This is an edited transcript of a Heidelminicast by Dr. R. Scott Clark.
[…] The very category of “replacement” is foreign to Reformed theology because it assumes a Dispensational Israelio-centric way of thinking about the history of redemption […] It assumes that a temporary national people was, in fact, intended to be the permanent arrangement. Such a way of thinking is contrary to the promise of Genesis 3:15. And that promise was that there would be a Saviour. That’s the core of redemptive history. The national people was only a means to an end, and not an end in itself. According to Paul in Ephesians 2:11-22, in Christ the dividing wall has been broken down […] It can’t be rebuilt. The two peoples in Christ – Jews and Gentiles – have been made one. Among those who are united to Christ, by grace alone through faith alone, there is, according to the Word of God, no Jew, no Gentile. You can see that in Romans 10:12, Galatians 3:28, and Colossians 3:11.
[…] According to Reformed theology, the Mosaic Covenant was never intended to be permanent. According to Galatians 3 and 4, the Mosaic Covenant was a codicil to the Abrahamic Covenant. A codicil is added to an existing document. It doesn’t replace the existing document.
But Dispensationalism, by contrast, reverses things. It makes the Abrahamic Covenant a codicil to the Mosaic. Hebrews 3 says that Moses was a worker in Jesus’ house. Dispensationalism makes Jesus a worker in Moses’ house.
[…] With respect to salvation, Reformed covenant theology does not juxtapose Israel and the Church […] For Reformed theology, the Church has always been the Israel of God, and the Israel of God has always been the Church. Reformed covenant theology distinguishes between the Old and New covenants (2 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 7 to 10) […] Strictly speaking, the Old Covenant is the Mosaic Covenant […] It recognises that the Church was temporarily administered through a typological national people. But the Church has existed since Adam, Noah, and Abraham. It existed under Moses and under David, and it exists under Christ.
[…] If you read the Septuagint, you’ll see that where the Hebrew Bible says, for example, “qahal”, which is the Hebrew word for “covenant assembly”, the Septuagint has the word “ekklēsia”, which is the New Testament word also for “church”. And so, if you’re reading, as the New Testament Church was reading, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, you are seeing all through the Old Testament “church”, “church”, “church”, “church”, “church”. And that’s why they thought of themselves as the New Covenant assembly in a continuity with the Old Testament, or the Church under types and shadows. The Church has always been one, under various administrations.
[…] The object of faith has always been one. Jesus the Messiah was the object of faith of the Church under types and shadows. You can see that in Hebrews 11. It’s very clear there. It’s very clear in Luke 24, and it’s pretty clear in 2 Corinthians 3. And He remains the object of faith.
[…] Despite the abrogation of the national covenant by the obedience, death, and resurrection of Christ (see Colossians 2:14), the New Testament Church has not replaced the Jews. Paul says that God grafted the Gentile Christians onto the people of God. Grafting is not replacement; it is addition.
Click here to listen to full podcast (10:49).