Blasphemous and Dangerous
Replacement Theology is the belief that the “church” replaces Israel in God’s purposes and affections. Chuck Cohen Investigates …… Part 1
Biblical Truth – Biblical Error
Biblical truth gives us the foundation we need to know the God who saved us and to live in a way that pleases Him. Correct biblical teaching (doctrine) enables us to identify prophetic signs in today’s world. Yet for those who follow the demonic delusion known as Replacement Theology [RT], current events and their relationship to the return of Messiah Yeshua become blurry and mysterious. These people, many of whom are our brothers and sisters in Messiah, end up believing a lie.
To put it briefly, Replacement Theology [RT] replaces Israel with ‘the Church’. Israel becomes only a symbol.
To truly grasp the revelation of our God, who often calls Himself YHWH (Yahwey), the God of Israel, we should interpret the Old Testament, the Tanach, in the same way that Yeshua did. However RT allegorizes (that is, understands only symbolically) much of the Tanach, the only scriptures that Yeshua read, and – especially when it comes to prophecies – that He interpreted literally.
How can RT promoters correctly understand what Yeshua was teaching? Over and over again Yeshua referred to the Tanach as His proof text, but if the correct interpretation is blurred, if the people and nation of Israel (the contested people in this end-time drama) is now just the cultural Christian church, how will people have a clue to what God is doing to conclude this age by the return of His Son to Jerusalem?
What is Replacement Theology?
“Replacement theology” is today’s common name for ancient, twisted, demon-inspired interpretations of biblical promises and prophecies concerning Jacob’s descendants. These, now often traditional, interpretations see God’s relationship with the Church and Christians as ‘replacing’ His prior relationship with the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
Covenants and promises are Biblical concepts defining God’s relationship with His people. Replacement theology believers think that God’s covenant – singular – with the universal Church, known as the New Covenant, replaces His covenants and promises – plural – with Israel. This wrong interpretation also dismisses the revealed truth that the New Covenant itself was promised to “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31), and is confirmed as such in Hebrews 8:8 in the New Testament.
RT is usually linked to the erroneous idea that since “the Jews” rejected their “Messiah”, Hebrew for “Anointed One” also known as “Christ”, Greek for “Anointed One”, then God rejected the Jews as His nation for rejecting His Son, even though He had in the Tanach called Israel His “son” (Ex. 4:22-23; Hos. 11:1). Therefore today, according to RT thinking, for a Jewish person to have any part in the Kingdom of God, they must convert and become a born-again (reborn spiritually) Christian. Yet today, Yeshua is still King David’s heir and the King of the Jews, (Rev. 22:16).
In the Middle Ages, it was not enough for Jews to accept Jesus; they also had to reject, even openly curse, all things to do with their Jewish background. They had to prove they were no longer Jews, so they were required to eat non-kosher foods, stop circumcising their sons and stop celebrating the Shabbat on the seventh day, and instead honor Sunday as God’s day of rest. Also, they could not keep Yahweh’s feasts in Leviticus 23, but must honor the man-made feasts of Christmas and Easter.
Chuck & Karen Cohen Intercessors For Israel – www.ifi.org.il
This exploration continues next month in Part 2. For interested readers, this is a useful resource further exploring some of the questions Chuck Cohen opens in this series: https://christian-publications-int.com/default-29.html?ID=90
Recent Comments