Do we understand that in the minds of the Jews, when you say the word Christianity or Christian, they see everything that is not in the Gospel and it’s so depressing. Last time I heard, He’s not a baby anymore. Last time I know, He’s not stuck on the cross anymore. The resurrection, it’s why we’re here, and the fact that God has a Son is not a foreign thing. It’s deep in the Old Testament, and you should know it because you need to give them that hope. And in Proverbs 30:4 it says, “Who has ascended into heaven or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His face? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name and what is His Son’s name, if you know?" It’s all in the Old Testament. Even in Psalm 2, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry.” It’s all there.
Now did God give the Jews a New Testament? Oh, yes, He did. In fact, I was shocked to find the word “New Testament” in the Old Testament, and then I was shocked that I was shocked. In Jeremiah 31, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant, a new testament, with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.’” And the one new thing in this Testament is not the nullification of the promise to Abraham that He will make us a great nation and through us He will bless the whole world. What God made new is the end of the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant that He’s now giving, and He’s explaining that not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, way after Abraham. We’re talking about the Exodus. We’re talking about Moses. We’re talking about Mount Sinai.
“And then He says, ‘My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,’ says the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.’” It’s a spiritual regeneration. It’s a birth from above. It’s a new birth. It’s something that is of the Spirit. This is the first time we understand what to be born again is all about right there in this scripture.
While there are many reasons to reject the heretical and unbiblical teaching of Replacement Theology, one of the most significant is that it teaches something about God’s nature and character that is not true. Look at what the Lord said about His chosen, yet disobedient, people, Israel:
Jeremiah 24:6-7
For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
It is not within the nature and character of God to choose a group as His own special people, make them unconditional and everlasting promises, and then change His mind. It would be like the Lord promising to give us “temporary” eternal life that we can lose based on poor behavior.
To deny that modern Israel is a fulfillment of God’s promises to them is to deny the very word of God, and, by that, to question His nature and character.
Romans 11:1
I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Paul’s point is that if God cast off His people, then why are some of them getting saved, using himself as the example. Does it make any sense for God to cast you off and then save you? Of course not!
We might consider Judaism as a fulfilled religion. Jesus came and fulfilled the whole law and instituted a new covenant for both Jew and Gentile.
1 Corinthians 11:25
In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
The Old Covenant was a blood covenant, but the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins. Hebrews reminds us that better blood was required for that to happen. So through the Jews, God sent His Son into the world to shed His “better blood” on behalf of sinners.
The Old Covenant highlighted the sinfulness of all people and the New Covenant offered to all sinful people what the Old could not, salvation for their souls through the blood of Christ.
We should all rejoice in the fact that God has not cast off His chosen people even after all they have done. That tells us what is actually true about God’s nature and character that Replacement Theology denies.
Romans 8:38-39
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If Replacement Theology is true, then what we just read in Romans isn’t. But, thanks be to God, it is true and Israel is the greatest proof it is so!
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,