and many good churches teach that
today. But in so doing, they wrongly turn Israel
into a metaphor. And if Israel has its value
as a metaphor only, why does it exist literally
today?
To
see the Church as Israel, one must ignore the
fact that Israel consisted of certain people
of a certain lineage who were given a certain
type of rule, and had definite land boundaries.
To substitute the metaphorical for the literal
is always a bad policy. The same people who
make Israel to be a metaphor could just as easily
make the creation account with Adam and Eve
into a metaphor. Anything we have to struggle
to understand could be converted into metaphors.
Where does the temptation to avoid accepting
the literal truth of Scripture end?
Now
there are parts of Scripture that are poetic
and do use metaphors. These instances are easily
understood because they make no sense if taken
literally. However, Israel is more than a metaphor.
The people of Israel are called Jews and are
literally, actually and certainly with us today.
There is a literal place that is The Land of
Israel. To think that the Church has replaced
Israel is to hide from history.
So
why is Israel important to the Church? The Apostle
Paul said that those bad things that happened
to Israel because of her disobedience should
be examples to us (1 Corinthians 10:6). But
Israel is not important merely to serve as a
“good bad example.” Throughout the Bible we
also see her crying out to God and turning back
to Him, much like the Prodigal Son of Luke 15.
The
history of Israel is rich in lessons about how
God relates and what God requires of people.
It is also rich because the things that Israel
was commanded to do - the elements of the Law
- teach us about redemption. For example, the
sacrificial system shows our need for substitutionary
atonement. Similarly, all of the Jewish holidays
in Scripture typify redemption. Moody Press
just re‑issued our Christ in the Passover
book, which they originally published in 1977.
(The new edition is significantly expanded).
At the same time, they issued a terrific new
book by David Brickner called Christ in the
Feast of Tabernacles. The feasts, the fasts
- all the celebrations - are packed with metaphorical
material that was literally observed by Israel.
They are regular reminders of how God has been
faithful to Israel, and how He has kept His
promises.
The
promises that God made to Israel, like the promises
He made to followers of Jesus, are irrevocable.
How can we conclude that His promises to one
group of people (Israel) have shifted and now
belong to another group of people (the Church)?
If that is how God operates we must be prepared
to believe that His promises to Christians might
also one day be applied to a different group.
If God took the election away from Israel, can
any believer be secure?
If
God had taken away the election from Israel,
if His promises no longer applied to the literal
people who descended from Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, the Jewish people would have long since
been wiped from the face of the earth by numerous
enemies. There can be no doubt that the people
of Israel exist today because of the sheltering
hand of God, and that in His providence, He
has a purpose for Israel - the Jewish people
- to survive. There is the hope that the nation
of Israel will eventually fulfill their God‑given
destiny.
Israel
has not survived for sociological reasons: we
were not isolated from other people; we were
not great warriors; nor were we many in number,
but rather we were few. Yet those who were once
our conquerors have ceased to exist, and Israel
has survived despite all of the historical forces
arrayed against our people. We Jews can sometimes
delude ourselves into believing that we have
survived because of our faithfulness to God,
our piety, our diligence or our Law. The truth
is that, as in the days of the prophets, those
of us who were faithful to the God of Israel
have been few indeed, and we have failed to
keep the Law and the commandments. It was not
our nobility or our traditions that preserved
us. It was the Almighty Himself. One does not
have to be an expert to see that. We would have
been utterly vanquished many times over if our
survival depended on us - or the good will of
our neighbors. We survived because there is
a God. Every living Jew is living evidence that
the God of the Bible is, and that He keeps His
word. This is how it has been, is and will be.
The
Church is a new order, chosen of God, whose
destiny is a heavenly destiny. The destiny of
Israel is an earthly destiny. There need not
be confusion between the two. The Body of Christ
is to be impelled, propelled and governed by
God’s own Holy Spirit. Israel was compelled
by the Law, and those without Christ are still
under the Law. Those of us who are Jewish and
born‑again through Y’shua are doubly‑blessed
and chosen to be part of the people of Israel
and part of the Church - again, not because
of who we are but because of who God is.
That
is why I say that every serious Christian needs
to have a clear understanding of who and what
Israel is. When people misunderstand the distinction
between Israel and the Church, they misunderstand
God and His promises. Christians need to understand
the role of the Jewish people because our existence
says much about who God is, and how He demonstrates
His faithfulness.
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