Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens initially, followed by Carlson’s interview with Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, have blown wide open the issue of antisemitism as it relates to the ‘Church.’ The word ‘church’ itself is a misnomer, but I will use it since it serves as the unwitting baseline for those identifying as Christians, among whom two camps seem to exist. As a general rule-of-thumb, the liberal, mainline Protestant denominations; those Protestant denominations espousing an evangelical approach to God’s Word while confessing a faith founded on Covenant Theology; and the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches hold to the view that the covenants God made with the ancient Israelites have been transferred to ‘The Church,’ i.e., that ‘The Church’ has replaced the national state of Israel, within which the majority of Jews, or, in the political vernacular, Israelis, live today, as the instrument by which God is accomplishing His will in these “latter days.”

As somewhat of an aside, I would like to direct attention to the second group of denominations in the preceding paragraph, for whom the Westminster Confession of Faith answers all questions dealing with the principle that “Scripture is the only guide for faith and practice,” by specifically noting the following personal observation:

There is much about the Westminster Confession of Faith that is useful as a teaching tool and can to a certain extent even be viewed as a ‘critical apparatus’ of sorts. However, it is the product of 17^th century biblical scholarship, and to a certain extent under the influence of Catholic teaching.

Those men could not foresee the future as to what God had planned for ‘the apple of His eye,’ Israel. However, a close, unbiased reading of Scripture, even then, should have informed them of the fact that God was not finished with Israel. Paul, in his theological masterpiece, Epistle to the Romans, in chapter 9, is quite clear in this regard. No matter how godly the authors may have been, the Confession is not inspired and is therefore the work of fallible men.

I understand the clear message of God’s Word, i.e., the 66 books of the canonical scriptures, of which the Old Testament contains 39 and the New Testament, 27 [Comment: The canonical scriptures under consideration exclude the so-called Deuterocanon or Apocrypha as well as the Pseudepigrapha], authored under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to be that this latter day ‘ekklesia’/’qahal’, those ‘called out’ to be the Body of Christ, will be grafted into a believing Israel. The nation of Israel – established by the UN in 1948, but under God’s foreordained plan – has become the focal point of the turmoil in the world today, as it has been since its establishment, despite all the other manifestations of unrest throughout the decades since then.

[Comment: As I have stated in previous posts, my study of scripture is linguistic, drawing my exegesis from an in-depth examination of the original Greek and Hebrew, meaning that I consider each word to be an intricate part of the whole; and, whether we’re considering a sentence, a paragraph, or a longer, standalone section of scripture known as a ‘pericope’; the exact meaning deserves to be sought out, regardless of what theological tradition has held to be true. These studies, in many instances, have been driven by an inner compulsion to come to terms with traditional teachings or practices of the ‘church,’ this term itself having caused me much consternation, since in no way does it resemble either the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ (εκκλησια) or, when considered seriously, the meaning of the Greek. ((There have been several ‘linguistically-blindered’ explanations, all of which are exactly that – linguistically uninformed and, based on my research, uncorroborated in extant Biblical or extra-Biblical literature, which attempt to connect the word ‘church’ with extrapolated derivatives of the Greek expression ‘kyriakos oikos/κυριακος οικος ~ the Lord’s house’.))

Quite to the contrary, the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic word ‘church’ actually stems from the Russian word tserkov’/церковь, which in turn, originates from the Biblical Hebrew word karkov/ כַּרְכּוֹב -> the lattice network attached to the altar, and as such, was an integral part of the structure upon which the burnt sacrifice was offered. With the abolition of the sacrificial system under the Old Covenant, Rome, taking to itself the identity as the new Israel, instituted the perpetual sacrifice of the Christ, within the confines of a physical structure symbolizing the ‘karkov’ with the designation of ‘the church.’ What we do know is that Martin Luther refused to translate ‘ekklesia’ as ‘kirche’ in his German translation of the New Testament and William Tyndale, as ‘church,’ in his English translation. ((Please see my post https://the-dragon-is-slain.com/2022/06/11/theoretical-reconstruction-of-the-derivation-of-the-conceptual-word-church/)).

As a pertinent aside, let’s take a look at the words used in a few other languages, which, unfortunately under the influence of English, are translated as ‘church,’ but in reality are derived from the Greek ‘ekklesia’: The one most resembling the original is the Spanish – ‘Iglesia;’ in French, église; while in Italian, it is ‘Chiesa’ (kee-e-za); in Turkish and closely-related Azerbaijani, it is ‘Kilise‘ and ‘Kilsə,’ respectively, the point being that by holding to a language-dependent (meaning, how different languages form words, based on how a series of consonants and vowels are pronounced) transliteration of the Greek, those reading the Bible in these languages have a much more informed understanding of the meaning of the word as used in the New Testament.

The ‘Church’ has always been, from its inception, a politico-social organization with religious trappings, performing pseudo-Christian rites intertwined with liturgical mumbo-jumbo in combination with ancillary extra-Biblical practices. This perception of the ‘Church’ influenced Luther (1483-1546) and Tyndale (c. 1492–1536), who were among the vanguard of the Protestant Reformation, to refuse to translate ‘ekklesia’ as ‘kirche’ or ‘church‘, rather to insist on its correct translation as ‘Gemeinde’ (Luther) or ‘congregation’ (Tyndale). Again unfortunately, the reformers who came after them compromised this position and agreed to King James of England’s demand to translate ‘ekklesia’ as ‘church’ in the English bible. The ‘Church’ advanced further its self-purported mandate as the ‘new Israel’ by ‘reverse engineering’ the Septuagint’s correct glossing of the Hebrew word ‘qahal’ as ‘ekklesia’ by translating it with the aberrant meaning of ‘church,’ although the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible had translated the Hebrew/Greek correctly as ‘assembly’; on the other hand, in the New Testament, the KJV translates ‘ekklesia’ as ‘church.’

Apart from the obvious spiritual harm done to Christian populations that accepted this contrived means of worship to be the only way to salvation, this intentional, and hubristic, misinterpretation of scripture obfuscated and, for all intents and purposes, nullified the actual meaning of the ‘ekklesia’ as used in the New Testament and its Old Testament counterpart, the ‘qahal.’

The ‘Church’ is a manmade institution that over the intervening centuries has cast aside all pretentions of preaching true Godliness through personal faith in Yeshua haMoshiach/Jesus the Messiah effected by the Holy Spirit as the result of having been ‘called out,’ chosen from the foundation of the earth by Yahwah Elohim El Shaddai/the Lord God Almighty. Rather, confirmation of salvation under this confessional system is attained through good works that necessarily generate an attitude of pride and self-accomplishment, while negating a humble attitude of serving the Risen Savior, Who defeated death so that all who have been redeemed by His Blood might live new lives, to the glory of God.

Both of these entities, the Greek ekklesia and the Hebrew qahal, in strictly secular semantic terms, represented a group of persons from within the greater municipal Greek city-state structure, on the one hand, and the ancient Israelite community, on the other, which was called to assemble to carry out a specific task. The Ekklesia mentioned in the New Testament is the spiritual successor to the ‘qahal’ in the sense that it is a new community, comprised of all those who have been, are being, and will be called out from the pagan environment in which they live to become followers of Jesus, to be identified as the Body of Christ.

One implication resulting from coming to terms with the nature of the ‘Church’ vice that of the Ekklesia is for the Community of the Body of Christ to identify with the latter, which is a living, vibrant organism, NOT with the former, which has always been at odds with the true, intrinsic calling of the Gospel.

The second, perhaps more important, implication centers around the title of this post. What is this Israel that is the apple of God’s eye other than a redeemed at the end of time Qahal, i.e., the remnant of Israel, comprised of all those Jews who have or will believe in Yeshua as the Moshiach (the Promised, Anointed One), Whom they have or will claim as their Moshi’ah (Savior). Into this qahal will be grafted the above-mentioned Ekklesia, and thus ‘all Israel will be saved,’ as the two become one in the ‘quintessential’ Qahal.

On the one hand, it is time for the evangelical Body of Christ to shake off the moniker of ‘church,’ while, on the other hand, to recognize that its true, spiritual identity is tied to the Hebrew ‘qahal,’ not the Greek ‘ekklesia.’ (It is my stand that Yeshua, in Matthew 16:18, used the word ‘qahal’ NOT ‘ekklesia’ when He was speaking to Peter. Cf. https://thedragonisslain.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2662&action=edit “Flint aka Rocky and the Rock: Peter and Yeshua”).The Community of the Body of Christ that is made up primarily of Gentiles must acknowledge that it is to the Jewish Yeshua that it owes its salvation and that it is to Him, the One Who saves (which is what Yeshua, a noun from the verb ‘yahsha,’ means) that all honor and glory shall be given.]

In my opinion, to hold to or to argue in support of Replacement Theology is to evidence anti-Semitic tendencies because of a gross misunderstanding of what the ‘Church’ actually represents.

I offer as counterpoints to the Replacement Theology position the following: a Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) discussion between CBN host, Raj Nair, and Calev Myers, the cofounder and chairman of Arise, “a global alliance that exists for the safety and welfare of Israel and the Jewish people.” During the conversation, Calev Myers references the following verses in relation to God’s eternal covenant with Abraham and his progeny in line with His promise to return His people to their land: Jeremiah 23:7 and 16:14, Psalm 105:9, and refers to Ezekiel, chapters 36/37.

Secondly, instructive is the post at https://ettingerwriting.wordpress.com/2019/07/03/the-reformations-evil-stepchild/ in which writer/blogger David Ettinger justifiably accuses the Reformation of having given birth to the interpretation of Scripture which purports that ‘The Church’ has replaced Israel as pertains to God’s promises to His people.

Please take the time to listen to the CBN interview and to read the post. They are both excellent resources as counterbalances to the Replacement Theology position.