Replacement theology...
Hmmm, I THOUGHT it meant that some spiritual teacher took the idea of "saved by grace, through faith" and "replaced" it with some legalistic idea. Nope.
In truth, I am now wondering whether Replacement Theology is in fact, what I've been believing myself, and I just didn't know it. Now, we are saved by God's grace...absolutely. But after some personal study on the matter, it seems to me that Replacement Theology, means taking (for centuries now), the Jewish, culture, traditions and roots of a Jewish faith, and "replacing" these, with pagan festivals and holidays. Replacing (and changing) the Sabbath day, and the original feast days (or divine appointments) with God. Now, most people don't realize this, because we carry on the traditions with which we are brought up.
This is fine. I do not mean to be disrespectful to anyone. It's just that I understand now why evangelicals are, at times, called evan-jelly fish. This is hard for me to write, because I don't have any desire to replace the grace of Jesus with anything. But for me, something's missing. I mean, just as an example, it's quite confusing to me, as someone who's saved through Jesus shed blood on the cross, that MANY Jewish folks are actually quite offended by this. They do not believe it, and they do not want to talk about it. Now, many folks who are not Jewish take offense to the scriptures and the message of salvation as well. But in this case, the evangelical Christian looks at this as a witnessing opportunity and, we share the message of the cross with them. Because how will they know if they've not heard, right? We become excited because we can quote John 3:16 to them, maybe Romans 8:28. Now, of course, we can and should give the same consideration to Jewish folks as well...but many Jewish folks won't even read a New Testament. This blows most of our argument out of the water, doesn't it? Can we show in the first covenant, where Yahweh's message of salvation is?
It's absolutely there! But I could not, and still can't very well show in the First Covenant where the evidence of Christ's plan of salvation is. It is very evident, though, in the story of Abraham and Sarah. But anyway, I'm not biologically Jewish, and literally did not think that the Old Covenant applied to me. I mean, I thought that as long as I could quote John 3:16, and Jeremiah 29:11...then I could give a defense for my faith. I could even read the Torah (not calling it the Torah, of course) and see how The Creation story is a "picture" of events to come. Sure, why not? Anyway, getting all excited about my WWJD bracelet and my Christian sweatshirts, I DID desire, to be as close to the Lord as possible. But I was convinced that nothing in the First Covenant was going to aid in a person being saved, because this was before Christ had come.
I quickly came to the conclusion that to be part of the family line of Jesus Christ, must've been the most amazing thing their was! After all, he's the savior of the world. Imagine my surprise when I began researching these things and found out that so many Jewish folks in particular reject Jesus Christ because he was...Jesus Christ. I'm so sorry if anyone's angry about this...but what did I know? Jesus Christ had changed me from the inside out...and now I wanted others to experience the same thing. I've since read that when in Israel (particularly), when one witnesses to people, it is typically offensive to speak about the cross. Now, I know there is at least one Messianic Bible college there, and several Messianic church congregations...so not everybody is offended by the message of the cross.
But, it occurred to me that I could not really witness to someone without telling them about the cross...how would I do that? The Bible says that "By his wounds we are healed.". Anyway, how could someone be dedicated to what that Bible said, and ignore the New Testament? An interesting observation...considering that, for the most part, I ignored the OLD Testament. Plain, and simple, I believed that the old testament was just filled with animal sacrifices that are no longer necessary. I also thought that people in the old testament...ate a lot. This is because of all the FEAST days! (Come on, you know you've thought that too!). Teshuvah (Teshuva)...it's a returning to something that is good (renewing) for someone, after they've been away from it for a while. The feast days of the old testament were divine appointments between God and his people, so that they could commemorate the atonement and cleanse themselves of any known sin. (Leviticus 6:29-30). Passover? Purim? Chanukah? What are these things? I thought they were unnecessary to me, because I'm not Jewish.
But to me, appointments with God were not necessary, because I had been bought and paid for with his shed blood. I mean, I thought it was sad that anyone would ever end up in Hell because the message of salvation was so simple. All you had to do was to ask. Ask Jesus into your heart, and he'll come, right? (Revelation 3:20). Sure! It's true...but what then? Where do yo go from there? No church sweatshirts or WWJD bracelets were going to help me with this. Anyway...what happens when God asks us to walk through something REALLY hard, like he did Abraham? Well, believing that old testament stories no longer applied today (as far as I was concerned), I never thought God WOULD ask me to walk through anything like that. This is not going so well, is it?
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