Sermon notes June 8th, 2025
ROMANS 11 part 2
Replacement Theology: What It Is and Why It Matters for Christians
Compiled by ICEJ USA Director Susan Michael and ICEJ USA Managing Editor Karen Engle
Replacement Theology teaches that “the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan, in that the church has transcended and fulfilled the terms of the covenant given to Israel that Israel lost because of disobedience.”[1] Those who accept Replacement Theology as true believe God’s covenant with the Jewish people ended in AD 30 and all the blessings given to Israel have been transferred to the gentile church. (However, most people who subscribe to this view are reluctant to say the church also inherited the curses and judgments God pronounced for her apostasy.)
According to this view, God has and will continue to save individual Jews who accept Jesus,.“Supersessionism” is the technical term for Replacement Theology; it is sometimes referred to as Fulfillment Theology.
• God also promised a particular piece of land to the Jewish people. However, Replacement Theology proponents believe that land is unimportant to God now, and references to the promised land mean the whole world.
Former International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) Executive Director Malcolm Hedding argues that Replacement Theology rests chiefly on the idea that the whole or part of the Abrahamic covenant has been abolished, for it is this covenant that promises to Israel eternal ownership of the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:7–8):
Once this “promise” has been removed, the present-day restoration of Israel means nothing, and her only hope is in the church. Now, it must be made clear that we believe that only in Christ Jesus can there be salvation for Jews and gentiles alike (Romans 1:16–17). However, we do not believe that the promise of God in the Abrahamic covenant promising the land of Canaan to Israel has been removed, and therefore, Israel’s modern restoration to the land of Canaan is indeed fulfillment of that promise and constitutes a milestone on her “way home” to her Messiah. (Ezekiel 36:24–28)
• Some Protestant denominations and theologians within them hold views that can be described as replacement theology.
• Some Protestant denominations that tend to reject replacement theology include those that embrace covenant theology and dispensationalism, which generally hold that God's covenant with Israel remains valid, al-be-it in a different form under the New Testament.
• Many Protestant denominations, (most)particularly those that lean towards a more literal interpretation of the Bible, reject replacement theology, seeing it as a misunderstanding of God's covenantal relationship with both Israel and the Church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KAV5Y7tz9U
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ROMANS 11:6-7
6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
• The conclusion, then, is that Israel failed to obtain righteousness because they sought it through self-effort instead of through the finished work of Christ. The remnant, chosen by God, succeeded in obtaining righteousness through faith in the Lord Jesus. The nation suffered what might be called judicial blindness. Refusal to receive the Messiah resulted in a decreased capacity and inclination to receive Him.
ROMANS 11:8-14
8 Just as it is written: “God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day.”
• This is exactly what the OT predicted would happen (Isa. 29:10)
Isaiah 29:10 New King James Version
10 For the Lord has poured out on you The spirit of deep sleep, And has closed your eyes, namely, the prophets; And He has covered your heads, namely, the seers.
• "The Lord has poured out upon them a spirit of deep sleep...":
• This implies a state of spiritual slumber, where the people are unable to understand God's word or see His ways."...and has their eyes (the prophets).
• The prophets, who are typically meant to be God's voice, are unable to discern His will or speak clearly. "...and covered your heads (the seers)
• The seers, who are supposed to have spiritual insight, are unable to see God's plans or warn of impending doom.
• This passage suggests a divine judgment, where those who have rejected God's truth are rendered unable to perceive it. It also foreshadows a time when even spiritual leaders will be unable to guide the people because they have become spiritually blind.
Deuteronomy 29:4 NKJV
4 Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.
• God abandoned them to a state of stupor in which they became insensitive to spiritual realities. Because they refused to see the Lord Jesus as Messiah and Savior, now they lost the power to see Him. Because they would not hear the pleading voice of God, now they were smitten with spiritual deafness. That terrible judgment continues to this very day.
ROMANS 11:9-12
9 And David says:
“Let their table become a snare and a trap, A stumbling block and a recompense to them.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, And bow down their back always.”
11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.
12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
• As a result of Israel’s rejection of the gospel, the nation was set aside and the gospel went out to the Gentiles.
• In this sense the fall of the Jews has meant riches for the world, and Israel’s loss has been the Gentiles’ gain.
• But if that is true, how much more will Israel’s restoration result in rich blessing for all the world! When Israel turns to the Lord at the close of the Great Tribulation, she will become the channel of blessing to the nations.
ROMANS 11:13-14
13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.
• Paul sought by every means to provoke to jealousy those who were his countrymen, so that he might be used to save some of them. He knew and we know that he himself couldn’t save anyone. But the God of salvation identifies Himself so closely with His servants that He permits them to speak of their doing what only He can do.
ROMANDS 11:15-17
15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
• This verse repeats the argument of 11:12 in different language
11:12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
• When Israel was set aside as God’s chosen, earthly people, the Gentiles were brought into a position of privilege with God and thus in a figurative sense were reconciled. When Israel is restored during the Millennial Reign of Christ, it will be like worldwide regeneration or resurrection.
• This may be illustrated in the experience of Jonah, who was a figure of the nation of Israel. When Jonah was cast out of the boat during the storm, this resulted in deliverance or salvation for the boatload of Gentiles.
• But when Jonah was restored and preached to Nineveh, it resulted in salvation for a city full of Gentiles.
• So, Israel’s temporary rejection by God has resulted in the gospel going out to a handful of Gentiles, comparatively speaking. But when Israel is restored, vast hordes of Gentiles will be ushered into the kingdom of God.
ROMANS 11:16-17
16 For if the first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,
• The branches that were broken off picture the unbelieving portion of the twelve tribes of Israel. Because of their rejection of the Messiah, they were removed from their place of privilege as God’s chosen people. But only some of the branches were removed. A remnant of the nation, including Paul himself, had received the Lord.
ROMANS 11:18
18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
• But the Gentiles should not take a holier-than-thou attitude toward the Jews, or boast of any superiority. Any such boasting overlooks the fact that they didn’t originate in the line of privilege. Rather, it is the line of privilege that put them where they are, in a place of special favor.
ROMANS 11:19-21
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”
20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
ROMANS 11:22-23
22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
• In fact, it would be a much less violent process for God to reinstate Israel as His privileged people than it was to put the Gentiles into that place. The people of Israel were the original branches in the tree of God’s favor, and so they are called natural branches. The Gentile branches came from a wild olive tree. To graft a wild olive branch into a cultivated olive tree is an unnatural graft, or, as Paul says, it is contrary to nature. To graft natural branches into their original cultivated olive tree is a very natural process.
23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
• And Israel’s sever-ance need not be final. If they abandon their national unbelief, there is no reason why God cannot put them back into their original place of privilege. It would not be impossible for God to do this.
ROMANS 11:24-25
24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
• Now the apostle reveals that the future restoration of Israel is not only a possibility but is an assured fact. What Paul now reveals is a mystery—a truth hitherto the unknown, a truth that could not be known by man’s unaided intellect, but a truth that has now been made known. Paul sets it forth so that Gentile believers will not be wise in their own opinion, looking down their nationalistic noses at the Jews.
This mystery is as follow:
• Blindness in part has happened to Israel. It has not affected all the nation, but only the unbelieving segment.
• That blindness is temporary. It will continue only until the fullness of the Gentiles arrives. The fullness of the Gentiles refers to the time when the last member will be added to the church, and when the completed Body of Christ will be raptured home to heaven. The fullness of the Gentiles must be distinguished from the times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24).
• The fullness of the Gentiles coincides with the Rapture. The phrase “times of the Gentiles” refers to the entire period of Gentile domination over the Jews, beginning with the Babylonian captivity (2 Chron. 36:1–21)and ending with Christ’s return to earth to reign.
ROMANS 11:26-27
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
• While Israel’s judicial blindness is removed at the time of the Rapture, that does not mean that all Israel will be saved right away. Jews will be converted throughout the Tribulation Period, but the entire elect remnant will not be saved until Christ returns to earth as King of kings and Lord of lords.
• When Paul says that all Israel will be saved, he means all believing Israel. The unbelieving portion of the nation will be destroyed at the Second Advent of Christ (Zech. 13:8, 9). Only those who say “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” will be spared to enter the kingdom.
• This is what Isaiah referred to when he spoke of the Redeemer coming to Zion and turning transgression away from Jacob (Isa. 59:20).Notice that it is not Christ’s coming to Bethlehem, but His coming to Zion—that is, His Second Coming.
27 For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.”
• It is the same time referred to in Isaiah 27:9and Jeremiah 31:33, 34, when God shall take away their sins under the terms of the New Covenant.
ROMANS 11:28-30
28 Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.
• So, we might summarize Israel’s present status by saying first that concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake. They are enemies in the sense of being cast off, set aside, alienated from God’s favor so that the gospel might go forth to the Gentiles.
• But that is only half the picture. Concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers—that is, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
• The reason they are still beloved is that God’s gifts and calling are never rescinded. God does not take back His gifts. Once He has made an unconditional promise, He never goes back on it. He gave Israel the special privileges listed in Romans 9. He called Israel to be His earthly people (Isa. 48:12), separate from the rest of the nations. Nothing can change His purposes.
30 For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience,
• The Gentiles were once an untamed, disobedient people, but when Israel rejectedthe Messiah and the gospel of salvation, God turned to the Gentiles in mercy.
ROMANS 11:31-33
31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdomand knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
• Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdomand knowledge of God!
• The riches of God! He is rich in mercy, love, grace, faithfulness, power, and goodness.
• The wisdom of God! His wisdom is infinite, unsearchable, incomparable, and invincible.
• The knowledge of God! “God is omniscient,” writes Arthur W. Pink, “He knows everything: everything possible, everything actual; all events, all creatures, of the past, the present, and the future.”
• His decisions are unsearchable: they are too deep for mortal minds to fully understand. The ways in which He arranges creation, history, redemption, and providence are beyond our limited comprehension.
ROMANS 11:34-36
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?”
35 “Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?”
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
• The Almighty is self-contained. He is the source of every good thing, He is the active Agent in sustaining and controlling the universe, and He is the Object for which everything has been created. Everything is designed to bring glory to Him.
• Let it be so! To Him be glory forever. Amen.
