Replacement Theology

Supersessionism, also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology, is a Christian theology which asserts that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant exclusive to the Jews. Supersessionist theology also holds that the universal Christian Church has succeeded ancient Israel as God's true Israel and that Christians have succeeded the ancient Israelites as the people of God.

Often claimed to have originated with Paul the Apostle in the New Testament, supersessionism has formed a core tenet of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches for the majority of their history. Many early Church Fathers – including Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo – were supersessionist.

Most historic Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Methodist Churches and Reformed Churches, hold that the Old Covenant has three components: ceremonial, moral, and civil (cf. covenant theology). They teach that while the ceremonial and civil (judicial) laws have been fulfilled, the moral law of the Ten Commandments continues to bind Christian believers.Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 100
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Since the 19th century, certain Christian communities, such as the Plymouth Brethren, have espoused dispensationalist theology as contrasted to covenant theology. Additionally, as part of Christian–Jewish reconciliation, the Roman Catholic Church has placed an increased emphasis on the shared history between Christianity and the modern Jewish faith.

Rabbinic Judaism disregards supersessionism as offensive to Jewish history. However Islam teaches that it is the final and most authentic expression of Abrahamic monotheism, superseding both Judaism and Christianity. The Islamic doctrine of '' tahrif'' teaches that earlier monotheistic scriptures or their interpretations have been corrupted, while the Quran presents a pure version of their divine message.

Etymology

The word ''supersessionism'' comes from the English verb ''to supersede'', from the Latin verb ''sedeo, sedere, sedi, sessum'', "to sit", plus ''super'', "upon". It thus signifies one thing being replaced or supplanted by another.

Throughout Church history, many Christian theologians saw the New Covenant in Christ as a replacement for the Mosaic Covenant and the Church as the new people of God. The word ''supersession'' is used by Sydney Thelwall in the title of chapter three of his 1870 translation of Tertullian's ''An Answer to the Jews''.

Christian views

The New Testament

In the New Testament, Jesus and others repeatedly give Jews priority in their mission, as in Jesus' expression of him coming to the Jews rather than to Gentiles; ; cf. ; and in Paul the Apostle's formula "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile".; Yet after the death of Jesus, the inclusion of the Gentiles as equals in this burgeoning sect of Judaism also caused problems, particularly when it came to Gentiles keeping the Mosaic Law,; ; ; which was both a major issue at the Council of Jerusalem and a theme of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, though the relationship of Paul and Judaism is still disputed today.

Paul's views on the Jews are complex, but he is generally regarded as the first person to make the claim that by not accepting claims of Jesus' divinity, Jews disqualified themselves from salvation. Paul himself was born a Jew, but after a conversion experience he came to accept Jesus' divinity later in his life. In the opinion of Roman Catholic ex-priest James Carroll, accepting Jesus' divinity, for Paul, was dichotomous with being a Jew. His personal conversion and his understanding of the dichotomy between being Jewish and accepting Jesus' divinity, was the religious philosophy he wanted to see adopted among other Jews of his time. However, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues that Paul saw his faith in Jesus as precisely the fulfillment of his Judaism, not that there was any tension between being Jewish and Christian. Christians quickly adopted Paul's views.

For most of Christian history, supersessionism has been the mainstream interpretation of the New Testament of all three major historical traditions within Christianity – Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant. The text most often evident in favor of the supersessionist view is Hebrews 8:13: "In speaking of 'a new covenant' er. 31.31-32he has made the first one obsolete."

Church Fathers

Many Early Christian commentators taught that the Old Covenant was fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant in Christ, for instance Justin Martyr wrote that the "true spiritual Israel" referred to those who had "been led to God through this crucified Christ". Irenaeus taught that, while the New Covenant had superseded the old, the moral law underlying the Law of Moses continued to stand in the New Covenant. Whereas, Tertullian believed that the New Covenant brought with it a new law, writing: "Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices, the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself demonstrates. ...Therefore, as we have shown above that the coming cessation of the old law and of the carnal circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has shone out into the voluntary observances of peace."

Augustine of Hippo followed the views of the earlier Church Fathers but emphasized the importance to Christianity of the continued existence of the separate Rabbinic Jewish faith: "The Jews ... are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ." The Catholic church built its system of eschatology on his theology, where Christ rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church. Augustine, however, also mentioned to "love" the Jews as a means to convert them to Christianity. Jeremy Cohen, followed by John Y. B. Hood and James Carroll, sees this as having had decisive social consequences, with Carroll saying, "It is not too much to say that, at this juncture, Christianity 'permitted' Judaism to endure because of Augustine."

Roman Catholicism

Supersessionism is not the name of any official Roman Catholic Church doctrine and the word appears in no Church documents, but official Catholic teaching has reflected varying levels of supersessionist thought throughout its history, especially prior to the mid-twentieth century. The theology that the Jews dissent by continuing to exist outside the Church is extensive in Catholic liturgy and literature. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) marked a shift in emphasis of official Catholic teaching about Judaism, a shift which may be described as a move from "hard" to "soft" supersessionism, to use the terminology of David Novak.

Prior to Vatican II, Catholic doctrine on the matter was characterized by "displacement" or "substitution" theologies, according to which the Church and its New Covenant took the place of Judaism and its "Old Covenant", the latter being rendered void by the coming of Jesus. The nullification of the Old Covenant was often explained in terms of the "deicide charge" that Jews forfeited their covenantal relationship with God by executing the divine Christ. As recently as 1943, Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical ''Mystici corporis Christi'':

At the Second Vatican Council, which was convened two decades after the Holocaust, a different framework emerged on how Catholics should think about the status of the Jewish covenant. The declaration ''Nostra aetate'', which was promulgated in 1965, made several statements which signaled a shift away from "hard supersessionist" replacement thinking which posited that the Jews’ covenant was no longer acknowledged by God. Retrieving Paul's language in chapter 11 of his Epistle to the Romans, the declaration states, "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues. …Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures."''Nostra aetate''
n. 4 Notably, a draft of the declaration contained a passage which originally called for "the entry of that ewishpeople into the fullness of the people of God established by Christ;" however, at the suggestion of Catholic priest (and convert from Judaism) John M. Oesterreicher, it was replaced in the final promulgated version with the following language: “the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and ‘serve him shoulder to shoulder’ (Zeph 3:9).”

Further developments in Catholic thinking on the covenantal status of Jews were led by Pope John Paul II. Among his most noteworthy statements on the matter is that which occurred during his historic visit to the synagogue in Mainz (1980), where he called Jews the "people of God of the Old Covenant, which has never been abrogated by God (cf. Romans 11:29, "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" RSV."Pontifical Biblical Commission
“The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures” (2002)
In 1997, John Paul II again affirmed the Jews’ covenantal status: “This people continues in spite of everything to be the people of the covenant and, despite human infidelity, the Lord is faithful to his covenant.”

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI writes in his 1999 work ''Many Religions - One Covenant'' that "the Sinai osaicCovenant is indeed superseded."

The post-Vatican II shift toward acknowledging the Jews as a covenanted people has led to heated discussions in the Catholic Church over the issue of missionary activity directed toward Jews, with some Catholics theologians with Cardinal Avery Dulles reasoning that "if Christ is the redeemer of the world, every tongue should confess him", while others vehemently oppose "targeting Jews for conversion". Weighing in on this matter, Cardinal Walter Kasper, then President of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, reaffirmed the validity of the Jews’ covenant and then continued: In his apostolic exhortation '' Evangelii gaudium'' (2013), Pope Francis emphasized communal heritage and mutual respect for each other, writing:

Similarly, the words of Cardinal Kasper, "God's grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all. Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, sthe faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises," highlight the covenantal relationship of God with the Jewish people, but differs from Pope Francis in calling the Jewish faith salvific. In 2011, Kasper specifically repudiated the notion of "displacement" theology, clarifying that the "New Covenant for Christians is not the replacement (substitution), but the fulfillment of the Old Covenant."

These statements by Catholic officials signal a remaining point of debate, wherein some adhere to a movement away from supersessionism, and others remain with a "soft" notion of supersessionism. Traditionalist Catholic groups, such as the Society of St. Pius X, strongly oppose the theological developments concerning Judaism made at Vatican II and retain "hard" supersessionist views. Even among mainstream Catholic groups and official Catholic teaching, elements of "soft" supersessionism remain. The ''