Israel & Replacement Theology: "What about 'forever' don't you understand?"

I think I've made it clear that politically I'm on Israel's side and consider the "Palestinian" claims to be trumped up by the leftists.

However, I'm not as clear on the theological question of "replacement theology." I do know that some who are on Israel's side object strenuously to the idea, understanding it to mean Israel has been replaced by the Church, thereby negating Israel's claims to the land. They base much of their argument on the scripture which says the covenant God made with Israel was everlasting.

Gen 13:15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

Gen 17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

The relevant passages do read as if the land was given forever, but obviously this can't be since the earth itself isn't to last forever:

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

I assume they have some way of reconciling this, but it seems to me the only sufficient way of reconciling it is to understand that the everlasting covenant with Abraham didn't refer to the literal physical land but to spiritual Zion:

Hebrews 11:10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God.

Hebrews 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.

The New Testament teaches that those who are of faith are children of Abraham and inherit God's covenant with him. The flesh does not inherit, only the spirit. We look to the spiritual Zion, the city whose builder and maker is God, not to earthly Israel.

Just as did Abraham, as Hebrews 11:10 says. He "sojourned" in the "land of promise," living in a tent, never as a resident of the land, never receiving the fulfillment of THAT land, although God had promised it specifically to him, as well as to his descendants. This alone hints that the land is a symbol or a type of a better "land," which the New Testament brings out more clearly.

HOWEVER: Insofar as the promise pointed to the physical land there is no doubt that God did give it to Abraham and his descendants and therefore nobody else has a claim to it. The covenant with Abraham, unlike the covenant that came through Moses, was unbreakable. The Israelites broke the covenant through Moses but the Abrahamic covenant is everlasting and unbroken. So it's perfectly reasonable to argue that the literal physical land of Israel which was given literal geographic boundaries by God, does belong to the Jews. Even though that land isn't going to be everlasting.

But now we are not talking about the heirs of the promise to Abraham, but to "Jacob," ("supplanter, layer of snares", says Strong's Concordance, the descendants of Abraham "after the flesh" and not after the spirit. Jacob was his given name, but God renamed him "Israel" ("prince with God") after he had finally come to the point of complete dependence on God.

Christians, who inherit the heavenly Jerusalem, have no interest in earthly Israel, and that includes saved Jews as well. But scripture speaks of a "time of trouble" for "Jacob" which many interpret to be yet future, and it is "Jacob" who now lives in Israel, earthly Israel of the flesh.

The point is there CAN'T really be a "replacement" of Israel by the Church because these are two different things, or two different levels. The Church is of heavenly Jerusalem and this world is "passing away." HOWEVER, the Old Testament dealt with a literal fleshly people and a literal physical land, and although the fulfillment of the promise of God is in reality a spiritual or heavenly fulfillment, it may well be that God has further plans for Jacob and for earthly Israel. The point would be that the entire earth belongs to God and His dealing with Israel and in fact His whole plan of redemption, are meant to bring honor and glory to Himself on this Planet Earth, even through all the heathen of the world who are at enmity with Him, and THAT part of His plan is not yet finished.

1 John 2:17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Paul writes poignantly of the temporary blinding of Israel so that the Gentiles might be saved:

Rom 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. Rom 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:Rom 9:4 Who 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; Rom 9:5 Whose [are] the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ [came], who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Rom 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel: Rom 9:7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.

Rom 9:8 That 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.

Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Rom 10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. Rom 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

And this tells us that besides showing the whole world who He is and that He reigns over all things, He WILL also save "all Israel," and clearly all this is yet future.

But it is ALL tending to this point: Those who are saved are saved to the heavenly Jerusalem. Flesh cannot be saved in its current condition. Those who are not born again, who remain flesh, remain unsaved and can only be destined for the lake of fire.

So all those scenarios I keep running across about an ULTIMATE separate destiny for earthly Israel and the Church just don't make sense. Salvation of Jew and Gentile makes us both part of the Church AND part of the heavenly Jerusalem. It may be that there will be a period -- even the Millennium? -- in which Jesus reigns over earth from earthly Jerusalem -- but this can only be a temporary dispensation.

But then there is also to be a new heaven and a new earth and I've never been sure how to fit all these things together:

Revelation 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I'd like to see these points addressed by those who defend that point of view.

"Replacement theology," Israel and the Antichrist

Listening this morning to a talk at a conference in Israel, a conference of mostly pro-Palestinian / anti-Israel Christian leftists, in which this talk was apparently the only one from the opposing point of view.

Apparently the leftist Christian position is based on what is called "replacement theology," the idea that the church has replaced Israel, from which theology the leftists get their hatred of Israel, their arguments that Israel is an apartheid state mistreating the Palestinian people who are the true heirs of the land and so on and so forth.

I don't see the connection. The leftist position, Christian or non-Christian, is just obviously wrong historically and ethically quite apart from whatever theology they appeal to.

There never was any Palestinian people, that is an invention of the haters of Israel. The settling of what eventually became the Jewish state began back in the 19th century when the area known as Palestine had no national identity whatever and no population indigenous to it. Mark Twain visited it and described it as a desolate wasteland. There were a few scattered Arabs and there were also some Jews, mostly in Jerusalem, who had been there from time immemorial. If occupation of the land at that time has any bearing on the argument the Jews have a better claim to it than the Arabs.

The Jews who moved into the area from Europe set about building up this desolate wasteland. What became known as the Palestinian people were Arabs from many of the surrounding Arab nations who came to work for the Jews in this building up. As the Jews succeeded in making the area livable they became the targets of growing hostility from the neighboring Arab nations. When these nations declared war on Israel just as it became a state they simultaneously warned the Arabs living there to escape for their own protection. They did escape and they became the refugees that were ultimately renamed "Palestinians." A whole bogus supposed history was bestowed to make them appear to be the legitimate heirs of the land that had become the Israeli state, and I have the impression that some of them even believe their own lie. Their own Arab people would not absorb them but left them as refugees in order to be a thorn in the side of Israel. Attempts to resolve the situation keep failing because the "Palestinians" have always refused whatever concessions Israel has made to their demands for a state. The reason they refuse is that they hate Israel, period, and want Israel gone, period.

I've written about this more in other posts. The point is that the leftists are motivated by hated of Israel and have no legitimate basis for their hatred and their support of this bogus "Palestinian people." What they call apartheid tactics against the Palestinians, such as a wall that keeps them out except at certain guarded checkpoints, are nothing but attempts by Israel to defend themselves from repeated attacks by the "Palestinians," rockets they fire daily into Israel among other acts of hostility. The whole Palestinian / Leftist claim is a big fat lie. Yet somehow they've managed to make most of the world believe it.

But what does any of this have to do with "replacement theology?" Those who argue against this theology, as the speaker does I've been listening to this morning, emphasize the idea that God's covenant with Israel is still in force because it was everlasting, and it's a covenant that entitles them to the land as well as a covenant to make them the people who will bless the whole world as carriers of the word of the true God and His Messiah.

I have to admit that I don't have a thorough understanding of the scriptures in this situation, but from what I think I understand about it I'm not on either side theologically. I could change my mind but for now it goes like this: I do not believe the church has "replaced" Israel, but I do believe the church is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant God made with Israel. We ARE the "new Israel" through the Messiah, the people of God. The Messiah Himself is the fulfiller of the covenants, He is the blessing to the Gentiles God wanted Israel to be. All that is fulfilled. The land promised to Israel is the "other country" Abraham and others looked to according to Hebrews 11, not an earthly land.

This does NOT mean that God doesn't still have a role for Israel the literal physical land. At the very least we know that scripture promises a huge conversion of Jews to Jesus Christ at the very end of time. But beyond that, it is utterly impossible that the Jews could be on the land and it not be God's will, even though they are still not IN God's will themselves. That physical land is clearly going to be the center of the end times scenario that is probably going to play out very soon. It's most likely going to involve a huge war, a bloodbath, out of which will emerge, if he doesn't preside over it from the beginning, a personage known as the Antichrist who will have the worldwide rule that was coveted by the earlier antichrists such as Hitler.

I don't know what to make of the various theologies that give separate roles to the Jews and the Church. I don't see scripture for that myself. I see scripture saying we are one people, Jew and Gentile, we are all the Church and we are all Israel.

And yet it does seem to be that God may have separate dealings with his original chosen people as these end times unfold. I get this probably more from the current world situation and history than from scripture, though I'm sure there is scripture for it, I'm just not adept at exegeting it.

The leftist position is evil, period. Israel is in the defensive position, not the aggressor position. All this is simply setting the stage for the grand finale showdown between Satan and Christ. It's not going to be fun, there will no doubt be millions of martyrs, but the end result will be the worldwide rule of Christ.

No doubt there are plenty of specifics that I'm overlooking, though I think my position is general enough that they won't contradict anything I've said. I could be wrong.

"Replacement theology" is skewed, there is no replacement but there is fulfillment in the Church, which includes both Jew and Gentile. But nothing in this way of looking at it denies the right of Israel to exist, or that the Jews are still God's people in a historical sense, and it certainly doesn't justify the lying claims for this bogus "Palestinian people" which is just an invention of Satan in his neverending quest to destroy God's people and plans. The leftist "Christians" are just going to be part of the Antichrist's worldwide religion in the end.