What is Replacement Theology?

by Jesma O'Hara

The scourge of Replacement Theology has been with the church for nearly two thousand years.  During this time it has been responsible for the deaths of many tens of thousands of Jewish people, at the hands of those who would call themselves followers of Jesus.  It has also been a great offence to our Jewish brothers and sisters who have been robbed of their identity, their Scriptures and their future with the Almighty God through its teachings.

The Apostle Paul obviously saw the beginnings of this false doctrine when he wrote to the Gentile believers in Rome in about 57AD…

In that case, I say, isn’t it that God has repudiated his people?  Heaven forbid!  For I myself am a son of Israel, from the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.  God has not repudiated His people, whom He chose  in Advance.  [Romans 11:1-2]

Now if the challah [loaf] offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole loaf.  And if the root is holy, so are the branches.  But if some of the branches were broken off, and you – a wild olive – were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree, then don’t boast as if you were better than the branches!  However, if you do boast, remember that you are not supporting the root, the root is supporting you! [Romans 11:16-18]

For brothers, I want you to understand this truth which God formerly concealed but has now revealed, so that you won’t imagine that you know more than you actually do. It is that stoniness, to a degree, has come upon Israel, until the Gentile world enters its fullness, and that it is in this way that all Israel will be saved… [vs.25-26] for God’s free gifts and His calling are irrevocable.  [vs.29]

The early church was Jewish, a sect of first century Judaism, following the Hebrew Scriptures, [the Old Testament], keeping the biblical feasts and going to the Temple, seeing in all of these their fulfilment in Yeshua, the Messiah.  After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, there came the beginnings of the parting of the ways.  Jewish New Testament Scholar David Flusser has suggested that modern Christianity and modern Judaism are, in fact, sisters, with biblical ancient Judaism their mother.  Certainly this sense can be found in Paul’s words in Romans 11:18 when he reminds the young Gentile church that they are supported by the root [biblical Judaism].  The sense of the word support comes from the idea of a womb from which nourishment and protection comes.

We need to gain some understanding of what transpired to cause the parting of the ways if we are to understand the emergence of Replacement Theology and the tragic effect it has had on Christian/Jewish relations, and, more importantly, the effect it has had on how Jewish people perceive Yeshua, their brother.

We have already stated that the early church was Jewish, as were Yeshua and his disciples.  They were joined to biblical Judaism and Yeshua’s coming was seen as the fulfilment of the Messianic expectations of the first century followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Acts 2:47 tells us that they had the respect of all of the people and God kept adding to them those who were being saved.

In Acts 21:20, the elders of the Jerusalem Messianic Community tell Paul, You see brother, how many tens of thousands of believers there are among the Judeans and they are all zealots for the Torah.

This state of affairs continued until the beginning of the First Jewish revolt in 66 AD.  The might of Rome was pitted against the Jewish desire to be free from the yoke of bondage.  In 70 AD, after an horrific siege in which many of the citizens of Jerusalem starved to death, the roman General Titus broke through the walls, setting fire to the city and destroying the Temple.

The believers in Jerusalem, seeing the events unfolding before them as fulfilment of the words of Yeshua in Luke 21 and Matthew 24, escaped to Pella in modern day Jordan and so escaped the destruction of the city as Yeshua’s words came to pass in horrifying detail.

At the same time, Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zachai escaped the city and established a centre for Rabbinic Judaism at Yavne.  Pharisaic Judaism developed there over the next centuries and became the forerunner of modern Judaism.  So, at the same time that Christianity was moving out from Jerusalem and defining itself as it spread to the Gentile nations, Judaism without the Temple was also redefining itself, as Jews took their faith with them, into exile amongst the nations.  Both were actively seeking converts at this stage so the two sisters were, in a sense, in competition with each other.

Some of the believers returned to Jerusalem, and the Messianic community there was led by members of Yeshua’s family until about
110 AD, with the era of Jewish leadership ending by 135 AD.  By 49-50 Ad, there were estimated to have been at least 50,000 Jewish believers in Jerusalem and by the end of the first century, approximately 1 million throughout the Mediterranean region.

The cracks which had begun to appear in relationships between the Jewish believers and the leaders of the Jewish community began to widen at this time, with the first suggestions that the believers were, in fact, traitors.  Judaism, which had previously been able to accommodate the varying beliefs of the different groups, including the Jewish believers of Nazarenes, now closed ranks in an effort to redefine itself without the Temple.

Over the next several hundred years, decisions were made concerning the finalisation of the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures [the Old Testament] and the Oral Torah was written down to comprise the Talmud.

During the same period, the canon for the New Testament was set, and the early church fathers were developing church doctrine.  The two sisters were following parallel roads as the Jews were going out into the nations taking their more portable faith with them, while their Christian sister was also taking Christianity to the nations.  The Jews who remained faithful to Judaism went out with an expectation of a Messiah yet to come, while her Christian sister went out with an expectation of a Messiah who would come again.

The cutting off of both sisters from their physical, [in the case of physical Israel] and spiritual [physical Israel and the church, consisting of Jewish and Gentile believers] roots in the Promised land, was completed following the Second Jewish revolt in 135 AD.

The Second Revolt was led by a charismatic figure named Bar Kochba, who was particularly vicious in his treatment of the followers of Yeshua.  This no doubt soured the relationship between believer and non-believer even more.  Gentile believers did not want to antagonise the Romans unnecessarily so separated themselves from Bar Kochba, but when the esteemed Rabbi Akiva proclaimed Bar Kochba the Messiah, the Jewish believers could no longer identify with this fight for freedom so the schism was complete.

When Emperor Hadrian swept into Jerusalem in 135 AD, he was determined to deal with the Jewish nuisance once and for all.  As stated previously, his modus operandi was to have far reaching effects, both physically and spiritually, for Israel and the church.

Recognising that the Jewish people were joined in covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the Land of Israel, and Jerusalem held special significance for them, Hadrian changed the name Judea, which meant praise to God, [from Judah], to Palestina.  Palestine comes from the name Philistine, and it was the Philistines who were the old enemies, not only of Israel, but of the God of Israel and His rule.  The implications of this name change have far reaching ramifications right down to the present day, as the Palestinian people seek to establish a state of Palestine in Judea/Samaria.  [See Ezekiel 36 for God’s Word on the ownership of the mountains of Israel – Judea/Samaria]

He also changed Jerusalem, Foundation of Peace, the city where God has chosen to place His name, mentioned some 800 times throughout Scripture, to Aelia Capitolina, and forbade all Jews, including the followers of Yeshua, from entering there.  By these two acts he challenged the lordship of the Almighty God over the earth as he made judgements concerning the only parcel of land God has called His Land, and the only city where God says he has chosen to place

His Name.  since Jews were barred from Jerusalem, Rome, with its pagan Babylonian heritage, became the centre of Christendom

His next attack was on God’s Word as he forbade the study of Torah, circumcision and the observance of Shabbat and the other biblical feasts.

As the Jews, including the followers of Yeshua, were uprooted from their land, and their biblical heritage, they were cast adrift among the Gentile nations and it would be nearly 2000 years before they would begin to return from all the nations on the face of the earth.  At the same time the church was severed from its spiritual roots with the following developments…

1. As previously mentioned, Rome, with its pagan heritage became the centre of Christendom.

2. The study of the Word of God, by the lay person, so much encouraged in Pharisaic Judaism, was left to the clerics.  While the Hebrew Scriptures, and the New Testament were written in the language of the everyday people, eventually they were only reproduced in Latin, and, as the church spread, most people couldn’t read them, and had no access to copies of the Scriptures anyway.

3. The outlawing of the observance of Shabbat and the other biblical feast times [Leviticus 23], opened the door for an attack on the Word of God, and the doctrines of men and tradition began to replace Scripture.  This was the very thing that Yeshua had castigated the Pharisees about, telling them that they had replaced the Word of God with the doctrines of men.  [Mark 7:8-13]  The Scriptures were interpreted by men like Origen and Augustine, who had been schooled, not in the world of Hebraic biblical thought, but in Greek Philosophy.  The observance of the biblical feasts began to be replaced, over time, with pagan festivals and the observance of Christmas and Easter became part of Christian tradition.
   
   
4. Just as circumcision, a sign of the covenant relationship between God and Israel, was outlawed, so, in time, people entered the church, not through circumcision of the heart [Jeremiah 31:31; Romans 2:28-29; Colossians 2:11], but by becoming members of an institution.
   
   
5. Yeshua’s name, which, in a sense, identified him with his Jewish brothers and sisters, and even more than that, was a proclamation of his calling, since it means ‘Yahweh’s salvation’, was changed to the Gentile Jesus.  In the same way, God’s Name, ‘Yahweh’, was also lost.  The Jews had stopped using it before Yeshua’s time, out of fear of profaning it, and the words Adonai [Lord] or HaShem [the Name] had replaced it.  Christians came to use the name God, which isn’t really a name at all, or Jehovah, which came from a monk’s lack of understanding of Hebraic thought.  He tried to combine the consonants which make up Yahweh with the vowels from Adonai and came up with Jehovah, which simply doesn’t exist in Hebrew at all.

I sometimes feel quite sorry for Yeshua and the Almighty, as they have been robbed of their names.  God said, in His word, “By this Name will I be called for all eternity, but we changed it.  And the angel Gabrielle was given the mission of proclaiming the name of Yeshua, but we also changed that. [Exodus 3:15; Matthew 1:21]  On the other hand, perhaps it is the grace of God, that these names have been hidden until the time of the restoration of all things.  Many people use the names “God”, and “Jesus Christ” as swear words, which is literally taking the Lord’s Name in vain, but no one uses the names “Yahweh” or “Yeshua the Messiah”, as swear words, thus their names are protected, along with the people who would profane them.

By the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine had set in concrete what Hadrian the pagan emperor had begun.  He delivered edicts which made Sunday the day of Christian worship, replacing Saturday, the day ordained by the Lord in Genesis 2,  [See the ‘Biblical Feasts of Israel’ for further study on this] and he also made laws which denigrated the Jewish people.

THE CUTTING OFF FROM THE ROOT

The Apostle Paul, who called himself a Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, was obviously very aware of what was to happen between Jewish and Gentile believers as he wrote to the Gentile believers who made up the church in Rome, around 57 AD

Now if the challah [loaf] offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole loaf.  And if the root is holy, so are the branches.  But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive, were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree, then don’t boast as if you were better than the branches!  However, if you do boast, remember that you are not supporting the rood, the root is supporting you.  [Romans 11:16-18]

Sadly, this was the very scenario which began to be played out in Christian relations with the Jewish people, right down to the present day.  The Hebrew root from which the word ‘support’ comes, means ‘to bear’, ‘carry’, ‘lift up’, and is used in the sense of a womb that bears a child, providing nourishment and life support.  In this sense, the one receiving the nourishment is dependant on the one giving the support.

At the same time as the Jewish people were severed physically from their roots in the Land, and with the city of Jerusalem, Christianity was, in a sense, severed spiritually from its biblical Hebrew roots, with some far reaching consequences.

The Jewish believers, known as Nazarenes, who continued, despite all that was happening, to circumcise their children, observe Torah, seeing in its tenets, the wonderful fulfilment in Yeshua, and to keep the biblical feasts of God’s Appointed Times, were finally excluded from a Judaism which was endeavouring to strengthen itself and create a new and durable identity.  Tragically, they also came to be excluded from Christian circles which were now increasingly made up of Gentiles with no understanding of their heritage, and they were persecuted on both sides.

The Jewish people, without an open dialogue and relationship with the Jewish believers, came to see Christianity as a pagan, apostate faith, because of the introduction of rituals and concepts which at times had their roots, not in biblical Hebraisms, but in pagan practise and Greek philosophy.  The statues which began to creep into church buildings and the abandonment of God’s Appointed Times added to this belief.

The increasingly Gentile church, on the other hand, came to see the Jewish believers as heretics who were bound by the ‘Law’ and the Nazarenes, who unfortunately were the one group who could have saved Christendom from error, because of their understanding of the roots of the faith, and their adherence to the lifestyle of Yeshua and the apostles, disappeared.

Rick Joyner makes an interesting statement concerning the importance of Jewish input into the Gospel message in his book, ‘The Harvest’

The apostle Paul made an astonishing statement in Romans 11:28, ‘from the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake’.   It is important for the church to understand that the Jews are indeed enemies of the gospel, but for our sake.  The Lord has made the Jew the greatest test of whether or not we are preaching a true gospel.  Only the true gospel will move the Jews to jealousy as it was commissioned to do.  The ability of our gospel to move the Jew is the acid test meant to determine if we are preaching the undiluted truth.
The Jewish mission to be enemies of the gospel was a reason for their dispersion to all nations – so that they would be there to confront and challenge the message wherever it was preached, in order to force its purity.  Though it is important to win the weak and downtrodden, it is not difficult to get a decision out of a drunk in the gutter, the homeless, or the spent and disoriented prostitute.  If you really want to find out if you have the goods or not confront the Jew with your gospel.  The Lord commanded the gospel to be preached to the Jew first, not because of favouritism, but because of the special challenge they present which is meant to make us dig deeper into the wells of salvation

The conflict between the Jews and the gospel are meant to challenge the church to find the answers to the questions that will encompass the ultimate issues of the end times.  This is why Paul made the issue of the Jew being grafted back in a centrepiece of his greatest theological discourse – The Book of Romans.  When the apostolic ministry has been fully restored so will the apostolic message concerning Israel be restored.  With this illumination a much greater understanding of the Lord’s entire last day plan will come with such clarity that great boldness will come upon the church to prepare and move into those purposes.

The purposes of the earthly and heavenly seeds of Abraham have set them on a collision course for this time so that neither can fulfil their calling without the other.  This revelation will meet with great opposition for a time, but at the right time the scales will fall from the eyes of the church and Israel on this issue.  The eschatology of the church will remain veiled and controversial until that time.  It is the consummation of the age when spiritual Israel and natural Israel become one in Christ.

 In this passage Joyner sees very clearly that Israel has a role to play in ‘keeping the church on track’, but tragically the church fell into the trap Paul had warned the Romans about, and became arrogant, severing itself from its familial roots and forgetting that Paul, in the same chapter, had said…

For, brothers, I want you to understand this truth which God formerly concealed but has now been revealed, so that you won’t imagine you know more than you actually do.  It is that stoniness, to a degree, has come upon Israel, until the Gentile world enters its fullness, and that it is in this way that all Israel will be saved.  As the Tanakh says,

       Out of Tzion will come a Redeemer;
       He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob
       And this will be my covenant with them….
       When I take away their sins. [Isaiah 59:20-21;27-29]

With respect to the Good News they are hated for your sake.  But with respect to being chosen they are loved for the Patriarchs’ sake, for God’s free gifts and His calling are irrevocable. [Romans 11:25-29]

THE EMERGENCE OF REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY

The exclusion of Jewish believers from Christendom and the triumphalism of the church following Constantine’s decision to make Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire contributed to the severing from the root, as did the belief that the destruction of the Temple by the Romans was a sign of God’s displeasure with the Jewish people, but it was the development of church doctrine by the early church fathers, whose understanding was based, not on a knowledge of God’s dealings with His covenant people, and His Word, but on Greek philosophy, which dealt the final blow to the relationship between the two sisters.

We will now take time to examine some of the writings of the early church fathers as we look at the development of the idea that the church had replaced Israel as the chosen of God, and that the Hebrew Scriptures were no longer valid except where they spoke of blessing and cursing… the blessings in this case were taken by the church, and the curses were left for the Jews.  The Torah, or Law, had been fulfilled in Yeshua and was of no further use to the now primarily Gentile church.  The following are just some of the ideas which crept into church doctrine in the church’s first 400 years.

1. CHANGING OF GOD’S APPOINTED TIMES

As has been previously mentioned in some detail, the early church met on Shabbat and kept the Appointed Times mentioned in Leviticus 23.  In his writings in the second century, Polycarp, who was later martyred for his faith, says that he and his followers kept the feast of Passover, because they must obey God rather than man.  Polycarp’s followers were finally excommunicated by Pope Victor.  In the same period, Eusebius writes of the separation of Passover and Easter and it became a heresy, punishable by excommunication, to celebrate the death and resurrection of Yeshua at the same time as the Jewish Passover.  Constantine actually said that it would be a shame for the two to be celebrated at the same time.  By the fourth century, Easter [a fertility festival in honour of the goddess Ishtar] had officially replaced Passover as the Christian celebration.

In the fourth century the Council of Nicea convened by Constantine changed the dates of religious festivals from biblical dates to pagan festivals and told Christians never to attend ‘Jewish sacrileges’.

Thomas Aquinas wrote that the observance of the Lord’s Day took over the place of the observance of Shabbat, not by virtue of the biblical precept but by the institution of the church.  The Doctrinal Catechism contains the following statements:

“Question:  Have you any way of proving that the church has the power to institute festivals of precept?  Answer:  Had she not such power she could not have done that which in all modern religionists agree with her; she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week, a change for which there is no scriptural authority.”

Sylvester, bishop of Rome from 314 to 337 AD, officially changed the title of the first day of the week, Sunday, calling it the Lord’s Day, while Constantine issued a decree in 321 that: “All judges, city people and craftsmen shall rest on the venerable day of the Sun.”  Constantine not only changed the day, but he also changed the biblical precept that it was to be a day of rest for everyone, since the decree gave farmers and those with urgent legal petitions the right to continue on with their work.  The Scriptures, on the other hand, decreed that everyone, including non Jewish slaves and servants, as well as animals, should have a day of rest. [Exodus 20:8-11]

2. DEICIDE

One of the third centuries most esteemed theologians, Hippolytus, who was later canonised, developed the doctrine of deicide, the charge that the Jews killed God.  This doctrine had no scriptural basis and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Jewish people by so called Christians who believed that they were pleasing God.  No mention was made of Yeshua’s words that…

No one takes my life from me.  I lay it down of my own free will. [John 10:17]or Father forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing. [Luke 23:34]

These words were spoken not only concerning the Jewish people, but also the Romans who crucified him, since he was dying for all human beings – both Jew and Gentile.  Without an understanding of the roots of their faith, these Christians could not recognise that Yeshua’s death, burial and resurrection were all fulfilments of the Feast of Passover.

A 19th century German Jewish writer made the comment “How strange!  The very people who have given the world a God and whose whole life was inspired by devotion to God, were stigmatised as deicides”.

3. THE ‘DEMONISATION’ OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

In his letter to Augustine, Jerome states that, in his opinion Jewish believers were neither Jews nor Christians;  Origen believed that Yeshua’s blood was on all the Jewish people alive at the time of his death, and on all Jews since that time;  according to Augustine, the only purpose for the Jewish people after Yeshua was as a reminder of the plight of those who reject God; and he also taught that they were sons of God who had become sons of Satan.

Eusebius taught, quite seriously, that Christianity was older and more superior than Judaism; ‘Hebrews’ were the most ancient people in the world and their religion was based on Greek philosophy; they were neither Jew nor Gentile; they were Christians from the beginning; The Patriarchs, Moses and Yeshua were not Jewish, but Christian.

Justin Martyr wrote, in his ‘Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew’ that it is right for the Jews to suffer because they killed Yeshua and the Prophets and now reject Christians.  In the third century Origen also wrote that the Jews were a wicked people who suffered for killing Yeshua.

Towards the end of the fourth century, John Chrysostom, bishop of Antioch, upset because Christians were attending synagogue to gain understanding of their roots, wrote eight sermons vilifying the Jews and accusing them of killing Christ.  Below is an excerpt from a sermon by a man called by the church, “St John of the Golden Tongue”.

Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one.  This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion… the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theatre; it is also a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts.   When God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons… The Jews live for their bellies, they gape for the things of this world, their condition is no better than that of pigs or goats because of their wanton ways and excessive gluttony.  They know but one thing: to fill their bellies and be drunk.

With such rhetoric as this coming from the lips of the esteemed fathers of the church, it is no wonder that the Jewish people were vilified and persecuted over the centuries by those moving under the sign and authority of the cross.  The anti Semitism which resulted from the writings of these men led to a whole new way of looking at Scripture, and once again, the church was the poorer because the Jewish believers who might have challenged the correctness of this new approach, had been excluded from the church, and new believers coming to faith, did so with the understanding that they must reject their Jewish heritage.

4. THE CHURCH BECOMES THE ‘NEW ISRAEL’

As the Jews were cast more and more in the role of enemy of the church, the problem arose concerning what to do with the ‘Old Testament’, which was, after all, a Jewish book.  In these early days it sadly did not occur to these esteemed church leaders that the New Testament was also a Jewish book.  They chose to ignore Paul’s words in Romans 9:4-5…..

The people of Israel!  They were made God’s children, the Sh’khinah has been with them, the covenants are theirs, likewise the giving of the Torah, the Temple service and the promises, the Patriarchs are theirs; and from them, as far as his physical descent is concerned, came the Messiah, who is over all.  Praised be Adonai forever!  Amen.

In about 138 AD a man named Marcion appeared on the scene who opposed all things Jewish.  He wanted the Old Testament removed from the canon of Scripture and taught that the god of the Hebrew Scriptures was a Demiurge, a god of battles and sacrifices, as opposed to the God of the New Testament, who was a God of love.  While Marcion was excommunicated in 144 AD the legacy of his teachings remained with the church through the belief that the New Testament was somehow superior, and had superseded the old.

In response, men like Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine, who each played important roles in shaping church doctrine, began to use allegory, or the spiritualisation of Scripture, to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures.  In their thinking, Israel became the church, and Jerusalem, and Zion also came to refer to the church.  Such spiritualisation is dangerous and has resulted in much wrong theology throughout church history.  The results can even be seen in the headings used in some bible translations which take Scriptures obviously pertaining to Israel and try to make them fit the church.  For example, one translation heads Isaiah 30, a prophecy about God’s blessing of Israel and Jerusalem, with the caption, ‘God’s mercies towards His church’.  Isaiah 44, with its words of comfort for Israel, is captioned, ‘The church comforted’.

These men created the theology which has come to be know as Replacement Theology, and in doing so, they effectively dehumanised or robbed the Jewish people of their identity.  History has shown that once you rob anyone of their identity, you can do whatever you want with them, and so, with the advent of Replacement theology came Christian ant- Semitism.

6. CHRISTIAN ANTI SEMITISM

As the church came to prominence and power following Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as the official religion of his empire, so the Jewish people at the same time were robbed of their Scriptures, their covenants and their identity as God’s chosen people.  This led to a most shameful chapter in church history, and as one Jewish scholar has put it so succinctly, “The very chapters which are underlined in Jewish history books have been erased from Christian ones.”

A whole volume of books would not be sufficient to chronicle all of the atrocities committed against the Jewish people in the name of Christianity from the early years of the church up until the present day, but we will detail just a few, keeping in mind the words of Dr. Vernon Grounds in Christianity Today, “Evangelicals are rightly exhorted to ponder the heartbreaking pages of Israel’s tragic saga; realise that it is Christianity which at bottom has been primarily, or at any rate largely, responsible for the centuries long persecution that reached its nadir in the Nazis’ ghastly final solution of the Jewish problem”

The Crusaders, encouraged by church leaders to free the Holy Land from the Infidel Moslems, from the 11th century to the 13th century, were told not to wait until they got to the Holy Land but to avenge themselves on those who had crucified Jesus along the way.  Many Jewish communities which had existed in the Rhineland were destroyed along the way in the name of Jesus.

When the Crusaders reached Jerusalem they herded Muslim men, women and children onto the Temple Mount and murdered them, then locked the Jews in their synagogue to be burnt alive.  They then marched through the knee deep blood of their victims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to thank God for His blessing.  Acts like this,

Etched into Jewish and Muslim memory, make the claims of the Gospel sound very hollow in the ears of the descendants of those murdered.

In 1215 the church held its Fourth Lateran Council in which it decreed that all Jews had to wear a distinguishing mark on their clothing, thus distinguishing them by what they wore, along with lepers and prostitutes.  Centuries later Hitler was to gain inspiration for his Nuremberg laws from this council and its anti Jewish decrees.

In 1253 in England the church ruled that synagogue worship must not be audible to Christians.  By 1280 all Jews had to listen to sermons, wear a distinguishing badge and tithe to the church.  The next step of course was expulsion and this happened in 1290 when all Jews were expelled, unable to return until the 17th century when the Puritans, who had an understanding of God’s love for His people, allowed them to come back.

In the Middle Ages Spain, which until then had been something of a haven for the Jewish people, began its Inquisition in a desire to purge the country of heretics.  The Jews of Spain were wealthy, educated and cultured.  They had contributed much to the national life of the country for hundreds of years, producing the finest scholars, physicians, merchants and financiers.  All of this was to change with the Inquisition.  Whole communities were wiped out, with at least 14,000 Jews burnt at the stake during one twenty year period.  In 1492, the year Columbus set sail for America, all Jews were expelled from Spain.  Many historians set the date for the beginning of Spain’s decline as a world power at 1492..  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. [Genesis 12:1-3]

In 1516 the first ghetto was established in Venice at the suggestion of the Pope in an attempt to segregate the ‘sub human’ Jews from the Christians.  Centuries later David Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel, said, ‘The outlook of the ghetto divided the universe in two, this world for the Gentiles, and the hereafter for the Jews.’

Throughout eastern Europe the Jews were subjected to much unreasoning persecution and suffering.  They were taxed double the amount that Christians were expected to pay and were forced to live in restricted areas known as the Pale of Settlement.  In 1563 Russian Jews who refused baptism were drowned.

In 1881 Czar Alexander the Second conferred with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in an effort to solve ‘The Jewish Problem’.  Their solution – half would be baptised and half starved to death!  Dreadful pogroms [meaning attack and massacre] broke out, resulting in much loss of life and destruction of Jewish property.  Sadly, many of these occurred on Christian Holydays such as Christmas and Easter when angry mobs would sweep through the towns and villages shouting “Christ killers!”

The Russian government told a horrified world that they were the result of ‘the harmful consequences of the economic activity of the Jews on the Christian population!’

During this period allegations of blood libel – the charge that Jews murdered Christian children and used their blood in the Passover Matzah [unleavened bread] were raised again and again, inciting people to more acts of violence.

David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain, said of these mindless attacks, ‘How utterly devoid of reason it is may be gathered from the fact that it is almost entirely confined to nations who worship Jewish prophets and apostles, revere the national literature of the Hebrews as the only inspired message delivered by the Deity to mankind and Whose hope of salvation rests on the precepts and promises of the great teachers of Judah.’

It is a tragic fact, born out by a study of history, that wherever the church took the message of the Gospel, it also took the message of anti Semitism which found fertile soil in which to put down its roots in the understanding of hitherto pagan people who had a fear and mistrust of anyone different from themselves.  The Jewish people were the only unconverted group in Christian Europe and, as such, were a continual embarrassment to a church that believed itself to be the New Israel.

The Holocaust did not ‘just happen’/  It was only able to flourish because hatred and mistrust of the Jew had been imbedded in the national consciousness of the people through centuries of teaching by the church.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, ‘Hence today I believe I am acting in accordance with the Almighty by defending myself against the Jew.  I am fighting for the work of the Lord.’

The anti Semitism which reached its zenith under Hitler had its beginnings in church teaching which said:

“You have no right to live as Jews”,
The state took up the cry and said,
“You have no right to live as Jews among us”,
Hitler completed the picture when he said,
“YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIVE!”

The Christian roots of the Holocaust must not be denied by Christians serious about restoring the relationship between the church and the Jewish people.  The defence attorney at the trial of John Demjanjuk [accused of being Ivan the Terrible] said, ‘The Holocaust was the work of Christians and the fulfilment of Christianity’.

Franklin Littell, Methodist minister from the Department of Religion at Temple University, suggests that the Holocaust is the most important theological event for Christianity in the twentieth century because the church must now grapple with the dilemma of establishing Christian integrity while coming to terms with the Christian background of Nazi anti Semitism.

In the context of our study here, we must see that centuries of Christian anti Semitism which culminated in the Holocaust, began when the church severed itself from its biblical Hebraic roots.  Spiritually this severance led the church into that period which is known as the Dark Ages.

THE DARK AGES

In his book, The Rebirth and Restoration of Israel, Murray Dixon writes about this descent into the Dark Ages….

The church entered a dark age for about 1000 years after which God in His mercy began a process of restoration with the Reformation.  The seeds sown in these centuries brought forth a bitter harvest.  From this experience we learn the truth of God’s covenant with Abraham…
“I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” [Genesis 12:1-3]

As the young church was cut off from its roots, it was not unlike a young teenager, who, convinced that he can learn nothing from his Parents, sets out to ‘discover his own identity’ and make his own way in the world.  If that young person had only remembered the biblical injunction to ‘Honour your father and mother and all will be well with you’, he would have saved himself and his parents a lot of heartache and been prevented from making wrong decisions.  So it was with the young church which had been birthed out of the womb of Jewish faith and belief.  It took its parent’s identity but refused to give honour and respect to the one who had given it birth and, rejecting its heritage and family roots, it preferred to cast itself adrift in a sea of pagan beliefs and customs.  A right relationship with its parent would have saved the church from 1000 years of darkness, a darkness that is being dispelled in this Day of Restoration.

Without an understanding of its roots, over the centuries the church absorbed much that was not biblical.  These additives include:

The church during this period also became extremely political and many wars were fought and people lost their lives in the name of Christianity.  How different the story would have been if the church had remained attached to its biblical roots.

CONCLUSION

The church’s severance from its roots caused, as has been seen, a number of problems, some of which have been listed on the previous pages.  The adopting of Replacement Theology as a doctrine of much of the church has had far reaching effects for both the church and the Jewish people.

For the church, the result has been the acceptance of wrong doctrine and ignorance of one of the great messages of Scripture, God’s heart for His Land, the Land of Israel, His city, the city of Jerusalem, and His still chosen people, the Jewish people.  This ignorance has led to the persecution of the Jewish people down through the ages in the name of their brother, Yeshua.

For the Jewish people, Christian anti Semitism caused by the acceptance of Replacement Theology by many in the church has resulted in the deaths of many of their people and culminated in the horror of the Holocaust.  It has been virtually impossible for them to recognise Yeshua their brother in a church which has claimed to be made up of his followers, yet has robbed them of their Scriptures, their blessing as God’s Chosen People, and their identity, stealing their heritage.

It is time for the church to humble itself, recognise and repent of past wrongs and to be part of the reconciliation which must take place before the restoration of all things and the coming of Messiah, an event which will join both Jew and Gentile together as one in worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Thus said the Lord of Hosts: Peoples and the inhabitants of many cities shall yet come – the inhabitants of one shall go to the other and say, Let us entreat the favour of the Lord, let us seek the Lord of Hosts; I will go too.  The many peoples and the multitude of nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favour of the Lord.  This said the Lord of Hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every tongue will take hold – they will take hold of every Jew by a corner of his cloak and say, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” [Zechariah 8:20-23]

Introducing John & Jesma O'Hara John, a businessman & Jesma have five children, and two grandchildren, Isabella and Asher. Both serve on the Eldership of Hesed Fellowship and are board members of International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, Australian Branch and Jesma has also been the Editor of their magazine for the past 12 years. Hesed Ministries is involved in supporting a number of projects : Field workers in Israel, Orr Shalom Children's Homes, Kesher Friends of WIZO and Mercy International in Thailand. They also support orphanages and schools for AIDS affected children in Malawi and Kenya. Jesma is Chairman of the Board of Nambour Christian College, co-educational inter-denominational college of over 1200 students, from preschool to year 12. They are also the Australian Representatives of Orr Shalom Children�s Homes. Jesma's Qualifications Masters in Early Judaism and Early Christianity. B A major in Religious Studies Studied in Jerusalem at AMI Jerusalem Centre For Biblical Studies and Research and Educator�s From Abroad Study Course at Yad VaShem.