Posted on 03/28/2026 9:34:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Dr. Dinah Dye recently offered a thoughtful critique of “Replacement Theology,” arguing for a paradigm of fulfillment rather than replacement regarding Israel and the Church. We share significant common ground. In her article, Dr. Dye rightly observes: “When Jesus says, ‘I will build my ekklesia (church),’ He is not inventing something new; He is speaking of rebuilding the covenant assembly.”
Exactly.
That is an accurate observation that unlocks the true, biblical relationship between Israel and the Church. However, Dr. Dye’s interest was to show that the New Testament doesn’t necessarily teach that the Church replaced Israel. That’s getting ahead of ourselves. First, we need to see what the Old Testament says about who Israel really is.
In Genesis, God defines Israel. Long before the New Testament was written, the Old Testament had already defined the true Israel as a multiethnic church.
For centuries, Christians have identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group. Even supersessionists — those who historically believed the Church superseded Israel — assumed the technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible was an ethnic group. But Genesis reveals a radical, theological definition that challenges this assumption. The Gospel’s diversity wasn’t a later addition; it was the plan from the start.
The true definition of Israel is repeated at three pivotal moments in the narrative of Jacob, the man renamed Israel. In each instance, the divine name El Shaddai (God Almighty) is invoked to signal the vital importance of the promise.
First, Isaac blesses Jacob, saying, “May God Almighty bless you … that you may become a company of peoples” (k’hal ‘amim; Gen 28:3). The key word here, kahal, is the Hebrew equivalent of ekklesia, the Greek word for “church” or “assembly.” The plural “peoples” suggests a gathering of multiple different ethnic groups, not just a single ethnicity becoming numerous. Isaac’s parting blessing is for Jacob to be an assembly of ethnicities. This is at the beginning of the Jacob – Israel – narrative in Genesis.
Then, as if to frame the Jacob narrative, at the end, God Himself appears to Jacob, confirming His name change to Israel and declaring, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations (k’hal goyim) shall come from you” (Gen 35:11). By substituting “nations” (goyim) for “peoples” (‘amim), God further clarifies that these are not merely physical descendants but a gathering of various political and ethnic entities.
Finally, the book of Genesis ends with a final reminder of the definition of Israel. Jacob restates the promise on his deathbed, reminding his family that God will make him a “company of peoples” (Gen 48:4). If the Old Testament had been written in English, Jacob might have been told three times that he would become a “church of ethnicities.”
Affirming Dr. Dye's insight, when Jesus spoke of building His ekklesia, He was referencing this ancient kahal. This definition of Israel as an assembly of nations is immediately borne out in Israel’s subsequent history. At the exodus, the nation leaving Egypt included a “mixed multitude” referring to a great mixture of nationalities who allied with Israel by faith. Throughout the Old Testament, faith-based inclusion was a constant theme. Rahab, a Canaanite, became an Israelite by faith. Ruth, a Moabite, likewise joined Israel by faith. By believing in the Lord, ethnic Gentiles became part of “Israel.” The identity of Israel, from beginning to end, was never exclusively one race.
The prophets solidified this theological identity with the concept of the “remnant,” drawing a distinction between physical Israel and the true Israel — an Israel defined by individual choice for God’s calling, not birth.
This brings us to the crux of the replacement debate. The fundamental assumption that Israel was primarily an ethnic people has led to the theological error of supersessionism and the pernicious error of dispensationalism. The Church did not replace Israel because Israel was always and already the Church, the promised “assembly of peoples.”
When the Apostle Paul speaks of the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16), he is not speaking of a replacement entity; he is describing the continuum of God's ancient gathering of believers from all kinds of peoples and nations. Believers in Christ are the “children of Abraham,” and the true Israel is the one olive tree into which believing Gentiles are grafted.
Therefore, we can agree with Dr. Dye: fulfillment, not replacement, tells the true story. Christ is rebuilding the covenant assembly, an assembly that, from its very inception in Genesis, was designed to be the Church.
This does not mean that Christians cannot support modern Israel. We can still do so. Israel is a Western nation, and our greatest ally in the Middle East, if not the whole world. It is constantly maligned and threatened by radical Islamic regimes. However, it doesn’t mean that we give them an automatic pass for every action, claiming that they are “God’s people” based merely on their ethnicity. We want them to become God’s true people, grafted back into God’s one olive tree. And that’s only possible through faith in Jesus.
John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022) and the Covenant Caswell substack.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
Ping
Ping
Israel is Israel. The Church is the Church.
The Church won’t be going through the tribulation. Israel will.
True. A third lot the angels fell. The Church is the replacement for them.
“of” not “lot”
‘Believers in Christ are the “children of Abraham,” and the true Israel is the one olive tree into which believing Gentiles are grafted.’
so i got a question for this theologian: how is this interpretation possible if Abraham *preceded* his grandson, Jacob, or the genetic father of the 12 Tribes of national Israel?
Abram/Abraham was certainly a ‘believing gentile’ (because the nation of Israel didn’t exist during his lifetime). so how was Abraham, a gentile, grafted into the ‘olive tree of Israel.’ did he graft himself into his own olive tree?
idk. seems like a simple error of logic to me. the law of causality demands that the cause precede the effect in time.
And Jesus Christ, the one foundation!
"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."
Please see post 8
Jesus through Paul says the olive tree is Israel, not Him.
talking about the olive tree, not Jesus.
The heirs of Abraham were never restricted to one nation. All those who believe in God from every nation are his heirs and equal heirs with the Jews to the promises. It was always about faith, not ethnicity.
Complete BS!
why all the bother about making sure the genetic lines to Jesus were unbroken? sorry brother, i just don’t buy it. there are no accidental incidents and histories in the Word of God. it is everywhere dense with meaning and God’s purposes. God never does anything without a plan and a reason. again. if ethnicity is ‘not important,’ why all the genealogies?
nope. you can’t have it both ways. you can’t just dismiss the geneticity of Jesus Christ as the King of Jews and heir of King David. He is both the branch from the stem of Jesse and simultaneously the root of Jesse. there is a reason that is front and center in the Word of God.
sure Abraham was a gentile, not a Jew. His ‘seed’ is both the promise of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, *and* the promises through his son Issac to the Jews. it’s not either, or, one or the other. it’s both. God can walk and chew gum. why you folks can’t see that is a bit of a conundrum. there is something there, a rigidity and a bias at the base of it. a refusal to see reason. shrugs. we’ll find out who was right in heaven i guess. i’m going with a hard separation of the destiny of Jews and the Church until the end of the age, the taking of this Church at the ‘rapture’, and the return of the Jews and the final week of Daniel in Great Tribulation that our Lord Jesus teaches in the new testament.
I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star
And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious
Amen.
Who is the ‘root of Jesse’? Whom do they call ‘the Branch’? Why not boast since the natural can be removed and other grafted in? Grafted in to what? (the boasting works in both directions by the way)
We need to be reminded that Torah is not only instruction for us; it lays out the layered covenants over thousands of years that our Father follows as well.
Abraham’s faith was credited as righteousness. That holds true for all grafted in today. The promises are for all that want to be grafted in; why would there be a different standard at the end of all suffering on earth?
Initially, we were to be a nation of priests - teaching others Torah. We failed at that role; even failed to accept that role. A better covenant was promised to allow us to overcome our failure; the promise given to all believers. Malachi explains it well; God’s Love for Jacob (physical nation of Israel), Sin of the Priests (our initial calling), Priests to be Disciplined (those who claim the role currently), Sin in the Family (all grafted into the Branch, root of Jesse), The Purifier (I don’t sense a separation of peoples here), Final Admonition (remember the law of Moses - Torah).
It all began with Abraham as was promised to his seed - the covenant of the pieces (Gen 15). YHVH and Yeshua moved between the pieces; Yeshua taking on the future sin of Abraham’s descendants (by their righteousness).
We here just live in the Spirit.
John Chapter 4.
Something’s up, when it takes a whole nother book to explain something.
Moving on.
‘Abraham’s faith was credited as righteousness.’
>>first you’d better define what you mean by ‘faith.’ like ‘love,’ that concept alone has been the shipwreck of many a Christian.
‘That holds true for all grafted in today.’
>>that is a questionable statement. my faith is credited to me as righteousness, but my faith is based on the fact of Jesus’ blood having payed for and erased the debt of my sin. Abraham would have known nothing of Christ’s blood.
that Christ ‘..is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through him.’ is beyond question. you must come through Jesus. but that being said, it is pretty clear to me that the substance and basis of the ‘faith’ Abraham had and was credited with is very different from the substance of of the faith i have, with the additional knowledge or revealed/fulfilled prophesy and history that i have vs. Abraham.
so for example, imho, Abraham’s ‘faith’ was much greater than mine, because he had so much less to go on than i.
or how you come to the Father through Christ can be different
>>
One city, the New Jerusalem
With 12 gates for 12 tribes of Israel
And 12 foundations for 12 apostles
Revelation 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
Revelation 21:12 It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.
Revelation 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
There is one people of God with two distinguishable groups within that one people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.