Re-Placement Or In-Placement Theology

by
Dr. Howard Morgan

All over the world the Holy Spirit is stirring the hearts of Christians to discover the Jewish roots of their faith, and to understand the proper biblical relationship that the Church is to have with the Jewish people. As this work of the Holy Spirit continues, we come face to face with various kinds of "theologies" and attitudes that seek to minimize the profound importance of this restoration. There are those who, because of their ignorance, off-handedly dismiss it as irrelevant to the everyday life of the believer. There are also those who seek to prevent this restoration completely by proclaiming a doctrine that historically has been used to keep the Church in an adversarial and persecutorial role in relationship to the Jewish people. This doctrine has historically been known as "Replacement Theology."

Replacement Theology teaches that the Church has replaced the Jewish people in the purposes of God. It boldly declares that the Church is now the "new Israel," that God has rejected and is punishing the Jewish people because of their rejection of Jesus Christ, and that there is no future for the Jewish people or the land of Israel.

Through this doctrine, Christians are taught that God has finished his dealings with natural Israel (both the land and the people), and that He is now only concerned with the Church. At best, Christians have been taught that the Jewish people and the nation of Israel are to be viewed like any other nation on the earth, with no Biblical or prophetic significance. At worst, Christians have been taught that it was their responsibility to persecute the Jews, as a testimony to the wrath of God that will fall on all who reject Christ. This theology teaches that the Church is now to be thought of as the "New" or "spiritual" Israel. Christians are taught to believe that they have inherited all of the promises of blessings made to the Jewish people and to the land of Israel. The Church, as the "New Israel," has replaced natural Israel and is now the beneficiary of all that God promised the Jewish people. When the Bible speaks of God’s blessing the Jewish people, He really means the gentile Church. When God speaks of blessing the land or the city of Jerusalem, He is actually speaking spiritually to the Church, because the Church is now the land or the city, or anyone or anything else for which there are promises of blessing. Oddly enough when God speaks of judgment instead of blessing, this theology quickly reverses itself and declares that God is speaking to the Jewish people, or the land of Israel. Therefore all the blessings are for the Church, and all the curses for the Jews.

This theology has been the root cause of centuries of Christian persecution of the Jewish people. It has bred innumerable insidious doctrines that have manifested themselves in the worst kinds of hatred and evil. Jews were castigated as the most malevolent of all men who were forever cursed and were to be continually punished for "killing Christ." This perverse "doctrine of demons" (as the Apostle Paul so aptly named such malignancies) infected the Church with pride and arrogance, ripped her from her Biblical relationship and responsibilities to the Jewish people, and then turned her into a murderous, vicious, hateful persecutor of those to whom she was originally sent to be a testimony of God’s love, grace and power. How different history would have been had the Church discerned the spirit which propagated this great lie and rejected it, before it could have its disastrous effects.

Torn from her "anointed roots" of faith (Rom. 11:17), the Church descended into the spiritual darkness of hierarchical sacramentalism, imperialistic motivations, and carnal power politics. Instead of taking the gospel of salvation in the name of Jesus to all the nations of the earth, the Church began to sweep pagans into her organizational web of sacramental rituals, taking the power of the sword of steel rather than the sword of the spirit as the legitimizer of her actions. No longer capable of imparting Biblical faith, the only authentic, legitimate legacy of the Church (i.e. preaching the word of god which creates faith in the heart of the hearer - Rom. 10:17), she illicitly substituted humanly devised forms and rituals for the supernatural reality of the "new birth" (John 3:3,7 & 1 Peter 1:23). Pagans were baptized not because they had a true spiritual re-birth, but because it became the way into the politically and socially accepted religion.

The Lord Jesus ceased to be the head of the Church, and the usurper, the devil himself, became the illegitimate head of the now perverted "Christian Church." This counterfeit Church had as its goal what satan has always wanted, the worship of those who were created to worship the one true god. Since satan was a murderer from the beginning, this "Church" did not give a second thought to shedding the blood of all those who dared stand in her way of world domination. Not only did this grotesque perversion persecute the Jews, but all who dared oppose it were murdered, as Foxes book of martyrs so vividly attests.

The once pure Church of Jesus Christ was completely transfigured into an unrecognizable murderer who would stop at nothing to accomplish the goals of her satanic master. The devil, knowing God's plan to use the Church to provoke Israel to jealousy, had thus far succeeded in so distorting the "faith once delivered to the saints," that the Jewish people were only too glad to reject such an idol worshipping, blood shedding abomination. "How could anything that evil and malignant come from the God of Israel?", they reasoned. " how could the "Jesus" they claim to believe in be our Messiah? Whatever he is, whoever he was, he is not the promised Messiah, for certainly our Messiah could not, or would not, inflame his followers with such hatred and evil." The plan of the devil had succeeded: A perverted Church persecuting the Jews in the name of Jesus - Jesus, the name the Jewish nation must believe in before He can return to destroy the devil. A master stroke of evil genius! The Jewish people would never come to faith in the one whose supposed followers persecuted and killed them.

But...God said in Psalm 102:13-16, that there would come an appointed time when He would arise and have mercy upon Zion, when His servants would feel pity for Zion's stones and compassion for her dust. This is the hour that God is arising! He is working in the hearts of believers all over the world. He is restoring the Church to the proper New Testament understanding of her "grafted in" position. He is restoring the Church to a recognition of her Jewish Roots. He is stirring believers around the world to bring outpourings of love, support and testimony to Israel. For the first time in history, the Jewish people will experience the "true Church," demonstrating the kind of love and power that will provoke them to faith.

The truth, which always brings freedom, is that the Church has been in-grafted into relationship with Israel and has NOT replaced Israel. Because satan saw the power that God would release by the creation of a new supernatural relationship between Jews and Gentiles, he has vigorously and thus far successfully, opposed the fulfillment of this Biblical plan. In these days, God is restoring to the Church an understanding of this divine relationship. Gentile believers are understanding that they have been grafted into Israel's Olive Tree and are partaking of the rich root of the faith of the patriarchs.

In the realization that the Church is sharing this "root," new relationships, new dynamics of communication and understanding are able to take place. God has always intended that there be a flow of communication, testimony, and love between the "cultivated" and "wild" branches as a demonstration of his Kingdom. He will yet bring to pass such interactions and relationships. There is coming a day in which the Church around the world will see and understand her proper relationship with the Jewish people and will act to establish lines of communication and interplay in which the true testimony of Messiah will be demonstrated and understood. Jesus, who has been so maligned and distorted by the wiles of the devil, will be seen and understood for who He really is.

The reconciliation of the Church to her Jewish Roots will eventuate in the establishment of world wide interaction between Christians and Jews. These international dialogues will continually break down barriers of distortion and establish bridges of relationship. What God intended for the Church in the beginning, will come to pass at the end. Gentile believers, the grafted in wild branches, will be in a relationship with the Jewish people that is free of religious and racial prejudice, where true dialogue and sharing can take place. The ultimate fruit of an "in-placement theology" will be the creation of a spiritual environment where the true testimony of Jesus and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit can take place. Instead of hatred and conflict, there can be love and dialogue. Instead of murder and mayhem, there can be mutually beneficial and fruitful harmony. Instead of a satanically inspired history of persecution and death, there will arise a divinely inspired and empowered future filled with the demonstration of the power and fruit of the Holy Spirit.

The ultimate fruit of Replacement Theology was manifest in the Holocaust. The spiritual roots of the Holocaust can be seen in the ways in which this demonic theology allowed the Church to take one of two basic positions in relation to the Jewish people: ignore them or persecute them. The vast majority of the Church just ignored the plight of the Jewish people, as the Nazi death machine sought to fulfill satan’s plan to kill them all. These attitudes continue today. Where is the outcry of the Church on behalf of national Israel? Do you believe that the bible promises the land to the Jews? Do you believe that their regathering is part of the fulfillment of prophecy? If you believe it, are you doing anything about it?

While many Christians do not like the idea of gentile believers calling themselves "spiritual Jews," I believe that this is an accurate appellation. For Jewish believers, the difficulty with this terminology is that the history of those who called themselves "spiritual Jews" has been one of "replace and persecute," not "in-place and relate." For gentile believers, it is a lack of true understanding often times coupled with traces of anti-semitism. In the past those who called themselves "spiritual Jews" did it with the erroneous under-standing that they were the "new" or "spiritual" Israel, having rejected and replaced the natural Jewish people. This was the seed that produced the fruit of 1800 years of persecution, hatred and death. If only they had rightly understood that they were in fact "spiritual Jews," but in the true biblical sense. They were grafted-in along side the natural branches, and together should have worshipped the god of Israel, partaking of the covenants, and enjoying citizenship in the common-wealth of Israel. Then they would have also understood that their position had been given to them by the Lord, so they could partake of Israel's rich spiritual heritage and provoke the Jewish people to spiritual jealousy through their love and the supernatural demonstration of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

God uses the concept of being "grafted in" to illustrate the close relationship that gentile believers were to continually maintain with the Jewish people. This ongoing relationship was to be cultivated so that the Jewish people could receive a loving testimony to the truthfulness of the messianic claims of Jesus, as the Church demonstrated the love and the power of the holy spirit.

Because the church grew arrogant against the branches and was severed from the roots of faith, she was unable to maintain a testimony of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s power began to wane in the Church and the Church turned to false doctrines and traditions to justify its powerlessness. It is sad that today many denominations have the same "theological rationalizations" for their own lack of power.

As God restores believers to their Biblical relationship with the Jewish people, I believe that there will be a concurrent increase in the demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit. God intends to provoke the Jewish people to spiritual jealousy and faith in Jesus by the demonstration of the love and power of the Holy Spirit in the Church. This is going to happen because it is God’s plan and intention. To quote the ancient rabbis, let us pray earnestly for this to "happen speedily in our days."

Visit Dr Morgans web site for more articles and information - click on the photo:

ISRAEL, THE CHURCH AND
THE RETURN OF JESUS

By
Dr. Howard Morgan

The coming of Messiah is the great promise of the Bible from both Old and New Testaments. For millennia, Jews have diligently prayed for the coming of their Messiah, and for centuries, Christians have maintained their blessed hope of the return of Messiah Yeshua. There are, however, four reconciliation’s which the Scriptures require before the coming of the Messianic kingdom, and there are opportunities for believers as God’s fellow workers to help bring these things to pass (I Corinthians 3:9; II Corinthians 6:1).

The first reconciliation is that of the Church to her Jewish roots; the second is the Church to the Jewish people; the third is the Jewish people to their Messiah; and the fourth is the Messiah to planet earth.

According to Acts 3:21, the heavens must literally restrain the Lord Jesus until the times of restoration of all things that the prophets have declared. In addition to this precondition, Jesus, himself, declared that he will not return to reign upon the earth until the Jewish people call him back from heaven: "You will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" (Matthew 23:39). It is important to note that the saying precedes the seeing. This is speaking about a literal, physical return of the Lord Jesus to earth. Central to all of the visions and prophetic utterances of the Hebrew Scriptures was the unwavering commitment of God to restore Israel ultimately both to her land and to "David" her king, a symbol of the Messiah.

Diabolical Devices Against Israel

Satan knows that the return of Jesus spells his doom; therefore he has worked throughout history to prevent the words of the prophets that are consummated in the Messianic Kingdom from being fulfilled. He has sought either to effect the genocide of the entire Jewish population of the earth or to force them to lose their national identity and distinctiveness by assimilation or conversion. In either case, if the Jews should cease to be a nation before the Lord, the words of the prophets would fail to be fulfilled (cf. Jeremiah 31:35-37). Satan obviously believes that he can succeed in these attempts at genocide or assimilation and that the Lord Jesus can be prevented from returning forever. This is why anti-Semitism, in whatever form it manifests itself, is so very evil and pervasive. It is the demonic spirit that seeks to prevent the coming of the Messiah by eradicating the Jewish people. Adolf Hitler was not Satan’s first emissary of and unfortunately will not be his last. (For an in-depth review of "Christian Anti-semitism see Dr. Morgan’s tape series "For Zion’s Sake" in the tape catalogue section).

Since the Lord Jesus must also wait for the Jewish people to say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," we must consider God’s plan for provoking such a response from a people who have been temporarily and partially blinded to the spiritual truth that Jesus is the Messiah. As we study the scriptures, we see that God has always intended to use the church as an instrument by which he will provoke Israel to jealousy (Deuteronomy 32:21; Romans 10:19; 11:11). Satan was also aware of this plan; therefore, he launched a counter attack on the church to prevent God’s plan from succeeding. His work was subtle and up to now very effective. By gaining entrance to the church in her earliest stages, Satan was able to divert the church from the scriptural pattern and distort her into a caricature of what she was called to be (II Corinthians 11:2,3). But...I believe that we are at that point in history where Psalm 102:13-16 is going to be fulfilled, and Satan’s plan will finally be foiled.

Greco-Roman Influences

The church became a politico-religious hierarchical organization built around doctrines and practices that were shaped by the surrounding Greco-Roman culture. The scriptures were effectively hidden from the common man, and the Church came to see itself, rather than the Lord Jesus, as the source of salvation. In essence a new non-Biblical (and therefore non-Jewish) religion emerged and took the place of the authentic Biblical church. Both Paul (Acts 20:29, 30) and Jude (3, 4) foresaw this tragedy and warned the church against it.

Since Satan was aware of God’s plan to use the authentic church to provoke Israel to jealousy and eventually to faith in her rejected Messiah (Romans 11:11, 26), he cunningly devised a strategy to distort, change, and corrupt the once biblically-based church into a non-Biblical organization that carried the name church and proclaimed itself the worshippers and representatives of Jesus. He used this "counterfeit" church to deprive the newly-emerging Christian religion of its Biblical relationship with the Jewish people.

Judgment on the Church

By depriving the church of its relationship with the Jewish people, Satan effectively did the following three things:

First, he was able to bring the church under God’s judgment by having it disobey the scriptural injunction not to become arrogant and boastful against its own Jewish roots (Romans 11:18-22). God said that the consequence for such an attitude would be that he would cut the church off. As we study the history of the church, we can see that such a judgment was inflicted upon it. It is most interesting to note that the progressive loss of spirituality in the church exactly paralleled the contemporaneous rejection of the church’s Jewish roots. The nourishment the roots provided was replaced with non-biblical doctrines and practices that poisoned the church. Instead of growing as a faith-filled international community bearing the fruits of the Spirit, it descended into gross spiritual darkness where it remained until the time of reformation and renewal, when the light of revelation began to break Satan’s hold. This darkness is most clearly seen in the blood the church shed. Instead of expressing the LOVE of God, which is the true testimony of a disciple of Jesus, the church manifested the HATRED of the devil. This hatred was not only expressed toward the Jews, but to anyone who dared to disagree with those who were in power at any particular time. Catholics and Protestants were both guilty of persecuting those with whom they differed.

Second, by effectively destroying the church’s relationship with the Jewish people, Satan was able to prevent the church from experiencing the "rich root of the olive tree" (Romans 11:17) that the faith, history, scriptures, traditions, and heritage of the Jewish people represent. This "root-rejecting" church made it virtually impossible for Jews to come to faith in Messiah Jesus and still maintain their Jewish identity. This destruction of the church’s relationship with the Jewish people has resulted in great tragedy; for if individual Jews had had the opportunity to hear the true "Jewish" gospel of their own Messiah, uncorrupted by Gentile traditions, untold number’s of them would have come to faith. Then, the Jews would also have continually brought into the Church the rich root of their own cultivated olive tree via their own heritage and background, and this would have greatly enriched the lives of the Gentile believers.

Third, because the judgment of God came upon the church for her denial and rejection of Romans 11:11-32, Satan was allowed access to the church and was able to turn it into his agent of persecution and death rather than God’s Spirit filled agent of power and witness. No one can deny the tragic, bloodstained history of the church’s systematic and unrelenting persecution of the Jewish people. By perverting the church and making it an agent of death, Satan virtually destroyed the church’s testimony to the Jewish people of the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews would never believe in the "founder" of this murderous religion and would obviously never call upon him to return from heaven.

As the "times of the Gentiles" are ending, God is not only restoring apostolic truth that has been lost to the church for centuries, but he is also restoring to the church a consciousness of its Jewish roots. It is extremely important for us to understand that the ultimate purpose of this new awareness is reconciliation between the church and the Jewish people, so that a "jealousy-provoking" testimony, i.e. an authentic loving witness to the love and power of the gospel, can come from the church.

More Than Academics

Mere academic understanding about the historical roots of the Christian church or the addition of a "Jewish" flavor to church services is not the reason for the Holy Spirit’s move to restore the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. God’s desire is that the church return to its first century Jewish mindset so that the scriptural purposes for the church can be accomplished. The apostolic truths that are being recovered in many churches, including the great overarching truth of the unity of the Body of the Messiah, are essential ingredients in the restoration of the church. Unless the church once again becomes the powerful witness that it was at its birth, it will never provoke Israel - or anyone else for that matter - to jealousy.

When the Apostle Paul discussed in Ephesians 2:11-22 his revelation of the church, he taught us that it is composed of Jews and Gentiles who are no longer separated by any walls of partition. The church is, in fact, one new man. He also went on to reveal that this new man is now brought into fellowship with God and made part of the commonwealth of Israel and fellow citizens with the saints of the Hebrew Scriptures. This was complementary revelation to Romans 11 where he was teaching the church about its inheritance in, with, and among the Jewish people. Please note the use of the words "with" and "among."

Gentiles Grafted Into Israel

For too long, the church has taught that the Jewish people had to be "converted" to a Gentile religion, when the exact opposite is the truth. It is the Gentiles who have been, and must yet be, "converted" to a "Jewish" religion. Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah, who sealed with his own blood the New Covenant that was promised to the nation of Israel (Jeremiah 31:31). The book of Acts records how God opened the Jewish New Covenant, the fullness of God’s Judaism, to all the Gentiles who believe.

This true Judaism of God touches all areas of life. It gives us a view of heaven and instruction for successful living in this life. The New Covenant Scriptures were written from a first century Jewish perspective, not from a second or third century Greek or Roman perspective. We cannot continue to allow those pagan societies to influence how we interpret the scriptures or the realities of everyday life. Too many of our church traditions have come under the influences of an Hellenic, rather than a Biblical world view, and the church is still influenced by Greek and Roman philosophers more than by Jewish prophets and apostles.

Christians must more and more come to see themselves as "spiritual Jews." This simply means that when one becomes a believer in the jewish Messiah Jesus, he is grafted into Israel’s Olive Tree, made a partaker of the commonwealth of Israel and is considered by God to be "Jewish." This does not mean that one rejects or renounces his own natural culture or heritage or has to copy modern day jewish religious external forms. Nor does it mean that the gentiles replace the Jews in the purposes of God. It does mean that spiritually he has joined himself to the God of Israel and, like Ruth (1:16), has become one of His own people. As spiritual Jews, believers have a Biblical mandate to allow the Holy Spirit to show them the kind of relationships He wants them to have with their "spiritual brothers and sisters," the natural Jewish people.

In my spirit I see a great move of the Holy Spirit among "spiritual Jews" (the Church), as they reach out in love and support to the "natural branches" of God’s Olive Tree (Romans 11:17-20). I see the true testimony of the love and power of the Holy Spirit reaching out in many different ways to the Jewish people. My prayer is that such a testimony, about their long rejected Messiah, coming from a multi-national multi-cultural unified church will so provoke them to spiritual jealousy, that they will, without bias or prejudice, earnestly pray for revelation as they study the scriptures for themselves, to see if the things prophesied about the Messiah are fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth.

As the world turns more and more against Israel, I pray the church will turn more and more toward her Jewish roots and to her bibilical relationship and responsibility to the Jewish people. As the birth pangs of the Messiah increase and Israel faces the moment of her greatest distress, I pray that the testimony she has received from the church will inspire her to fulfill the Scripture that will usher in the return of the Lord. The Jewish people will finally call out to Jesus,

"BARUCH HA BA B’SHEM ADONAI"
"Blessed Is He Who Comes In The Name of the Lord!"