Christ, the Covenant of Grace, and the One People of God

I. Introduction

The relationship between Israel and the church stands among the most contested and theologically consequential questions in contemporary Christian theology. Few issues expose more clearly the divergence between competing hermeneutical systems, nor do many topics so decisively test one’s understanding of covenant, Christology, and redemptive history. At the center of this debate lies the term supersessionism, a designation that has, in modern discourse, assumed a polemical function far exceeding its descriptive precision. Derived from the Latin super (“over”) and sedere (“to sit”), the term originally conveyed the notion of one reality succeeding or superseding another. In contemporary theological usage, however, it is frequently equated with “replacement theology,” and thus employed to suggest that the church has illegitimately displaced Israel, rendering void the covenant promises made to the patriarchs.^[1] This equation, though widespread, represents a profound misunderstanding of the classical Christian theological tradition, particularly as it has been articulated within Reformed covenant theology. The term supersessionism, in its contemporary polemical usage, functions less as a precise theological category than as a rhetorical weapon deployed to discredit any theological system that refuses to grant ethnic Israel an ongoing, distinct, and parallel covenantal status alongside the church.^[2]

Such usage is deeply problematic, not merely because it oversimplifies a complex theological tradition, but because it obscures the actual categories through which historic Christian theology—especially within the Reformed tradition—has understood the unity of God’s saving purpose. In many contemporary formulations, particularly within dispensational and Christian Zionist frameworks, the charge of supersessionism functions as a theological indictment: that any model which identifies the church as the fulfillment of Israel necessarily entails divine unfaithfulness, hermeneutical inconsistency, or even anti-Jewish hostility.^[3] The force of the accusation rests upon the assumption that the identity of Israel is irreducibly tied to ethnic lineage and national continuity, and that any theological model which does not preserve this structure in a future, distinct covenantal program must therefore be guilty of replacing Israel with another people.^[4] This assumption, however, is itself a theological claim requiring demonstration, not a self-evident premise from which all subsequent theological reflection must proceed. Moreover, it represents a reading of Scripture that stands in significant tension with the apostolic interpretation of Israel’s identity and destiny as set forth in the New Testament.^[5]

Historic Reformed theology, however, operates within an entirely different conceptual framework. It does not begin with the question of ethnic continuity, but with the triune God’s covenantal self-revelation in Scripture, culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The central organizing principle is not the preservation of national Israel as such, but the unity of the covenant of grace, administered throughout redemptive history and brought to its climactic realization in Christ.^[6] Within this framework, the question is not whether Israel is replaced, but whether Israel’s covenantal identity is fulfilled in the Messiah, and whether all who belong to Him—whether Jew or Gentile—constitute the one eschatological people of God. This fundamental reorientation of the question shifts the entire debate away from competing claims about ethnic prerogatives and toward a Christ-centered reading of redemptive history in which the person and work of Jesus Christ serve as the interpretive key to all of God’s covenant dealings with His people.^[7]

This distinction is decisive. Reformed theology does not posit two parallel peoples of God, nor does it suggest that God abandoned one covenantal program in favor of another. Rather, it confesses that there has always been one covenant of grace, one Mediator, and one people of God, progressively revealed and historically administered, but unified in substance.^[8] This unity finds its ultimate foundation in the intra-trinitarian covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), the eternal agreement among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit concerning the salvation of the elect, which guarantees the unbreakable unity of the covenant of grace across all ages.^[9] The Old Testament economy, centered in Israel as a national covenant community, is understood as a real and divinely instituted administration of this one covenant, yet one that is typological, provisional, and forward-looking.^[10] Its structures—land (אֶרֶץ, ʾereṣ), temple (מִקְדָּשׁ, miqdāš; also בַּיִת, bayit, “house”), priesthood (כְּהֻנָּה, kĕhunnâ), kingship (מַלְכוּת, malkût), and sacrificial system (זֶבַח, zebaḥ, and קָרְבָּן, qorbān)—are not ultimate ends in themselves but divinely ordained shadows (σκιά, skia) pointing toward the substance (σῶμα, sōma), which is Christ (cf. Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:5; 10:1).^[11] To recognize these structures as typological is not to diminish their historical reality or theological importance; rather, it is to honor them precisely as God intended them to be honored—as divinely appointed anticipations of a greater reality yet to come. The shadows, in the biblical imagination, are not worthless; they are precious precisely because they derive their meaning from the substance they foreshadow.^[12]

Thus, the transition from Israel to the church is not a movement of replacement but of fulfillment (Matt. 5:17; Luke 24:44; Acts 13:32–33; Rom. 15:8), not a rupture but a consummation.^[13] The promises made to Abraham are not nullified but realized (Gen. 12:1–3; 15:1–21; 17:1–8; Rom. 4:13–25); the covenant is not revoked but brought to its intended telos (τέλος). In the language of the apostle Paul, “all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20; cf. Rom. 15:8–9).^[14] This “Yes” (ναί) is not a reinterpretation that evacuates the promises of their original meaning, nor is it a cancellation that substitutes new promises for old ones. Rather, it is the divinely intended terminus toward which every promise was always directed.^[15] The decisive question, therefore, is not whether God remains faithful to Israel, but how that faithfulness is expressed in Christ and in the community united to Him (Eph. 1:3–14; 2:11–22; 3:1–13).^[16] To ask the question in this manner is to recognize that faithfulness to promise does not require the preservation of the provisional forms through which the promise was historically administered; rather, faithfulness requires the arrival of the promised reality toward which those provisional forms were always oriented.^[17]

At this point, it is necessary to clarify the ways in which the term supersessionism has been categorized in modern theological discourse. Kendall Soulen’s well-known typology identifies three forms: punitive, economic, and structural supersessionism.^[18] Punitive supersessionism asserts that Israel was rejected by God as punishment for unbelief, particularly the rejection of Christ. This form, historically associated with certain strands of patristic and medieval thought, has rightly been criticized for fostering anti-Jewish attitudes and must be unequivocally rejected.^[19] Economic supersessionism views Israel’s role as a temporary stage within the divine economy, which comes to completion with the advent of Christ. This form, while less polemically charged than the punitive variety, still risks presenting Israel’s role as merely preparatory in a way that can suggest disposability.^[20] Structural supersessionism refers to a narrative framework in which the Old Testament becomes marginal to Christian theology, effectively sidelining Israel’s ongoing significance and reducing the Hebrew Scriptures to little more than a backdrop for the supposedly more important New Testament revelation.^[21]

The Reformed tradition stands in critical distinction from these categories, even where partial overlap may appear. It rejects punitive supersessionism insofar as it suggests that Israel is simply discarded as a people, whether for unbelief or for any other reason, for such a suggestion contradicts the apostle’s emphatic declaration that God has not rejected His people (Rom. 11:1–2; cf. 11:11, 29).^[22] It rejects structural supersessionism because it insists upon the abiding authority and theological indispensability of the Old Testament (2 Tim. 3:15–17; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:11), reading the New Testament not as a replacement of the Old but as its divinely inspired interpretation and fulfillment.^[23] And while it shares with economic supersessionism the recognition that Israel’s national form is not permanent (Heb. 8:13; 12:27–28), it refuses to frame this in terms of expiration or replacement. Instead, it speaks of fulfillment—of promise brought to completion (Luke 1:68–75; Acts 3:25–26; 13:32–33), of type (τύπος) giving way to antitype (ἀντίτυπος) (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 10:6, 11; Heb. 9:24), of shadow (σκιά) yielding to substance (σῶμα) (Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:5; 10:1).^[24] This is not supersessionism in any pejorative sense; it is, rather, the biblical pattern of redemptive-historical progression that is woven into the very fabric of scriptural revelation.^[25]

The central claim of this chapter, therefore, is that what is often labeled “supersessionism” within Reformed theology is more accurately described as covenantal fulfillment grounded in union with Christ (ἔνωσις; or more precisely, being “in Christ,” ἐν Χριστῷ).^[26] Christ Himself is the true Israel (Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1), the true Seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16; Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 24:7), the obedient Son (Matt. 3:17; 17:5; John 8:29; Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8), and the covenant Head of a new humanity (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–22, 45–49).^[27] The church, composed of believing Jews and Gentiles (Acts 15:1–29; Rom. 1:16; 10:12–13; 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:11–22), is not a second people but the historical manifestation of the one people of God in its eschatological form (1 Peter 2:9–10; Rev. 1:5–6; 5:9–10).^[28] The continuity between Israel and the church is not ethnic or political but covenantal and Christological.^[29] This means that the unity of the people of God is not an abstract theological construct imposed upon the biblical text but the very structure of redemptive history as it unfolds from Genesis to Revelation.^[30] The church does not replace Israel; rather, Israel reaches its appointed goal in the church, just as the bud reaches its goal in the flower, and the flower in the fruit.^[31]

To establish this claim, the chapter proceeds by tracing the biblical-theological development of the covenant of grace from Abraham through Moses and the prophets to Christ and the apostles. It will then articulate the confessional framework of Reformed covenant theology, drawing upon the Westminster Standards as a classic expression of this tradition, with particular attention to the eternal foundation of the covenant of grace in the covenant of redemption. This will be followed by engagement with key figures in historical theology, demonstrating the continuity of this position within the broader Christian tradition and showing that Reformed covenant theology is not a novel construction but the mature fruit of the church’s sustained reflection on Scripture. The chapter will then address contemporary objections, particularly those arising from dispensationalism and modern political readings of Israel, engaging these challenges with theological rigor and pastoral sensitivity. Finally, it will examine Romans 9–11 as the decisive apostolic exposition of Israel’s place within the unified redemptive plan of God, attending carefully to the complexities of Paul’s argument and its implications for the church’s understanding of itself and its relation to the Jewish people.^[32]

In undertaking this task, the aim is not merely to defend a doctrinal position, but to recover the coherence, depth, and pastoral richness of a Christ-centered covenant theology. For the ultimate issue is not terminological but theological: whether Christ stands at the center of God’s redemptive purpose (Col. 1:15–20; Heb. 1:1–4), and whether in Him the dividing wall (μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ) between Jew and Gentile has truly been broken down (Eph. 2:14–16), creating one new humanity (ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον) reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:17–21).^[33] Only when that question is answered rightly can the debate over Israel and the church be resolved with clarity, fidelity, and theological integrity. The chapter thus seeks not to win a polemical argument but to invite readers into a deeper apprehension of the beauty and coherence of God’s redemptive plan as it centers upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, the true Israel and the Savior of the world (John 4:22, 42; Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5–6).^[34]

II. Biblical-Theological Foundations: Christ and the Covenant of Grace

A Reformed treatment of the relation between Israel and the church must begin where Scripture begins the visible unfolding of redemptive history after the fall: with Abraham and the covenant promises made to him.^[35] The Abrahamic covenant (בְּרִית) is not an isolated arrangement concerning one ethnic people alone. It is the foundational historical administration of the covenant of grace in its outward form, containing within itself both the particularity of Israel and the universality of the gospel.^[36] When the Lord (יהוה) calls Abram (אַבְרָם) in Genesis 12, He says, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Gen. 12:2), and then adds the crucial universal dimension, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).^[37] From the outset, the promise is simultaneously narrow and wide, ethnic and universal, historical and eschatological.^[38] The covenant does indeed create a people and set apart a lineage, but it does so for the sake of blessing the nations (Gen. 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14).^[39] This dual orientation—particularity for the sake of universality—is not an accident of the text but a structural feature of God’s covenantal dealings that will persist throughout redemptive history.^[40] The particularism of Israel is never an end in itself; it is always instrumental to the universal blessing that God intends to pour out upon all nations through Abraham’s offspring.^[41]

This same pattern deepens in Genesis 15. There the covenant is solemnized in a manner that underscores its unilateral and gracious character. Abram prepares the divided animals, but it is the Lord Himself, symbolized by the smoking fire pot and flaming torch, who passes between the pieces (Gen. 15:17–21).^[42] The significance is clear: the covenant rests finally not upon Abraham’s ability to maintain it, but upon God’s own self-obligating oath.^[43] In the ancient Near Eastern context, the ritual of passing between the pieces typically signified the self-curse of the covenant-making parties: “May this be done to me if I fail to keep the terms of this covenant.”^[44] That only God, symbolized by the theophanic presence, passes between the pieces indicates that the covenant’s fulfillment rests ultimately upon divine faithfulness rather than human performance (cf. Jer. 34:18–20).^[45] Reformed theology has long recognized the immense doctrinal significance of this scene. The covenant with Abraham is not fundamentally a contract between equals; it is a sovereign administration of grace, initiated and guaranteed by God.^[46] Its ultimate certainty therefore rests in divine faithfulness, not human constancy (Rom. 3:3–4; 2 Tim. 2:13; Heb. 6:13–18).^[47] This is not to deny the reality of human covenantal obligation (Gen. 17:1, 9–14; Ex. 19:5–8), but to insist that the ground of the covenant’s certainty is not the variable quality of human obedience but the unchanging character of God’s covenant-keeping love (Ex. 34:6–7; Ps. 89:1–4, 30–37; Mal. 3:6).^[48]

Genesis 17 adds further covenantal clarity. There God says, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant (בְּרִית עוֹלָם), to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen. 17:7).^[49] Here the covenant promise includes both a personal and generational dimension. Abraham and his seed (זֶרַע) are bound to God in a relation of covenant belonging. Circumcision (מִילָה) is given as the sign (אוֹת) and seal (σφραγίς) of this bond (Gen. 17:9–14; cf. Rom. 4:11), marking out the visible covenant community.^[50] Yet even here the covenant cannot be reduced to bare ethnicity. Abraham’s household included those not physically descended from him (Gen. 17:12–13, 23–27), and later biblical history repeatedly shows that not all physical descendants share equally in the true covenantal blessings.^[51] Ishmael (יִשְׁמָעֵאל) is circumcised but not chosen (Gen. 17:18–21; 21:8–21); Esau (עֵשָׂו) is descended from Isaac but not the recipient of the covenantal promise (Gen. 25:23; 27:1–40; Mal. 1:2–3); later generations of Israelites will be described as uncircumcised in heart (עֲרֵלֵי לֵב) despite bearing the physical mark of circumcision (Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; 9:25–26; Ezek. 44:7, 9).^[52] The sign marks the visible administration, but the essence of the covenant remains deeper than bloodline alone.^[53] This distinction between the visible and the invisible, between outward membership and inward participation, is not a late theological development but is woven into the fabric of the Old Testament narrative itself (cf. Deut. 29:2–4; Jer. 31:31–34; Rom. 2:28–29).^[54]

This takes us to the crucial question of the “seed.” Paul’s exposition in Galatians 3 is decisive. He writes, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring (τῷ σπέρματι). It does not say, ‘And to offsprings’ (καὶ τοῖς σπέρμασιν), referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring’ (καὶ τῷ σπέρματι σου), who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).^[55] This text is often mishandled, either by reducing Paul’s argument to a grammatical trick or by overreacting and denying its exegetical force.^[56] But Paul’s point is neither superficial nor arbitrary. He is not claiming that the Hebrew word zeraʿ (זֶרַע) can never function collectively; indeed, in the Old Testament it frequently does (Gen. 13:15–16; 15:5, 13, 18; 22:17–18).^[57] Rather, he is expounding the covenant in light of its Christological goal.^[58] The promise was always ordered toward a representative Seed, a covenant Head, in whom the destiny of the many would be concentrated.^[59] Christ is that Seed. He is not merely one descendant among many but the One in whom the Abrahamic inheritance is gathered, secured, and distributed (cf. 1 Cor. 3:21–23; 15:20–23; Eph. 1:3, 10–12).^[60] Paul’s reading is not a grammatical argument in the modern sense but a theological exposition that discerns the covenantal logic implicit in the original promise: the seed of Abraham would be the one through whom blessing would come to the nations (Gen. 22:18), and that one, in the fullness of time, is revealed to be Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:1; Luke 3:23–38; Rom. 1:1–4).^[61]

This is why Paul can proceed to the astonishing conclusion: “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).^[62] Union with Christ (ἐν Χριστῷ) determines covenant identity.^[63] The decisive dividing line is not ethnicity but incorporation into the Messiah (1 Cor. 12:12–13; 2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 1:3–14; 2:4–7).^[64] This does not deny the historical significance of Abraham’s physical descendants; it establishes the deeper theological principle that their significance was always covenantally ordered to Christ.^[65] The line of Abraham had typological and historical necessity because the Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ; Χριστός) would come through it (Gen. 49:8–12; Num. 24:17–19; Isa. 11:1–10; Matt. 1:1–17; Luke 1:32–33, 68–75).^[66] But once He has come, the inheritance is His, and all who are in Him become heirs (Rom. 8:16–17; 1 Cor. 3:21–23; 1 Peter 1:3–5).^[67] The Gentiles do not become Abraham’s offspring by abandoning their ethnic identity or by being absorbed into Jewish ethnicity; they become Abraham’s offspring by being united to Christ, the Seed, and thus receiving the inheritance promised to Him (Eph. 3:6; cf. Rom. 11:17–24).^[68] This is not replacement but expansion: the family of Abraham, which was once constituted primarily through physical descent (Gen. 17:9–14), is now opened to all who share Abraham’s faith (Rom. 4:9–12, 16–17) and who are united to Abraham’s greater Son (Gal. 3:26–29).^[69]

The same principle appears in Israel’s national life. At Sinai, God declares, “if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession (סְגֻלָּה) among all peoples … and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests (מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים) and a holy nation (גּוֹי קָדוֹשׁ)” (Exod. 19:5–6).^[70] Israel is now formally constituted as a covenant nation under Yahweh’s kingship (Exod. 15:18; Deut. 33:5; Isa. 44:6).^[71] This is no small matter. Israel is genuinely God’s son (בֵּן) (Exod. 4:22–23; Deut. 14:1; Hos. 11:1), His vineyard (כֶּרֶם) (Isa. 5:1–7; 27:2–6; Jer. 2:21; 12:10), His servant (עֶבֶד) (Isa. 41:8–9; 44:1–2, 21; 45:4; 48:20).^[72] Reformed theology does not minimize this reality. But it understands that these designations are not ultimate endpoints. They are typological and preparatory, anticipating One who will embody in Himself all that Israel was called to be and failed to be (Hos. 11:1–2; Matt. 2:15; Rom. 10:1–4; 1 Cor. 10:1–11).^[73] The covenantal categories applied to Israel in the Old Testament—son, vineyard, servant—are not mere metaphors; they are divinely revealed identities that establish patterns of meaning that will find their fullest expression in Christ (Matt. 21:33–46; Mark 12:1–12; Luke 20:9–19).^[74] Israel’s failure to fulfill these identities does not render them void; it creates the space for the coming of the One who will succeed where Israel failed (Isa. 53:1–12; Jer. 23:5–6; Ezek. 34:23–24; Zech. 3:8).^[75]

That One is announced most clearly in the Servant songs of Isaiah. In Isaiah 49 the Servant (עֶבֶד) is addressed by God as “Israel,” yet this same Servant is tasked “to bring Jacob back to him” and to be made “a light for the nations (אוֹר גּוֹיִם), that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isa. 49:3–6).^[76] This text is of immense theological importance. It reveals that the name “Israel” can terminate ultimately not in the corporate nation as such but in a representative person who both embodies Israel and restores Israel.^[77] In Reformed Christology, this is one of the clearest Old Testament anticipations of Christ as true Israel.^[78] He is Israel reduced to one, Israel obeying in the place of the disobedient many (Matt. 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13; cf. Deut. 8:1–5; Ps. 95:7–11), Israel fulfilling the covenant vocation in perfect filial obedience (John 8:29; 15:10; Phil. 2:5–8; Heb. 4:15; 5:8–9).^[79] The Servant is not merely an individual Israelite; He is Israel in person, gathering the scattered tribes into Himself (John 10:14–16; 11:52; Eph. 2:11–22) and extending the light of salvation to the ends of the earth (Acts 13:47; 26:23; cf. Isa. 42:6; 49:6).^[80] This identification of the Servant as both Israel and the restorer of Israel is a paradox that only Christ can resolve, for in Him the corporate identity of Israel is concentrated and then expanded to include the nations.^[81]

This identification is confirmed in the New Testament. Hosea says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos. 11:1). Matthew applies this to Christ: Joseph and Mary remain in Egypt with the child Jesus “until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Matt. 2:15).^[82] The point is not that Hosea had no original reference to Israel. The point is that Israel’s history was typologically structured so that it finds its fullest meaning in Christ.^[83] He is the true Son, the faithful Son (Heb. 3:1–6), the One in whom the story of Israel is taken up and brought to its appointed completion.^[84] Matthew’s use of Hosea is not allegorical eisegesis but redemptive-historical interpretation: the events of Israel’s past were not merely historical occurrences but divinely ordered patterns that anticipated the greater redemption to be accomplished by the Messiah.^[85] The exodus from Egypt (Exod. 12–14), the testing in the wilderness (Deut. 8:1–5), the entrance into the land (Josh. 1–4)—all of these find their fulfillment in Jesus, who relives Israel’s history without repeating Israel’s sin (Matt. 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13; cf. 1 Cor. 10:1–11).^[86]

This same movement from promise to fulfillment appears in Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant. The Lord says, “Behold, the days are coming … when I will make a new covenant (בְּרִית חֲדָשָׁה) with the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31). It will not be like the covenant made at the exodus, which they broke. Instead, God will write His law on their hearts, forgive their sins, and establish an unbreakable covenant relation: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33–34).^[87] Dispensational readings often stress that the covenant is made “with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,” as though this language excludes the church or postpones fulfillment to a future national arrangement.^[88] But the New Testament will not permit such an interpretation. Christ Himself takes the cup and says, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant (ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη) in my blood” (Luke 22:20; cf. Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24).^[89] Hebrews explicitly declares that He is “the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 9:15; cf. 8:6; 12:24), and that the new covenant has rendered the old obsolete (Heb. 8:13; 10:9).^[90] The church, therefore, does not stand outside Jeremiah 31; it exists by virtue of Jeremiah 31 fulfilled in the blood of Christ (1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:8–12).^[91] The new covenant is not a separate program for the church while Israel awaits a different fulfillment; it is the fulfillment of the promised new covenant, inaugurated by Christ and applied to all who are united to Him, whether Jew or Gentile (Rom. 11:27; Heb. 10:16–17; cf. Ezek. 36:25–28).^[92]

The Pauline epistles further consolidate this framework. Galatians 3–4 explains that the law, which came 430 years after Abraham, did not annul the prior promise (Gal. 3:17).^[93] Rather, it was “added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made” (Gal. 3:19).^[94] The Mosaic administration was temporary, pedagogical, and preparatory. It functioned as a guardian (παιδαγωγός) until Christ (Gal. 3:24).^[95] Once faith has come, believers are no longer under that guardian, not because the promise has failed, but because the administration suited to minority has given way to that suited to maturity (Gal. 3:25–26; 4:1–7).^[96] Hence, “there is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).^[97] In chapter 4, Paul’s contrast between Hagar and Sarah, Sinai and the Jerusalem above, reinforces the same truth: the heirs are the children of promise, not the merely natural heirs of the typological administration (Gal. 4:21–31; cf. Isa. 54:1).^[98] Paul’s argument is not that ethnic Israel has been rejected but that the covenant of Sinai, understood as a system of law separate from the promise, never was the means of inheriting the promise.^[99] The true children of Abraham are those who, like Abraham, receive the promise by faith (Rom. 4:9–25; 9:6–8; Gal. 3:6–9).^[100]

Ephesians 2 is equally decisive. Gentiles were formerly “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel (τῆς πολιτείας τοῦ Ἰσραήλ) and strangers to the covenants of promise (τῶν διαθηκῶν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας)” (Eph. 2:12).^[101] Notice the language carefully. The Gentiles were once outside the commonwealth and outside the covenants. But in Christ they have been brought near (Eph. 2:13). Christ has made both one, broken down the dividing wall (μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ), and created in Himself “one new man (ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον) in place of the two” (Eph. 2:14–15).^[102] The result is not two parallel peoples under one God, but one reconciled body. Gentiles become “fellow citizens (συμπολῖται) with the saints and members of the household of God (οἰκεῖοι τοῦ θεοῦ)” (Eph. 2:19).^[103] The temple imagery that follows seals the point: the church is now the dwelling place of God by the Spirit (Eph. 2:20–22; cf. 1 Cor. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Peter 2:4–5).^[104] The temple, like the land and priesthood, finds its fulfillment in Christ and His body (John 2:19–22; 1 Cor. 3:16–17; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Peter 2:4–5).^[105] The “one new man” (ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον) is not a third entity alongside Israel and the nations but the eschatological form of the people of God in which the distinction between Jew and Gentile no longer determines covenant standing.^[106]

Thus, the biblical-theological evidence establishes a clear pattern. God’s purpose has always been one (Acts 15:14–18; 17:26–27; Eph. 1:9–10; 3:1–11). The covenant of grace unfolds historically through successive administrations (Heb. 1:1–2).^[107] Israel’s national life has real covenantal significance, but it is typological, provisional, and oriented to Christ (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:11; Col. 2:16–17; Heb. 8:5; 10:1). Christ Himself is the true Israel (Matt. 2:15), the true Seed (Gal. 3:16), the covenant Head (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–22, 45–49).^[108] In Him, Jews and Gentiles are gathered into one people, one body, one household, one temple (John 10:16; 11:52; Eph. 1:10; 2:11–22).^[109] This is not replacement in the crude sense. It is fulfillment, expansion, and covenantal consummation.^[110] The Old Testament is not canceled but completed (Matt. 5:17–18); the promises are not revoked but realized (2 Cor. 1:20); the covenant people are not replaced but expanded to include all who share the faith of Abraham and are united to the Seed of Abraham (Rom. 4:11–12, 16–18; Gal. 3:7–9, 26–29).^[111]

III. Covenant Theology Clarified: The Reformed Confessional Framework

The Reformed doctrine just outlined is not merely an impressionistic synthesis of biblical themes. It is given formal doctrinal expression in the classic confessions of the Reformed churches, above all in the Westminster Standards.^[112] The Westminster Confession of Faith provides the conceptual architecture that allows the church to speak precisely about the continuity and discontinuity between Israel and the church, the old covenant and the new, and the various stages of redemptive history.^[113] This confessional framework is not a human invention imposed upon Scripture but a carefully wrought summary of what Scripture teaches concerning the unity and progression of God’s covenant dealings with His people.^[114]

The starting point is the distinction between the covenant of works (foedus operum) and the covenant of grace (foedus gratiae). After the fall, according to Westminster Confession 7.3, God “was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ.”^[115] This covenant of grace is not one covenant among many in a merely external sense. It is the single saving relation in which God gives Christ to the elect and, through Him, grants life and salvation.^[116] It is one in substance throughout all ages.^[117] This unity finds its ultimate foundation in the eternal covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), the intra-trinitarian agreement among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit concerning the salvation of the elect, which ensures that the covenant of grace is not an afterthought but the outworking of God’s eternal purpose (cf. Eph. 1:3–14; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9).^[118] This distinction is foundational because it establishes that there is not one way of salvation for Old Testament believers and another for New Testament believers; rather, all who are saved in any age are saved through the same covenant of grace, which rests upon the same Mediator and offers the same salvation (Acts 4:12; 10:43; Rom. 3:21–26; 4:1–25; Heb. 11:1–40).^[119] The covenant of works, by contrast, represents the original relationship between God and humanity in Adam (Gen. 1:26–28; 2:16–17), a relationship broken by sin (Gen. 3:1–24; Rom. 5:12–21) and incapable of restoring fallen sinners (Rom. 8:3–4; Gal. 3:10–14).^[120]

Yet Westminster also teaches that this one covenant of grace has been “differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel” (WCF 7.5).^[121] Under the law, it was administered through promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the Passover, and other types and ordinances.^[122] Under the gospel, it is administered with greater fullness and clarity through the preaching of the Word and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.^[123] This distinction is crucial. It preserves continuity at the level of covenant substance while acknowledging real historical progression at the level of administration.^[124] The difference between the two administrations is not a difference in the substance of the covenant but in the mode of its revelation and application.^[125] The Old Testament administration was suited to the period of childhood and expectation (Gal. 3:23–24; 4:1–3); the New Testament administration is suited to the period of maturity and fulfillment (Gal. 4:4–7; Heb. 1:1–2; 1 Peter 1:10–12).^[126] Both, however, are administrations of the same covenant of grace, grounded in the same Mediator and offering the same salvation to all who believe.^[127]

This is why Reformed theology does not need to posit two peoples of God in order to explain the transition from Israel to the church. The visible covenant community under Moses and David was one administration of the covenant of grace (Exod. 19:5–8; 24:3–8; Deut. 29:10–13). The visible church under the apostles and after Pentecost is another administration of that same covenant (Acts 2:38–42; 1 Cor. 11:23–26; 2 Cor. 3:6–18).^[128] There is therefore no need for the language of displacement. The same covenant people continue, though under a transformed and eschatologically heightened administration because Christ, the substance of all former shadows, has now come (Heb. 8:1–13; 9:1–28; 10:1–18).^[129] The visible church is not a new people replacing an old people; it is the same covenant community, now existing in its post-Pentecost form, having received the reality to which the former shadows pointed.^[130] This is not to deny that there have been significant changes in the outward form of the covenant community; circumcision (περιτομή) gives way to baptism (βάπτισμα) (Col. 2:11–12), the Passover (פֶּסַח; πάσχα) to the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:15–20; 1 Cor. 5:7–8), the Levitical priesthood to the universal priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5, 9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10), the earthly land to the inheritance of the whole earth (Matt. 5:5; Rom. 4:13; Heb. 11:8–10, 13–16).^[131] But these changes are not arbitrary; they are the necessary and divinely intended outworking of the covenant’s progression toward its eschatological goal.^[132]

The Westminster Standards further develop this covenantal architecture in WCF 25, which addresses the church. There the confession affirms that “the catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof” (WCF 25.1).^[133] This invisible church is one across all ages, embracing believers from Old and New Testaments alike. The visible church, by contrast, consists of “all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children” (WCF 25.2).^[134] The unity of the invisible church grounds the organic continuity between Israel and the church, while the distinction between visible and invisible accounts for the reality that not all who belong to the visible covenant community are genuine participants in the covenant of grace (cf. Rom. 9:6).^[135] This confessional structure prevents both the error of claiming that all ethnic Israel is saved and the error of denying any continuing covenantal significance to ethnic Israel in God’s purposes.

The Westminster Larger Catechism, in answering questions 31–36, elaborates the relationship between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace. WLC 31 asks, “With whom was the covenant of grace made?” and answers: “The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.”^[136] This is of immense importance for understanding the relationship between Israel and the church. The covenant of grace was made first and fundamentally with Christ, the Mediator, and only in Him with the elect. This means that the Old Testament believers were not saved through a different covenant but through participation in the same covenant of grace, which was administered to them under types and shadows while resting on the same mediatorial work of Christ that would be accomplished in the fullness of time (WLC 36).^[137] The unity of the people of God, therefore, is not a merely historical or administrative unity but a covenantal unity grounded in the eternal purpose of God in Christ.

This confessional structure also explains the typological role of Israel. Reformed theology has always maintained that Israel’s national institutions—land, temple, priesthood, kingship, sacrifice—were not arbitrary political arrangements but God-given forms that pointed forward to Christ.^[138] The land was not merely real estate; it was a typological anticipation of the inheritance of the saints in the renewed creation (Gen. 15:18–21; Deut. 11:24; Rom. 4:13; Heb. 11:8–10, 13–16; Rev. 21:1–4).^[139] The temple was not merely a building; it foreshadowed Christ as the true dwelling place of God (John 1:14; 2:19–22; Col. 2:9) and, by extension, the church united to Him (1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:20–22; 1 Peter 2:4–5).^[140] The priesthood anticipated the once-for-all mediation of Christ (Heb. 4:14–16; 5:1–10; 7:1–28; 9:11–15). The Davidic throne looked toward the universal reign of the Son of David (2 Sam. 7:12–16; Ps. 89:3–4; Isa. 9:6–7; Luke 1:32–33; Acts 2:29–36; Rom. 1:1–4).^[141] To recognize these institutions as typological is not to diminish their importance but to understand them as God intended them to be understood—as divinely ordained signs that point beyond themselves to the greater realities they signify.^[142] The typological character of these institutions means that their significance is not exhausted by their historical existence; they carry within themselves a forward orientation, a promise of something greater yet to come.^[143]

Once this typological structure is grasped, the transition to the new covenant becomes intelligible. The shadows are not “discarded” in contempt; they are fulfilled because the reality has appeared.^[144] Hebrews is explicit on this point. The old priesthood, sacrifices, and sanctuary are weak and temporary not because God’s design in them was mistaken, but because they were never intended to be final (Heb. 7:11–28; 8:7–13; 9:1–10).^[145] They pointed beyond themselves. To revert to them after Christ has come is not faithfulness to the Old Testament but refusal of its fulfillment (Heb. 10:26–31; cf. Gal. 5:2–4).^[146] The author of Hebrews argues that the old covenant was “obsolete” (παλαιούμενον) and “ready to vanish away” (ἐγγὺς ἀφανισμοῦ) (Heb. 8:13) not because it was without value but because its value was always derivative from and preparatory for the new covenant in Christ.^[147] To insist upon the continuation of the old covenant institutions after Christ has come is to misunderstand their purpose and to cling to the shadows when the substance has arrived.^[148]

Westminster Confession 8 strengthens this further by insisting that Christ is the one Mediator of the covenant of grace in all ages. Though the work of redemption was not actually wrought until His incarnation, its virtue and efficacy were communicated to the elect from the beginning of the world (WCF 8.6).^[149] Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah were all saved by the same Christ (John 8:56; Rom. 4:9–12; Heb. 11:1–40; 1 Peter 1:10–12).^[150] This means that the underlying people of God are one because the Mediator is one.^[151] There has never been a salvation-historical track for Jews apart from Christ, nor a later one for Gentiles in addition to Christ. There is one Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5–6) and one covenant people (Eph. 2:11–22; 3:6; 4:4–6).^[152] The Old Testament saints were not saved through a different economy or by a different Savior; they were saved by looking forward in faith to the same Christ whom we look back upon in faith (Heb. 11:13–16, 39–40; 1 Peter 1:10–12).^[153] The unity of the covenant people, therefore, is not merely a matter of external administration but of internal participation in the same Mediator through the same faith.^[154]

Westminster Confession 19 helps clarify the nature of discontinuity. The ceremonial laws, which prefigured Christ, are now abrogated (WCF 19.3).^[155] The judicial laws, which governed Israel as a body politic, have expired with that polity, though their general equity remains instructive (WCF 19.4).^[156] The moral law alone abides perpetually (WCF 19.2, 5).^[157] This is highly relevant to the Israel-church question. It means that the national-political form of Israel was temporary and typological. It does not continue as such into the new covenant.^[158] What continues is the covenant of grace and the moral will of God, now administered under the reign of Christ and within the communion of the church.^[159] The abrogation of the ceremonial law and the expiration of the judicial law do not represent a break in the covenant of grace but the maturation of that covenant.^[160] The temporary structures suited to the period of childhood have given way to the permanent structures suited to the period of maturity.^[161] The moral law, which reflects the character of God and the obligations of creatures to their Creator, remains as the perpetual standard of righteousness, now written upon the hearts of believers by the Spirit (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:27; Rom. 8:4; Heb. 8:10; 10:16).^[162]

Thus, from a confessional Reformed perspective, the church is neither a detached entity nor a parenthesis. Nor is ethnic Israel’s national structure permanent as such.^[163] Rather, the church is the historical form assumed by the one covenant people once the Messiah has come, the Spirit has been poured out (Acts 2:1–4, 14–21; Joel 2:28–32), and the administration suited to childhood has given way to the administration suited to maturity.^[164] The movement is organic, not competitive; developmental, not substitutionary in the crude sense.^[165] The church does not stand beside Israel as a rival people of God; rather, it is the one people of God gathered in union with Israel’s Messiah, into which believing Gentiles are grafted (Rom. 11:17–24), from which unbelieving Jews are cut off (Rom. 11:20–22), and into which a future ingathering of ethnic Israel remains held forth in the purposes of God (Rom. 11:23–26).^[166]

IV. Historical Theology: Augustine, Calvin, Bavinck, and Vos

The Reformed position does not arise in a vacuum. It stands within the broader stream of the church’s reflection on Scripture, though it gives that reflection its own covenantal precision.^[167] From the early church onward, the dominant instinct of Christian interpretation has been that the promises to Israel are fulfilled in Christ and that the church is the community gathered around that fulfillment.^[168] This is not to claim that every patristic or medieval theologian articulated this position with the same precision as the Reformed confessions; it is to recognize that the basic structure of covenantal fulfillment is deeply embedded in the Christian theological tradition.^[169]

Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in the second century against the Gnostic rejection of the Old Testament, articulates the unity of God’s covenant purpose with remarkable clarity. In Against Heresies 4.9.1, he declares: “For since there is one and the same God the Father, the dispensations (οἰκονομίαι), and the preparations for the covenants (παρασκευαὶ τῶν διαθηκῶν), are various; but there is one and the same householder (οἰκοδεσπότης), who established these covenants. For the covenants were not given through diverse masters, nor at different times; but they were given by the same householder, through the same Word, for the same purpose.”^[170] Irenaeus thus affirms the unity of the covenant while acknowledging the diversity of its administrations—a principle that would later become foundational to Reformed covenant theology.

Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, argues repeatedly that Christians are the true spiritual Israel because they follow the Messiah and possess the promised covenant blessings in Him. In Dialogue 11, he writes: “For the true spiritual Israel—for we are a nation born out of the heart of Christ—are those who have been led to God through this crucified Christ.”^[171] Though Justin’s formulations must be read critically and with awareness of later concerns, his central conviction is clear: Christ is the key to Israel’s promises, and those who belong to Christ inherit them.^[172]

Augustine develops this more profoundly in terms of the one city of God. In his theology, the true people of God stretch from Abel to the end of the age.^[173] The distinction is not between one earthly people called Israel and another heavenly people called the church, but between the city of God and the city of man.^[174] In The City of God 18.46, Augustine writes: “Thus the church, which is the body of Christ, of which He is the head, is taught by the Spirit of God, so that no one may think that the promises of God have been fulfilled in the earthly Jerusalem, but rather in the heavenly Jerusalem.”^[175] Within this framework, Old Testament believers and New Testament believers belong fundamentally to the same redeemed community.^[176]

The Reformation sharpened these insights by means of covenant categories. John Calvin is especially important here. In Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.10.1–2, he insists that the covenant made with Abraham is substantially the same covenant under which Christians now live: “The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are actually one and the same. Yet the administration differs.”^[177] Calvin elaborates: “I hold that the covenant of the Lord has always been one and the same, and that it is founded upon Christ. Under the Old Testament, the Lord appointed Christ as the Mediator of the covenant, and by Him He promised that He would be the God of the Jews, and that they should be His people. Thus the condition of the Old Testament was not different from ours.”^[178] This is why Calvin can read Romans 11 and insist both that God has not cast off His people and that unbelief cuts off even natural descendants from covenant blessing. In his Commentary on Romans, he writes: “The apostle now shows that the rejection of the Jews is not such as to deprive them of all hope; for God has not so cast them off that they cannot be restored; and he does this by the example of the olive tree, from which the natural branches are broken off and the wild branches are grafted in. The hope of the Jews is that they may be grafted again into their own olive tree.”^[179] Israel’s true continuity is found in Christ and in those united to Him, not in ethnicity as such.

Herman Bavinck later articulates this with remarkable depth. In Reformed Dogmatics 4:304–306, Bavinck writes: “The covenant of grace is one in all ages, but it unfolds itself in a historical process. It is not a static entity but an organic development. The Old Testament administration is not a different covenant but the same covenant in its preparatory form. The New Testament administration is not a new covenant but the same covenant in its fulfilled form. The relationship between the two is not that of opposition but of promise and fulfillment, shadow and substance, childhood and maturity.”^[180] Bavinck emphasizes that the church is not another tree planted beside Israel but the same tree in a more developed form: “The church is not a second people of God alongside Israel; it is the one people of God in its eschatological form. The Gentiles are not brought in as a new people but are grafted into the existing olive tree.”^[181] Critically, Bavinck also grounds the unity of the covenant in the eternal decree: “The covenant of grace is founded upon the covenant of redemption, which is the eternal pact among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit concerning the salvation of the elect. This eternal covenant guarantees that the covenant of grace, though administered in different ways, remains one in substance across all ages.”^[182]

Geerhardus Vos likewise deepens the redemptive-historical framework. In Biblical Theology, he shows that the entire Old Testament order is teleological, moving toward fulfillment in Christ. Vos writes: “The Old Testament is not a system of doctrine to be taken over as such into the New, nor is it a collection of proof-texts for the New. It is a history of redemption, a movement from promise to fulfillment, from type to antitype, from shadow to substance.”^[183] The categories of type (τύπος) and antitype (ἀντίτυπος), promise and realization, age of minority and age of maturity, are central to his biblical theology.^[184] Vos is especially important because he helps us see that fulfillment is not an arbitrary hermeneutical imposition but the very shape of redemptive history itself.^[185] For Vos, the covenant of redemption is the eternal foundation that ensures the historical unfolding of redemption is not a series of disconnected dispensations but the outworking of a single, unified divine purpose.^[186]

These theologians collectively demonstrate that the Reformed position is neither novelty nor compromise. It is the mature doctrinal form of the church’s long-standing conviction that Christ is the center of Scripture (Luke 24:27, 44–45; John 5:39–40), that God’s covenant purpose is one (Acts 15:14–18; Eph. 1:9–10; 3:1–11), and that His people are one in Christ (John 10:16; 11:52; Eph. 2:11–22; 4:4–6).^[187]

V. Critical Engagement: Anti-Judaism, Dispensationalism, and Christian Zionism

Any responsible treatment of this subject must reckon honestly with modern concerns. The first and most serious concern is the historical misuse of Christian theology to justify anti-Judaism and, in later forms, antisemitism.^[188] It would be both historically naive and pastorally irresponsible to ignore the fact that some Christians have used doctrines about Israel’s unbelief or the church’s inheritance of covenant promises to nourish contempt for Jewish people.^[189] This misuse has taken many forms, from the patristic charge of deicide to medieval persecution, from Reformation-era restrictions to modern expressions of antisemitism that, while often secular in form, have drawn upon long-standing Christian anti-Jewish tropes.^[190] The church must acknowledge this history with repentance and a determination to ensure that its theological affirmations are not weaponized against the Jewish people.^[191]

Such misuse must be unequivocally rejected. It is contrary to Romans 11, where Gentile believers are warned not to be arrogant toward the natural branches (Rom. 11:18–21). It is contrary to the law of love (Lev. 19:18, 34; Matt. 22:39; Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14). It is contrary to the gospel itself (Eph. 2:14–18; Col. 3:11).^[192] Whatever one calls the Reformed doctrine of fulfillment, it must never be framed in a way that suggests ethnic superiority, divine contempt for Jews as Jews, or indifference toward the future salvation of Israel.^[193] The apostle Paul’s warning to Gentile believers in Romans 11:18–21 stands as a perpetual guard against any posture of superiority or arrogance. The natural branches were broken off because of unbelief, and Gentile believers stand only by faith; the proper posture is humility, gratitude, and hope for the grafting in of those who have been broken off (Rom. 11:22–24).^[194]

At the same time, the abuse of a doctrine does not invalidate the doctrine rightly understood. To say that Israel’s promises are fulfilled in Christ and inherited by the church united to Him is not to despise Jews. It is to confess the exclusivity and finality of Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5–6).^[195] The New Testament itself makes this confession unavoidable. There is no salvation apart from Him, whether for Jew or Gentile.^[196] The question is not whether Judaism without Christ remains sufficient, but whether the apostolic witness is true.^[197] Reformed theology answers with the apostles: Christ is the only way to the Father. This confession is not anti-Jewish; it is the very heart of the gospel that the apostles, who were themselves Jews (Acts 1:8; 2:14; 3:12; 4:8–10; 5:27–32; 13:46; 26:22–23), preached to both Jews and Gentiles.^[198] To affirm that Jesus is the Messiah (Matt. 16:16; John 20:31; Acts 2:36; 10:42–43; 17:2–3), the fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures (Luke 24:27, 44–45; John 5:39–40; Acts 13:32–33; 26:22–23) and the hope of Israel (Acts 28:20), is not to deny the ongoing significance of the Jewish people; it is to affirm what the Jewish prophets foretold and what Jewish apostles proclaimed.^[199]

A second major challenge comes from dispensationalism. Dispensational theology, especially in its classic form, posits a sharp distinction between Israel and the church, often treating them as two peoples with distinct covenantal identities, roles, and destinies.^[200] The church becomes a kind of interruption or parenthesis in a larger program centered on national Israel.^[201] This framework is fundamentally incompatible with Reformed covenant theology because it fractures the unity of the covenant of grace and severs the organic continuity of the people of God.^[202] At the heart of dispensationalism lies a hermeneutical dualism: the assumption that Old Testament prophecies concerning Israel must be fulfilled literally in a national, political sense, while New Testament interpretations that expand these prophecies to include the church are treated as secondary or even spiritually allegorical.^[203] This dualism fails to recognize what Irenaeus called the “same householder” administering covenants for the same purpose, and it neglects what Calvin identified as the priority of apostolic interpretation: the apostles, as those uniquely authorized by Christ, provide the definitive hermeneutical key to the Old Testament.^[204]

The dispensational objection often turns on the claim that Reformed theology spiritualizes the promises.^[205] But this objection fails at a basic level, because the New Testament itself interprets the Old Testament in terms of redemptive-historical fulfillment.^[206] Abraham becomes heir of the world (Rom. 4:13). Christ is the temple (John 2:19–21). The church is God’s house (Eph. 2:19–22). Zion’s hope becomes heavenly and universal (Heb. 12:22–24; Rev. 21:2, 10).^[207] This is not illegitimate spiritualizing. It is apostolic exegesis.^[208] When the New Testament writers interpret Old Testament promises, they do not abandon the literal sense of the text; they discern the deeper, Christological meaning that was present in the text from the beginning.^[209] The land promise, for example, is not spiritualized away but expanded and transformed: Abraham is promised the inheritance of the world (Rom. 4:13), not merely a strip of territory in the Middle East.^[210] This is not a reduction of the promise but its eschatological enlargement.^[211]

Christian Zionism raises related but distinct concerns. It often conflates biblical Israel with the modern state of Israel and treats current geopolitical developments as direct prophetic fulfillments.^[212] Reformed theology resists this move because it insists that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world (John 18:36).^[213] The church may and must think morally and prudentially about political questions, including those involving Israel and Palestine, but it must not baptize a modern nation-state as the straightforward continuation of the biblical covenant order.^[214] To do so is to confuse typological structures with eschatological realities.^[215] The modern state of Israel, whatever one’s views of its political legitimacy, is not the same entity as the Israel of the Old Testament. It does not possess the same covenantal status, nor can its political fortunes be read as direct fulfillments of biblical prophecy without doing violence to the New Testament’s own interpretation of those prophecies.^[216]

VI. Romans 9–11: Election, Remnant, and the One People of God

No chapter on this subject can avoid Romans 9–11, and no serious theology of Israel and the church can be constructed without careful attention to Paul’s argument there.^[217] Romans 9 begins by distinguishing between Israel according to the flesh and the true Israel constituted by promise and election: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (οὐ γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἐξ Ἰσραήλ, οὗτοι Ἰσραήλ) (Rom. 9:6).^[218] This principle is foundational. Ethnic descent alone has never been sufficient to define the true covenant people.^[219] Paul’s distinction, shocking as it may seem, is not a novelty but a consistent biblical theme: Ishmael (Ἰσμαήλ) is not Isaac (Ἰσαάκ) (Gen. 21:8–14; Rom. 9:7), Esau (Ἠσαῦ) is not Jacob (Ἰακώβ) (Gen. 25:23; Mal. 1:2–3; Rom. 9:10–13), and not every descendant of Abraham participates equally in the covenant promise (John 8:31–47; Rom. 2:28–29; 9:6–9).^[220] Paul is not saying that ethnic Israel has no significance; he is saying that ethnic descent is not the final or decisive factor in determining covenant standing.^[221]

Yet Romans 11 prevents any simplistic conclusion that ethnic Israel has therefore become irrelevant. Paul asks, “Has God rejected his people?” (μὴ ἀπώσατο ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ) and answers emphatically, “By no means!” (μὴ γένοιτο) (Rom. 11:1–2).^[222] There remains a remnant (λεῖμμα) chosen by grace (Rom. 11:5), and Israel’s stumbling has served the broader purpose of bringing salvation to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:11–12, 15).^[223] The remnant is not a merely residual category; it is the living proof that God has not abandoned His people.^[224] Even in the darkest moments of Israel’s unfaithfulness, God has preserved for Himself a faithful remnant (1 Kings 19:18; Isa. 1:9; 10:20–22; Jer. 23:3; Mic. 2:12), and this remnant, constituted by grace, demonstrates that God’s covenant purposes remain in effect.^[225]

The olive tree metaphor is especially important. There is one tree, one root (ῥίζα), one covenantal structure (Rom. 11:16–18). Some natural branches are broken off because of unbelief; wild branches are grafted in by faith (Rom. 11:19–24).^[226] The Gentiles do not form a second tree. They are incorporated into Israel’s own covenantal root.^[227] This alone should settle much of the debate. The Reformed position is not that the church appears beside Israel but that believing Gentiles are grafted into the one historical people of God.^[228] The metaphor of grafting is carefully chosen: the wild olive branches are grafted into the cultivated olive tree, not vice versa.^[229] This means that the Gentiles do not bring their own tree with them; they are incorporated into the existing covenant community, which has its roots in the patriarchs and its life from the root of God’s covenant faithfulness.^[230]

Paul then speaks of the mystery (μυστήριον): a partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, “and in this way all Israel will be saved” (καὶ οὕτως πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ σωθήσεται) (Rom. 11:25–26).^[231] The exact meaning of “all Israel” (πᾶς Ἰσραήλ) has been debated.^[232] Some Reformed interpreters understand it as the totality of the elect, Jews and Gentiles together.^[233] Others, including many weighty Reformed voices, understand it as a future large-scale conversion of ethnic Jews.^[234] The latter reading has much to commend it, especially given Paul’s usage of “Israel” in the surrounding context (Rom. 9:6, 27, 31; 10:19, 21; 11:1–2, 7, 11, 25–26).^[235] In Romans 11, Paul consistently uses “Israel” to refer to ethnic Israel, and it is natural to read “all Israel” in verse 26 as referring to the same entity—ethnic Israel—in its future salvation.^[236]

The present author adopts this second reading, with the following decisive considerations. First, the term “Israel” throughout Romans 9–11 consistently denotes ethnic Israel, not a mixed group of Jews and Gentiles.^[237] Paul uses “Israel” in verses 1–5, 6, 27, 31; 10:19, 21; 11:1–2, 7, 11, 25; and in each case, he refers to his kinsmen according to the flesh (συγγενῶν κατὰ σάρκα, 9:3).^[238] When Paul wishes to refer to the elect from both Jews and Gentiles, he uses other terms: “the elect” (ἐκλογή, 11:7), “the fullness of the Gentiles” (τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν, 11:25), or simply “us” (ἡμᾶς, 9:24).^[239] Second, the structure of Paul’s argument demands a future salvation of ethnic Israel to answer the question posed in 11:1: “Has God rejected his people?” (μὴ ἀπώσατο ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ).^[240] If “all Israel” in 11:26 refers only to the elect of all ages, Paul would not have answered the question he raised, because the existence of a believing remnant (11:5) already demonstrates that God has not rejected His people.^[241] The “all Israel” that will be saved must be something more than the remnant that already exists.^[242] Third, the olive tree metaphor itself implies that the natural branches that were broken off can be grafted in again (11:23–24), suggesting a future restoration of ethnic Israel.^[243] Fourth, Paul’s quotation of Isaiah 59:20–21 in 11:26–27 speaks of a deliverer coming to Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, a promise that in its Old Testament context envisions the salvation of ethnic Israel.^[244]

However—and this is the crucial point—Israel’s salvation, whether now or in a future ingathering, occurs only through faith in Christ (Rom. 10:9–13; 11:23) and only within the one olive tree (Rom. 11:17–24).^[245] There is no separate redemptive track. No second covenant of grace. No distinct people of God with a parallel destiny.^[246] The future of Israel, on this reading, remains Christological, ecclesial, and covenantal.^[247] Even those Reformed theologians who affirm a future large-scale conversion of ethnic Jews insist that this conversion will be into the church, not into a separate covenantal structure.^[248] The olive tree remains one; the root remains one; the salvation of ethnic Jews in the future will be their grafting back into the same olive tree from which some were broken off (Rom. 11:23–24).^[249]

This fact is pastorally important. Romans 11 condemns Gentile arrogance and fosters hope for Jewish salvation.^[250] The church must therefore reject contempt and maintain missionary zeal. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (ἀμεταμέλητα γὰρ τὰ χαρίσματα καὶ ἡ κλῆσις τοῦ θεοῦ) (Rom. 11:29),^[251] not in the sense that Jews are saved apart from Christ, but in the sense that God remains faithful to His covenant promises and will yet glorify His mercy in the salvation of all His elect, including many from Israel.^[252] The irrevocable gifts and calling refer to God’s covenant faithfulness, not to an automatic salvation for ethnic Israel apart from faith.^[253] But they do guarantee that God’s purposes for Israel have not been abandoned and that the history of Israel is not a closed chapter in redemptive history.^[254]

VII. Romans 9 and the Reconstitution of Israel in Christ

Any robust defense of covenantal fulfillment must reckon more precisely with the exegetical force of Romans 9, where the apostle Paul establishes the foundational distinction upon which the entire Israel–church question turns. The controlling thesis appears in Romans 9:6: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (οὐ γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἐξ Ἰσραήλ, οὗτοι Ἰσραήλ). This statement is not incidental; it is programmatic, functioning as the hermeneutical key to the entire argument that follows. As Douglas Moo observes, Paul here introduces a theological redefinition of Israel that is already latent within the Old Testament itself, rather than imposing a novel category upon it.^[255] The text thus establishes a distinction between Israel according to the flesh (κατὰ σάρκα) and Israel according to promise—a distinction that governs the apostle’s entire treatment of covenant identity.

Grammatically, the construction is emphatic and rhetorically compressed. The repetition of Ἰσραήλ in both clauses, without qualification, forces the reader to discern a shift in referential scope. The first instance denotes the historical, ethnic nation descending from the patriarchs; the second denotes the true covenant people constituted by divine election and promise. Thomas Schreiner notes that this dual usage cannot be reduced to a simple subset distinction but instead reflects a deeper theological principle: covenant membership is determined not by lineage alone but by God’s electing purpose.^[256] Paul is therefore not innovating but interpreting Israel’s own history through the lens of divine revelation.

This principle becomes explicit in Romans 9:7–13, where Paul appeals to the patriarchal narratives. The contrast between Isaac and Ishmael (Gen. 21:12) demonstrates that not all Abrahamic descendants are heirs of the covenant promise, and the contrast between Jacob and Esau (Gen. 25:23; Mal. 1:2–3) intensifies the argument by locating the distinction prior even to birth. The interpretive hinge appears in Romans 9:8: “This means that it is not the children of the flesh (τὰ τέκνα τῆς σαρκός) who are the children of God, but the children of the promise (τὰ τέκνα τῆς ἐπαγγελίας) are counted as offspring.” John Murray rightly emphasizes that the verb λογίζεται (“reckoned”) is forensic in nature, indicating that covenant identity is established by divine imputation rather than natural descent.^[257] Thus, covenant membership is not biologically transmitted but divinely conferred according to promise.

Paul’s argument reaches its theological climax in Romans 9:10–13. Here the emphasis falls on pretemporal election: “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election (ἡ κατ’ ἐκλογὴν πρόθεσις τοῦ θεοῦ) might continue…” (Rom. 9:11). The term πρόθεσις underscores divine intentionality, while ἐκλογή grounds covenant identity in God’s sovereign choice. As Moo notes, Paul’s concern here is not merely individual salvation but the historical formation of the covenant people themselves under the sovereign will of God.^[258] The citation “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” therefore functions not as an arbitrary decree but as a covenantal declaration: the people of God are constituted by election, not ethnicity.

This exegetical foundation is decisive for the Israel–church question. If, from the beginning, the true Israel has been defined by promise and election rather than by physical descent, then the inclusion of Gentiles does not constitute a rupture but a continuation of the same covenantal principle. Paul makes this explicit in Romans 9:24, where he speaks of those “whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles.” Schreiner highlights that the calling (οὓς ἐκάλεσεν) here is effectual and rooted in election, while the expansion beyond ethnic Israel signals the eschatological manifestation of one unified people of God.^[259] The result is not the formation of two parallel peoples but the visible constitution of one elected community drawn from both Jews and Gentiles.

The prophetic citations that follow (Hos. 2:23; 1:10; Isa. 10:22–23; 1:9) further reinforce this structure. Paul’s use of Hosea—“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people’” (Rom. 9:25)—applies language originally directed toward apostate Israel to the inclusion of the Gentiles. Richard Hays demonstrates that this is not a hermeneutical distortion but a figural reading grounded in the covenantal elasticity of the term “my people” (λαός μου), which is defined by divine calling rather than ethnic origin.^[260] At the same time, Isaiah’s emphasis on the remnant (ὑπόλειμμα) confirms that even within Israel, salvation has always been selective and grounded in grace. The true Israel, therefore, is the remnant according to grace (Rom. 11:5), not the totality of ethnic descendants.

This reading coheres with Paul’s earlier argument in Romans 2:28–29, where he distinguishes between outward and inward Jewish identity: “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly… But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit (ἐν πνεύματι), not by the letter.” Here Paul introduces a pneumatological criterion for covenant identity, relocating the defining covenant marker from the flesh to the heart. Herman Bavinck notes that this inwardization does not abolish the covenantal structure but brings it to its intended fulfillment under the new covenant, in which the law is written upon the heart by the Spirit.^[261] Circumcision is thus not negated but fulfilled in its true, spiritual reality.

Accordingly, Romans 9 does not merely defend God’s faithfulness; it rearticulates the nature of the covenant people. Israel has always been a mixed covenant body, consisting of both elect and non-elect, promise-children and flesh-children. The coming of Christ does not introduce this distinction but reveals and consummates it. Those who are united to Christ—whether Jew or Gentile—are the true heirs of the promise (Gal. 3:29), while those who reject Him, even if descended from Abraham according to the flesh, remain outside the realized blessings of the covenant (Rom. 9:30–33; 10:1–4). Moo’s analysis underscores that Paul’s argument culminates not in ethnic redefinition but in Christological fulfillment.^[262]

The implication is therefore unavoidable. The unity of the people of God is grounded not in ethnicity but in union with Christ, the true Seed (Gal. 3:16). Romans 9 thus provides the exegetical foundation for rejecting any model that posits two parallel covenant peoples. Instead, there is one elected people, constituted by promise, realized in Christ, and historically manifested in the church. As Schreiner concludes, this is not a theological imposition upon the text but the apostle’s own conclusion, drawn from the history of Israel and confirmed in the gospel.^[263]

VIII. Shalom, Mission, and the One People of God

When the doctrine is framed properly, one sees that the end toward which it tends is not abstract system-building but the manifestation of shalom (שָׁלוֹם).^[264] Christ is our peace (ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν) (Eph. 2:14). He has reconciled Jew and Gentile to God in one body through the cross (Eph. 2:14–16; Col. 1:20).^[265] The one people of God, therefore, are not simply a theological construct. They are the first fruits of eschatological peace.^[266] The peace that Christ accomplishes is not merely the absence of hostility but the positive creation of a new community in which the dividing walls of hostility are demolished (Eph. 2:14; cf. Isa. 2:2–4; Mic. 4:1–4).^[267] This peace is not an ideal to be approximated but a reality to be embodied in the life of the church (Eph. 4:1–6; Col. 3:12–15).^[268]

This theme becomes especially striking when viewed through the lens of redemptive history from Susa to Pentecost. In Jeremiah 49, Elam (עֵילָם) is judged; its bow is broken, and God’s throne is set against it (Jer. 49:34–38). Yet the oracle ends with a promise of restoration in the latter days (Jer. 49:39).^[269] In Acts 2, Elamites (Ἐλαμῖται) are present at Pentecost, hearing the mighty works of God in their own tongue (Acts 2:9–11). The movement from judgment to gathering, from wrath to gospel participation, is a miniature of the whole biblical pattern.^[270] The nations once under judgment are not left there. They are gathered into Christ (Isa. 2:2–4; 11:10; 56:6–8; Zech. 8:20–23; Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:29).^[271] This pattern—judgment followed by restoration, scattering followed by gathering—is not only for Elam but for all the nations, including Israel (Deut. 30:1–5; Isa. 11:11–12; Jer. 31:8–10; Ezek. 36:24–28).^[272] The gospel goes forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8; Rom. 15:19; Col. 1:6, 23), gathering a people for God from every tribe and tongue (Rev. 5:9; 7:9).^[273]

This has profound implications for the church’s life. First, it means that ethnic hostility has no place in the body of Christ. The church is not a place where ethnic identities are erased (cf. Rev. 7:9), but it is a place where they no longer determine covenant standing or community boundaries (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11).^[274] Jewish and Gentile believers are not two separate groups within the church but one new humanity (Eph. 2:15).^[275] Second, it means that mission to Jews and Gentiles alike is grounded in one gospel and directed toward one reconciled people (Rom. 1:16; 10:12–13; 1 Cor. 9:20–22).^[276] There is not one gospel for Jews and another for Gentiles; there is one gospel, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all (Eph. 4:4–6).^[277] Third, it means that shalom cannot be reduced to political stability or ethnic dominance. It is covenantal reconciliation, accomplished by Christ and manifested in the church (2 Cor. 5:18–20).^[278] The church’s witness to shalom is not primarily political but ecclesial; it is the existence of a community in which Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, are united in Christ (Gal. 3:28), that testifies to the reconciling power of the gospel.^[279]

Pastors must therefore train their people to resist both newspaper exegesis and ethnocentric theology.^[280] The church’s security does not rest in the political fortunes of modern states but in the unshakable kingdom of Christ (Heb. 12:28; cf. Dan. 2:44; 7:14; Luke 1:33; Rev. 11:15).^[281] The proper response to the Israel-church question is not feverish speculation but doxology, humility, and faithful witness.^[282] The church does not need to decode current events to find its place in God’s plan; it needs to embody the reconciled community that Christ has already created (Eph. 2:14–18) and to proclaim the gospel of peace to all nations, including the Jewish people (Rom. 10:12–15; 11:14).^[283]

IX. Conclusion

When the so-called supersessionism debate is reframed according to the categories of Holy Scripture and historic Reformed theology, it becomes clear that the real issue is not replacement but fulfillment.^[284] God has one covenant of grace, one Mediator, one olive tree, one people.^[285] This unity finds its eternal ground in the covenant of redemption, the intra-trinitarian pact that guarantees the unbreakable unity of the covenant of grace across all ages.^[286] Christ is the true Seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16), the true Son (Matt. 2:15), the true Servant (Isa. 42:1; 49:3–6; 52:13; 53:11), the true Israel (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15), the covenant Head of the new humanity (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–22, 45–49).^[287] In Him, the promises of God are not revoked but fulfilled (2 Cor. 1:20). In Him, Jews and Gentiles are reconciled (Eph. 2:14–18). In Him, the church becomes the eschatological form of the people of God (1 Peter 2:9–10; Rev. 1:5–6; 5:9–10).^[288]

This means that the church does not stand over against Israel as a foreign usurper. Nor does Israel continue as a separate covenant people alongside the church.^[289] Rather, the one people of God move through redemptive history from promise to fulfillment, from shadow (σκιά) to substance (σῶμα), from the typological structures of the old covenant to the eschatological reality of the new.^[290] The church is therefore not a replacement for Israel but Israel brought to maturity in union with Israel’s Messiah.^[291] More precisely, the church is the one people of God gathered in union with Israel’s Messiah, into which believing Gentiles are grafted, from which unbelieving Jews are cut off, and into which a future ingathering of ethnic Israel remains held forth in the purposes of God (Rom. 11:17–24).^[292] This is not a matter of theological speculation but of redemptive-historical fact: the Messiah has come (Luke 2:11; John 4:25–26; 1 John 4:2–3), and in His coming the people of God have been reconstituted around Him (Matt. 16:18; Acts 15:14–18; Rom. 11:11–24).^[293]

Any use of the term supersessionism that suggests ethnic contempt, divine abandonment, or covenantal rupture must be rejected. Any use of the term that simply denotes the Christological fulfillment and covenantal consummation of Israel’s calling must be carefully explained and subordinated to clearer biblical language.^[294] The burden of the church is not to defend slogans but to confess Christ.^[295] The categories of replacement theology, however polemically useful they may be for some, do not capture the biblical and Reformed understanding of the relationship between Israel and the church.^[296] Fulfillment theology, grounded in the New Testament’s own interpretation of the Old (Luke 24:27, 44–45; Acts 13:32–33; 26:22–23; 2 Cor. 1:20), provides a more faithful and more precise description of this relationship.^[297]

And in Christ, true shalom appears. Not the fragile peace of earthly empire, nor the anxious calculations of geopolitical prophecy, but the covenantal peace purchased by blood and sealed by the Spirit (Col. 1:20; Heb. 13:20).^[298] That peace is already tasted in the gathered church, the one new man (ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον), the temple of the living God (Eph. 2:14–22). And it will one day fill the earth when the King returns (Isa. 9:6–7; 11:1–10; Rev. 11:15), when all His elect are gathered (Matt. 24:31; 2 Thess. 2:1), when Israel and the nations together behold the glory of the Lamb (Rev. 21:22–27), and when the covenant promise reaches its final and unbreakable form: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer. 31:33; 32:38; Ezek. 37:27; Zech. 8:8; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 21:3, 7).^[299] Until that day, the church lives as a community of peace in a world of division, a sign and foretaste of the reconciliation that will one day encompass all things in Christ (Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:10).^[300] In this hope, the church prays for the salvation of all peoples, including the Jewish people (Rom. 10:1; 11:14), and awaits the return of the Messiah, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen (2 Cor. 1:20).^[301]

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^[1]For the etymology and usage history of supersessionism, see R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 1–12, 29–35.

^[2]On the polemical function of the term in contemporary discourse, see Michael J. Vlach, Has the Church Replaced Israel? A Theological Evaluation (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010), 1–16; cf. O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2000), 3–18.

^[3]For representative dispensational critiques, see John F. Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 17–36; Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody, 1995), 169–90.

^[4]This assumption is critiqued by N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 18–40, 206–25.

^[5]On the New Testament’s interpretation of Israel’s identity, see Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 34–83.

^[6]Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 207–36.

^[7]Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 7–18, 257–81.

^[8]Westminster Confession of Faith (hereafter WCF) 7.3, 7.5–6; see also John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 2.10.1–2 (hereafter Institutes).

^[9]On the covenant of redemption, see WCF 8.1; Westminster Larger Catechism (hereafter WLC) 31–36; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14; Vos, Biblical Theology, 27–29.

^[10]Vos, Biblical Theology, 52–81; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:207–14.

^[11]On the typological structure of the Old Testament, see Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1854), 1:1–48; and more recently, G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 14–27.

^[12]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:215–19.

^[13]Cf. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1980), 52–56, 277–98.

^[14]On 2 Corinthians 1:20, see Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 107–11.

^[15]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:209–12.

^[16]On Ephesians and the unity of the people of God, see S. M. Baugh, Ephesians, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham: Lexham, 2016), 183–222.

^[17]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2, 2.11.1–4.

^[18]Soulen, The God of Israel, 30–35.

^[19]Ibid., 33–34. For a thorough critique of anti-Judaism in Christian theology, see Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: Seabury, 1974), 116–82.

^[20]Soulen, The God of Israel, 34–35.

^[21]Ibid., 35.

^[22]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, trans. Ross Mackenzie, in Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 19:259–66.

^[23]WCF 1.2; see also John Owen, Biblical Theology, trans. Stephen P. Westcott (Pittsburgh: Soli Deo Gloria, 1994), 150–75.

^[24]On typology, see Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, trans. Donald H. Madvig (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 16–46.

^[25]Vos, Biblical Theology, 7–18.

^[26]Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 297–98.

^[27]On Christ as true Israel, see N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 391–400.

^[28]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[29]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[30]Vos, Biblical Theology, 15–18.

^[31]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[32]On Romans 9–11, see Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 559–717.

^[33]Baugh, Ephesians, 198–222.

^[34]Calvin, Institutes 2.6.1–4.

^[35]WCF 7.5; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:207–10.

^[36]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2.

^[37]On Genesis 12:1–3, see Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, WBC (Waco: Word, 1987), 268–82.

^[38]Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 165–86.

^[39]Ibid., 167–69.

^[40]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[41]Vos, Biblical Theology, 66–81.

^[42]On Genesis 15, see Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 328–35.

^[43]Calvin, Commentaries on Genesis, trans. John King (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 1:394–98.

^[44]Wenham, Genesis 1–15, 332.

^[45]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:210–11.

^[46]Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 170–74.

^[47]On divine faithfulness, see Michael S. Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 451–56.

^[48]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:215–19.

^[49]Wenham, Genesis 16–50, WBC (Waco: Word, 1994), 19–28.

^[50]WCF 27.4; 28.4; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:551–56.

^[51]Robertson, The Israel of God, 37–58.

^[52]On circumcision of the heart, see Deut. 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Rom. 2:28–29; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:554–56.

^[53]Calvin, Institutes 4.16.6–9.

^[54]Vos, Biblical Theology, 95–98.

^[55]On Galatians 3:16, see Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 92–105.

^[56]For a critique of misreadings, see Moo, Romans, 253–55.

^[57]On zeraʿ, see Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 108–10.

^[58]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[59]Vos, Biblical Theology, 302–12.

^[60]On Christ as the one in whom all things are gathered, see Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:15–20; Baugh, Ephesians, 81–91.

^[61]Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, 97–105.

^[62]Galatians 3:29; cf. Rom. 4:13–17.

^[63]On union with Christ, see John Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1–3; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:538–42.

^[64]Horton, The Christian Faith, 572–79.

^[65]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[66]On Messianic prophecy, see Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Messiah in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 47–65.

^[67]On inheritance in Christ, see Rom. 8:16–17; 1 Cor. 3:21–23; Baugh, Ephesians, 24–28.

^[68]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2.

^[69]Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 186–98.

^[70]On Exodus 19:5–6, see Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, NAC (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2006), 421–27.

^[71]Vos, Biblical Theology, 112–17.

^[72]On Israel as son, vineyard, and servant, see ibid., 103–11, 202–12.

^[73]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:215–19.

^[74]On typology, see Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 14–27.

^[75]On the Servant who succeeds where Israel failed, see J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 364–72.

^[76]On Isaiah 49:1–6, see Motyer, Isaiah, 386–95.

^[77]Ibid., 391–92.

^[78]Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 391–400.

^[79]On Christ’s obedience, see Heb. 5:8–9; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:308–10.

^[80]On the gathering of the nations, see Isa. 42:6; 49:6; Acts 13:47; 26:23.

^[81]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[82]On Matthew 2:15, see D. A. Carson, Matthew, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 94–95.

^[83]Beale, Handbook, 22–23.

^[84]Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 391–400.

^[85]Beale, Handbook, 23–25.

^[86]On 1 Corinthians 10:1–11, see Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 445–57.

^[87]On Jeremiah 31:31–34, see J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 577–82.

^[88]For dispensational readings, see Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy, 36–45; Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 149–55.

^[89]On Luke 22:20, see Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51–24:53, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1726–34.

^[90]On Hebrews 8:13, see William L. Lane, Hebrews 1–8, WBC (Dallas: Word, 1991), 215–18.

^[91]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[92]On the new covenant, see Moo, Romans, 705–12.

^[93]On Galatians 3:17, see F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 174–75.

^[94]Ibid., 175–79.

^[95]On the paidagōgos, see Bruce, Galatians, 184–86.

^[96]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:300–305.

^[97]Galatians 3:28; cf. Col. 3:11.

^[98]On Galatians 4:21–31, see Bruce, Galatians, 218–25.

^[99]Calvin, Institutes 2.11.1–4.

^[100]On the children of Abraham by faith, see Rom. 4:9–25; Moo, Romans, 264–79.

^[101]On Ephesians 2:12, see Baugh, Ephesians, 184–86.

^[102]On Ephesians 2:14–15, see ibid., 198–210.

^[103]Ephesians 2:19; cf. Baugh, Ephesians, 214–16.

^[104]On Ephesians 2:20–22, see ibid., 216–22.

^[105]On the temple as fulfilled in Christ, see John 2:19–22; Beale, Handbook, 106–9.

^[106]Baugh, Ephesians, 204–6.

^[107]WCF 7.5; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:207–14.

^[108]Vos, Biblical Theology, 302–12.

^[109]Baugh, Ephesians, 216–22.

^[110]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[111]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2.

^[112]WCF 7.1–6.

^[113]For the Westminster theology of the covenant, see J. I. Packer, “Introduction,” in The Westminster Confession of Faith (Glasgow: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1994), i–xxx.

^[114]WCF 1.6; see also John Murray, The Covenant of Grace (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1988), 3–14.

^[115]WCF 7.3.

^[116]Murray, The Covenant of Grace, 5–8.

^[117]WCF 7.5–6.

^[118]On the covenant of redemption, see WCF 8.1; WLC 31–36; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[119]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2.

^[120]On the covenant of works, see WCF 7.2; 19.1; see also Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 54–65.

^[121]WCF 7.5.

^[122]Ibid.

^[123]Ibid.

^[124]Murray, The Covenant of Grace, 8–11.

^[125]Calvin, Institutes 2.11.1–4.

^[126]On the progression from childhood to maturity, see Gal. 3:23–4:7; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:217–19.

^[127]WCF 7.6.

^[128]Ibid.

^[129]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[130]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[131]On the transition from circumcision to baptism, see Col. 2:11–12; WCF 27.4; 28.4.

^[132]Vos, Biblical Theology, 7–18.

^[133]WCF 25.1.

^[134]WCF 25.2.

^[135]On the visible/invisible church distinction, see WCF 25.1–2; Calvin, Institutes 4.1.7.

^[136]WLC 31.

^[137]WLC 36; see also Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[138]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:215–19.

^[139]On the land promise, see Rom. 4:13; Heb. 11:8–16; Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 186–98.

^[140]On the temple, see John 2:19–22; 1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:20–22; 1 Peter 2:4–5.

^[141]On the Davidic throne, see 2 Sam. 7:12–16; Ps. 89:3–4; Acts 2:29–36.

^[142]Fairbairn, Typology of Scripture, 1:1–48.

^[143]Vos, Biblical Theology, 7–18.

^[144]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[145]On Hebrews 7–10, see Lane, Hebrews 1–8, 155–85; Hebrews 9–13, 1–66.

^[146]Calvin, Institutes 2.11.1–4.

^[147]Lane, Hebrews 1–8, 215–18.

^[148]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:300–305.

^[149]WCF 8.6.

^[150]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2.

^[151]Murray, The Covenant of Grace, 5–8.

^[152]On the one Mediator, see 1 Tim. 2:5–6; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:308–10.

^[153]On the Old Testament saints’ faith in Christ, see Heb. 11:13–16, 39–40; 1 Peter 1:10–12.

^[154]WCF 11.6; 18.1.

^[155]WCF 19.3.

^[156]WCF 19.4.

^[157]WCF 19.2, 5.

^[158]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[159]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[160]Murray, The Covenant of Grace, 8–11.

^[161]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:215–19.

^[162]On the moral law written on the heart, see Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:27; Rom. 8:4; Heb. 8:10; WCF 19.5.

^[163]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[164]WCF 7.5–6; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[165]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[166]On the olive tree and future ingrafting, see Rom. 11:17–26; Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[167]For a historical survey, see Michael J. Vlach, The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An Analysis of Supersessionism (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2009), 39–118.

^[168]Ibid., 39–66.

^[169]On the patristic tradition, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 12–22.

^[170]Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.9.1, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885), 473.

^[171]Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 11, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1885), 200.

^[172]Vlach, The Church as a Replacement, 42–45.

^[173]Augustine, The City of God, 10.6, 15.1, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, vol. 2, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo: Christian Literature, 1887), 184, 283–84.

^[174]Augustine, City of God, 15.1.

^[175]Augustine, City of God 18.46, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, vol. 2, 386–87.

^[176]Vlach, The Church as a Replacement, 59–66.

^[177]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.2, ed. McNeill, 428.

^[178]Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1, ed. McNeill, 427–28.

^[179]Calvin, Commentary on Romans 11:17–24, in Calvin’s Commentaries, 19:265–66.

^[180]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[181]Ibid., 4:305.

^[182]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[183]Vos, Biblical Theology, 7.

^[184]Ibid., 7–18, 257–81.

^[185]Ibid., 7–8.

^[186]Vos, Biblical Theology, 27–29.

^[187]On the unity of God’s purpose, see Eph. 1:9–10; Baugh, Ephesians, 81–91.

^[188]For a comprehensive treatment, see Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, 116–82.

^[189]Soulen, The God of Israel, 1–12.

^[190]On the history of Christian anti-Judaism, see James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 117–48.

^[191]On repentance for anti-Judaism, see Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, “A Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community” (1994); United Church of Christ, “A Time for Repentance: A Call to the United Church of Christ” (2007).

^[192]On love for neighbor, see Lev. 19:18, 34; Matt. 22:39; Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14.

^[193]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[194]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[195]On the exclusivity of Christ, see John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5–6.

^[196]Moo, Romans, 559–71.

^[197]On the apostolic witness, see Acts 2:22–36; 4:8–12; 5:27–32; 10:39–43.

^[198]On the apostles as Jews, see Acts 1:8; 2:14; 3:12; 4:8–10; 5:27–32; 13:46; 26:22–23.

^[199]On Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures, see Luke 24:27, 44–45; John 5:39–40; Acts 13:32–33; 26:22–23.

^[200]Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 39–48.

^[201]Ibid., 169–90.

^[202]Robertson, The Israel of God, 3–18.

^[203]On dispensational hermeneutics, see Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 80–102; for critique of hermeneutical dualism, see Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 1–18.

^[204]Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.9.1; Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2; on apostolic priority, see Beale, Handbook, 23–27.

^[205]Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 89–92.

^[206]Beale, Handbook, 1–27.

^[207]On Zion’s heavenly hope, see Heb. 12:22–24; Rev. 21:2, 10.

^[208]Beale, Handbook, 23–27.

^[209]Ibid., 26–27.

^[210]On Abraham as heir of the world, see Rom. 4:13; Moo, Romans, 271–72.

^[211]Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 186–98.

^[212]On Christian Zionism, see Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 2004), 15–42.

^[213]On the kingdom not of this world, see John 18:36; Calvin, Institutes 2.11.1–4.

^[214]Sizer, Christian Zionism, 231–52.

^[215]Robertson, The Israel of God, 147–58.

^[216]Sizer, Christian Zionism, 231–52.

^[217]Moo, Romans, 559–71.

^[218]Romans 9:6; cf. Moo, Romans, 571–76.

^[219]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:224–26.

^[220]On the biblical theme of election, see Deut. 7:6–8; Mal. 1:2–3; Moo, Romans, 576–84.

^[221]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:300–305.

^[222]Romans 11:1–2; cf. Moo, Romans, 675–79.

^[223]On the remnant, see Isa. 10:20–22; 1 Kings 19:18; Moo, Romans, 679–86.

^[224]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:259–60.

^[225]On the remnant in the Old Testament, see Isa. 1:9; 10:20–22; Jer. 23:3; Mic. 2:12.

^[226]On the olive tree metaphor, see Moo, Romans, 698–709.

^[227]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[228]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[229]Moo, Romans, 700–702.

^[230]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[231]Romans 11:25–26; cf. Moo, Romans, 709–17.

^[232]For the debate, see Moo, Romans, 709–17.

^[233]For the view that “all Israel” refers to the elect of all ages, see John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 2:96–100.

^[234]For the view that “all Israel” refers to a future large-scale conversion of ethnic Jews, see Moo, Romans, 709–17; Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), 370–73; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:305–6.

^[235]Moo, Romans, 710–12.

^[236]Ibid., 712–14.

^[237]Moo, Romans, 710–12.

^[238]Romans 9:3; cf. Moo, Romans, 710.

^[239]Moo, Romans, 711.

^[240]Ibid., 712.

^[241]Murray, Romans, 2:96–98.

^[242]Moo, Romans, 712.

^[243]Ibid., 714.

^[244]Ibid., 715–16.

^[245]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[246]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[247]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[248]Moo, Romans, 709–17.

^[249]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[250]Romans 11:18–21; cf. Moo, Romans, 704–6.

^[251]Romans 11:29; cf. Moo, Romans, 714–15.

^[252]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[253]Moo, Romans, 714–15.

^[254]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[255]Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 571–76.

^[256]Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 495–500.

^[257]John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 2:17–22.

^[258]Moo, Romans, 580–89.

^[259]Schreiner, Romans, 512–18.

^[260]Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 57–63.

^[261]Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 304–6.

^[262]Moo, Romans, 617–24.

^[263]Schreiner, Romans, 526–30.

^[264]On shalom, see Isa. 9:6–7; 11:1–10; 52:7; Rom. 10:15; Eph. 2:14–18.

^[265]On Christ as our peace, see Eph. 2:14; Baugh, Ephesians, 198–202.

^[266]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:306–8.

^[267]On the breaking down of dividing walls, see Eph. 2:14; Baugh, Ephesians, 198–202.

^[268]On the church as the embodiment of peace, see Eph. 4:1–6; Col. 3:12–15.

^[269]On Elam’s judgment and restoration, see Jer. 49:34–39; Thompson, Jeremiah, 725–27.

^[270]On Pentecost as the ingathering of the nations, see Acts 2:5–11; Luke 24:47; Isa. 2:2–4.

^[271]On the gathering of the nations, see Isa. 2:2–4; 11:10; 56:6–8; Zech. 8:20–23; Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:29.

^[272]On Israel’s restoration, see Deut. 30:1–5; Isa. 11:11–12; Jer. 31:8–10; Ezek. 36:24–28.

^[273]On the gathering from every nation, see Rev. 5:9; 7:9.

^[274]On the unity of believers in Christ, see Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11.

^[275]On the one new humanity, see Eph. 2:15; Baugh, Ephesians, 204–6.

^[276]On the one gospel for all, see Rom. 1:16; 10:12–13; 1 Cor. 9:20–22.

^[277]On the unity of the faith, see Eph. 4:4–6.

^[278]On the ministry of reconciliation, see 2 Cor. 5:18–20.

^[279]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:306–8.

^[280]On newspaper exegesis, see Sizer, Christian Zionism, 231–52.

^[281]On the unshakable kingdom, see Heb. 12:28; Dan. 2:44; 7:14; Luke 1:33; Rev. 11:15.

^[282]On the proper response, see Rom. 11:33–36.

^[283]On the church’s mission, see Rom. 10:12–15; 11:14.

^[284]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[285]WCF 7.3, 7.5–6.

^[286]On the covenant of redemption, see WCF 8.1; WLC 31–36; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[287]On Christ as true Israel, see Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1.

^[288]On the church as eschatological Israel, see 1 Peter 2:9–10; Rev. 1:5–6; 5:9–10.

^[289]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[290]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[291]Ibid., 4:304–6.

^[292]On the olive tree and future ingrafting, see Rom. 11:17–26; Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[293]On the reconstitution of the people of God, see Matt. 16:18; Acts 15:14–18; Rom. 11:11–24.

^[294]On the proper use of language, see Robertson, The Israel of God, 3–18.

^[295]On confessing Christ, see Matt. 16:16; Rom. 10:9–10; 1 John 4:2–3.

^[296]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[297]On fulfillment theology, see Beale, Handbook, 1–27.

^[298]On the peace of Christ, see Col. 1:20; Heb. 13:20.

^[299]On the covenant promise, see Jer. 31:33; 32:38; Ezek. 37:27; Zech. 8:8; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 21:3, 7.

^[300]On the reconciliation of all things, see Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:10.

^[301]On the return of Christ, see Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:13–18; Rev. 22:20.

^[185]Ibid., 7–8.

^[186]Vos, Biblical Theology, 27–29.

^[187]On the unity of God’s purpose, see Eph. 1:9–10; Baugh, Ephesians, 81–91.

^[188]For a comprehensive treatment, see Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, 116–82.

^[189]Soulen, The God of Israel, 1–12.

^[190]On the history of Christian anti-Judaism, see James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 117–48.

^[191]On repentance for anti-Judaism, see Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, “A Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community” (1994); United Church of Christ, “A Time for Repentance: A Call to the United Church of Christ” (2007).

^[192]On love for neighbor, see Lev. 19:18, 34; Matt. 22:39; Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14.

^[193]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[194]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[195]On the exclusivity of Christ, see John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5–6.

^[196]Moo, Romans, 559–71.

^[197]On the apostolic witness, see Acts 2:22–36; 4:8–12; 5:27–32; 10:39–43.

^[198]On the apostles as Jews, see Acts 1:8; 2:14; 3:12; 4:8–10; 5:27–32; 13:46; 26:22–23.

^[199]On Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures, see Luke 24:27, 44–45; John 5:39–40; Acts 13:32–33; 26:22–23.

^[200]Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 39–48.

^[201]Ibid., 169–90.

^[202]Robertson, The Israel of God, 3–18.

^[203]On dispensational hermeneutics, see Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 80–102; for critique of hermeneutical dualism, see Richard B. Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), 1–18.

^[204]Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.9.1; Calvin, Institutes 2.10.1–2; on apostolic priority, see Beale, Handbook, 23–27.

^[205]Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 89–92.

^[206]Beale, Handbook, 1–27.

^[207]On Zion’s heavenly hope, see Heb. 12:22–24; Rev. 21:2, 10.

^[208]Beale, Handbook, 23–27.

^[209]Ibid., 26–27.

^[210]On Abraham as heir of the world, see Rom. 4:13; Moo, Romans, 271–72.

^[211]Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 186–98.

^[212]On Christian Zionism, see Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 2004), 15–42.

^[213]On the kingdom not of this world, see John 18:36; Calvin, Institutes 2.11.1–4.

^[214]Sizer, Christian Zionism, 231–52.

^[215]Robertson, The Israel of God, 147–58.

^[216]Sizer, Christian Zionism, 231–52.

^[217]Moo, Romans, 559–71.

^[218]Romans 9:6; cf. Moo, Romans, 571–76.

^[219]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:224–26.

^[220]On the biblical theme of election, see Deut. 7:6–8; Mal. 1:2–3; Moo, Romans, 576–84.

^[221]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:300–305.

^[222]Romans 11:1–2; cf. Moo, Romans, 675–79.

^[223]On the remnant, see Isa. 10:20–22; 1 Kings 19:18; Moo, Romans, 679–86.

^[224]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:259–60.

^[225]On the remnant in the Old Testament, see Isa. 1:9; 10:20–22; Jer. 23:3; Mic. 2:12.

^[226]On the olive tree metaphor, see Moo, Romans, 698–709.

^[227]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[228]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[229]Moo, Romans, 700–702.

^[230]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[231]Romans 11:25–26; cf. Moo, Romans, 709–17.

^[232]For the debate, see Moo, Romans, 709–17.

^[233]For the view that “all Israel” refers to the elect of all ages, see John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 2:96–100.

^[234]For the view that “all Israel” refers to a future large-scale conversion of ethnic Jews, see Moo, Romans, 709–17; Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), 370–73; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:305–6.

^[235]Moo, Romans, 710–12.

^[236]Ibid., 712–14.

^[237]Moo, Romans, 710–12.

^[238]Romans 9:3; cf. Moo, Romans, 710.

^[239]Moo, Romans, 711.

^[240]Ibid., 712.

^[241]Murray, Romans, 2:96–98.

^[242]Moo, Romans, 712.

^[243]Ibid., 714.

^[244]Ibid., 715–16.

^[245]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[246]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[247]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[248]Moo, Romans, 709–17.

^[249]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[250]Romans 11:18–21; cf. Moo, Romans, 704–6.

^[251]Romans 11:29; cf. Moo, Romans, 714–15.

^[252]Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[253]Moo, Romans, 714–15.

^[254]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:304–6.

^[255]Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 571–76.

^[256]Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 495–500.

^[257]John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 2:17–22.

^[258]Moo, Romans, 580–89.

^[259]Schreiner, Romans, 512–18.

^[260]Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 57–63.

^[261]Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 304–6.

^[262]Moo, Romans, 617–24.

^[263]Schreiner, Romans, 526–30.

^[264]On shalom, see Isa. 9:6–7; 11:1–10; 52:7; Rom. 10:15; Eph. 2:14–18.

^[265]On Christ as our peace, see Eph. 2:14; Baugh, Ephesians, 198–202.

^[266]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:306–8.

^[267]On the breaking down of dividing walls, see Eph. 2:14; Baugh, Ephesians, 198–202.

^[268]On the church as the embodiment of peace, see Eph. 4:1–6; Col. 3:12–15.

^[269]On Elam’s judgment and restoration, see Jer. 49:34–39; Thompson, Jeremiah, 725–27.

^[270]On Pentecost as the ingathering of the nations, see Acts 2:5–11; Luke 24:47; Isa. 2:2–4.

^[271]On the gathering of the nations, see Isa. 2:2–4; 11:10; 56:6–8; Zech. 8:20–23; Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:29.

^[272]On Israel’s restoration, see Deut. 30:1–5; Isa. 11:11–12; Jer. 31:8–10; Ezek. 36:24–28.

^[273]On the gathering from every nation, see Rev. 5:9; 7:9.

^[274]On the unity of believers in Christ, see Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11.

^[275]On the one new humanity, see Eph. 2:15; Baugh, Ephesians, 204–6.

^[276]On the one gospel for all, see Rom. 1:16; 10:12–13; 1 Cor. 9:20–22.

^[277]On the unity of the faith, see Eph. 4:4–6.

^[278]On the ministry of reconciliation, see 2 Cor. 5:18–20.

^[279]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:306–8.

^[280]On newspaper exegesis, see Sizer, Christian Zionism, 231–52.

^[281]On the unshakable kingdom, see Heb. 12:28; Dan. 2:44; 7:14; Luke 1:33; Rev. 11:15.

^[282]On the proper response, see Rom. 11:33–36.

^[283]On the church’s mission, see Rom. 10:12–15; 11:14.

^[284]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[285]WCF 7.3, 7.5–6.

^[286]On the covenant of redemption, see WCF 8.1; WLC 31–36; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:212–14.

^[287]On Christ as true Israel, see Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1.

^[288]On the church as eschatological Israel, see 1 Peter 2:9–10; Rev. 1:5–6; 5:9–10.

^[289]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[290]Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:298–308.

^[291]Ibid., 4:304–6.

^[292]On the olive tree and future ingrafting, see Rom. 11:17–26; Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 19:265–66.

^[293]On the reconstitution of the people of God, see Matt. 16:18; Acts 15:14–18; Rom. 11:11–24.

^[294]On the proper use of language, see Robertson, The Israel of God, 3–18.

^[295]On confessing Christ, see Matt. 16:16; Rom. 10:9–10; 1 John 4:2–3.

^[296]Robertson, The Israel of God, 19–36.

^[297]On fulfillment theology, see Beale, Handbook, 1–27.

^[298]On the peace of Christ, see Col. 1:20; Heb. 13:20.

^[299]On the covenant promise, see Jer. 31:33; 32:38; Ezek. 37:27; Zech. 8:8; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 21:3, 7.

^[300]On the reconciliation of all things, see Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:10.

^[301]On the return of Christ, see Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:13–18; Rev. 22:20.