For November 5, 2026
Tearing Down The Wall by Greg Holmes, D.MIN – Director of Missions serving 17 churches
ISRAEL HAS HAD a very checkered relationship with God, at times close and blessed, at times distant and stressed. The greatest strain in that relationship occurred three and a half decades after Jesus’ rejection and crucifixion by the Jews, when God cast them out of the Promised Land. Later Christian theology, anchored in the writings of the Apostle Paul, developed what has been called ‘replacement theology,’ but more academically, supersessionism. The idea of this, at one extreme, is that God rejected the Jews forever in regards to their severe moral, ethical, and religious failure, and began a new and superior covenant in Christianity: “Spiritual Israel.” This concept, for both ill and good—became deeply rooted at various levels in Christian thought over the millennia due to the fact that Jews had been dispersed throughout the world and had no homeland.