One of the most common verses used to support Replacement Theology is Matthew 21:43.
Jesus said,
“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.” (Matthew 21:43, NASB 1995)
Many Christians read this verse and conclude that God permanently rejected Israel and replaced her with the Church.
But is that really what Jesus meant?
Let’s look at the passage in its context.
Who Was Jesus Speaking To?
Jesus made this statement while telling the Parable of the Wicked Vine-Growers (Matthew 21:33-46).
In the story, the owner of the vineyard sends servants to collect fruit from the tenants. Instead of honoring him, the tenants beat the servants and kill them. Finally, the owner sends his son. They kill him too.
The meaning isn’t difficult to see.
The vineyard represents Israel.
The servants represent God’s prophets, whom Israel repeatedly rejected.
The son represents Jesus Himself.
The tenants represent Israel’s religious leaders.
Now notice something very important.
Just two verses after Jesus says the kingdom will be taken away, Matthew tells us exactly who Jesus was talking about:
“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them.” (Matthew 21:45, NASB 1995)
That is the key to understanding the passage.
Jesus was speaking directly to the chief priests and Pharisees who had rejected Him. They were the ones who had failed to lead God’s people faithfully.
What Was Being Taken Away?
Jesus said the kingdom would be taken away from “you.”
Who is the “you”?
The context says it was the religious leaders standing before Him.
Jesus was announcing judgment on those who rejected God’s Son.
He was not saying that God had permanently rejected the nation of Israel.
There is a big difference between judging unbelieving leaders and canceling God’s promises to Israel.
Those are two very different ideas.
Does “A People” Mean the Church?
Many teachers say the “people” receiving the kingdom is the Church.
That is certainly one possible interpretation.
But even if it is correct, it still does not prove that the Church replaced Israel.
Today, God is working through the Church to proclaim the gospel to the world. That does not mean His promises to Israel have been canceled.
Other Bible teachers believe the “people” in Matthew 21:43 refers to a future generation of believing Jews who will receive their Messiah when He returns.
Whichever view you take, neither one requires Replacement Theology.
The verse simply doesn’t say that God has abandoned Israel forever.
What Does the Rest of Matthew Say?
One of the best ways to understand a difficult verse is to keep reading.
Just two chapters later Jesus says,
“For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Matthew 23:39, NASB 1995)
Notice the word until.
Jesus expected a future day when Israel would welcome Him as Messiah.
That doesn’t sound like a nation God has permanently cast aside.
What Does Paul Say?
If anyone wondered whether God had rejected Israel, the Apostle Paul answered the question directly.
“I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be!” (Romans 11:1, NASB 1995)
Later in the same chapter Paul explains why:
“...for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:29, NASB 1995)
God’s promises do not change.
Israel’s present unbelief is real, but it is not permanent.
Paul goes on to describe it as a partial hardening that will last only until God’s present work among the Gentiles is complete (Romans 11:25-26).
God Judges Sin—but He Keeps His Promises
Throughout the Old Testament, God repeatedly judged Israel’s kings, priests, and leaders.
He removed unfaithful leaders.
He raised up faithful ones.
But He never broke His covenant with the nation.
Matthew 21 follows that same pattern.
Jesus condemned corrupt leaders who rejected God’s prophets and ultimately rejected God’s Son.
Their privilege was taken away because of unbelief.
But that is very different from saying that God permanently replaced Israel with the Church.
The Real Message of Matthew 21:43
Matthew 21:43 teaches that God removed kingdom privilege from those who refused to believe and entrusted His work to those who would bear fruit.
It does not say that God canceled His promises to Abraham.
It does not say that Israel is no longer God’s covenant nation.
It does not say that the Church has become the “new Israel.”
Those ideas have to be read into the passage—they are not found in the passage.
When Matthew 21 is read in its context and alongside Romans 11, the picture becomes clear.
God judged unbelieving Israel in Jesus’ day.
God is now saving people from every nation through the gospel.
And God will still fulfill every promise He made to Israel.
The God who disciplines His people is also the God who keeps His Word.
And because He is faithful to Israel, we can be confident He will also be faithful to every promise He has made to us.
—Stuart
P.S. Here is a link to my archive to see previous articles:
The only place where I might disagree with any of that a bit is more on terminology.
I count myself among the groups who reject "dispensationalism", at least in its classic forms. The notion of a "Church age", which some people additionally equate with the strange notion of an "age of Grace" (clearly consisting of people who have never read the book of Hebrews nor any of Paul's letters), is something for which I find zero Biblical support.
Jesus never speaks of a Church age, or the coming of the Church. Jesus always speaks of the Kingdom. There are exactly two places in the Bible where Jesus is quoted as referring to the "church" (Matt 16:18, Matt 18:17), but even there the baggage carried by the word "church" is misleading. "Ekklesia" is a Greek translation of his actual word, which likely was "qahal". Qahal, like the Greek "ekklesia", is an assembly. In the NT, ekklesia, and in the OT, qahal, usually refer to a religious assembly, but can refer to any community assembly. The key here is that Jesus wasn't inventing a new word to describe a non-Jewish "kingdom" that was to come. He used a standard Hebrew (Aramaic) term that was well recognized at the time as referring to a (usually religious) assembly. Absolutely nobody who heard his words (and remember that every one of those hearers were Jewish) would have thought that he was talking about some new non-Jewish thing. They all would have thought that he was talking about the normal Jewish thing that they were accustomed to using the term to describe.
Just a few examples of the well over a hundred uses of qahal in the OT: Gen 49:6, "let not my soul enter into their council (sod); let not my glory be united with their assembly (qahal); Psalm 26:5, "I hate the assembly (qahal) of evildoers, I will not sit with the wicked"; Deuteronomy 23:1-8, "the assembly of the LORD", by my count used 6 times in those verses, is "qahal YHWH"; Judges 20:2, "... stand in the assembly of the people of God (qahal am ha'elohim).
Jesus' listeners were well-acquainted with the "qahal", and it never would have remotely occurred to them that he was talking about anything other than its normal Jewish use. Thus, people reading some sort of new Gentile thing into what is translated as "church" in these two verses are doing something wildly wrong.
Back to "Kingdom". The Kingdom is the Kingdom; it is not the assembly (ekklesia). Just like Old Testament usage, the ekklesia (the qahal) can be a local assembly, or sometimes it can be used as a term for the full assembly (as in Judges 20:2), of the entire nation, or keeping with Kingdom of God terminology, for the entire Kingdom. We are more than subjects though; we are sons (and daughters), and therefore inheritors of the Kingdom.
And here is where the break is made. All Jews may be descendants of Abraham, but not all Jews are counted as inheritors of the promise (Romans 9:3-22). Onto that same root of the inheritors of the promise who have never lost the promise (Romans 11:1-16) have been grafted (Romans 11:17-36) the non-Jewish inheritors of the promise (Romans 9:23-33). It's the same promise, not a new promise. We Gentiles are grafted onto the same root. We are not a new root, but a new branch on the same old root. That root was never plucked up, to be replanted later. It remained, and still remains, only now it has some new branches attached to it.
Such a good piece thank you Stuart. I really enjoyed it.