Supersessionism (Research Paper Sample)

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The concept of messiah as an example of Supersessionism
Supersessionism is a conviction that the New Testament has replaced Israel which comprises of the Jews as God’s chosen people. The traditional form of supersession, affirms that Jews who deny that Jesus is the Jewish messiah fall short of their calling as God’s chosen people. However, the contemporary approach maintains that Jews are no longer entitled to consider themselves as God’s chosen people. It is also referred to as fulfillment or replacement theology. According to Brueggemann (2003), Supersessionism affirms that the Christian faith in Jesus Christ has tremendously superseded Judaism and made Judaism ‘obsolete’. Therefore, it out rightly implies that Christians have outmoded Jews. Judaism in this context refers to the mosaic covenant. This concept of Supersessionism is perceived as an unbiblical doctrine that violates the teachings of both the new and the Old Testament concerning the restoration of Israel. In layman’s language, Supersessionism can be referred to as a unified notion in which the church has replaced Jewish people as the true people of God.
According to Supersessionists, God repudiated the Jews from His divine plans due to their rejection of Christ. Therefore, the initial covenant that God had made with the Jews was also nullified and overtaken by Christian covenant and laws. Many scholars and theologizes claim that Supersessionism lacks an immense amount of theological imagination.
Since time immemorial, Christians have been using the word messiah to refer to their most high God. Most of the messianic ministries and congregations are adherents to the messianic divinity in Christianity today. There are several ways in which Christianity’s use of the concept "Messiah" can be understood as an example of Supersessionism. The concept of “Messiah’ in religious doctrines can be understood as the way Christians perceives Jesus to be their savoir or the anointed one. The use of this concept can be place under punitive Supersessionism in which national Israel was rejected due to their disobedience (Vlach, 2010).Messiah has diverse connotations most of which denote that a messiah is a person who has divinely been chosen for a specific purpose.
When the Jews of Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah, God’s covenantal agreement was nullified and new Christian laws adopted. Thereafter, christens bequeathed all the promises God had made with the Jews thereby subjecting the Jews to all the biblical critics as well as intense condemnation.
Christian’s use of the concept messiah has tremendously contributed to the rise of Christianity over time and thereby gaining empirical leadership over the Jews. It is not possible to be a Jew and yet proclaim that Jesus is your messiah. Accepting Jesus as the liberator of your life draws a line between believers and nonbelievers. Therefore, since only believers are admissible in the Kingdom of God, those who rejected Christ were replaced by those who affirmed their faith in Jesus Christ.
The concept of messiah implies that those in the Judaism doctrine have to convert to Christianity. This therefore is evidence of the enormous influence that messianic as an example of Supersessionism has. The early church was composed of both the gentiles and the Jews. However, Christians overwhelmingly preached the gospel to the gentiles thereby making the church anti-Judaist. This preaching entailed professing Jesus as the Messiah.
Denying that Jesus is the messiah was an important factor in maintaining the Jewish identity for survival. Therefore, in this context, it is evident that Christian’s concept of ‘messiah’ made Christians override Jews in terms of both religious and social forms. Jews could be hardly accused of promoting a Supersessionists ideology when claiming that Christians properly inherited, understood and developed a common Jewish theological concept (Lozada, 2006).
In later years, the influence of this concept spread to Jews who called themselves messianic Jews thus partly bleaching their identity; ethnic and religious heritage. These types of Jews tagged themselves as messianic. However, Jewish convictions ho...