By Colleen Tinker
After last week’s blog addressing “spiritual Israel” and the fact that Adventism cannot be considered to be “spiritual Israel” and that the law was never required for gentiles, we received further questions and comments. This week we are following last week’s blog with a bit more about the idea of “spiritual Israel”, or replacement theology, and the purpose of the law.
One person wrote, “I understand what you’re saying and agree with much of it, but you are out of your depth on the subject of ‘replacement theology’. I do not know of a single theologian that describes themselves that way. If anything, the Dispensationalists have ‘replaced’ the Church with racial Israel.”
Another person wrote, “I read your article tonight and have always wondered about the meaning of this verse: “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29, KJV). From what you say, the Torah (law) was never meant for pagans (gentiles). The new covenant promise of God (law in our hearts) actually negates any need to observe the Torah. Adventists do not understand the old and new covenant. Where this seems to fall apart, though, is that we say sinners are under the old covenant law which is a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ and the new covenant experience. This hole needs to be patched up.”
We will attempt to address these questions, first by looking more closely at the subject of “spiritual Israel”, and second by seeing what the New Testament says about the use of the law now that Jesus has inaugurated the New Covenant.
About spiritual Israel
Importantly, my point in last week’s blog was not about replacement theology in general, although I mentioned that there are Christians that embrace this concept. I was addressing Adventism’s own version of replacement theology. As primarily a gentile denomination and further, as a group that teaches “another gospel”, Adventism has no biblical claim to the law. Yet Adventists claim they are “spiritual Israel”—the true believers of what Ellen White called “modern Israel” in reference to God’s people today. Adventism believes it has taken up the torch where Israel failed—much as it claims it also completes the Reformation, taking up the torch where Luther failed.
My point is that Adventism cannot legitimately argue that it has any claim to the title “spiritual Israel” because it is not part of the the true body of Christ, and because as an organization, Adventists are not JEWS.
Moreover, in the early church, the Council of Jerusalem declared that gentile converts were NOT to be taught the law. That decision alone would disqualify an organization like Adventism from claiming to be Christian yet insisting that they keep the law. Acts 15 is clear: no gentile is to be put under the law. Galatians is equally clear.
As for replacement theology in the sense of the church’s being Israel, that is a discussion that has never been completely resolved within Christianity. Scripture is clear that the church is made up of both Jews and gentiles, but it is not called the replacement of Israel. It is something entirely NEW. It is made up of those who believe in the Lord Jesus’ finished work and have been spiritually born again—born of the Spirit—and indwelled by the Holy Spirit as their seal and guarantee of their eternal inheritance (Eph. 1:13–14). Israel, in contrast, was defined ethnically, and proselytes had to be circumcised to be able to join the community of Israel. Yes, “true Israelites” believe God and His promises, but Israel was not defined by a “new birth” and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Believers, however, are called the “children of Abraham”, and Romans 4 develops this idea in detail. Children of Abraham, however, are not Israel per se. Israel was a nation formed by God and placed under the law. The faith of Abraham preceded the law, and both those under the law and those not under the law are saved the same way: through believing God and having faith in the Lord Jesus.
Gentiles, to be sure, are grafted into the olive tree of God’s purposes, and we are the “unnatural” branches. Jews are the “natural” branches of this tree, and many of them have been cut off, Romans 11 explains, so that we may be grafted in. But God, Paul says, can graft those cut-off natural branches back in.
Significantly, Paul says that the roots (the fathers—patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) nourish the branches; we no not support the roots. So both Jews/Israel and gentiles are supported by the promises God made BEFORE Israel was formed: the promises of the Abrahamic, unconditional covenant that is developed even more fully in the new covenant, also an unconditional covenant.
Today most of us as believers—and CERTAINLY most Adventists and former Adventists—are gentiles. We cannot use the biblical arguments for Paul’s Jewish rights to observe a vow from the law (see Acts 21:21–26) as an argument for Adventist observation of the law. Those are not parallel arguments!
The law in the new covenant
The law does describe the condemnation of sinners. It is very clear that anyone who sins, dies.
The fact that the law reveals human depravity, however, does not mean sinners are UNDER the law. Sinners are under condemnation because they are sinners, but that condemnation did not originate with the law. It occurred when Adam sinned in the garden, just as God had said: “for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17).
The Law demonstrated to Israel, God’s chosen people through whom the Holy Seed would come and through whom salvation would come through that Seed, how hopeless humanity is and how there can be no reconciliation or cleansing without blood sacrifice. But that Law was never intended to be in authority over anyone but Israel.
Nevertheless, we can use the law “lawfully” now, as Paul explains in 1 Timothy 1:8–11. The law was not made for righteous people, but “for those who are lawless…”
In other words, the law still explains the consequences for sin, but it is not a system under which anyone is subject now.
The law has been fulfilled, and the entire world is under the authority of God Himself through His entire Word and through the Holy Spirit.
Here is what Jesus said in John 16:5–11:
But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. (ESV)
Notice what Jesus said: the Holy Spirit would convict THE WORLD—not believers, but THE WORLD—concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. Of course, the Holy Spirit has always been the means of opening hearts to truth, but with the sending of the Holy Spirit after Jesus’ ascension, something new occurred. Jesus did not fully explain HOW this would “work”, but He said it WOULD HAPPEN. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the world as He indwells and seals believers takes the presence of Jesus throughout the world in the persons of His own people. Somehow, the Holy Spirit has a role that is different now that Jesus has ascended than before Jesus died and rose again.
When the veil ripped in the temple when Jesus died, the way to the Father was opened for all people. Now sinners can come directly to God on the basis of Jesus’ blood, asking for forgiveness. There is now no need for any person to bring a sacrifice or offering in order to approach God. People can all come on the basis of Jesus. If they try to approach on their own terms, they cannot be reconciled to God—but on the basis of Jesus, any person can directly approach God in repentance without a human priest offering blood.
Because of Jesus, the Holy Spirit convicts people individually through God’s word and compels them to face their sin. He convicts them, as the passage above says, of their sin of unbelief in Him. He convicts people of Jesus’ own righteousness, that he died and rose and ascended to the Father, and the Holy Spirit convicts sinners of judgment—that the ruler of the world (see Eph 2:1-3…Satan) is judged and condemned. The Holy Spirit now convicts people that they are condemned if they are under the ruler of the world and not in the Lord Jesus.
The law still does its work of defining sin and articulating the death sentence, but it is not a system of worship or government. Moreover, it is not a set of rules which tells believers how to please God. The Holy Spirit teaches born again believers to submit to God’s entire word, and He teaches them to flee from sin. The New Testament lists many more sins than the Ten Commandments reveal, and in the new covenant, the Holy Spirit convicts believers of those sins.
God gave the law to His nation Israel that would bring forth the promised Messiah who would fulfill the law. Today, the law still reveals who Jesus is—the One who actually fulfilled the whole law and ushered us into a new covenant in His blood.
Sinners are not under the law, but the law reveals reality to them. Sinners are under the condemnation of the triune God, just as Adam and Eve and all humanity after them have been (Rom. 5:12–14; 1 Cor 15:21, 22; Rom. 3:9–18; Eph. 2:1–3). Only in Jesus are we delivered from condemnation, and the Holy Spirit is the one who reveals Him and convicts sinners that Scripture is true, that they are condemned without Jesus. †
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I’m reminded of this, written by J. Vernon McGee: “After all, God gave just one religion, and that is the Mosaic system. Christianity is a Person, and you either have that Person or you don’t have Him. And to have Christ is salvation — that is not a religion. However, God did give a religion, the Mosaic system, and He gave it to the nation Israel. This nation represented religion in the day that Christ came to this earth and when Jerusalem was the religious center of the world.”
Here’s J. V. McGee’s article in it’s entirety–
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mcgee_j_vernon/eBooks/why-four-gospels/matthew-written-for-the-religious-man.cfm