BONUS FEATURES EXCERPT // Dr. Michael Brown: Is Covenant Theology the Same as Replacement Theology? from Covenant & Controversy on Vimeo.

Today I watched the documentary, Covenant and Controversy, by FAI STUDIOS. This week’s articles will center around this documentary.

Speaking personally, the two greatest burdens on my heart revolve around one great issue: Family. These two burdens, more specifically, are abortion and the Jewish people.

Abortion and the Jewish people are family issues.

Abortion destroys the life of the natural family and rejects one of the most basic blessings of Scripture, that children are a blessing (Psalm 127). Husbands and wives and children are the true prosperity gospel.

The Jewish people are my spiritual family. In Ephesians (ch 2&3) it reads that Christ Himself broke down the dividing wall, making both (Jew & Gentile) groups into one. The stewardship of this mystery is fulfilled through Jews and Gentiles being co-heirs in the promise of Jesus Christ. This co-heirship and family has theological similarities, but there are also differences that remain. An example of a similarity is that we are ‘all saved through Christ alone’. Jew, Gentile, man, woman, child- all saved the same way. An example of a difference is found in Isaiah 19, which describes different national blessings being given to Egypt, Israel, and Assyria. We receive unique blessings from God based upon our nationality (yes, that’s biblical), just as we may even receive unique blessings and rewards from God based upon what church family we belong to or what trial we overcome (Revelation 2&3). These unique blessings are one of the things that makes the body of Christ so beautiful and diverse.

Arrogant theology substitutes the modern church for Israel (Romans 11). The Gentiles were brought into a Jewish promise. As a Gentile believer, I am not Israel. I am not a Jew. However, the blood of Jesus has broke down the wall that excludes me from being blessed by the Jewish people. As an adopted son, I now not only belong to the spiritual family, but have also been given the position of co-heir with the Jews. If the promise that came through the Jews is not consummated through the return of a Jewish King (King is both a spiritual and political term in this sense), then there is no promise for me to inherit. Replacement theology when taken too far reduces the Kingdom of God to being a spiritual promise only- and that’s heresy.

As a Gentile believer, it is then part of my great commission to do everything in my power to see that the Jew is reconciled to Jesus so that he is not ‘cut off’ from the promise I have inherited through the his people. Jesus is fully God and will always be a fully Jewish man. I for one choose to believe His whole household will be saved.

-J. S. Marek