Romans 11: 17-21
17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.
Indeed what would a so-called Christian Anglican clergyman be doing in Iran? Sadly the English Brit Sizer is a shame to the classic and historical Anglicanism, certainly for those of us that believe and follow in the essence of the BCP and the Thirty-Nine Articles! And too in the great historical providence of God in Modern Israel! But as we all know the CoE is generally – at least in great degree today – in the 21st century, falling fast in the great Gentile Apostasy that St. Paul wrote of in 2 Timothy 3, noting especially verse 5! So we should not be surprised today with so-called clergy who are simply NOT Biblical or historically theological. Sign of the times! Surely how can any true Christian presbyter and pastor-teacher be so negative toward the Nation and People of our Jewish Messiah Jesus/Yeshua? (Rom. 9: 1-5 / 15: 8-9) It is of course NOT possible in reality, to the truth of the Gospel and the “kerygma” (Message) of Christ! And as the Apostle Paul reminds us, we live in a fallen world and age, and here Satan is “the god of this world/age.” (2 Cor. 4: 3-4) As are all his (Satan’s) false apostles, and deceitful workers! (2 Cor. 11:13-15)
Who originally started this Replacement theology garbage?
Obviously, Replacement Theology would’ve started after theologians started coming from the gentile community; wouldn’t have likely begun with Paul or any other Jewish believer. So that suggests somebody from Justin onward; probably Justin himself.
Justin certainly had a weird idea of the Tanach. Because the prophets railed bitterly against the shortcomings of their people, Justin reasoned, that must mean that the Jews are extraordinarily wicked. (Never occurred to him that they might just be refreshingly candid.)
But what was was TRULY extraordinary was the willingness of the Jewish people to commit the history of their weaknesses (among other things) to WRITING — something no other literate people of the ancient world (ok, maybe the Hittites, in far smaller compass) ever DARED to do.
Anyway, Justin essentially stood Paul on his head. Whereas Paul clearly stated in Romans 11 that gentile believers (the wild olive) were to be grafted onto the cultivated olive (the Jewish People), Justin picked up that ball & ran with it in the opposite direction.
He said that the covenant w/ the Jews was at an end — THINK: God as “Indian Giver” (just an expression; no offense to our Native American friends) — notwithstanding that the promises of the Almighty are eternal, and an Infinite Mind has no reason to ‘repent’
— and that henceforth the only way any of these ‘documentedly’ nasty Jews could recover his purportedly lost standing w/ the Sovereign of the Universe was by engrafting HIMSELF to the correspondingly more naturally ‘virtuous’ denizens of ‘Christendom’ — the “New Israel.”
Eh, voila: Replacement Theology, Supersessionism, etc.