This is a controversy that has been with the Church almost right from the beginning. I’m not going to address the matter in detail here. But I do wish to take on certain elements of it. Tucker Carlson has been promoting this notion that the Church has replaced Israel and that the Jews are no longer God’s people. Tucker is a new Christian and has been operating as a provocateur regarding many subjects. But another popular and long-time Christian, Kurt Cameron is now carrying water for the same idea. This view is known as Supersessionism or Replacement Theology. In the modern age it poses two major questions.
- Do the ‘Jews’ continue to be God’s Chosen People? [And directly related to that….]
- Is the modern state of Israel a product of God’s Prophetic Word – or – is it the result of artificial human manipulation and therefore illegitimate?
Prophecy scholar Joel Richardson took on this subject in a recent podcast. He framed the question this way. ‘Does the Bible actually teach that we are blessed and cursed according to how we bless or curse Israel? Is it a misinterpretation? A product of the modern dispensationalist, premillennial view.’ The argument is centered around Genesis 12:1-3 – “Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” God made several promises in that scripture: Land, Posterity, Blessing. But to whom are the promises given.
Richardson introduced the controversy by playing a portion of a video by Steve Greg, an apologist for the Replacement Theology position. Greg holds that the Abrahamic Covenant is not applicable today.
- It was given to Abram and therefore limited to him personally.
- Some people say it was to be fulfilled in his seed. But Christ is that seed, not Israel.
- He referenced Galatians 3:16. Greg asserts, this was a promise to his seed, singular, not seeds, plural. So, not to Jewish people, but to Christ.
Kurt Cameron makes a similar point. The Genesis passage is addressed to Abram not Israel. He references Romans 9”6. In the ESV it reads, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” Just physically coming from Abraham doesn’t make you God’s child. Israel didn’t even exist for nearly two thousand years. The nation was re-created by political operatives following WWII. Cameron: “It’s about whether you’re cursing or blessing the true children of Abraham, those who believe the promises.” [Cameron does have a point there. Becoming a Child of God is based on belief and acceptance of Jesus as your Lord and Savior. That’s true for Jews and Gentiles.]
But Greg and Cameron are missing the true intent of the scriptures here. Amir Tsarfati answered Kirk Cameron. In summary he told him: God told Abraham to leave his father’s house, and go to a land He will show him. And here’s a key part. He will make him, Abe, a great nation and that nation will bless all the nation’s of the world. Then the blessings and cursing follows. The object of the blessings is not Abraham, it is the nation that God promised would come out of Abraham. And God ends up using that nation to spread the belief in one God, bring the Word of God, and provide the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Then Cameron used Romans 9:6 out of context. It reads, “But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel.” Paul is pointing out the difference between spiritual and physical Israel. The early Church was composed mostly of Jews who came to faith in Messiah. These received the Holy Spirit and became Spiritual Israel, something not at that point achieved by the others. Tsarfati breaks it down rather nicely. In Romans 11, Paul asks: “Has God cast away His people whom He foreknew? Absolutely not!” Blindness in part has come to Israel, while the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. And then, “All Israel will be saved.” “If the Church is Israel, then how come the Church has to wait until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in? And will the Church then be saved?”[i]
Joel Richardson follows a similar path. First he addresses the question: Does Genesis 12 actually refer to Israel? We read in the Genesis 12 passage quoted above: “I will make you a great nation.” The promise then is to the PLURAL ABRAHAM. This promise is reiterated over and over to Isaac and Jacob, who became Israel. Psalm 105:6-11 = “O seed of Abraham, His servant, O sons of Jacob, His chosen ones!” The seed of Abraham are the sons of Jacob / Israel…The chosen ones. It goes on. He remembers His covenant forever….to a thousand generations. “To Israel as an everlasting covenant.” Therefore, the promises were made to Abraham and his descendants – as an “everlasting covenant.”[ii] And we don’t have to rest on the Genesis 12 passage alone. God repeated His promise many times in the Old Testament.
Genesis 15:7-12 – & 18-21 “And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him….. 18On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
- Lord said to Isaac – Genesis 26:3-4 – Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
- 2Samuel 7:10-12 – To David – “Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore, as previously, since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the Lord tells you that He will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.”
And then there are the promises of the regathering in the Last Days.
- Jeremiah 31:1 & 3-4 – “At the same time,” says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people…. he Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel!”
- Isaiah 11:11-12 – “Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea. And He will lift up a standard for the nations And assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of JudahFrom the four corners of the earth.”
- Jeremiah 23:3 – “Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply.
- Jeremiah 37:11-14 – Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’ ”
- Ezekiel 37:21-23 – “Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.”
And that’s as far as we’ll take it this week. Next week we’ll look at Paul’s confirmation of the immutability of God’s promise found in his letter to the Romans and the fulfillment of an incredible prophecy that pointed to the exact timing of the re-establishment of Israel as a nation.
[i] Amir Tsarfati, Behold Israel, viewed June 17, 2026
[ii] Joel Richardson, The Balaam Test, Joel’s Trumpet, viewed June 15, 2026
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