God has not replaced Israel.

Gotta add some to my last post about God not having cast aside Israel.

I come up against people who are replacement theologists from time to time, and it is almost ridiculous when they say they are not, but then talk about the church being Israel.

In the first place, it shows that they have a faulty understanding of what a church is in the Bible, because the obvious question to ask is "Which church is Israel now?"

But it is not funny when these people say they are not one thing, but then teach what they say they are not.

For when someone actually says something like "Israel AKA the church", there can be no doubt what they are teaching, and it is simply not biblical.

It is like the Calvinist who comes and says they are not a Calvinist but then start arguing about Calvin's five points.
If someone is trying to deceive then OF COURSE they are going to deny it when someone calls them on it.

I have a few questions for the replacement theologist though:
Which time that Israel left off following God and turned to idols was the last straw?
For there is time after time recorded in God's Word where the Children of Israel left off from following the Lord - the book of Judges alone is littered with such times.
And yet in all of that, the Lord did not forsake them.

So what was the straw that broke the camels back and caused God to utterly reject the nation that He called to be His own people?

As well as that, why is it that Paul speaks of the gentiles, the Jews, and the church, all in the same breath if the Israel is now the church?
No Israel is not the church and never will be.
Where Paul says there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek it is in the matter of salvation, not the matter of existence.

And also, in the book of Relvelation where it names the tribes from which the 144000 come - how can this be anything other than a reference to a literal Israel in the future time?

And here we come up to a critical point of thought - Replacement theologists are almost universally post or a-millenial. They reject the future context for the book of Revelation, and they MUST DO or else they have to acknowledge that God will still use Israel in the future.

Funny how all of these things fit together.
They want to take the promises that God gave to Israel for themselves, so they have to twist their theology into a pretzel to find ways to make it fit.
But like a child with a lie, they quickly realise that their decision has consequences and so the child has to lie more and more to cover their first lie - so also these men have to change more and more of Scripture to make it fit their first wish to get God's blessings for themselves.

I shake my head at the arguments that they make up - yes make up - in order to "prove" their points.

I would laugh, but they deceive some and cause some to doubt, and lead many to destruction.