Replacement Theology Isn’t a Dispensational Myth

Did Dispensationalists Coin the Term “Replacement Theology”?

Dispensationalists have often been accused of inventing the word “replacement theology” or “supersessionism” as a slur against covenantalists in an attempt to undercut their views on Israel & the Church—which they claim is the historic view of the church.

Based upon my research, A. Roy Eckardt seems to be the one who coined/popularized the term “supersessionism” in his article “Christian Perspectives on Israel” published in Midstream in 1972.

“The term supersessionism itself was coined in a 1972 article “Christian Perspectives on Israel,” by Protestant theologian and scholar of Jewish-Christian relations A. Roy Eckardt. The article was published in Midstream, an avowedly Zionist publication issued by the Theodore Herzl Foundation. Eckardt and his wife, Alice L. Eckhardt, were stalwart supporters of the Israeli government, and they blamed antisemitism for what they saw as Christians’ deficient support of Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. In the years that followed, official rejections of replacement theology, by denominational leaders, were often accompanied by statements of support for Israel.”¹

Eckardt was no dispensationalist. He was a Methodist theologian and pastor; Professor of Religion at Lehigh University (Pennsylvania). He was a Liberal Protestant; one of the early pioneers of Jewish–Christian dialogue after the Holocaust. His main emphasis was Post-Holocaust theology, repentance for Christian anti-Judaism, and rejection of the Church’s claim to have superseded Israel.

Eckardt explicitly criticized traditional Christian replacement theology and sought to reform Christian theology in light of the Holocaust. The term was used as a pejorative, coined to describe what he saw as a harmful and arrogant Christian attitude toward Jews and Israel.

Michael G. Azar has written a piece on this: “Supersessionism”: The Political Origin of a Theological Neologism.²

Dispensationalists reject supersessionism on an entirely different basis. Dispensationalists reject supersessionism on exegetical and covenantal grounds, because we maintain that Israel has a future in God’s redemptive plan, which includes their restoration.

Eckardt rejects supersessionism on an ethical and historical grounds, seeing it as the root of Christian anti-Judaism.

After Eckardt, there were more Post-Holocaust & Jewish-Christian dialogues that occured in the 1970’s-1980’s. The term gained traction in Holocaust theology and ecumenical dialogues, but was used mainly by Liberal theologians. It was still not a formal category within systematic Christian theology — it remained descriptive, not analytical.

It wasn’t until R. Kendall Soulen (1996) that there is a theological integration of the term. Soulen in his book The God of Israel and Christian Theology slightly redefines Eckardt’s term as a structural feature of the Christian theological narrative, and not just as an ethical failure. Soulen’s definition of replacement theology or supersessionism was as follows:

“According to this teaching [supersessionism], God chose the Jewish people after the fall of Adam in order to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Savior. After Christ came, however, the special role of the Jewish people came to an end and its place was taken by the church, the new Israel.”³

Again, note: Soulen is not a dispensationalist. He did not integrate the term into Christian systematic vocabulary because dispensationalists have a bone to pick with Covenantalists.

Christians have followed suit with Soulen’s work of integrating the terminology of supersessionism or replacement theology into Christian vocabulary, which has been picked up by dispensationalists.⁴

It is my hope that this will dispel the idea that dispensationalists created the term to attack covenantalists.

Supersessionism in Covenant Theology: Primary Source Evidence

Following Soulen’s definition above that God chose the Jewish people after the fall of Adam in order to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Savior. After Christ came, however, the special role of the Jewish people came to an end and its place was taken by the church, the new Israel we see Covenantalists teaching this explicitly in their source material. It is important to note that these are not sporadic/isolated quotes but embedded into the framework of teaching of covenant theology from some of the best theologians that have written on the subject in print.

Reformed Baptists

“Since Abraham’s physical posterity existed by virtue of the covenant of circumcision (the old covenant), when the goal of the covenant was accomplished (leading to Christ through the preservation of Abraham’s physical posterity), the covenant made with Abraham’s natural descendants came to an end.“
━━ Pascal Denault, The Distinctiveness of Baptists Covenant Theology, 2nd Ed. (Vestavia Hills: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2013), 131.

“They [Israel] rejected God’s Messiah, and God rejected them as His people…They broke the covenant (as it related to them as a nation) and did not enjoy His blessing. Thus God divorced them and destroyed them as a nation.”
━━ Earl M. Blackburn, Covenant Theology: A Baptist Distinctive (Pelham: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2013), 47, f.n. 48. Brackets added by me.

“Israel, as the covenant people, would continue as God’s Old Covenant people until the days of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:5-12) and our Lord Jesus, who together inaugurated the final administration of the Covenant of Grace the New Covenant.”
━━ Earl M. Blackburn, Covenant Theology: A Baptist Distinctive (Pelham: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2013), 60.

“When Jesus says that God will take his kingdom, the theocracy, away from Hebrew Israel, he means that they will no longer be his people. He also says that God will give his theocracy to another nation that will appreciate it. When God takes the theocracy from Hebrew Israel, he gives it to Christian Israel, the nation composed of Abraham’s spiritual children circumcised in the heart. Only such a nation can bear fruit worthy of a theocracy.”
━━ Greg Nichols, Covenant Theology: A Reformed and Baptistic Perspective on God’s Covenants (Vestavia Hills: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2014), 184.

“In Sum, Christian Israel is the society of Abraham’s spiritual children. It is now composed of an elect remnant of his physical descendants joined with his other spiritual children who are not his physical seed (Acts 15:5; Gal 3:29; Eph 2:11-19; 1 Pet. 2:9, 10). In this way God spiritually transforms his people in fulfillment of the promises of the Abrahamic covenant. Thus he took his theocracy away from Hebrew Israel and gave it to Christian Israel (Matt. 21:43).”
━━ Greg Nichols, Covenant Theology: A Reformed and Baptistic Perspective on God’s Covenants (Vestavia Hills: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2014), 190.

“His disciples are Israel because Christ had removed unbelieving Hebrews from God’s people (Acts 3:22, 23).”
━━ Greg Nichols, Covenant Theology: A Reformed and Baptistic Perspective on God’s Covenants (Vestavia Hills: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2014), 260.

Presbyterians

“…hard fact that national Israel and its law have been permanently replaced by the church and the New Covenant.”
━━ Bruce K. Waltke, Kingdom Promises as Spiritual, Systems of Discontinuity, in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Westchester: Crossway Books, 1988), 274.

“…the Jewish nation no longer has a place as the special people of God; that place has been taken by the Christian community which fulfills God’s purpose for Israel”.
━━ Bruce K. Waltke, Kingdom Promises as Spiritual, Systems of Discontinuity, in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Westchester: Crossway Books, 1988), 275.

“We come now to study the biblical relationship between national Israel and the Christian church. The historic Christian teaching holds that national Israel was a type or forerunner of the church, and that the church replaced Israel on the Day of Pentecost. This view holds that God made two sets of promises to national Israel national promises, and spiritual promises. All earthly promises to Israel have been either fulfilled or invalidated because of disobedience. All spiritual promises are being fulfilled through the church, which is made up of Jews and Gentiles alike. The first advent of Christ completed Israel’s redemption, and manifested the Israel of God (the church referred to in Galatians 6:16).”
━━ William E. Cox, Amillennialism Today (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1966), 45-46.

“That the Christian church replaced Israel is obvious when one notes that the Jewish-Gentile Christian church of the New Testament is given the same titles which in the Old Testament were given to national Israel.”
━━ William E. Cox, Amillennialism Today (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1966), 49.

“Here is a biblical “replacement theology,” and it is Jesus himself who enunciated it: National Israel, except for its elect remnant, would be judged, and the special standing that it had enjoyed during the old dispensation would be transferred to the already existing and growing international church of Jesus Christ (whose roots go back to Abraham, indeed, to the divine promise of Gen 3:15) made up of both the elect Jewish remnant and elect Gentiles. So, as Jesus predicted, in time Israel’s rulers rejected him and incited Rome to execute him as an insurrectionist and a false messiah. As he also predicted, the temple was again soon destroyed (see Matt 24:1-35), the people dispersed, and Israel ceased to exist as a political entity as Moses had predicted in Deut 28:15-68 (see also Deut 31:24-29).”
━━ Robert L. Reymond, The Traditional Covenantal View in Perspectives on Israel and the Church: 4 Views (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2015), 49.

“So, once again, Israel as a national entity is viewed as lo-ammi, “not my people,” only now with a finality about it save for the elect remnant (Rom 9:27-29).”
━━ Robert L. Reymond, The Traditional Covenantal View in Perspectives on Israel and the Church: 4 Views (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2015), 50.

“With the incarnation and Christ’s finished work of satisfaction, Israel’s national calling has been terminated. That would even have been the case if Israel in its majority had not rejected the Savior. Even then it would not have been more than the first in the line of Christian peoples, a part of spiritual Israel. For according to the repeated witness of the New Testament, “Israelite” is synonymous with “Christian.” The circumcision of the heart makes one a true Jew [Rom 2:29].”
━━ Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2020), 1140.

“It seems to us that the conversion of Israel is clearly predicted. But that will not occur in order to make Israel a special nation and give it back its old, separate position; that would be an anachronism in the days of the New Testament. Nor will it be in order to return the Jews to the Holy Land.

Appeal for this view is made:

a) To the explicit statements of Old Testament prophecy. But it should be noted that Old Testament prophecy speaks in Old Testament terms, which we may not interpret literally. The Israel spoken of repeatedly is spiritual Israel. And when it is said that it shall return to its land, that the temple will be rebuilt, the office of priest restored, the sacrifices reintroduced, the entire Mosaic ritual renewed in detail, then one should either take all of this literally or, if one cannot or dare not do that, should also understand the return to the Holy Land less literally and more spiritually. All too literal interpretation here would undermine the perfect and final character of the work of the Mediator.

b) To the special lot of the Jews, who, despite their being scattered, have continued to exist as a separate race and do not mix with others. From this, however, it appears only that God wills to deal with the Jews at a particular time and that they must remain separate until that time. In no sense do they still have a national calling. They will become ordinary Christians, not a kind of Christian nobility.

c) To the fact that the Holy Land is empty and, as it were, seems to be waiting for the Jews. But the desolation that has come upon Palestine this land shares with other Near Eastern lands, so that from that circumstance nothing can be concluded.”
━━ Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2020), 1123-1124.

“Chiliasm includes the expectation that shortly before the return of Christ a national conversion will occur in Israel, that the Jews will then return to Palestine and from there, under Christ, rule over the nations. . . Those of the Jews who reject Christ are not really true Jews (Rom. 2:28-29). They are not the “circumcision” but the “mutilation” (Phil. 3:2). They are the irregulars, idle talkers, deceivers, who must be silenced (Tit. 1:10-11). They have killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets as well. They persecute believers, do not please God, and oppose everyone. . . Real Jews, the true children of Abraham, are those who believe in Christ (Rom. 9:8; Gal. 3:29, etc.). The community of believers has in all respects replaced carnal, national Israel. The Old Testament is fulfilled in the New.”
━━ Herman Bavinck, The Last Things: Hope for This World and the Next (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 99, 102.

“Christ, therefore, is the true prophet, priest, and king; the true servant of the Lord, the true atonement (Rom. 3:25), the true circumcision (Col. 2:11), the true Passover (1 Cor. 5:7), the true sacrifice (Eph. 5:2), and his body of believers the true offspring of Abraham, the true Israel, the true people of God (Matt. 1:21: Luke 1:17; Rom. 9:25-26; 2 Cor. 6:16-18; Gal. 3:29; Titus 2:14; Heb. 8:8-10: James 1:1, 18; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 21:3, 12), the true temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16: 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:22; 2 Thess. 2:4; Heb. 8:2), the true Zion and Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22; Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 10). Its spiritual sacrifice is the true religion (John 4:24; Rom. 12:1; Phil. 3:3; 4:18). All Old Testament concepts shed their external, national-Israelitish meanings and become manifest in their spiritual and eternal sense.”
━━ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Vol. 4, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008) 661.

“In the days of the Old Testament the people of Israel were chosen for a time that salvation might later, in the fullness of time, be a blessing for the whole world. Israel was chosen, not to the detriment of but for the benefit of the nations.”
━━ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Vol. 4, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008) 662.

“The chiliast expectation that a converted nation of Israel, restored to the land of Palestine, under Christ will rule over the nations is without biblical foundation. Whatever the political future of Israel as a nation, the real ekklēsia, the people of God, transcends ethnic boundaries. The kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus is not a political reality but a religious-ethical dominion born of water and the Spirit. The salvation rejected by Israel is shared by the Gentiles, and the community of Christ-believers has in all respects replaced national Israel.”
━━ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Vol. 4, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008) 664.

“As a result he gradually gathered around him a group of disciples that distinguished and separated itself from the Jewish people. And these were the έκκλησια (ekklesia, church), the real people of God, as Israel should have been but now in its rejection of the Messiah proved itself not to be.”
━━ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 666.

“Real Jews, the true children of Abraham, are those who believe in Christ (Rom. 9:8; Gal. 3:29; etc.). This is the New Testament’s judgment concerning the Jews. The community of believers has in all respects replaced carnal, national Israel. The Old Testament is fulfilled in the New.”
━━ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 667.

“Similarly, Jesus told us that as members of His eternal Church, we are the heirs of the Old Covenant kingdom that God had given by grace to the Jews. The Church receives the kingdom inheritance of Israel….Obviously, this transfer of ownership from Old Covenant Israel could not skip to some future Jewish society at least 1,960 years after Jesus announced it. He told them that their kingdom would be removed from them and given to someone else, not held in a kind of deep freeze for two millennia. It would be given to a rival nation that would bring forth the fruits of the kingdom. So, we must abandon the fruits of unrighteousness.”
━━ Gary North, Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism is Paralyzed (Tyler: Institute for Christian Economics, 1993), XII, XV.

“Unbelieving Israel has been cast out and has been replaced by the international church, those whom Jesus purchased with His own blood “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).”
━━ Gary DeMar, The Debate Over Christian Reconstruction (Ft. Worth: Dominion Press, 1988), 21.

“It may seem harsh to say that ‘God is done with the Jews.’ But the fact of the matter is that He is through with them as a unified national group having anything more to do with the evangelization of the world. That mission has been taken from them and given to the Christian Church (Matt. 21:43).”
━━ Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1957), 89-90.

“In connection with the superseding of the old covenant shadows, the redemption secured by the new covenant also redefines the people of God. The kingdom that was once focused on the nation of Israel has been taken away from the Jews (Matt. 8:11-12; 21:41-43; 23:37-38) and given to an international body, the church of Jesus Christ. The New Testament describes the church as the rebuilding of Israel (Acts 15:15-20), “the commonwealth of Israel” (Eph. 2:12 NASB), “Abraham’s seed” (Gal. 3:7, 29), and “the Israel of God” (6:16). What God was doing with the nation of Israel was but a type looking ahead to the international church of Christ. The details of the old order have passed away, giving place to the true kingdom of God established by the Messiah, in which both Jew and Gentile have become “fellow citizens” on an equal footing (Eph. 2:11-20; 3:3-6).”
━━ Greg Bahnsen, The Theonomic Reformed View in The Law, The Gospel, and the Modern Christian: Five Views (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 105.

“Ice apparently does not realize that the idea of supersessionism is fundamental to the Christian faith itself. The basic idea of supersessionism is that Christianity has superseded Judaism as the true faith. This is heresy? Supersessionism — which is despised by liberals, as well as by Ice — shamelessly endorses the words of Christ: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Ultimately, supersessionism is orthodox Christianity… Thus, supersessionism is orthodox Christianity. Ironically, the anti-supersessionism of Ice and Lindsey is more compatible with official Roman Catholic dogma and liberalism than with evangelical sentiments.”
━━ Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Reformed Anti-Semitism? https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/reformed-anti-semitism

“Reconstruction thought does hold to supersession: we believe that the international Church has superseded for all times national Israel as the institution for the administration of divine blessing to the world. We believe the Church is composed of Jew and Gentile merged into one body forever (Eph. 2:12ff). We believe that from now and until the end of history the Church is the sole agency of the redemptive purposes of God. We believe the Church is the fruition of Israel, even though we believe that Jews themselves will one day be converted in mass (Rom. 11:15–25). Supersessionism is not heresy; neither is it anti-Semitic. In fact, it is orthodox Christianity.”
━━ Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Reformed Anti-Semitism? https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/reformed-anti-semitism

“That is, we believe in the unfolding plan of God in history, the Christian Church is the very fruition of the redemptive purpose of God. As such, the multi-racial, international Church of Jesus Christ supersedes racial, national Israel as the focus of the kingdom of God. Indeed, we believe that the church becomes ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal. 6:16)…”
━━ Kenneth Gentry “The Iceman Cometh! Mormonism Reigneth!,” Dispensationalism in Transition, Vol 6, No.1; Jan. 1993, p. 1.

“Not only do we learn that Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel are fulfilled in the church, but we even see that old covenant promises for Israel apply to the church. The new covenant church is the recipient of old covenant Israel’s blessings.”
━━ Kenneth Gentry, Postmillennialism and Israel (3) https://postmillennialworldview.com/2024/12/03/postmillennialism-and-israel-3/

Broader Reformed Tradition or Unknown Denominational Affiliation

“There are numerous other New Testament texts that affirm the same truth (see below). My point here is simply to clarify why I see the Church as the “one new man,” the true Israel of God in and for whom all the promises will be fulfilled. The promises will not be fulfilled exclusively in and for a separate “nation” of ethnic Israelites but in and for all believing ethnic Israelites together with all believing ethnic Gentiles, that is to say, in the Church.”
━━ Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (Ross-Shire: Mentor Imprint of Christian Focus Publications: Geanies House, 2013), 191.

“Included in this expected casting off of shadows is the casting off of national Israel as God’s people. When God removed his Shekinah glory from the temple in Jerusalem, he was essentially signifying the taking up of his presence from Israel, so that they were no longer his special people. They were now the same as the Gentiles around them (see Ezekiel 11:23). If the reality of this casting off is not indisputably clear in Ezekiel’s vision, it nevertheless becomes manifestly apparent in Hosea 1. There God very clearly and explicitly declares that Israel will become “lo-ammi” — “not my people”. In this declaration, Israel becomes essentially the same as the Gentiles around them; therefore, immediately afterwards, when God declares that in the future Israel will number as the sand of the sea, he must mean an Israel that is drawn without distinction from a world that is, without distinction, “lo-ammi” with God. So the expected casting off of Old Testament shadows is complete enough to include the casting off of ethnic Israel as God’s people.”
━━ Nathan Pitchford, Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, Vol.4 (Lulu Press: Psalm 45 Publications, 2010), 14-15.

“Although God cast off physical Israel, he prophesied of a restoration of Israel. What would be the distinction between this eschatological Israel and the archetypical Israel? Israel would no longer be Israel because of birth or external laws on tablets. Instead, they would be Israel because God had written his law on their hearts, and put a new heart of flesh within their midst. (See Jer. 31:31-36; Ezekiel 36:24-28). This new Israel God would call from all the nations, choosing some who had been Gentiles to be Levites and Priests (See Isaiah 66:18-21). In fact, Paul himself clearly explains that the prophesied restoration of Israel spoken of by Hosea was accomplished when God called to himself a people from both ethnic Jews and ethnic Gentiles (Romans 9:24-26). Hence, even in the Old Testament we start to see the necessity of a change from types to spiritual realities in order to do justice to the prophecies involving future Israel.
━━ Nathan Pitchford, Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, Vol.4 (Lulu Press: Psalm 45 Publications, 2010), 15-16.

Even Gerald McDermott laments the usage of replacement theology, saying that he had learned this from Reformed theologians:

“I had been convinced that the Church is the New Israel. This meant that after Jesus died and rose again, the covenant that God had made with Israel was transferred to those who believed in Jesus. The vast majority of Jews, who had refused Jesus’ claim to be Messiah, were no longer the apple of God’s eye. They were no different in God’s eyes from any other people who had heard the gospel and had rejected it. The old Israel was no longer the true Israel. The Church of believers in Jesus Christ had now become the New Israel. Or so I thought. This was the Christian interpretation that I had learned from Reformed theologians such as John Calvin and that was now embraced by many Christian churches mainline Protestant, Catholic, and a growing number of evangelical churches. So it was difficult for me to believe that modern Israel was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The fact that most Jews in Israel were either secular or religious-but-non-messianic seemed to preclude any connection between their land and the biblical prophecies. I thought that might change if one day most Jews in Israel were to accept Jesus. But in the meantime, modern Israel did not seem related to the Bible.”
━━ Gerald R. McDermott, Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2017), Intro, xi.

As we’ve seen there is ample evidence to suggest that covenant theologians of various backgrounds believe that the church has replaced/superseded Israel and has taken her promises.

Expansion or Fulfillment? Evaluating Contemporary Alternatives to Replacement Theology

Some covenant theologians have attempted to argue that they do not affirm replacement theology but some sort of “expansion” or “fulfillment” theology.⁵ What I have found in my years of trying to engage with those who want to soften the language of replacement is that they generally still hold to some form of replacement, they simply don’t like the language associated with it. If the premises hold below we will see the argument simply results in the same conclusion:

Replacement Theology (Classical/Explicit Form):

P1. Ethnic/national Israel (the physical descendants of Jacob) was chosen by God in the OT to serve as the covenant people through whom blessing would come to the nations (Gen 12; Exod 19).
P2. In the NT era, ethnic Israel as a corporate entity rejects Jesus as Messiah, while a remnant believes (John 1:11; Rom 9–11).
P3. Because of this rejection, Israel’s distinctive national-covenantal role comes to an end, climactically signaled by the death of Christ and historically confirmed by the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.
C. The Church—composed of believing Jews and Gentiles—is now the sole heir of Israel’s covenant promises and functions as the true/new/spiritual Israel, rendering ethnic Israel theologically obsolete as a covenantal entity.

Expansion / Fulfillment Theology

P1. “Israel” in Scripture ultimately refers not merely to ethnic descent but to the people defined by covenant faithfulness; there has always been a distinction between ethnic Israel and true Israel (Rom 9:6).
P2. Jesus the Messiah fulfills Israel’s vocation, identity, and calling. Those who are united to Christ—whether Jew or Gentile—participate in this fulfilled Israel (Gal 3:16, 28–29).
P3. Gentiles are incorporated into the people of God by faith, being grafted into the Abrahamic covenant and sharing in Israel’s spiritual blessings, thus becoming Abraham’s children apart from ethnic descent (Rom 11; Eph 2).
C. Therefore, God does not replace Israel; rather, He expands or redefines Israel around Christ, such that all who are in Christ constitute the true Israel, now inclusive of Gentiles.

Let’s talk about where the views functionally converge. Although expansion/fulfillment theology rejects the rhetoric of replacement, it functionally arrives at the same conclusion.

Here are some shared outcomes:
1. Ethnic Israel has no unique future covenantal role that is distinct from the Church.
2. OT promises that were made to Ethnic Israel are fulfilled exclusively in Christ and His multiethnic body.
3. National, territorial, and political aspects of Israel’s identity are either spiritualized or regarded as typological and exhausted.
4. “Israel” as a distinct ethnic-covenantal category is absorbed into the church.

Conclusion: Ethnic Israel no longer exists as a theologically meaningful covenant entity. This is replacement in substance, even if not in terminology.

Saved but Not Restored: Why Affirming Romans 11:26 Does Not Escape Supersessionism

We often refer to those who interpret Romans 11:26 as teaching a future, large-scale salvation of ethnic Israelites as “moderate” supersessionists. Why? Because although this view preserves the biblical expectation that God will reverse Israel’s hardening and bring many Jews to faith after the fullness of the Gentiles, it still fails to address the fundamental category that distinguishes dispensational theology from covenant theology regarding Israel’s future. That category is not merely soteriological but also restorative in nature (Acts 1:6–7; 3:19–21).

If one affirms both the future salvation and the future restoration of Israel, then all forms of supersessionism are necessarily rejected. However, if one affirms only a future salvation of ethnic Israel—without a corresponding national and covenantal restoration—then a form of supersessionism remains intact. In that case, Israel’s future is reduced to absorption into the Church, rather than a restoration to its promised role and glory, thereby preserving supersessionism in substance, if not in name.

References

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Replacement-theology ↩︎
2. https://share.google/7d6UOToxiPylAbzzW ↩︎
3. R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 1-2. ↩︎
4. For dispensational resources that address supersessionism/replacement theology see: Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Israelology: The Missing Link in Systematic Theology, 2021; Darrell Bock & Mitch Glaser, The People, The Land, and the Future of Israel: Israel and the Jewish People in the Plan of God, 2014; Larry Pettegrew, Forsaking Israel: How It Happened and Why It Matters, 2021. [Various Contributors]; Michael J. Vlach, A Non-Typological Future-Mass-Conversion View in Three Views on Israel and the Church, Perspectives on Romans 9-11, 2019; Michael J. Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel?: A Theological Evaluation, 2010; Renald E. Showers, The Coming Apocalypse: A Study of Replacement Theology vs. God’s Faithfulness in the End-Times, 2009; Thomas Ice, The Case for Christian Zionism: Why Christians Should Support Israel, 2017. For non-dispensational resources see: Barry Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must be Challenged, 2007; Barry Horner, Eternal Israel: Biblical, Theological, and Historical Studies That Uphold the Eternal Distinctive Destiny of Israel, 2018; Gerald R. McDermott, Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land, 2017; Gerald R. McDermott, The New Christian Zionism: Fresh Perspectives on Israel and the Land, 2016; Ronald E. Diprose, Israel and the Church: The Origins and Effects of Replacement Theology, 2012; Stanley E. Porter & Alan Kurschner, The Future Restoration of Israel: A Response to Supersessionism, 2023. [Various Contributors] ↩︎
5. https://www.monergism.com/not-replacement-expansion ↩︎