Expert: Brian Thompson - 12/17/2008

Question
QUESTION: Dir. SR. WHERE IS the teachingfor the REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY THAT YOU TAUGHT IN YOUR ANSWER, WERE THE CHURCH HAS REPLACED ISRAEL. DOES this NOT LINE UP WITH THE TEACHING OF PAUL IN ROM. 11;even though we in the protestant church us another word now a days such as systematic theology, is still not the right foundational teaching, or is the one Paul taught more correct? that is my question.

ANSWER: Let me first say in answer to your question I believe Paul was inspired by God to teach what he did and that he did not do this out of his own ideas. So, if teachings in this day depart from what is contained in the Scriptures it is not correct.
Next let me tell you that Jesus Christ is salvation to the Christian and heresy to the Jew. In Judaism there is no salvation as we Christians understand it, because they remain under the curse of the Law. Colossians 1.12 speaks of the inheritance of the saints, this is not the inheritance of Israel.
First to the Jew and then to the gentile, first the physical and then the spiritual, these are Scriptural, so the Gospel was preached first to the jews and then to the gentiles. Paul says in Romans 11 what Israel sought it did not obtain, if therefore you could be justified by the Law why then did Christ die. We are heirs with Israel in the mosaic covenant but we are heirs to a better covenant, the covenant in Christ’s blood. Do you think both covenants coexist and offer alternative paths to salvation? No they cannot, and therefore physical Israel, Judaism, has given way to spiritual Israel, Christianity.
At the death of Christ the vale of the temple was torn from top to bottom and that which was forbidden was now open to all, what better example could you have that Israel has given way  and is replaced by Christianity. God still has a covenant with the Jewish people and will fulfil his promises to them, but salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Do you think Paul taught replacement theology? Do you think all the natural branches were broke off the tree? Is the roots of the tree Abraham , Isaac, and Jacob[Israel]? Is our Judeo/Christian inheritance then not Jewish by nature? Did the church which is the wild olive branch have to be grafted into a Cultivated olive tree before it could begin to bear fruit? Is it true that a wild olive tree who has never been dressed by a husband or vine dresser will never bear fruit? Why was the church the wild olive tree grafted into the olive tree which is Jewish by nature?          thank you

ANSWER: Jesus describes himself as the vine and us as the branches, the wild olive tree analogy is not valid in respect of Christianity which represents a pruning and reinvigoration of what was before, Judaism is only the shadow of what was to come and all the dead and unproductive wood it represented needed to be pruned and burnt. Don't you realise it was God's intention that Israel take his message to everyone, not settle in Caanan and keep it to themselves. So he needed someone not fettered by religion, a religion so bound up in its own thoughts it created a legalistic burden for its own people and one certainly no one else would adopt. Didn't Jesus say God could raise up sons of Abraham from the rocks so put no store in the roots of Abraham, Issac and Jacob but in the true vine Jesus Christ

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I need your documented proof of scriptures please, don't take this wrong but as i read the bible. I see, and this is what i need help with I only see one group of People not two. I cant find in the new testament a divorce decree but the way i read it is we have become New Jerusalem right along with the Jews.So, why do we teach we have replaced them when Jesus said he had destroyed the division between us making us one, New Jerusalem.The protestants want to call it the church, but doesn't that mean believers. Paul said if they would believe the would be drafted back in but he didn't say it would be at the end of tribulation. these are the areas i have trouble with and need clarity in. Also does the vine have roots? If so what are they?

Answer
I think you are very caught up with this idea of replacement but you must know that Israel is not the bride of Christ but born again Christians who are the bride of Christ.

I suggest you look at Romans specifically Chapter 9
Romans 9 (King James Version)

Romans 9
1I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

2That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

3For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

4Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

5Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

6Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:

7Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

8That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

9For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.

10And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;

11(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)

12It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

13As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

16So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

24Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

25As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.

26And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.

27Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

28For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

29And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.

30What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.

31But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.

32Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

33As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

When you look at the entirity of Scripture and not isolated passages what is being said becomes obvious.