Supersessionism/Replacement Theology (Part 2)

More excerpts from David Stern in "Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel"

Historically, the church has managed instead to erase this truth (Ephesians 2:11-13) from the content of Christian faith through Supersessionism (a.k.a. Replacement Theology). Example: the creeds include the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity, but does any creed mention that he is King of the Jews? Instead, throughout most of its existence the church has taught that Christians have not joined up with the people of Israel, the Jewish people, but have replaced them and become Israel themselves! Thus the church has tried to skip over the first of the Messiah's five gifts to Gentiles(Eph. 2:11-13). It claims to "have" God and his hope and his promises and his covenants while remaining alienated from the national life of Israel!

But it doesn't work that way! And it never did! More than a thousand years before Yeshua appeared, Ruth already knew this -- which is why, in beseeching Naomi to let her accompany her from Moab back to Bethlehem, in the Land of Israel, Ruth said, "Amekh ami ve'elohaikh elohai Your people are my people and your God is my God" (Ruth 1:16). First she joined the people to whom Naomi belonged. Only then did she receive as her own God the God of the Jews, the only God there is.

Christians must learn -- whether from Ruth or from Paul -- that in Jesus they become part of a great big Jewish family, and it is within this family relationship that they find God, along with his covenants, promises and hope. This is what is meant by the olive tree metaphor of Romans 11:17-24, which says that Gentile "wild branches" have been grafted into God's olive tree (the Jewish people) among the natural branches (Jews). What is spoken of here is not mystical but practical. Through faith in the Jewish Messiah a Gentile can have God-enhanced, God-blessed human relationships with Jews and with other Gentiles who have found Yeshua and accept him as the atonement for their sins, as well as with Jews who haven't yet accepted him.

If Jews fail to welcome Christians as "family," it's not the fault of the Jews but the fault of Christians who do not understand who they really are in Messiah Yeshua! And it therefore becomes the Christians' responsibility to re-think their identity so that they can do whatever will be necessary to undo centuries of misunderstanding between Jews and Christians and ultimately to make real their closeness and identification with the Jewish people.

Thus the Gospel for Gentiles is: (1) accept Yeshua, and with repentance have forgiveness of sins; (2) join spiritually and practically with the Jewish people, who now become family; (3) participate as family members in God's covenants with the Jewish people; (4) rejoice as family members in God's promises to the Jewish people and participate in his promises to Gentile believers in Yeshua; (5) participate in the hope God gives his people, and (6) participate in God himself!