Displacement Theology in Dispensationalism and Its Difference from Replacement Theology

I have received positive comments from Israelite friends about the way Progressive Dispensationalism treats the theology of the Israelite remnant in the present dispensation. Much of that appreciation is due to the fact that this was one of the areas least adequately addressed in traditional dispensationalism, as I argued in Does the Israelite Remnant of the Present Dispensation Lose Its Inheritance as an Israelite?. Those positive comments often arise in response to statements like the following from traditional dispensationalists:

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"From the time of Christ's rejection by Israel until the time when God deals specifically with Israel again in the seventieth week it is not possible to refer to a remnant of the nation Israel. In the body of Christ all national distinctions disappear. All Jews who are saved are not saved into a national relationship, but into a relationship to Christ in that body of believers. Therefore there is no continuing remnant of Israel with whom God is particularly dealing today." (J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come)

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"Paul declares clearly in Romans 11:25 that the blindness of Israel is a temporary blindness. Because that nation is now blinded, God can not have a remnant within the nation with whom the covenants will be fulfilled." (J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come)

Pentecost explicitly denies that there is an Israelite remnant in the present dispensation. He also cited Arno C. Gaebelein approvingly:

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"...there is yet to be a Jewish remnant, a strong and mighty witness that God hath not cast away His people. This future remnant of believing Hebrews will be called as soon as the church is complete and removed from the earth. This remnant to be called through Grace corresponds to the remnant at the beginning of this age." (Arno C. Gaebelein, Hath God Cast Away His People!, p. 28)

As I showed in the earlier article, traditional dispensationalism, for the most part, with its radical distinction between an earthly people (Israel) and a heavenly people (the Church), excluded remnant Israelites from the promises given to their descendants. If on the one hand there is replacement theology, on the other hand traditional dispensationalism often promoted a displacement theology of the remnant Jews. Displacement theology is not as harmful or sweeping as replacement theology, because it does not deny Israel's future altogether. But it still affects an entire class of Messianic Judaism and the Israelite remnant, and that is tragic.

Displacement theology, in this context, refers to the idea promoted by many in traditional dispensationalism that Jewish believers who come to faith in Christ during the present dispensation are effectively displaced from the promises God made specifically to Israel. They receive the heavenly blessings of the Church while losing the national promises made to Israel. Unlike replacement theology, which teaches that the Church has permanently replaced Israel in God's plan, displacement theology does not deny that Israel has a future. However, it argues that during the current dispensation believing Jews lose their connection to the ethnic promises made to their nation. To be in the Body of Christ, in practice, means to be displaced from eschatology and removed from the people of Israel.

Stuart Dauermann has called this "the flaw of the excluded present." He describes those who hold this view as recognizing "the glories of the Jewish past (the Bible)," and affirming a "glorious Jewish future (the Millennium)," but negating any significance to the Jewish present. Thus, according to Dauermann, displacement theology teaches that "the biblical Jewish past is rosy, their Jewish future is radiant as they anticipate the Millennium; but their Jewish present is wretched" ("The Flaw of the Excluded Present," unpublished paper, 1988).

This is harmful for several reasons. First, it forces Messianic Jews into a false dilemma: they must choose between their identity as part of the Church or their identity as heirs of Israel's promises, as if the two were mutually exclusive. Second, it strips them of promises that belong to them by covenant. God made unconditional promises to Abraham and his descendants, and those promises were never conditioned on a specific dispensational timeframe. Third, it creates a theological gap in which an entire generation of faithful Israelites is left without a place in God's program for their own nation, not because God removed them, but because a theological system did.

Very often, a traditional dispensationalist tries to soften the problem by saying that these believing Jews now participate in an even greater plan: that of the Church. But instead of softening or solving the issue, this actually aggravates it. The point is not that one plan is better than the other. The issue is that God made specific promises to Israel, and removing the remnant from those promises, regardless of what they receive in return, is still a loss that no theological system should impose.

I am glad that some Israelites agree with this aspect of Progressive Dispensationalism. The Israelite remnant today does not lose the promises given uniquely to their ethnicity. They do not need to choose between one or the other. On the contrary, they have the privilege of partaking in both sets of blessings: those of Israel and those of the Church.