Breaking news...Replacement Theology in Church History
Introduction
There is no doubt in my mind that Replacement Theology itself has very deep, and very damaging roots in Church history. I believe Replacement Theology should be utterly rejected for the damage it has caused and is causing to the advancement of God’s Kingdom in this present age.
This is a history that has been swept under the carpet. Indeed, during the three years I spent at Bible College what you are about to read was not mentioned once. Though it has been hidden, it can nevertheless be found. And because it can be found, it can be studied and seen for what it really is - ugly and detestable.1
It also goes a very long way to explaining why Jewish people don’t want to know about this ‘Christ’ of the Christians.
Modern replacement theologians simply don’t seem to understand where they have got their beliefs from, when in fact they are mostly inherited and borne out of a culture and theological perspective that is deeply rooted in anti-Semitism. Because the default starting point is biased towards the Church and Christian theology, it is easy for replacement theologians to quote previous Christian theologians as additional authorities for their views. If this is your stance, take care, as it is even one of the criticisms levelled at the Pharisees (see Mark1:22, where the people note Yeshua’s powerful teaching with authority, not claiming the authority of a previous Rabbi).It should be no wonder then, that the grace and favour of God’s rich inheritance is so often diminished or completely absent when people eventually nail their replacement theology colours to the mast. It may be better to be ignorant than to confess your position as pro-replacement theology.
Rooted In Church History
What follows are sections of Church history taken from what is an unbroken chain of hateful vitriol towards the Jewish people, which has not only been in word, but has led to vicious persecutions and acts of violence for thousands of years. How the Heart of God must have been broken to see one of His children try to murder and replace the other, like a Cuckoo trying to unseat the legitimate natural child from its nest.
This will illustrate how an entirely Jewish move of God (later named the ‘church’) with a Jewish Messiah-Rabbi, thousands of Jewish followers, a Jewish world view and Jewish cultural mores was rejected and replaced by an arrogant and boastful gentile leadership. It is from this background that today’s replacement theology was borne, and why it is still so strong in our churches today – and why it continues to cause so much damage to the people of God – Jew and gentile.
The First One Hundred Years
The oft-preached Christian notion that Judaism in the 1st Century was unified and wholly coherent is at best ill-informed over-simplification, but it is nonetheless a common assertion.
Many internal debates were raging, and even within Pharisaic Judaism there was little agreement. This was a time of great fluidity, change and definition within Judaism – one only has to look at the two Pharisaic parties of Hillel (more liberal) and Shammai (more orthodox) to underline this fact.
Joachim Jeremias rightly notes that Yeshua was “a prophet who completely remained within the limits of Judaism.” Indeed, it was the religious leadership who had the biggest problem dealing with Yeshua’s claims.
The Temple-based Sadducees were almost entirely politically and financially motivated, while the Pharisees simply couldn’t cope with Yeshua’s failure to recognize other teaching authorities – even claiming the right to give his own authoritative interpretation as to what God wants.
So, the issue of the Messiahship of Yeshua created two diametrically opposed groups within Judaism, and so the process of separation began almost immediately after the death of Yeshua.
The Destruction of Jerusalem, AD70
In AD66 the Zealots set out to overrule Rome but Jerusalem was levelled in AD70 and the First Jewish Revolt was finally crushed at Masada in April AD73.
The destruction of Jerusalem was seized upon by a growing number of gentile Christians as evidence that God had replaced Judaism and the rule of the Synagogue. They pointed towards the ruins of Jerusalem as God’s judgment upon Israel for rejecting the Messiah.
This was the start of a process, which would not become finalized until well into the 2nd Century. But, as Wilson states, “the date of AD70 basically marked the end of the Zealot, Sadducean, and Essene sects. Only the Pharisees and the struggling Nazarenes remained as parties in major contention.”
Gentile Thought Replaces Hebrew Thought
Because the Greeks and Romans hated the Jews, the gentile church began to separate themselves from anything Jewish.
The gentile church, trying to avoid persecution because of their relationship to the Jews, now broke with their Hebraic foundation. The gentile church began to read into Saul's letters that Yeshua must have done away with anything Jewish including the Torah.
This is because of their Greek mindset - remember that the Hebraic foundation had been severed and thus misunderstandings of Saul's letter began.
Amongst many other things:
- The Sabbath was changed from Saturday to Sunday.
- It was forbidden to celebrate the feasts of God.
- Soon afterwards vile things were said about all Jews, which are still being used this day against them.
Tony Lane accurately notes that “The Early Christian Fathers were Gentile Greeks and Romans.”
So, now let’s look at a number of examples of what these Early Church Fathers thought, taught and established in the early church… the likes of which we still have to deal with today.
Marcion (110 – 160AD)
Marcion's belief was that the Old Testament was about a bad, mean, unloving God who enjoyed judging people. Yeshua on the other hand came from a good God and overcame the bad God of the Old Testament. Marcion completely rejected all Old Testament scriptures.
Marcion taught that grace replaced the law and that the two were totally separate. He argued that the Old was inferior to the New and had no part of authoritative revelation – and he fought hard to have it removed from the canon.To demote the OT's status Marcion used Paul’s writings such as ‘free from the law’ (Galatians 5:1), and tried to rid Christianity of every trace of Judaism. He became known as the archenemy of the “Jew God”.
His teaching was initially very popular and had massive influence within the church and his main thoughts and teachings had considerable influence within the young church.
Consider your own church. Can you see Marcion’s influence still existing today? How much emphasis is given to the God of love in the OT? How often is the OT seriously preached on for its own sake?
It is not hard to see how the OT has been relegated to secondary status behind the NT, but again consider Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 3: 16, and don’t forget that ‘scripture’ for Paul could only have been the Hebrew Scriptures (OT) as the New Testament hadn’t even been written.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Justin Martyr (100-165AD)
According to Justin, the patriarchal promises do not apply to the Jews.
Rather, God transferred these promises to the Christians and, as we shall see, to Gentile Christians in particular. The Jews stood as a cursed people who had renounced all claim to the Abrahamic promises - indeed, a people whom God had renounced as His own children - the Jews had been disinherited.He said, "We too, would observe your circumcision of the flesh, your Sabbath days, and in a word all your festivals, if we were not aware of the reason why they were imposed upon you, namely, because of your sins and your hardness of heart” ~ Dialogue 18, 2
Tertullian (155-225AD)
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicized as Tertullian, was a church leader and prolific author during the early years of Christianity.
He introduced the term Trinity, as the Latin trinitas, to the Christian vocabulary and also probably of the formula "three Persons, one Substance" as the Latin "tres Personae, una Substantia" (itself from the Greek "treis Hypostases, Homoousios") and also the term New Testament, novum testamentum.In "De Oratione", Tertullian wrote that "though Israel may wash all its members every day, it is never clean. Its hands... are always stained, covered forever with the blood of the prophets and of our Lord himself."
John Chrysostom (347-407AD)
Because of his eloquence he was dubbed Chrysostom, the “golden-mouthed.” He is considered to be among the most beloved and admired in Church history.
"The Jews sacrifice their children to Satan... they are worse than wild beasts. The synagogue is a brothel, a den of scoundrels, the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults, a criminal assembly of Jews, a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, a gulf and abyss of perdition."Chrysostom further said that the Jews had become a degenerate race because of their "odious assassination of Christ for which crime there is no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon, and for which they will always be a people without a nation, enduring a servitude without end."
To show how these ‘old’ and hateful teachings have survived intact even to this day, please note that John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), described Chrysostom as a "bright, cheerful, gentle soul, a sensitive heart..."
Not, in my book, a great judge of character.
And Even In The Protestant Reformation (c. 1517-1648AD)
Oh, and if you thought these teachings were “just for the Early Church Fathers”, or “just for the Roman Catholics”, here’s what the Protestant Reformer, John Calvin had to say on the issue:
“Their rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone”- John Calvin, "Ad Quaelstiones et Objecta Juaei Cuiusdam Responsio”
In Conclusion
So, perhaps now even with this briefest of overviews, you can see how from its earliest days the Church has done everything it can to be better than, relegate, eradicate, subdue, persecute and replace the Jewish people out of some sense of proving that God has finished with them.
This is the ultimate ‘cuckoo’ principle, and is not befitting the People of God. It is a history and belief system that should not be tolerated in the Church of God, but should be understood and exposed as the lie from Satan that it really is.
Yes, I know there is a well structured systematic theology that sits behind it, and I know there are many eminent theologians who adhere to it, but that doesn’t make it right. This isn’t even a theology with no real impact (as can be argued for creationism, for example) – replacement theology, rooted in church history, has a very real impact on individuals, churches and crucially the Jewish people even today.
We should indeed be warned by Paul’s words in Romans 11:
“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! 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. 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.”
1 I recommend you read an excellent book by Michael Brown called 'Our Hands Are Stained With Blood'
