The Definition of Supersessionism

The Definition of Supersessionism

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As commonly understood, Supersessionism…

“…also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology, is a Christian theological doctrine which describes the theological conviction that the Christian Church has superseded the nation of Israel assuming their role as God's covenanted people, thus asserting that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant that was exclusive to Jews. Supersessionist theology also holds that the universal Christian Church has replaced ancient Israel as God’s true Israel and that Christians (including gentiles) have replaced the biological bloodline of ancient Israelites as the people of God. Often claimed by later Christians 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. Since the 19th century, certain Christian communities, such as the Plymouth Brethren, have espoused dispensationalist theology as contrasted to supersessionism and 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. 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 earlier interpretations of them have been corrupted by later interpretations of them, while the Quran presents a pure version of their divine message. The word supersessionism comes from the English phrase 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.7(As defined by Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism)

Wikipedia’s definition of supersessionism is generally correct, except for the implication that the moral law, because of the Mosaic Covenant, is still binding on Christians. The moral law is binding on Christians because it is derived from God’s eternal laws of morality, not because the moral laws appear in the Mosaic Covenant. In other words, the whole Mosaic law has been superseded, not just the ceremonial and civil laws of Israel. See our section titled: The Moral Law and the Ten Commandments.

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Anti-Supersessionism

Views opposed to supersessionism are called anti-supersessionism or non-supersessionism. They believe Israel, as a national or ethnic people, has not been superseded by the Church, but continues to enjoy a special “covenant relationship” with God and thus Israel maintains a vital place in God’s plan that is distinct, yet similar, to the role of the Church.

Dual-covenant anti-supersessionism believes the Mosaic (or Sinai or Old) covenant is a vehicle of faith, morals, and salvation for ethnic Jews or national Israel, and that no Jew needs to convert to New Covenant Christianity in order to be saved since Jews, in this view, are saved today in the same way they were saved before Christ. For this reason, any attempts to convert Jews to Christianity are inappropriate. The two covenants that persist are the “Old Covenant” and the “New Covenant,” and the “Old Covenant” is made into a much broader term than the “Mosaic covenant.” In this view, some believe the Jew can decide whether he wants to be saved in the Old Covenant or the New Covenant; or that the Old Covenant can still save the Jew because it acquires grace from the New Covenant. Because of God’s continued work with the Jews, as a race they can walk shoulder-to-shoulder with the Church, since God gave them separate but similar missions. These views of the Old Covenant are what many in the Catholic Church are proposing today as they reject the traditional views of supersessionism taught by the Catholic Church in her pre-20th century tradition. It will be the main subject matter of this book as we go forward. Single-covenant anti-supersessionism believes the Church, which is mostly Gentile, is the focus of God’s saving work today, but only as a “parenthesis” that looks forward to the full restoration, nationally and salvifically, of Israel, either right before or during the Second coming of Christ, thus fulfilling all the Old Testament prophecies that predict a restoration of Israel (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Micah, et al). Here “Israel” is interpreted literally as opposed to spiritually (i.e., spiritually is when the Church is interpreted as the restoration of Israel, and there will be no physical or earthly restoration of Israel).

Moreover, the prophecies given to Abraham concerning the land of Canaan (e.g., Gn 15:18-21) will be fulfilled to the fullest as Israel takes over all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates rivers. Israel today can anticipate all these blessings in the future because it is believed that the covenants that provided the blessings have never been revoked. This view of Israel is taught in Dispensationalism, Historic Premillennialism or just Millennialism. It is held by most evangelical Christians, especially in the United States.

Other Definitions

antisemitism: against the race of the Jews8 ( As understood by Rebecca Rist in her book Popes and Jews, 1095 – 1291, Oxford Univ. Press, 2016: “The concept of ‘anti-semitism’ as we know it is a modern one: The word was coined c. 1873 by Wilhelm Marr to describe and advocate a certain ‘racist’ view of Jews. Marr’s theory was fully developed during the second half of the nineteenth century. Scholars have long debated the difference between ‘anti-Judaism’ and ‘anti-semitism.’ Hence Gavin Langmuir distinguished ‘anti-Judaism’ as a non-rational reaction to overcome non-rational doubts, and ‘anti-semitism’ as an irrational reaction to repressed rational doubts. For Langmuir ‘non-rational’ seems to imply something close to what Max Weber called ‘value rationality’: i.e., a social action which is pursued because of the supposed intrinsic value of the action itself, regardless of its consequences” (Preface).

anti-Judaism: against the religion of the Jews

anti-Zionism: against the political aims of the Jews

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