What's Replacement Theology - and why's it wrong to think the Church is the 'new Israel'?

Replacement Theology claims that despite God's historic choice of Israel,  He has replaced it with the Church.  And, as He now has no ongoing purpose for it, the Church must be the 'new Israel'.

The underlying assumption is that Israel forfeited any future in God's purposes when it rejected its Messiah, and was then reduced to being just the seed of the future Church.  So believers in the New Covenant  become "heirs according to the promise"  directly rather than by being "grafted in"  (Romans 11:24 & Galatians 3:29) .

"The Jews were the sons of God, but now they are the sons of Satan. The true image of the Hebrews is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the scriptures, and will for ever bear the guilt of Jesus."     (Augustine)

But, despite the immense implications it has had for the Christian faith, few pastors and even fewer believers, particularly in the West, have any awareness of this, let alone of how Replacement Theology gained its momentum through Church history.

"Because God hates the Jews, it is the duty of Christians to hate them. When God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left?"   (Bishop John Chrysostom)

Yet this false doctrine, with its anti-Semitic bias, goes back to the early centuries of the Church  and was greatly promoted by the 4th and 5th century Church Fathers like Augustine and Chrysostom.  Whose position was then adopted by the 16th century Reformers as they sought to re-establish the Christian faith, following their re-discovery of being "saved by grace through faith"  (Ephesians 2:8) .

"The Jews are a perverse people accursed by God for ever."  (Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers)

This led the 16th century Reformers like Luther and Calvin to avoid all reference to Israel's ongoing place in God's purposes.  Instead, they centred the gospel on personal salvation as if it was the whole package, in a way that had sufficient impact to be self-validating.

However, there are many evidences to prove Replacement Theology is in serious error:

Firstly, God is faithful (Lamentations 3:22-23) and notwithstanding their sin, He would not have broken His promise to Israel (Deuteronomy 7:6, Jeremiah 31:3 & 35-37), let alone just to transfer it to another equally flawed people, a.k.a. the Church.  And if He had, He would surely have also given up on the Church!

Secondly, God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) and knew from the start that Israel would fall short of His glory. So, He had no need of a Plan B (Romans 3:23).

Thirdly, it would mean Paul was wrong to answer "By no means"  to the question of whether God has rejected His people, and to say the gifts and calling of Israel were "irrevocable"  (Romans 11:1 & 29).

""What other nation on earth is like your people Israel - whom God  went to redeem to be His people." (1 Chronicles 17:21) 

In addition, whilst Israel is referred to almost 2,500 times in the Old Testament, the Church is only referred to 100 times in the New.  It's also impossible to replace 'Israel' with 'Church' in almost all of its 75 references in the New (try Romans 9-11!) demonstrating how deeply rooted the New Testament is in its Jewish origins.  And if the Church had  become the 'new Israel', why didn't Paul ever speak of the 'old Israel'?

Replacement Theology also generates many contradictions, such as 

• literal promises to Israel have to be interpreted allegorically to make them relevant to the Church, which undermines the interpretation of the whole of Scripture
• Jewish believers have to be 'grafted into' the Gentile Church, when it's the Gentile body of believers who are actually grafted into Israel (Romans 11:17)
• the Church gets the New Covenant directly, when it was only ever directly promised to Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31:31)
• the prophesied rebirth of the nation of Israel, with its subsequent survival for 75 years, is an unprecedented anomaly of history

                                                                                                                                                              Most crucially, Replacement Theology produces a veil behind which all these errors, inconsistencies and contradictions are hidden.