Answering Critics: Catholicism and Replacement Theology

As expected, my post on Catholicism and Rabbinic Judaism generated a bit of fanfare on Catholic sites. The main accusation is that I am not representing Catholicism correctly.

Summary
My main point with that article is that Catholicism is inconsistent when it comes to affirming an authoritative oral tradition. There are many groups today, such as the Mormon church, which argue that they are the true authoritative oral tradition, continuous with the religion of Abraham. Usually, the Catholic response is that these groups are Johnny-Come-Lately groups, which do not have the claim to antiquity the way the Catholic church does. The Rabbis can just as legitimately level that same charge against the Catholic church. If there was an authoritative oral tradition, it rested with the Sanhedrin, which rejected Jesus. Conversely, if the Sanhedrin, which rejected Jesus, was not the authoritative oral tradition, then there is no such authoritative tradition.

Replacement Theology
The first accusation is that I have misrepresented replacement theology. As Clarence Wagner has written, these are the premises of Replacement Theology:

1. Israel (the Jewish people and the land) has been replaced by the Christian Church in the purposes of God, or, more precisely, the Church is the historic continuation of Israel to the exclusion of the former. 

2. The Jewish people are now no longer a "chosen people." In fact, they are no different from any other group, such as the English, Spanish, or Africans.

3. Apart from repentance, the new birth, and incorporation into the Church, the Jewish people have no future, no hope, and no calling in the plan of God. The same is true for every other nation and group.
 
4. Since Pentecost of Acts 2, the term "Israel," as found in the Bible, now refers to the Church.

5. The promises, covenants and blessings ascribed to Israel in the Bible have been taken away from the Jews and given to the Church, which has superseded them. However, the Jews are subject to the curses found in the Bible, as a result of their rejection of Christ.

The issue with replacement theology is the claim that Jews are not chosen any longer simply by virtue of being Jews. In other words, Jews who do not believe in Jesus are not God's chosen people. In the Tanakh, Jews were considered the chosen people regardless of their obedience or disobedience. When the Jews were unfaithful, they would be punished or sent into exile. Yet, they remained chosen even if they rejected God and worshiped idols. 1 Kings 19 states that only around 7,000 people of Israel had not bowed the knee to Baal, yet the righteous and rebellious Israelites were equally bound to the Law of Moses in a way that the non-Jews were not. Unbelief did not render them as Gentiles, either spiritually or legally.

This is why I mention Exodus 12 in the previous post. The people of Israel are to observe the feast of Unleavened Bread as a statute forever. They are also to circumcise as a statute forever (Genesis 17). Catholicism does not require circumcision, and in the past has forbidden it (e.g. Council of Florence). Jews were required to keep these commands. Gentiles were not. These commands were eternal, and there were no conditions that would nullify these commands. So I would ask: are Jews in the Catholic church required to circumcise? If they are not, then how is that not nullification, even if it is nullification under a different word?

Let me answer that for you. It is nullification. To argue that Jews are not commanded to circumcise while maintaining that the circumcision command is not nullified is to engage in pilpul, a practice of harmonizing texts by creating distinctions that are not there.

Israel and the New Israel
Premise 4 states that the Church is now the legal entity of Israel, which inherits the promises given to Moses and to David. This monumental event occurred supposedly in Acts 2, when God gave the Holy Spirit to the church. This means that before Pentecost, unbelieving Jews were considered part of Israel, and at Pentecost, those Jews had all been unwittingly kicked out.

If this was the case, would you expect the New Testament use of the term "Israel" to refer to the church or to the Jews? Clearly, if this was the case, the term Israel would not only refer to the church, but might even be contrasted with the Jews, but a simple word search shows the contrary.

for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, (Acts 4:27)

And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. (Acts 5:21)

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved (Romans 9:27)

but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. (Romans 9:31)

But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” (Romans 10:21)

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, (Romans 11:7)

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. (Romans 11:11)

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25)

circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; (Philippians 3:5)

Take each of these verses, and try replacing "Israel" with "The Church" and see the absurdity that results. Did God put a partial hardening on the Church until a fulness of the Gentiles has come in? Or has the church failed to obtain what the elect have obtained? I thought the church was the elect; the regenerate and the saved.

Again, if replacement theology was true, we should not see any verses that refer to unbelieving Jews. The fact that we do shows that replacement theology is false.

The Church and the Sanhedrin
Some Catholics have argued that no Catholic would believe that the biblical support for the Sanhedrin tradition exceeds the biblical support for the church magisterium. The main passage that the rabbis use for their magisterium is Deuteronomy 17.

If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose. And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the LORD will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left.

So what does this passage explicitly teach? It teaches that God gave the Torah to be used as the law in the land. It explicitly claims that there will be judges who will decide authoritatively on it. It also explicitly claims that their decisions involve authoritative interpretation of God's law, and hence of the Torah. Jews were bound to do according to their decisions, and were not allowed to turn from the verdict.

The most explicit passage for the church magisterial authority is Matthew 16.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The explicit claims made are that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, and that Peter will be able to bind and loose things on earth, and it will be so in heaven. Notice that these claims are symbolic and vague. Does it mean that Peter will be given the right to judge people? Does it teach that Peter will be able to make authoritative interpretations, or that people are bound to his judgments? The text does not say. It also says nothing about whether Peter has the power to transfer this ability to anyone else, or to set up an authoritative organization, and it doesn't even say that this power was given exclusively to Peter. All of this has to be inferred.

This is what I meant by the Bible giving far more support for the oral authority of the Sanhedrin than it does for the Church. Deuteronomy 17 is explicit in its claims to judicial authority, while Matthew 16 uses vague imagery, and does not even make an explicit claim that he will have power over anyone else.

The Survival of the Jews
Some of the strongest evidence for the continuation of the covenant with the Jews, even unbelieving Jews, is that of all the ancient tribes, nearly all of them have lost their identity while the Jews still exist as a people group. This is not true of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. It is not true of the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the ancient Egyptians, or most of the ancient tribes.

So what are the elements that keep a culture together and avoid assimilation into a larger culture? Generally, this requires two factors: land and language. The Jews had not had a land since the early second century, and have not had a common language. Since the Babylonian exile, most Jews did not speak Hebrew, and Philo's writings imply that the Jews of Alexandria could not even read the language. Even the Jews who used Hebrew as a prayer language did not use it for communication, but used variants of the host culture language (e.g. Yiddish is nearly identical with Middle German). So the Jews had no common tongue or national land for nearly 2,000 years, and yet survived as a Jewish culture.

By all common sense, the Jews should have been assimilated into their host cultures shortly after the destruction of the Jewish state and dispersal of the Jews in 135. It makes sense to say that the Jews survived the exile to Babylon without becoming assimilated. This is because the Jews were exiled together, and because the exile was short, less than 100 years. No other tribal group has survived as that tribal group for so long without a land.

Frederick the Great challenged his chaplain to give in one sentence an unanswerable proof for the Bible. The chaplain replied "The Jews, sire."