The thing called "Replacement Theology" doesn't really exist, except perhaps for a few isolated cases. The people who are accused of believing in "Replacement Theology" simply don't believe the narrative that the church replaced Israel. Rather, the understanding is that the definition of what it means to be "Israel" has expanded to include all those who are baptized into Christ. It just so happens that most people who are part of true Israel are not ethnicly Hebrew (although some are).
The narrative would go something like this: at the time of Christ, Israel was a covenant people, and included all the people who were under the covenant of Moses by circumcision, whether they physically lived in that land or were part of the diaspora. At Pentecost, Israel was pruned, or underwent a bottle-necking, and only those people of Israel who believed in Christ continued to be part of Israel as a covenent people, and those who rejected Christ were no longer part of it. At that point, Israel consisted of those Hebrews who believed in Jesus as the Christ. After a very short period of time, more Hebrews began to believe, and more and more Gentiles began to believe. As such, God's covenant people of Israel began to expand, and soon, Israel consisted of more Gentiles than Hebrews. However, all of them were Israel by virtue of their baptism into Christ, no matter what their physical ancestry was. And the same is true today.
As to the present-day nation state of Israel:
They are not in Christ, and are not God's people, and as such are prophetically irrelavent. Trying to pin modern-day Israel to various prophecies in Scripture is simply a matter of horrible, HORRIBLE, exegesis and wishful thinking.
Needless to say, I pay no mind to John Hagee and the like, and couldn't care less about their opinions. None of us are under any obligation to give "Israel" any money or support.
That said, all borders are the result of conquest. Israel fought a war and won, and now they've drawn their borders on the world map. It is what it is, and now they're a country. I do not advocate eliminating them or any such nonsense, any more than I advocate eliminating the United States, or Mexico, or Australia, or any other country established by conquest. (I only say this because the Dispensationalists and the 'Muricans will always say that someone is an "anti-Semite" for not guffawing over Israel, and imagine that I want to fund Islamic terrorists, as if rejecting one requires me to embrace the other.)
Agreed. I would add though that I think Scripture offers enough to suggest that non-believing Israel is still Israel in some sense, as the Apostle indicates in Romans 3, that the unfaithfulness of some of Israel does not nullify God's faithfulness; and in Romans 11 the Apostle ultimately look forward, hopefully, toward the salvation of all Israel. How, and in what way, that ultimately looks or plays out Scripture doesn't say, but I think we can share in the Apostle's hope here: that God has not forgotten or abandoned the people of His ancient covenant, and while non-believing Israel may be separated from the fullness that is in Christ, they are not abandoned. In the end, God alone knows.
Of course, fundamental here, is that Israel was never about lines on a map, it was about people and covenant. Israel was still Israel even in the Exile and Diaspora. When the kingdom was divided north and south, the southern kingdom of Judah was still
Israel. Biblically I accept that the People of God are Israel.
Simply drawing lines on a map and calling it "Israel" doesn't make it biblical Israel. I'm not against the State of Israel, I don't hate it, I accept it as a secular state existing in the world with the inherent right to exist and to its own national sovereign autonomy (just like any other nation on the planet). And I wish for there to be peace, I wish for the people there--Jew, Muslim, Christian, and other--to have peace, prosperity, and every other thing that comes from having a relatively peaceful country. But I have no religious feelings toward the secular state of Israel in the Levant, it is not prophetic, it is not a biblical entity, it is not special in any theological or religious way: it's just a country, no different than the United States, Argentina, or Sri Lanka. I wish and pray for peace because I am called by Christ to love and pray for my neighbor, to be a peacemaker, and to live peaceably: therefore I hope for, and pray for, and wish for peace for my neighbor. Regardless of who my neighbor is or where they live.
And it is precisely because in Christ I am called to love and pray for my fellow human beings that I can condemn both revolutionary terrorists and terrorism, and their acts of violence and hate on one side, as well as state terrorists and terrorism, and their acts of violence and hate on the other.
This is not a dichotomy of having to choose whether I support the state of Israel or I support the Palestinians; I support peace. I support love. I support ending hostilities. I support justice. I support compassion. I condemn atrocities, violence, hate, and evil regardless of who commits it and against whom it is committed against. If you are ideologically compelled to support violence, or ignore violence, when it is committed by the powerful against the weak simply because it is your "side" doing it, then you are in opposition to the central ethical teachings of Jesus Christ, His Church, Holy Scripture, and two thousand years of Christian religion.
There is no room for hatred against our fellow man in Christ's religion. To hate your fellow man is to hate Jesus Christ.
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If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." - 1 John 4:20
-CryptoLutheran
