The Ominous Resurfacing of ‘Christian’ Antisemitism

The matter is urgent!!  May God awaken His Church to denounce this foul, demonic plague and declare to the Jewish people (and the world) that these ugly anti-Jewish voices do NOT represent Jesus or the gospel.

The Ominous Resurfacing of ‘Christian’ Antisemitism | Articles | The Line of Fire

A Christian social media influencer with a large platform recently texted me after reading my 2021 book Christian Antisemitism: Confronting the Lies in Today’s Church. He was burdened and grieved by the contents of the book, saying to me, “This needs to be updated!” 

I responded, “That’s the problem. The book was an update to my previous book on ‘Christian’ antisemitism, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People.” 

Now he was telling me that the update needed to be updated. 

That’s how rapidly this insidious spiritual disease is spreading again in the Church.

While I can’t demonstrate this statistically, I have been documenting it anecdotally, and it seems that the lid has been taken off and hidden views are now being shared openly.

For example, after a recent debate on the ongoing election of Israel, I spotted this comment on X, speaking of the Jewish people: “The porn, trans and usury people? Imma go with Martin Luther.” 

The post also contained a screenshot of a vile, antisemitic Luther quote.

Yes, this is the same Luther who, in 1543, called for Jewish synagogues to be set on fire and places of business to be broken down and destroyed, for rabbis to be forbidden to teach on the penalty of death, for Jews to be rounded up in ghettos and deprived of jobs – and more. 

Yet this individual wrote, “Imma go with Martin Luther”?

You might say, “He’s obviously just another loony antisemite.”

Perhaps so, but according to his profile, he is a “1689 Baptist,” meaning that he holds to the London Confession of 1689 and takes pride in his Baptist “orthodoxy.” He also states that he is a “Church history buff” and “Abortion abolitionist,” among other things. 

So, he is an antisemite, for sure. But he is also a professing committed, evangelical, pro-life Christian. 

When I responded to a video of a Lutheran pastor who shockingly downplayed Luther’s antisemitism, I made clear that this pastor had opened the door to more antisemitic sentiments. (The pastor’s name is Chris Rosebrough and the video was produced by American Gospel, known for their strongly anti-charismatic stands.) As predicted, those sentiments found expression on our YouTube channel, as professing Christians posted their comments in defense of Luther.

“If Chris Rosebrough is correct and it was a deep theological concern, a love for Christ, a love for the church, and a desire to protect God's people from false teachers that drove Luther to speak the way he did about the Jews, then what Luther said pales in comparison with what the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write in Galatians 5:12: ‘I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!’”

“God and His people hate false teaching. It's a serious matter. And it calls for strong language. And it's loving to use strong language. Because we love God, we love His truth, and we love His people. And when His people are threatened by false teaching, God is angry and calls us to warn and denounce with strong language. Is this what Luther was doing?”

But of course! Luther was motivated by love, just like the Nazis who joyfully reprinted Luther’s Jew-hating screeds.

“Chris did a great job of explaining yes WITH historical context why Luther said what he said, and how Luther wasn’t aware that it was sin since it was the law of the Roman Catholic state that those who held to false religions were breaking the law. You chose to claim that Chris was being untruthful which is not true.”

Still another asked, “Has anyone here read parts of the Talmud?”

Yet another produced quotes allegedly from Harry Truman, comparing the Jews to Hitler and Stalin, then claiming that Albert Einstein (and “25+ other high-ranking Jewish intelligentsia”) made similar charges in a 1947 letter to the New York Times. 

You can be assured that this viewer, too, claimed to be a Christian, referencing the need for the Jews to be saved.

On and on this drivel goes, with still another writing, 

“You’re bothered by what Luther said about the Jews but not bothered by what they have said and do say about your own savior? How about the fact that they spit on Christians in the streets of Israel? Oh wait. Dr Brown you’re not worried about that. You instead would rather make videos against the Christians who speak out about it.”

And this, about me: “. . . I believe loyalty to his people supercedes [sic] that of his wishy-washy Christian faith.”

Again, this is all quite anecdotal, but I could multiply quotes like these, all from alleged, committed Christians, almost ad infinitum. And I see them coming in increasing measure, be it from extremist Catholics or from those who weaponize the words “Christ is King” or from alleged charismatic prophets. 

Even my theological opponent in the aforementioned recent debate, who denied that the Jewish people are in any sense “chosen,” quoted a number of standard New Testament texts that are misused by antisemites to claim that all Jews are children of the devil (John 8:44) and that all Jews who deny Jesus are not really Jews but are the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9; 3:9), among other passages. He also stated that Judaism is an “antichrist, blasphemous” religion, with some viewers offering their “amen” in the comments section.

In fact, it is becoming a mark of Christian orthodoxy to demonize the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. To fail to do so in the strongest, even vilest terms, is to raise questions about your own faith. What a contrast from Paul’s words about his own Jewish people who rejected Jesus as Messiah, stating that, “I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge” (Romans 10:2).

The irony for me personally is that, as a Jewish believer in Jesus, I have been reaching out to my own people for almost 53 years since the moment I came to faith. And I have always affirmed, without hesitation, that Jesus-Yeshua is the only way to the Father and that Jews who reject Him, no matter how pious they may be, are still lost.

Yet because I affirm with Scripture that the Jewish people remain chosen (for a mission, without the guarantee of their salvation, as taught throughout the Bible), and because I unceasingly stand against antisemitic libels, that makes my own faith suspect in the eyes of the “orthodox” Christians. 

To add insult to injury, these Christian zealots fail to realize that one of the biggest reasons that Jewish people do not believe in Jesus is the conduct of the Church, which at times offered Jews baptism or death, among other horrors.

Unfortunately, it would not surprise me if this anti-Jewish rhetoric does not become much uglier in the days ahead, even to the point of threats and violence (along with calls for Jews to leave America). 

As Christian researcher Aaron David Fruh wrote in the Jerusalem Post on July 20, 2023, 

“Today theological Antisemitism is flourishing in church pulpits and seminary lecterns. Replacement theology would lay dormant for several years after the Holocaust but has returned with vengeance. It would only be a matter of time before theological Antisemitism would merge with nationalism as it did in the 4th century under Constantine and as it did during the Holocaust under the Nazis.”

May God awaken His Church to denounce this foul plague and declare to the Jewish people and the world that these ugly voices do not represent Jesus or the gospel. 

Our Hands Are Stained With Blood - The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People

Dr. Gary DeMar Brands You a ‘Prophetic Houdini’ If You Take God at His Word

The bottom line is that our God can be trusted to keep His word – literally. And so, just as Jesus was literally born of a virgin in Bethlehem, was rejected by His people, died a horrific death, and rose from the dead, just as the prophets predicted, so also will He literally return to earth and establish His kingdom in Jerusalem, just as the prophets and apostles and Jesus Himself declared...

Dr. Gary DeMar Brands You a ‘Prophetic Houdini’ If You Take God at His Word | Articles | The Line of Fire

According to Dr. Gary DeMar, if you believe that God will literally keep His promises to Israel and you see redemptive significance in the fact that Jesus will return to Jerusalem, you are a “prophetic Houdini.” 

In his April 18, 2024 article titled, “My Response to Michael Brown’s Response,” Dr. DeMar not only derides those who take God’s promises literally, but he also makes a number of extreme unbiblical statements, also misrepresenting my position and engaging in personal insults, all of which underscores the weakness of his own position. 

Dr. DeMar is responding to my April 8, 2024 article, “The Hoax of Denying the Reality of Replacement Theology,” which in turn was written in response to his April 4, 2024 article, “The Hoax of Replacement Theology.”

In short, in his first article, Dr. DeMar outrageously claimed that there is no such thing as “replacement theology,” the idea that Gentile Christians replaced national Israel in God’s redemptive plan, even though this is the fundamental position to which he holds. 

Tragically, in his lengthy response (over 2,500 words) to my article, he refuses even to acknowledge the tragic, bloody history of replacement theology in Church history, despite the fact that no bona fide Church historian on the planet would deny it.

Why can’t Dr. DeMar simply state, “It is true that the teaching called ‘replacement theology’ has brought great suffering to the Jewish people over the centuries, but I believe the term itself is misguided and unhelpful”? 

Instead, he calls the very notion of replacement theology a “hoax.”

Perhaps even more remarkably, in his continued denial of the reality of replacement theology, Dr. DeMar quotes a Bible teacher who explicitly espouses replacement theology, stating, 

“Kim Burgess writes: ‘The redemption or the consolation of Israel was to have nothing to do with Old Covenant Israel as a national or political/civil form or entity just as the New Jerusalem would have nothing at all to do with the material/physical, visible, and geographically limited city of Old Covenant Jerusalem.’” 

How extraordinary. That is replacement theology on steroids.

Worse still, rather than focusing on substantive, exegetical issues, he resorts to personal insults, such as: “Like Dr. Brown, the Jews of Jesus’ day saw everything in physical terms.” And, “Dr. Brown is a modern-day Nicodemus when he insists that the promises made to Israel must be fulfilled again in a physical way.”

Based on Dr. DeMar’s criteria, that would also make Charles Spurgeon “a modern-day Nicodemus,” since he stated emphatically in 1864 while preaching on Ezekiel 37, 

“The meaning of our text, as opened up by the context, is most evidently, if words mean anything, first, that there shall be a political restoration of the Jews to their own land and to their own nationality; and then, secondly, there is in the text, and in the context, a most plain declaration, that there shall be a spiritual restoration, a conversion in fact, of the tribes of Israel.”

“If there be anything clear and plain, the literal sense and meaning of this passage—a meaning not to be spirited or spiritualized away—must be evident that both the two and the ten tribes of Israel are to be restored to their own land, and that a king is to rule over them.”  Indeed, he declared, “I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough about it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible it is this. I imagine that you cannot read the Bible without seeing clearly that there is to be an actual restoration of the Children of Israel.”

Sadly, Dr. DeMar manages to do the very thing that Spurgeon could not imagine, namely, read the Bible “without seeing clearly that there is to be an actual restoration of the Children of Israel.” 

And what kind of insult would Dr. DeMar hurl at John Owen, the greatest of the Puritan theologians. He wrote, 

“There is not any promise anywhere of raising up a kingdom unto the Lord Jesus Christ in this world but it is either expressed, or clearly intimated, that the beginning of it must be with the Jews.”? 

Or what would Dr. DeMar say to Robert Leighton, a contemporary of Owen? Leighton wrote: 

“They forget a main point for the Church's glory, who pray not daily for the conversion [turning] of the Jews....Undoubtedly, that people of the Jews shall once more be commanded to arise and shine, and their return shall be the riches of the Gentiles (Romans 11:12), and that shall be a more glorious time than ever the Church of God did yet behold.”

Some of Dr. Demar’s language even suggests that I am among the “Judaizers” and have a mentality similar to that of “the chief priests and Pharisees” who “were the antichrists of that generation (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:1-3; 2 John 7), the ‘synagogue of Satan’ (Rev. 2:9; 3:9).” And he writes all this, knowing that: 

1) I have devoted more than five decades of my life to preaching the Good News of Jesus the Messiah to my Jewish people, stating unequivocally that there is no salvation outside of Him; 

2) I have endlessly repeated that Jew and Gentile are one new man in Jesus, equally loved by the Father, with equal standing and equal status, emphasizing that there is no caste system or class system in redemption; 

3) I have made clear that there are both physical and spiritual aspects of God’s promises to Israel. 

Why, then, must Dr. DeMar resort to such unhinged and inaccurate rhetoric? Why resort to slurs and misrepresentations?

He further states, “Like dispensationalists, Dr. Brown is awaiting Israel’s purge through the Great Tribulation when only a third of Israel remains after the antichrist has his way with the Jews.” But he cannot refer to a single citation from me to back this claim, despite my having more than 7 million words in print and countless more words in audio and video archives.

Dr. DeMar goes as far as saying, “He does not address this future holocaust issue in his apologetic for the future Israel. He didn’t address it in our past debate or in his response article even though it is fundamental to his position.”

That’s because this is not fundamental to my position, which prompts the question: Why must Dr. DeMar resort to creating fictitious views which he then ascribes to me in order to buttress his own position? 

It is either a matter of downright dishonesty and Dr. DeMar is knowingly lying (which I hope is not the case) or it provides clear evidence of the bankruptcy of his arguments. (For the record, my position is that there will be parallel extremes at the end of the age, both of light and darkness, with great suffering and upheaval along with great spiritual outpouring worldwide, as well as in Israel, but with great deliverance for the Jewish people explicitly promised in Scripture. I would also hold that, the closer we get to the end of the age, the land of Israel will be the safest place for a Jewish person to be.)

Other outrageous claims he makes include: 

1) “the regathering of Israel to Jesus was taking place in that Apostolic generation,” which is directly rebutted by the fact that Paul affirmed the future redemption of those very Jewish people who were enemies of the gospel during that very apostolic era (see Romans 11:11-29). The salvation of “all Israel” remains in the future.

2) “The land promises were fulfilled ages ago (Josh. 21:43-45; 1 Kings 4:21). Israel was displaced for 70 years and was brought back to the land as promised, but this was before the coming of the long-awaited Messiah.” 

Not only does he refute himself in the same paragraph, since the return of the Jewish people from Babylonian exile postdated 1 Kings 4:21 by almost 500 years, yet he admits this return was “promised” by God. He must also ignore every single prophetic witness in the Old Testament subsequent to 1 Kings 4, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others, all of whom affirmed that the land promises remained to Israel, using the most explicit, detailed language, which is then seconded by the language of the Psalms, as God’s people longed for the day of their promised return.

As for the verses in Joshua and 1 Kings, they state that, just as God promised, He gave the land to His people – but not to then take it away and never give it back! That would be like someone promising you a new car for life, only to deliver it and say, “I have kept my promise,” before taking it back the next day.

Notice also Paul’s words in Romans 15:8, namely, “that Christ has become a servant of the Jews [lit., the circumcised] on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed.” So, the Messiah confirms the promises to the patriarchs rather than cancels them. And what were some of the promises made to the patriarchs? 

Let the Word of God speak for itself, and then ask yourself: Could the Lord have made Himself any clearer?

“He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.’” (Psalm 105:7–11)

3) “... nothing is said in the New Testament about Jews returning to the physical city of Jerusalem or the land of Israel.” In point of fact, the most explicit reference to the Jewish people being scattered from Jerusalem, found in the words of Jesus, is the very place where the Lord clearly implies their return: 

“They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). 

The Jewish people have been “taken as prisoners to all the nations” but it is only “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled,” which is exactly what we have been witnessing in front of our eyes, as the Jewish people have returned en masse, just as Jesus stated, and Jerusalem has returned to Jewish hands.

As I noted in Our Hands Are Stained with Blood, 

Amazingly, some teachers have tried to get out of this perpetual land promise to Israel. 

They claim that in the New Testament, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever reiterate this particular aspect of the covenant. 

But why should they reiterate it? When almost all of the New Testament was being written, about one million Jews were living in the Land, Jerusalem was the spiritual and national capitol and the Temple was still standing. 

And Jesus made it clear that, despite Jerusalem's soon-coming destruction - a destruction that would last “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” - He would come back to a Jewish Jerusalem (Luke 21:24; Matt. 23:37-39). 

But there is another reason why Jesus and the apostles did not explicitly. stress the land promise to their people. The specifics of God's covenant with the patriarchs were so clearly stated in the Scriptures that it would have been a waste of words to repeat them all! 

David Brown, the respected nineteenth century Bible commentator, was correct when he said: “What is permanent in the kingdom of God under the Old Testament is PRESUMED in the New. Put another way, when you build a two-story house, you don’t remove the first floor when you finish the second, otherwise the whole house will collapse. Instead, you build the second floor on the first.

One must also ask why the New Testament explicitly states that Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem if the city no longer has significance, which is Dr. DeMar’s position. 

As the angels said to the disciples as they watched the Lord ascend to heaven from the Mount of Olives, 

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:10–11, my emphasis). 

Yes, in the same way He left, visibly, bodily, from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, He will return, visibly, bodily, to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. As expressed by the prophet Zechariah, “On that day, He will set His feet on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem on the east” (Zechariah 14:4a).

So, the angels in Acts 1 stated in the clearest language that the words of Zechariah would find literal fulfillment, yet to maintain his position, Dr. DeMar must deny the explicit witness of both the Old Testament and New Testament. 

“Once you accept that his return will be physical as well as personal, tangible as well as visible, in a word ‘bodily’, then another adjective has to be added: it will be ‘local’.  Once that has been said, the location needs to be identified.  I have never heard anyone claim it will be Rome or Geneva, Canterbury or Moscow.  Every opinion that I have come across plumps for Jerusalem.”  (David Pawson, Defending Christian Zionism, 100. See further Mark S. Kinzer, Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen: The Resurrected Messiah, the Jewish People, and the Land of Promise.)

4) In his companion rebuttal article, “The Dividing Wall Has Been Broken Down,” which is equally misleading in terms of its implications of my position, Dr. DeMar quotes Milton Terry to argue that the phrase “the end of the age” or “the consummation of the age” in Matthew refers to the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. This means that, when Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 28:20, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” He was actually saying, “I’m with you until the destruction of the Temple, and after that, you’re on your own. As for those who will follow you in succeeding generations, they’ll be on their own too!”

This, again, is what happens when you deny the plain and obvious sense of the Scripture, one which is affirmed elsewhere in the New Testament (see Hebrews 13:5; note that in our online debate on Matthew 24, Dr. DeMar espoused the position that Jesus was saying two separate things, namely, that He was with His disciples always, which included until AD 70. This is both an exegetical and grammatical monstrosity, not to mention nonsensical, since if the first part of the statement was true, there would be no need for the second. It is clear that Dr. DeMar did not have the Greek in front of him during our debate.)

Dr. DeMar asks, “Does the Bible require that every physical promise made to Israel must be fulfilled in a physical way?”

The answer is quite simple: Yes – when the Bible says so itself! 

Consider passages like these, which could easily be multiplied, and then ask yourself: If God was seeking to communicate something to His people, what would they understand these words to mean?

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: In this place that is waste, without man or beast, and in all of its cities, there shall again be habitations of shepherds resting their flocks. In the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Shephelah, land in the cities of the Negeb, in the land of Benjamin, the places about Jerusalem, land in the cities of Judah, flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the LORD” (Jeremiah 33:12-13).

If Dr. DeMar argues that this was fulfilled with the Jewish return from Babylonian exile, that would only underscore my point: literal promises are literally fulfilled, and the literality of the healing must be just as real as the literality of the smiting.

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.’ This is what the LORD says: ‘I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the LORD Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.’ 

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.’ This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘It may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me?’ declares the LORD Almighty. This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.’” (Zechariah 8:2–8; note that this was written shortly after the first return of exiles from Babylon)

Our God will do this, just as He said He would. 

He can be trusted to keep His word, regardless of what Dr. DeMar might argue.

The Lord Himself said through the prophet Isaiah, “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth” (62:6-7). 

Dr. DeMar says, “Ignore this! Jerusalem doesn’t matter anymore! This is talking about the church!”

I say: “Let God speak for Himself. Yes, for sure, believers from around the world can call on the Lord anywhere, and not just in Jerusalem (see John 4:22-23). And yes, there is a heavenly Jerusalem as well as an earthly Jerusalem (see Hebrews 12:18-24), and our eyes are fixed on that eternal city which is above. 

But Jesus is coming back to a physical city on the earth, and from that city, He will rule the world” (see Isaiah 2:1-4).

Peter said that heaven must receive Jesus “until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:21).

Dr. DeMar says, “Anyone who tries to take what the prophets said literally is a prophetic Houdini!”

I say, “Let God be God! His Word is clear. And it is preposterous to think that any New Testament author would completely void out the meaning of Old Testament verses, as if with one stroke of their pen, they could revoke and rewrite and radically reinterpret what the Lord had previously said.”

Stop for a moment and read a chapter like Isaiah 62 from beginning to end, then consider these questions which I raised in Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: 

If Zion primarily means the Church, then where is Zion’s land, what are its walls, and who are its people? (Before you answer, are you sure your answer is scriptural? Do you think the original authors would be totally shocked at your interpretation?) We can make all the spiritual application we want. All believers have a spiritual right to the promises. But we must remember: They are literally true for Zion! Jerusalem’s restoration will be glorious.

This principle also applies to the many verses Dr. DeMar cites regarding the spiritual application of some Old Testament promises. They are wonderful, and I rejoice in those promises with all my heart. 

The New Testament writers can make a spiritual point without negating the physical.

As for the author of Hebrews speaking of the termination of the Sinai covenant, that same author then points to God’s new and better covenant made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Hebrews 8:8-13), a fact conveniently overlooked by Dr. DeMar when he cites Hebrews 8:13, as if it referred to all the promises God gave to Israel. 

Heaven forbid that those have already passed away!

The fact that New Testament writers can emphasize the spiritual aspects of some of God’s promises to Israel does not for a moment negate the fact that God also spoke literally about the people of Israel. 

He promised to scatter them around the world. 

And He promised to bring them back to the Land, all in preparation for their final, spiritual redemption. 

That’s why, after spending several weeks with the risen Savior before He ascended to heaven His disciples could ask Him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”, He did not rebuke them and call them carnal and unspiritual. Instead, He told them it wasn’t for them to know when the Father would bring all this about. Instead, their focus was to be on the Great Commission. (Acts 1:6-8) 

Their question, in itself, was quite logical – and remember, they asked it after spending weeks with the risen Lord.

The bottom line is that our God can be trusted to keep His word – literally. And so, just as Jesus was literally born of a virgin in Bethlehem, was rejected by His people, died a horrific death, and rose from the dead, just as the prophets predicted, so also will He literally return to earth and establish His kingdom in Jerusalem, just as the prophets and apostles and Jesus Himself declared. 

If that were not the case, meaning if God could say one thing explicitly and plainly today only to change its meaning entirely tomorrow, then Christians should beware. 

If the arguments of the replacement theologians are true, then the Lord might just change His promises to the Church too. 

Dr. DeMar’s sword of a disingenuous God cuts both ways.

The Hoax of DENYING THE REALITY of Replacement Theology

How can we deny the prideful heresy of which Paul warned, that has echoed through the corridors of Church history, leading to the deaths of many Jewish people?

The Hoax of Denying the Reality of Replacement Theology | Articles | The Line of Fire

In an April 4, 2024 article titled, “The Hoax of Replacement Theology,” Dr. Gary DeMar claims that, 

“The modern-day Israel-Church distinction is contrary to everything we find in the Bible,” by which he means that the nation of Israel, outside of Jesus, can be seen as “the people of God.”

He also claims that, “The Replacement Theology Hoax is theological desperation.” These are extreme, unfortunate, and unbiblical statements. They also mock the suffering of the Jewish people through the centuries who have experienced the ire of replacement theology firsthand.

Ironically, Dr. Demar cites the very book in which I outline the disastrous effects of replacement theology, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People, stating, “Dr. Michael Brown . . . also brings up the Replacement Theology hoax.”

Dr. DeMar, this is no hoax. It has existed for almost 1,900 years, and it is on the rise again. 

As for those who are not familiar with the term “replacement theology,” or, more technically, “supersessionism,” this refers to the idea that the Church has replaced (or superseded) Israel in God’s plan of salvation, as a result of which, the promises God once gave to national Israel now apply to the Church.

What, then, is Dr. DeMar’s perspective? 

“Something called ‘the church’ was not something new in the New Testament. ‘The church’ could not replace Israel because at first the New Testament church was exclusively Jewish.” (He correctly cites me in support of this last statement regarding the exclusively Jewish nature of the earliest church.)

His point is that the Greek word ekklesia fundamentally means “congregation,” but, since the time of the King James Version, it has almost always been rendered “church” in our English Bibles.

On this point, he is correct. He also notes that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, ekklesia is used with reference to the people of Israel, but in the New Testament, it refers to all followers of Jesus. 

How, then, could the ekklesia replace the ekklesia?

1) When used in the Septuagint, ekklesia referred to the people of Israel as a whole, including both Yahweh worshiping Israelites and idol-worshiping Israelites. In contrast, in the New Testament, ekklesia is primarily used to refer to all believers, both Jew and Gentile, and not primarily to Israel as a whole. So, there has been a shift in meaning. There is something new.

2) Paul warned the Gentile members of the ekklesia, pictured as wild olive branches grafted into a cultivated olive tree, not to boast against the original branches that had been broken off (meaning the Jewish people who rejected the Messiah). He wrote, “do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.’ Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either” (Romans 11:18–21). 

3) The error of replacement theology was for Gentile Christians, who over the centuries completely dominated the ekklesia, to claim that they had displaced the Jewish people in God’s plan, becoming the new Israel themselves.

That is the prideful heresy of which Paul warned, that has echoed through the corridors of Church history, leading to the deaths of many Jewish people.

Its roots are found as early as the second century with Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 AD) who said, “For the true spiritual Israel, and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham... are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ.”

So, the Church is 'the new and true' Israel. And what happened to the old Israel? 

Augustine (354-430), commenting on Matthew 8:12, wrote, “they would be sent away, while the Christians would be called from the east and the west to the heavenly banquet to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, whose bread is righteousness and whose cup is wisdom.”

As summarized in a well-documented online article on Bible.org, 

“the basic premise of the early fathers was that God had permanently cut the nation of Israel off as his people as a result of her disobedience and idolatry in the Old Testament and her rejection and crucifixion of Jesus in the New. The faithful of the church age [meaning, almost exclusively, Gentile Christians] became the ‘new Israel’ of God. They, along with the patriarchs and saints of previous ages, would inherit the promises given to national Israel, and these promises would be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom.”

Martin Luther reaffirmed God’s rejection of the Jewish people, as a people, writing in 1543, “Therefore this work of wrath is proof that the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither is he any longer their God.”

So, individual Jews can be saved, but as far as the Jewish nation as a whole, God is finished with them. 

And what happens to all the eternal promises made to the children of Israel, promises that are distinct from Hir promises to the people of the nations who will turn to Him? Those promises are now spiritually applied to the Church.

Remarkably, Dr. DeMar himself holds to the very replacement theology whose existence he calls a “hoax,” teaching that the nation of Israel today has nothing to do with the biblical promises of national regathering. 

He even claimed in our 2015 debate that, when the Lord said through His prophets that He would scatter Israel in judgment and regather Israel in mercy  (for example, Jeremiah 31:10), the scattering was physical but the regathering spiritual. 

What a mockery of the plain sense of the Scriptures.

So, while I join him in rejecting the teaching of a pre-trib rapture and the sensationalism that often accompanies this belief, I also reject, categorically, his calling replacement theology a hoax. Unfortunately, for his eschatology to work, he must deny hundreds of unambiguous promises to Israel, which Paul explicitly affirmed in the New Testament (see, especially, Romans 11:28-29).

Replacement theology is real and must be rejected.

Thankfully, the God who scattered Israel is the God who has preserved Israel, who is regathering His ancient (although still alienated) people back to the Land, and who will one day turn their hearts to Yeshua-Jesus (Romans 11:25-27). God does not endorse replacement theology!

As for Dr. Demar’s argument, not only does he draw wrong conclusions from his linguistic argument, but he ignores the fact that, for almost two millennia, Gentile Christians have made the claim that they are the new, spiritual Israel and that God is finished with physical Israel as a whole. 

A Striking Modern Proof for the Resurrection of Jesus

The New Testament writers universally claim that Jesus rose from the dead, and they report that he was seen by numerous eyewitnesses, a number of whom subsequently died for their faith. Was it likely they made the story up? Not if they were willing to die for it. As the saying goes, you don’t die for a lie...

A Striking Modern Proof for the Resurrection of Jesus | Articles | The Line of Fire

The New Testament writers universally claim that Jesus rose from the dead, and they report that he was seen by numerous eyewitnesses. Not only so, but history tells us that some of these same eyewitnesses subsequently died for their faith. 

They were that sure that Jesus rose from the dead.

Were they suffering from cognitive dissonance? Did they deceive themselves into imagining this? Was it likely they made the story up? 

Not if they were willing to die for it. As the saying goes, you don’t die for a lie....

Just because someone is gifted or anointed or used by the Lord doesn’t mean they are saintly or holy. We should judge the tree by its fruit, which includes moral conduct.

God Uses Sinful People, But . . . | Article | The Line of Fire

When you look back through history, both secular and spiritual, ancient and contemporary, it is clear that God uses sinful people to accomplish His purposes – not just weak people, but sinful people. 

But this does not mean that God always approves of those who He uses. 

And it does not mean that there are not consequences to our sins. Sin is still deadly.

In the same way, God uses wounded people to accomplish His purposes, including wounded Christian leaders. But if those wounds are not properly healed, it is likely that those wounded leaders will themselves wound others.

In the Bible, there is probably no greater example of this than Samson, a man called to be a Nazarite (meaning, specially separated to the Lord) before he was conceived in the womb.

 As the angel of the Lord said to his mother, 

“You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines” (Judges 13:3-5; see also Numbers 6).

Samson, for his part, is best known for two things: 

The supernatural strength God gave him, enabling him to accomplish powerful exploits against Israel’s enemies, the Philistines; and 

His lack of self-control, because of which he ended up having sex with Philistine women and even marrying a Philistine woman. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!

And so, even though God used him to kill many Philistines, his folly cost him his freedom, his eyes (literally), his reputation, and ultimately, his life. His last words, spoken as he pulled down a Philistine temple filled with thousands of people who had come to mock him, were: “Let me die with the Philistines!” (Judges 16:30)

Still Samson, despite his sins and weaknesses, is listed as a hero of faith in Hebrews 11, among those 

“who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies” (Hebrews 11:33-34).

So, God did use Samson, and the gifts the Lord gave him were his for life, despite his sin, unless he violated his Nazarite oath. That’s why, in Judges 16, after sleeping with a Philistine prostitute, which was about as low as you could go as the national leader of Israel, he got up in the middle of the night and 

“took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron” (Judges 16:3). 

This is as remarkable as it is terrifying. 

Just because a spiritual gift operates in someone doesn’t mean they are right with God. 

Just because God uses a person doesn’t mean He is pleased with them or sanctions them.

In the end, Samson’s folly caught up with him and he paid a severe price for his sins. This hurt the nation as well, since he was called to be their deliverer.

Yet the Lord still called Samson from his mother’s womb and the Lord still gifted him, even though He knew full well that Samson would fall repeatedly. The Lord also saw something positive in Samson’s heart, recognizing him in Hebrews 11 as one of the heroes of faith.

In the same way, God used Martin Luther to spark the Protestant Reformation, which has literally affected the entire world. For Protestants, Luther is one of the giants, a fearless pioneer with a backbone of steel, a man who would not bow, a man with incredible spiritual insight.

For Catholic apologists, Luther is a madman, a clear proof that Protestants are in error. 

To quote Luther’s writings against the German peasants, 

“Like the mules who will not move unless you perpetually whip them with rods, so the civil powers must drive the common people, whip, choke, hang, burn, behead and torture them, that they may learn to fear the powers that be.” 

“A peasant is a hog, for when a hog is slaughtered it is dead, and in the same way the peasant does not think about the next life, for otherwise he would behave very differently.”

For Jews, Luther is the one who wrote that Jewish synagogues should be set on fire and their places of business broken down and destroyed, that rabbis should be forbidden to teach under penalty of death, that passport and travel privileges should be revoked, that Jews should be deprived of good jobs and herded together like Gypsies. 

That’s why the Nazis reprinted his writings with glee and why Hitler thought Luther was a genius.

Yet God not only used Luther to bring about powerful and needed reformation in the Church (many Catholics would also agree that there were some things that needed to change back then), but his writings have continued to change lives over the centuries. Both John and Charles Wesley were deeply impacted by Luther’s commentaries on Romans and Galatians, which played a key role to their own spiritual transformation.

So, Luther was used by God, but his weaknesses and sins caused much pain for many.

First, let’s not be overly impressed with people. We can honor leaders for their service, but let’s save our high praises for the Lord Himself.

Second, just because someone is gifted or anointed or used by the Lord doesn’t mean they are saintly or holy. We should judge the tree by its fruit, which includes moral conduct.

Third, for all of us, especially those in leadership and ministry, let’s be quick to repent, let’s do our best to acknowledge our weaknesses and wounds and find healing and strength in the Lord, and let’s walk in humility and the fear of the Lord.

In the long run, this will determine whether we do more harm than good or more good than harm.

Playing With Holy Fire - A Wake-Up Call to the Pentecostal-Charismatic Church

Theology

The Ominous Resurfacing of ‘Christian’ Antisemitism

Dr. Gary DeMar Brands You a ‘Prophetic Houdini’ If You Take God at His Word

The Hoax of DENYING THE REALITY of Replacement Theology

A Striking Modern Proof for the Resurrection of Jesus

God Uses Sinful People, But . . .

Recognizing the Afflictions of Our Own Hearts

When the Psalmist Said ‘I Am Prayer’

When ‘He Gets Us’ Presents a Jesus Who is TOO Much Like Us

Please Don’t Tell Me That God is Punishing the Jews, ESPECIALLY Today

Why I Am Not Discouraged

The Pope Cannot Overrule God

What John Calvin Got Wrong About the Restoration of the Kingdom to Israel

A Word of Encouragement for Those Rocked by the Allegations Against Mike Bickle

The Real Jesus Makes Us All Uncomfortable

When Pastor Andy Stanley Invited Practicing Homosexuals to Speak to His Congregation

Jesus Drew Circles AND Lines

Only the Lost Can Be Saved

The Kind of War We are Called to Fight

The Last Trumpet and the Jewish New Year

Is Grace More than ‘Unmerited Favor’?

Does the Bible Prohibit Profanity?

Dennis Prager was Wrong about the Connection Between Thought and Behavior in Judaism

The Big Problem with the 'Any-Minute' Rapture

There is a Problem if There is No Hell

True Ministers of the Gospel Have Holy Scars

Smashing Another 'Pride' Myth: NO, David and Jonathan were NOT 'Gay Lovers'

The Beauty of Holiness vs. the Bondage of Legalism

Do You Believe Jesus Is Coming Back In Your Lifetime?

It is the Shepherd, Not the Sheep, Who is Smart

Can a Christian Have a Demon?

How ‘Progressive’ Christians Misuse the Bible

‘Lashawan Qwadash’: One of the Craziest Beliefs of the Black Hebrew Israelite Cult

Jesus Our Messiah and the Ancient Jewish Calendar

Was Esau-Edom White? Demolishing Hebrew Israelite Lies (Part 1)

Charlie Kirk and the UC Davis Version of ‘Inclusion’ and ‘Diversity’

Demons, Deliverance, and Division

How Should We Respond When Leaders Fall?

The Hijacking of Empathy and Equality

From a Progressive Christian Antagonist to an Orthodox Christian Advocate

Can We Really Trust the Bible?