This article was originally published by The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
During one of my trips to Israel, as I was looking around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I noticed a peculiar mural on one of the walls. Though dimly lit, I could just make out the ancient image of Jesus stretched out on the cross, the man who crucified him sitting by His head. The scene itself was not unusual, considering its location. What was shocking to me was that the man with hammer and spike in hand was not a Roman soldier, as the Scriptures record, but a Jewish man. Such a depiction in such a place serves as a stark reminder of the often subtle, yet strong animosity that has pervaded the church’s history and its theology throughout the ages, the present-day included. When talking to those who hold to Replacement Theology, however, we are often accused of creating a strawman, a false argument set up to be defeated. We are told that Replacement Theology is not anti-Semitic and that the term Replacement Theology is a misnomer that does not accurately represent their views. Fulfillment Theology or Supersessionism are more accurate terms, we are told. While it should be admitted that many of those who hold to Replacement Theology today are not anti-Semites, history proves that anti-Semitism was indeed a major motivation in the formation of Replacement Theology as a system of thought. Many of the early Gentile church fathers, such as Dionysius, thought that the literal understanding of Scripture, especially concerning the Messianic Kingdom, was “too Jewish,” so they began interpreting Scripture allegorically, denying the traditional literal interpretation that Old Testament Jewish believers and the early church had held to for centuries. For example, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, in his Testimonies Against the Jews, wrote that he “endeavored to show that the Jews, according to what had before been foretold, had departed from God, and had lost God’s favour, which had been given them in past time, and had been promised them for the future; while the Christians had succeeded to their place, deserving well of the Lord by faith, and coming out of all nations and from the whole world” (emphasis mine). Armed with this new way of interpreting Scripture and the deep-seated anti-Semitism many of its leaders held to, the church soon began pushing the nation of Israel off of is divinely-ordained “seat,” and started viewing itself as the “True Israel,” which took the place of “ethnic Israel” of the Old Testament, the majority of whom had rejected Jesus as their Messiah. In his work, Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher & Martyr, with Trypho, the early church father Justin Martyr wrote “We, who have been quarried out from the bowels of Christ, are the true Israelitic race.” While many such men contributed to the unseating of Jacob, it can be argued that personal and theological views of no single person caused so much destruction for the Jewish people as did those of Martin Luther. Luther originally looked upon the Jewish people kindly. In 1523, he penned That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, a tract in which he criticizes some within the Roman Catholic Church for their anti-Semitic views and for trying to force Jewish people to convert to Christianity. “If I had been a Jew,” he wrote, “and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian.” His views devolved, however, after unsuccessful attempts to gently share the gospel with the Jewish people over a 20-year period. By 1543, his rather benevolent attitude toward Israel had turned downright anti-Semitic. In his pamphlet, The Jews and Their Lies, Luther made caustic remarks about the Chosen People of God: “What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?” he wrote. “First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.” Luther went on to advocate the destruction of Jewish homes and of Talmuds, forbidding their rabbis to teach anymore, limiting their travel, and forcing them into hard labor. Such scathing remarks sound eerily similar to those of another German anti-Semite of a more recent age. Indeed, Adolf Hitler frequently quoted the revered Luther’s comments on the Jewish people, paving the haunting road to Holocaust. With the sun setting on the last remaining survivors of Hitler’s so-called “Final Solution,” and as another generation of Jewish people is facing the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout the world, may the phrase “Never Again” be the declaration not only of opposition to another Jewish genocide, but also of the church’s resolve never again to turn on those the Messiah calls His “brethren.” Comments are closed.
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