Did the Church replace Israel? The foundation of the Church and Israel

Abstract

This paper presents the relationship between the establishment of the Church and Israel. The author tries to answer a question that is important for contemporary theology: Did the Church replace Israel? The paper also poses another question that correlates with the first: Were the chosen people of the Old Testament “disinherited” upon the foundation of the Ecclesia? Of fundamental importance for understanding the Church–Israel relations is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, mainly its Declaration on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions Nostra aetate (No. 4). It treats these relations from the history of salvation perspective, indicating a continuum between God’s old and new people. The document does not specify the mutual reference or deals with the soteriological status of the people of Old Covenant. In order to reveal the Church’s attitude to Israel, the author examined Jesus’ reference to the Torah and the key events in the work of the Church foundation: constituting of the Twelve and establishing of the Eucharist. They provide grounds for the claim that the Church is the Israel of the ultimate times. Regarding the Church-Israel relations from the perspective of the history of salvation provides the conclusion that God did not reject Israel, nor did He cancel its mission of the tradent of the revelation. The people of the Old Testament remained the carrier of what was fulfilled in Jesus Christ in the economy of salvation. Israel’s “disinheritance” did not occur upon the Ecclesia foundation.