The Replacement Versus Fulfillment Distinction (Regarding Israel)

 An objection was raised on a recent podcast of mine by someone who took offense at my take on the translators of the King James Version. I will post the video podcast below so you can read his objection in full. I don't want to speak for him. I also am not going to address every individual verse notes as they are all representative of his overall point

His objection, as I read it, is presented in two main assertions. He states that the KJV translators did not embrace the New Covenant for the "Church" (they were all ordained in the Church of England, for the record). he posits the idea that they embrace a "testament," not a "covenant." The extension is that the New Covenant is indeed for Israel and will be manifested in the millennial kingdom. That would be a summation (as I see it) of his second objection. Fair enough.

I did note in the podcast that I was riffing (speaking off the cuff). I feel as though the particular objections point to only a very minor part of my presentation, but the objections are noted and appreciated. And they give me an opportunity to put a finer point on a particular issue. 

I would like to point out that the idea that the translators held to some idea of "replacement" of Israel by the "church" is only one external problem I noted with the KJV. My specific problems are in the text and the translation choices colored by doctrines such as "hell" and the "bodiless soul." The problems remain whether colored or not, and remain no matter to what degree the translator inserted the "church" into Israel's promises, however. Not to mention the understanding of the gap in Genesis 1 and the idea of the unique dispensational revelation to Paul alone in Ephesians noted. But these are topics on their own.

Let me address, in big picture, the two main objections.

1. The translators did not believe that the Church replaced Israel (they believed in "fulfillment")
2. The translators did not believe that we have the New "Covenant" but rather a New "Testament"

Before I dive in, I'll agree, on paper, these are true to a degree. My issue, as I hope to unfold, is that for all intents and purposes, in practice and in doctrines, they did indeed hold to both to a significant degree. The latter being more nuanced. And when I looked at at least one Anglican Arminian commentary from the 19th century, the distinction between "covenant" and "testament" disappears and Anglican thought fully allows for the idea of the New Covenant (at least in part) to be claimed by the "church." 

As to the larger point, yes, there is a technical difference between "replacement" theology and "fulfillment" theology. Different people define "fulfillment" differently. To some, it is essentially "replacement." But be that as it may, we will lean on this explanation, "[Fulfillment] teaches that God’s promises to Israel are fulfilled in Christ, and through Christ, both Jews and Gentiles become Abraham’s offspring..." [Robert Sparkman]. By claiming a continuation of Abraham into a gentile Body in any way, is, in light of my repeated position, a "replacement" of Israel in God's earthly plan. So, claiming the idea of Abraham's seed from Galatians, in any way, and then applying that today to ourselves (rejecting the Acts separation of Jewish and Gentile placement and practices) is a form of "replacement."

Someone who holds to "fulfillment," while maybe not claiming the New Covenant in toto or the millennial kingdom, etc. but he still claims promises in the prophets, the Kingdom, the gospels, and the Acts. The distinction then becomes, in light of Paul's unique revelation of the heavenly plan, negligible. That is, while there are clear prophetic implications in the differences, in terms of what each believes for himself today is of little consequence.

Even the great dispensationalist, John Darby, found some middle ground between an earthly fulfillment of the New Covenant in Israel while holding a separate application of the same to the "church." 

The gospel is not a covenant, but the revelation of the salvation of God. It proclaims the, great salvation of God. We enjoy indeed all the essential privileges of the new covenant, its foundation being laid on God's part in the blood of Christ, but we do so in spirit, not according to the letter.

The new covenant will be established formally with Israel in the millennium. Meanwhile the old covenant is judged by the fact that there is a new one.

-John Darby's Synopsis of the New Testament, Hebrews 8 

This is an explanation I to which I would have given allegiance while in the Plymouth Brethren. It fully embraces the idea of the New Covenant being particular to Israel while claiming benefits from it for believers today. We know Christ's blood is for the sins of the whole world, and that blood makes the New Covenant possible, but we cannot then conclude these things overlap.

The Church of England historically taught a "continuity" between Israel and what it calls "the church." I hold to no such continuity. The continuity in the Acts age is certainly there, but that is (as noted) a continuation of the gospel of the Kingdom to a very real Israel as part of God's separate plan for the earth. When we understand this, the difference between "replacement" and "fulfillment" becomes of none effect, at least for my purposes regarding the KJV.

By referencing the ministry of the Lord in the gospel accounts and the conditions of the Acts age, the commenter partly makes my point that the KJV translation has hidden the truth of God's revelation for the current age. To be sure, almost all the translations do this because to one degree or another they all suffer from the same assumptions concerning the Acts, the "church," the Kingdom, the gospel, etc. 

I singled out the KJV for two reasons:

1.  The translation is very commonly used and quoted and 
2. Some men call it "inspired" (while damning all other translations). No one is "NIV-only"," for example.

There is difference between a setting aside of Israel as I teach and the subjugation of Jews as some evidence of the triumph of Christianity as fulfillment teaches . A plan set aside is not a plan replaced. You can object to the word, but unless you hold that there is a plan for Israel which is distinct and wholly separate and still to come in a true earthly kingdom (to which the Body has no claim, nor should it want it, on anything of Israel's past or future), then it is a form of replacement no matter what you call it. 

Holding to a future New Covenant for Israel, while correct, does not negate the fact that these theologians also go back and plumb the prophet's etc. for themselves. 

Samples of chapter headings in Isaiah in the 1611 KJV.

The commenter correctly states that the New Covenant is for the Jews in the millennium. Absolutely! We agree 100%! But if we go back into the prophets and gospels and Acts and epistles to the circumcision (in whole or in part) and claim any of that for some "gentile church," we have "replaced" Israel in practice. And we note again, there is clearly no doubt that whatever else they may claim, they certainly claim the Book of Acts, the Acts epistles of Paul, and the epistles to Israel from the Apostles to the Circumcision. 

The Body of this age "fulfills" nothing apart from the revelation given to Paul alone. That revelation was hidden from "before" the ages and was not made know to Moses or the prophets. You can say "fulfillment," but that is, again., just a form of replacement.

Allow me to try and find agreement. Let us reaffirm God's promises to Israel in the millennial kingdom. The Calvinists and Baptists of the 17th century teaching that salvation is "covenantal" are wrong. Israel will come into her New Covenant when she turns to Christ after a winnowing into the millennial kingdom.

With these in mind, when we see Peter (an apostle to the circumcision) in Acts 3 promises "men of Israel" that if they repent God would send the Lord back to restore all things in Israel, he was NOT promising some "gentile church" or some mixed church anything. The point here is that the Acts message was the continuation of the offer of the kingdom to Israel post cross, post resurrection, post ascension. Gentiles grafted in (into Israel) were grafted in for this stated reason: "to make ISRAEL jealous." They were separate and secondary ("to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile") and under a different set of rules.

That is not the condition of today.

We can commend the translator for this note above Ezekiel chapter 36. At least on its face it maintains the chapter for the people of Israel.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

-Ezekiel 36:26

Too often believers of all systems of theology go to the prophets (like Ezekiel 36:26, Jeremiah 29:11, etc.) or to the gospels or the Acts age epistles to claim things for themselves today. This is robbing from Israel and claiming things that even the gentile believers grafted in would not claim. In that age, gentiles were threatened they could be "cut off" from Israel (Romans 11). Do we still believe that?

For if God spared not the natural branches [Israel], take heed lest he also spare not thee [Gentiles]. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou [Gentiles] continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.

-Romans 11:21-23

 

Boast not against the branches. But if thou [Gentiles] boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

-Romans 11:8

If the grafting in of Gentiles into Israel is still what people believe is happening today, and that gentiles can be "cut off" from that root today, then what does that make "the church?" We do not have an Israel-based "church" in this age. We have something completely separate. You cannot find that separation in the prophets, gospels, or Acts age. If anyone claims anything for Israel in these for himself, call it what you will, it's Replacement to some degree.

So I maintain the overall point. The KJV (among its other issues) was translated by men who took in whole or in part promises and plans for Israel. You can call that "fulfillment," but the end is the same. That belief tainted at least some of their translation choices (as it does most translations).

Fulfillment is a form of Replacement. To one degree or another, they take from from God's plans and promises for Israel and claim them for themselves. 

One final note: Admittedly I am not terribly familiar with Anglican thought, so I consulted an Arminian Anglican 19th Century scholar's commentary (1878, edited by Charles John Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester). I wanted to avoid any Calvinist influence, so that's why the distinction. Ellicott covers the issue of "covenant" versus "testament" (Greek diathḗkē is the original for both in the relevant passages) in his comments on Hebrews 7:22 and 9:16. Ellicott concludes we should read "covenant" for all, but that doesn't negate the idea of a testator, etc. He's not infallible, of course, but he does reflect Anglican thought in the 19th century.

This is the first occurrence in this Epistle of a very interesting word (diathçkç) which hereafter will occupy an important place in the argument. Throughout the Greek translation of the Old Testament it is used to represent a Hebrew word which is (more than 200 times) rightly rendered covenant in our version; and, like the Hebrew word, it is applied both to mutual agreements between man and man, and to “covenants” or engagements into which God enters in regard to man. In classical writers diathçkç commonly denotes a testament; and hence in the old Latin translation of the Scriptures testamentum became the common rendering of the word. As, however, this rendering is very often found where it is impossible to think of such a meaning as will (for example, in Psalms 83:5, where no one will suppose the Psalmist to say that the enemies of God “have arranged a testament against Him”), it is plain that the Latin testamentum was used with an extended meaning, answering to the wide application of the Greek word. St. Paul’s designation of the Jewish Scriptures as “the Old Covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:14) thus became familiarly known as The Old Testament. In the New Testament the Authorised version more commonly presents the better rendering; but, through the influence of the Latin, testament is retained in several places—viz., in the various accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper; in 2 Corinthians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 3:14; in Revelation 11:19 (“the ark of His testament,” a very strange translation); in the present verse; and especially in the very important passage, Hebrews 9:15-20. There is a very general agreement of opinion that “covenant” must be the true meaning in all passages of the New Testament except the one last mentioned; and even in that place there are strong reasons for retaining the same rendering. (See the Note on Hebrews 9:15.) In this verse, at all events, we cannot doubt that the writer is thinking of a covenant. (See Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 8:8.) Here only is Jesus spoken of as Surety, elsewhere as Mediator (Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:15; Hebrews 12:24). As through the Son of Man the covenant becomes established, so in Him it remains secure; the words addressed by God to Him as Priest and King contain the pledge of its validity and permanence.

-Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers (Hebrews 7:22, excerpt, emphasis added)

[For purposes of transparency, much of this post is a rewrite of my responses that I sent to the commenter whose comment and list of scriptures can be found below the video at YouTube.]

One last note. In just chatting informally about the translation itself, I am afraid the overall point may have been missed. This post is not necessary to establish the multiple translation issues in the KJV or to establish that their theology influenced translation choices. Whether Replacement or Fulfilment, Calvinist or Arminian, etc.. a failure to see the revelation of the Mystery in Ephesians and the current plan of God as distinct from any other plan of God is bound to lead to translation prejudices. I do not what that point missed in focusing on the particular views of the Church of England.