Supersessionism, also called replacement theology, is the idea within Christianity that the church has replaced the people of Israel (the Jewish people) as God’s chosen community. Consequently, the church appropriates Israel’s divine promises and blessings, abrogating any legitimacy of a distinct future for the Jewish people, and the land of Israel, in God’s redemptive plan for the world. Ultimately, supersessionism undermines God’s unique role for the Jewish people as it becomes applied to the church. While some Messianic Jewish and contemporary Christian scholars (and lay people) deem supersessionist theology as not antisemitic in itself,[1] many view an erasure of the Jewish people from God’s overall purposes for the world as inherently antisemitic.

Most Messianic Jewish and Christian scholars agree that certain harsher forms of replacement theology are clearly antisemitic when they try to justify, through the use of biblical texts, God’s permanent rejection of Israel for her sins, condemning her (and Jewish people for all time) for Jesus’ death (Matthew 27:25).[2] This purported rejection of the people of Israel has caused many Christian theologians and societies to view the Jewish people as more sinful than other people groups.[3] Even if some do not perceive replacement theology as innately antisemitic, others maintain it has led to blatantly antisemitic acts throughout history. According to biblical theologian Thomas Ice, “Replacement theology has been the fuel that has energized Medieval anti-Semitism, Eastern European pogroms, the Holocaust and contemporary disdain for the modern state of Israel. . . . Wherever replacement theology has flourished, the Jews have had to run for cover.”[4]

Supersessionism and Biblical Interpretation

Those who recognize Israel’s ongoing relevance tend to uphold a literal approach to scriptural interpretation and denounce replacement theology’s widespread use of allegorical interpretative methods. This “spiritualized” interpretative reading often results in transferring Israel’s calling to the church, and uses biblical passages like Galatians 3:28 (“There is neither Jew nor Greek”), Galatians 6:16 (“The Israel of God”), and Romans 9:6 (“For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel”).[5] While some scholars view the Romans and Galatians texts in a metaphorical sense, many have determined that the majority of scriptures containing the word “Israel” refers to the literal nation of Israel and that assessing otherwise creates a distortion of Scripture.[6]

Scholars who reject a wholehearted allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures underscore the apostle Paul’s adherence to a literal Israel; they see him marking Israel’s distinction from the Gentiles in relation to the new covenant when he continued to refer to himself as Jewish (Galatians 2:15), as an Israelite (Romans 11:1), and as a “Hebrew of Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5), as well as when he exhorted followers of Messiah to remain in their calling (1 Corinthians 7:20) and to bring the gospel “to the Jew first” (Romans 1:16). Additionally, while acknowledging the Hebrew Scriptures speak of a covenant renewal (Jeremiah 31), non-supersessionist Messianic Jews and Christians deny the abrogation of God’s prior eternal covenants with Israel.

Supersessionism and Church History

While supersessionists claim their views arise from Scripture, many Christian scholars attribute the idea of a “new Israel” to the early church fathers who they posit as laying the foundation for replacement theology.[7] They see Justin Martyr in the second century CE as the first to speak of the followers of Jesus as the “true spiritual Israel.”[8] According to these scholars, supersessionism solidified in the fourth century when church leaders merged the Roman Empire with the church and viewed this alliance as the kingdom of God on earth. Walter Kaiser, scholar of the Hebrew Scriptures, asserted that this unification of empire and church “nicely evacuated the role and significance of the Jewish people in any kingdom considerations.”[9]

Also central to supersessionist theology is the transformation of the New Testament’s Greek word for “church,” ekklesia, from its original meaning as “assembly” into one equated with a non-Jewish institution. Its early meaning in the New Testament of a community of mostly Jewish followers of Jesus, along with a growing number of Gentiles, eventually came to signify solely Gentile Christian communities and Gentile Christianity.[10] Thus, the word “church” evolved into a community that no longer expressed itself in two branches (Jewish and Gentile), relinquishing any association with Jewish identity and practice for Jewish followers of Messiah.[11]

The separation of the “church” from its Jewish foundations helped replacement theology endure for two millennia and has presented a formidable obstacle for Jewish people in their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.[12] The historical separation of the two communities also kept Jewish people and Gentile Christians from discussing theology, which further perpetuated replacement theology.[13] The lasting effect led some biblical theologians to testify to an entire structural supersessionism in Christianity where Israel becomes a negligible part of the story of salvation history. R. Kendall Soulen, a professor of systematic theology, sees four main themes in the typical Christian canonical narrative: creation, the fall, redemption, and consummation, which he views as an omission of Israel’s essential role in God’s plan for humankind.[14]

Despite a long history of supersessionism in the church, after the Holocaust and with the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948, many Christian theologians were compelled to rethink their theology—especially the harsher aspects of supersessionism, like the charges of deicide. Today, few church leaders would claim they affirm this theology. Yet many Christian leaders still inadvertently hold to it.

Affirming the Ideal Community of God

The ideal community of God would be to support a unity in diversity that affirms Jewish and Gentile identities “in a spirit of interdependence, mutual blessing, and mutual humbling,”[15] according to David Rudolph, New Testament professor and director of Messianic Jewish Studies at The King’s University. Scholars like Rudolph who are involved in post-supersessionist academic pursuits view the Scriptures as describing not only one community with distinct identities, but they also highlight that non-Jewish followers of Jesus share in Israel’s blessings (Romans 15:27).[16]

Post-supersessionists also uphold God’s faithful character and hope Christians today can reorient their theology to profess that God has not rejected the people of Israel or transferred Israel’s covenants to the church. According to another Messianic Jewish ministry, “The Scriptures contain hundreds of references to God’s enduring love for His people Israel, His eternal and un-cancelled covenant with them, and His commitment to the restoration of the Jewish people.”[17] A post-supersessionist approach sees God’s promises and covenants with Israel as eternal and renewed (Jeremiah 31:31–37). It also agrees with the apostle Paul on the irrevocability of God’s gifts and calling to the people of Israel (Romans 11:29), and warnings against arrogance toward the Jewish people (Romans 11:18).

Recommendations for Challenging Supersessionism

Post-supersessionist scholar Soulen recommends some steps Christians today can take to challenge replacement theology and thus overcome the antisemitism often contained within it. He encourages Christians to start by recognizing and repudiating supersessionism, then to consider fresh ways of thinking about the fundamental ideas of the Christian faith (the doctrines of God, Jesus, the church, the end times), and also to envision a new way of describing the narrative of the Bible that would value the centrality of Israel to that story.[18] For example, in John’s vision in the book of Revelation, Soulen sees a cosmic and a historical dimension to God’s work. The cosmic relates to God’s creation of a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1), and “the historical dimension concerns God’s definitive fulfillment of God’s promise to bless Israel and, in Israel, all the peoples of the earth (Revelation 21:3).”[19] Once the church acknowledges both dimensions exist in the Scriptures, Israel’s role will be re-vivified in Christian theology with the positive result of reducing any antisemitic beliefs, behavior, and tenor in the church.