James F. Gauss
June 15, 2026
I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Jesus
Matthew 15:24
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It seems that since Israel’s war with the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas, a growing number of the Christian church, primarily in America, are indulging in the millennial old concept of Replacement Theology.
What is replacement theology? Those that adhere to the non-biblical ideology claim that the Christian church has replaced Israel in God’s plan for mankind and that the Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, nor does God have any further plans for Israel.
Within this belief system there are three concepts, all of which remove Israel from biblical importance and any future plans by their God, Jehovah. The first, replacement theology, simply means that the New Testament church established by Jesus Christ, replaces the importance or need to understand God’s history or intent for Israel. Some go as far as to state that the Old Testament is no longer important to the church and its mission.
A second view is known as covenant theology, which professes that the church is just an extension or continuation of Israel’s story. The third idea is that the church of Christ is different and separately distinct from Israel. This thought is described as dispensationalism or premillennialism.
Overall, those that believe in or teach replacement theology claim that the promises made to Israel and the Jews in the Old Testament have been fulfilled with the establishment of the Christian church and those promises no longer pertain to Israel.
As clean cut as that ideology might seem, it is hard to support through scripture. The entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, represent the history and plan of God for the Jews and Israel, from Genesis through Revelation.
Jesus’ ministry and His own words give us a clear understanding of God’s plan for the Jews and Israel. First, Jesus was a Jewish man from the lineage of Abraham and King David. Jesus chose twelve Jewish men to be His apostles. In doing so, He instructed those twelve, “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6).
Five chapters later in Matthew we read the story of the poor Syrophoenician woman, a pagan Canaanite, who came crying out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed” (Matthew 15:22). One would think that Jesus would respond with words of comfort and mercy, “But He answered her not a word” (verse 23). His disciples wanted Jesus to send her away because she kept pestering them and shouting at them.
Instead, Jesus said to her, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (verse 24). Amazing! The Church has often taught that Jesus came to save all lost people, and He did. However, His first mission was to bring the Good News of the fulfillment of God’s promise to the Jewish people.
The majority of first century church evangelists and pastors were Hebrew men who spread the Good News of the Gospel of Christ to both Jews and Gentiles.
Recently, our pastor was teaching on the Book of Acts, Chapter 3. What I am about to share is about that chapter but was not part of his presentation. This chapter represents Apostle Peter’s second sermon after Pentecost when he and over one hundred others received the gift of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus before His crucifixion (John 14:16) and again before His ascension to heaven (Acts 1:4-5).
The reason I mention this is that preaching the Good News was not necessarily Peter’s spiritual gift. Remember, he was the one that denied Christ three times after Jesus was arrested. It was Peter that Jesus rebuked by telling him, “Get behind, Me Satan!” (Matthew 16:23). Now, to clarify, Jesus was not calling Peter Satan, but the temptation Peter was espousing was from Satan.
With that foundation of Peter’s history his powerful sermons take on new light.
In Acts 3 he is preaching to a group of people he identifies as the “Men of Israel” (Acts 3:12). These men had just witnessed the name of Jesus proclaimed by Peter in the healing of a man who had been lame since birth and walked into the Jewish temple leaping and praising God.
“Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this?” Peter quizzed. “Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go” (Acts 3:12-13).
Were these men responsible for bringing Jesus before Pilate or was Peter referring to the Jews collectively? “But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all” (verses 14-16).
Now, here is the interesting part of Peter’s little reminder of their complicity in the Savior’s death. He does not condemn them but offers them a way of redemption.
“Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (verses 17-21).
Peter is not exactly letting them off the hook. He is saying I understand that you were ignorant. You did not understand that Christ’s crucifixion, your promised Messiah, was God’s plan as foretold by prophets long ago. Even so, you need to repent of your involvement and sin and return to God through the saving grace of Jesus’ sacrifice for you. Imagine, those who were responsible in aiding in the arrest, trial, persecution and crucifixion of the Son of God were offered a spiritual olive branch of forgiveness, redemption and reconciliation with God.
Now, if you do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior because you think the evil you have done is too great for God to forgive you, consider this: Were you responsible for betraying the Son of God? Was your hand bloodied by His crucifixion? Your sin can be no greater than that.
Peter went on to proclaim to the Men of Israel: “You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities” (verses 25-26).
Jesus was sent to fulfill the prophecies of Jewish prophets and reveal Himself first to the Israelites, before expanding His gospel message to non-Jews and through the ministries of His disciples.
For two thousand years, some in the Christian faith have held the Jewish people responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Would you like to be held responsible for everything your ancestors were guilty of?
Today, antisemitism is at a fever pitch, blaming Israel and the Jewish people for everything that is wrong in the world and for having the audacity to demand Israel stop defending itself against those that seek their destruction daily.
In Revelation 21, Apostle John describes his vision of New Jerusalem. “And [an angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west” (Revelation 21:10-13).
Israel and the Jewish people have been in the Bible since Genesis, and they are part of God’s plan at the end of time. The Christian church and the followers of Jesus Christ only exist through the spiritual grafting into God’s promises to the Jews thousands of years ago. No, Israel has not been replaced by the Church, it is responsible for the church and is an integral part of Christian church history.
To the church in Rome, Apostle Paul wrote:
I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”? But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work (Romans 11:1-6).
Israel’s rejection of their Messiah resulted in salvation for all mankind. Paul continues. I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall [trespass], to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall [trespass] is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:11-15).
So how did Israel’s fall benefit you and me and all non-Jews? Paul, a Pharisaic Jew, makes God’s plan for the Jews clear.
For if the firstfruit [the Jewish patriarchs] is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you [Gentiles], being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness [richness] of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.” Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? (Romans 11:16-24).
Note, Paul warns Gentile believers, followers of Jesus Christ, not to be prideful and think they are elevated above the Jewish people, in whom God still has a plan.
For I do not desire, brethren, Paul advises, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved [delivered], as it is written:
“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins” [Isaiah 59:20-21].
Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:25-32).
In the preceding verse, Paul once again warns Christian believers not to take pride in their salvation, or elevate themselves above the Jews. God still has a plan for those who rejected Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Remember what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Jesus was informing the woman that salvation, redemption from sin, would come only through Him as the promised Jewish Messiah.
The role of the Church concerning the Jewish people is to stand with our Jewish brothers, the ones who worship the same God that we do, and continue to share the Good News that God’s promise to them long ago has already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ and none other.
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