Replacement Theology On Steroids!

by Sandy Simpson, 2/13/14

 

It occurred to me the other day that the teachings of those who promote the World Christian Gathering on Indigenous People (WCGIP) actually represent a form of Replacement Theology on steroids.  Liberals split from conservatives in many denominations in the 1950s but the standard definition of Replacement Theology taught by liberal churches, Reformed Theology, Latter Rain and many other groups has remained the same.

 

Replacement Theology is the teaching that the Christian church has replaced Israel in regards to God's purpose and promises. (CARM, http://carm.org/dictionary-replacement-theology)

 

Supersessionism, fulfillment theology, and replacement theology are terms long used for the biblical interpretation that the New Covenant supersedes or replaces the Mosaic Covenant, the latter thus also referred to as the Old Covenant.  (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replacement_theology)

 

Replacement Theology was introduced to the Church shortly after Gentile leadership took over from Jewish leadership. What are its premises? (1) Israel (the Jewish people and the land) has been replaced by the Christian Church in the purposes of God, or, more precisely, the Church is the historic continuation of Israel to the exclusion of the former. (2) The Jewish people are now no longer a "chosen people." In fact, they are no different from any other group, such as the English, Spanish, or Africans. (3) Apart from repentance, the new birth, and incorporation into the Church, the Jewish people have no future, no hope, and no calling in the plan of God. The same is true for every other nation and group. (4) Since Pentecost of Acts 2, the term "Israel," as found in the Bible, now refers to the Church. (5) The promises, covenants and blessings ascribed to Israel in the Bible have been taken away from the Jews and given to the Church, which has superseded them. However, the Jews are subject to the curses found in the Bible, as a result of their rejection of Christ. (The error Of Replacement Theology by Clarence H. Wagner, Jr., http://www.therefinersfire.org/replacement_theology.htm)

 

So, as you can see, the root of this teaching is that Israel no longer holds the distinction of being the tree from which the Root of David (Jesus-Rev. 5:5, 22:16) came.  They are no longer the “natural branches” (Israel-Rom. 11:21) on to which Gentile Christianity (the wild shoots-Rom. 11:17 or wild branches-Rom. 11:24) are grafted in (Rom. 11:17-24).  According to Replacement Theology, Christianity has now become its own branch apart from Israel (the natural branch) that produced the Root and all the promises of the Bible to Israel have been taken away from them and given to the Gentile Church.  This is why you hear so many false teachers taking verses out of context from the Old Testament and willy-nilly applying them to the Gentile Church.  This methodology has been going on for decades in liberal churches and has been popularized by many false teachers on TV.

 

But the fact is that Replacement Theology is utter false doctrine.  It denies promises made to Israel, some of which have already been fulfilled and some which are yet to come to fruition. 

 

But when you add the fact that the Inclusivist WCGIP proponents are now saying that God planted hundreds of different trees, cultures all over the world, that are not connected to the natural branch, tree and Root, you have what can only be termed Replacement Theology on steroids!

 

But were saying that … they already have it as their god and perhaps we can use that name and teach the truth about the character of Jehovah God, without going to an Arab Muslim saying you have to accept the Jewish God, so that’s where we are coming from. (Danny Lehmann, Word to the World with host Danny Lehmann, KLHT, Feb. 14/06, #7)

 

The “Jewish god” is repeatedly maligned by YWAM and WCGIP.  There is the one God revealed in Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit but that revelation came through the line of Adam to Noah, Noah through the line of Shem, and finally revealed fully to Israel through Moses.  God created one culture, that of Israel whereby he established His Law and His plan to reach the Gentiles through His chosen people.  There were no other trees planted in many nations because a person in the Old Testament would have had to hear about God through a Jew telling them.  Salvation in the Old Testament was only possible by becoming a Jew and following the Law of Moses.  This is carried on in the New Testament by the fact that unbelievers must hear and accept the Gospel from a Christian who preaches it to them. 

 

Rom. 10:14-15  How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

 

There is no other way.  General revelation of God (the general knowledge that there must be a Creator) is NOT salvific, even if that is what Don Richardson and countless other liberals, New Apostolics, Emergent Churchers, or WCGIP adherents claim who are Neo-Universalists or Inclusivists.  Don Richardson defines what Inclusivism is all about, which is what he believes to be true.

 

Inclusivism: Whereas Exclusivists regard general revelation as informative only and special revelation as both informative and salvific, Inclusivists, by contrast, regard general revelation as both informative and salvific and special revelation as even mere deeply informative and even more effectively and widely salvific! (Don Richardson, Heaven Wins)

 

The claim that there are levels of salvation is ludicrous and, frankly, a doctrine of demons.  I say that because if you believe Richardson then you can end up in hell wondering how you got there when you simply acknowledge some “god” in your culture as a supreme being. 

 

He was born in the center of civilization of that day. y’know the nexus of Europe and Asia and Africa, the civilization of that day and what did Jesus say is tell everybody that I came, y’know. Not that you don't know God or that you don't have no relationship with him and he's a foreign God to you. But that, that the son of your creator came who made himself known to as Rom. 1:20 says and so this is what we bring to them and we find that if there are people who are really seeking God, there are people like Jobs everywhere who know. (Daniel Kikawa, Word to the World with host Danny Lehmann, KLHT, Feb. 14/06, #7)

 

When did Jesus Christ reveal Himself to the Gentiles in this way by appearing to numerous cultures around the world?  The Bible does not speak of this and only Richardson, et al, has made up mythologies that are unprovable, especially by Biblical standards.  The myths made up by Don Richardson, Daniel Kikawa, Richard Twiss, YWAM and many others were often made up AFTER contact with Christianity in order to try to bring anyone who became a Christian back into the cult religions they came from.  I know this from studying anthropological records, which Kikawa failed to mention in his book “Perpetuated In Righteousness”.

 

Now yesterday Daniel, we closed our broadcast by talking about the issue of Japan and how people have a hard time having the gospel being communicated to them because it sounds foreign… that's the big problem- whether its India or Thailand, Africa or Latin America. If God appears to be a foreign God it would be equivalent to us in America which is a normally Christian based society accepting Buddhism, because it sounds foreign to us. And in the Bible when Paul was preaching in Acts 17 it tells us that when he was talking about Jesus and the resurrection, they said "well he's talking about a foreign God" and he went on to bridge the gap there in a magnificent way there at Mars hill. (Danny Lehmann, Ibid., Feb. 7/06, #2)

 

Paul was using the “Unknown God” as an illustration of his KNOWN GOD.  Covering all bases against catastrophe by erecting shrines to every known god, including even an unknown god, does not prove the Greeks knew the “unknown god” they were superstitiously paying homage to.  On top of this fact of history, Paul states in the Bible over and over again that the Gentiles “did not know God”.

 

Gal. 4:8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
1 Cor. 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Rom. 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
1 Thess. 4:5 ...not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God...
Ephesians 2:12-13 ...remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
2 Thess. 1:8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

 

The repeated misuse of the story of Paul at Mars Hill to prove that the Gentiles “did” know God is a patent lie, and a dangerous one at that.  

 

As Indigenous people, we need to embrace God as ours, and also know that God embraces us as His . . . just as we are.  Our goal is to provide indigenous people, missionaries and Christians with information, training and materials that show the true nature of Jesus; that his way is not to be a foreign religion that destroys people groups and their cultures, but one that brings people groups and their cultures to their highest fulfillment. (Aloha Ke Akua, home page as of 10/23/10, http://akaministries.tripod.com/aloha/)

 

You can only embrace God as yours after you have that God, YHWH and His Son, Jesus Christ, revealed to you by a Christian who explains the Gospel message.  Prior to that you cannot embrace God and God does not embrace you.

 

John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

 

"Christians should cease representing Jesus as the Son of the foreign God of a foreign people, especially if these foreigners had never shown concern for nor had any involvement in the lives or culture of the natives. God lovingly created them in the beginning never left them without a witness and, in his great love for them, even sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to die for them!" [Daniel Kikawa, Perpetuated in Righteousness, 4th edition, p. 27, cited in Idolatry In Their Hearts by Sandy Simpson and Mike Oppenheimer]

 

God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not the God of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, India, China or anywhere else.  Of course God is foreign to those who do not know the Gospel.

 

Ephesians 2:12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

 

“… I talked with someone whose, she grew up in Japan in a Christian family and yet she felt Jesus was a foreign God. And why did she feel that is- Everytime she would read the Bible, it be, the words would be in kanji and when it comes to the name of Jesus it would be in katakana. So its just like y’know if we read in our English Bible and then Jesus the foreign God said, this is what it says to them when they are doing it, and then the foreign God Jesus did this, and the foreign God Jesus did that. Because its in katakana it tells them that everytime they read that, he is not our God “ (Word to the World interview with Daniel Kikawa, Feb.6, 2006, #1).

 

The “Kami” of Japan are a pantheon of false gods, at the apex of which are a male and female pair of false gods, Izanagi and Izanami, who spawned the rest of the pantheon. 

 

All Japanese Deities are called “Kami”. Another name for Shinto: “Kami-no-Michi, Way of the Gods”. Izanagi, sky-father creator deity. Izanami, earth-mother creator deity. Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun (VERY important). Hachiman, God of War. (Religions' Comparisons, http://www.bessel.org/religion.htm)

 

Virtually every cultural religion after Babel had a male and female deity, patterned after the worship of Nimrod and Semiramis at the time of Babel.  So of course they did not know YHWH and in order to be truly saved they would have to realize that they are lost without salvation through Jesus Christ.  And yet Daniel Kikawa bowed before the Japanese people and apologized for the missionaries who brought a “foreign god”.

 

“the rest are open through the name of the creator God in Hawaii which is Io, and through him they see that he’s a Hawaiian god, but he’s the same creator of all things, and y’know sent his son for them” (Word to the world program  -2/3/06 Danny Lehmann‘s interview with Daniel Kikawa).

 

“but when the protestant missionaries came in decades later and, and used the name of Hananim, all of a sudden there was great excitement, that our God sent his son for us, Y’know, and so its not a foreign God anymore - our God, and great excitement and this is the beginning of this great revival that has been ongoing in Korea” (Word to the World interview with Daniel Kikawa Feb.13, 2006, #6).

 

The god ‘Io of Hawaii is not the same god Kikawa borrowed from the Maori who made up a spiritual being called ‘Io after already having contact with Christian missionaries in order to lure people back to their old religion.  Both Peter Buck and E.S.C. Handy, prominent anthropologists, are quoted by Kikawa in his book selectively without revealing what they actually wrote about the Hawaiian “god” ‘Io.

 

“Moreover, he (Buck) and other scholars were suspicious of the fact that both Te Matorohanga and his scribe Te Whatahoro had become Christians before details of the Io cult were written down. Buck himself concluded that no authentic proof existed for the concept of a supreme creator named lo, Kio or Kiho in Eastern Polynesia before `dispersal to the various island groups took place” (p.252 The Lost Caravel by Robert Langdon)

 

‘Io in Hawaii was always a hawk after which ‘Iolani Palace is named (exalted hawk).  The reason this cult was secret was not that they secretly knew of the true god, but like all other island cultures any island animistic “god” was not to be talked about with others. 

 

“At that time Handy pointed out that the combination of Io and Uli, in the name Io-uli, suggested a relationship between lo and Uli, “patron god of the priesthood of Hawaii.” While then expressing the opinion that the Maori cult of a supreme being, Io, was “truly an ancient feature of Polynesian religion” he cautioned that proof was lacking that this reference to Io in Hawaii was to a supreme being (5, p.97). Now, after his later findings which include several Hawaiian prayers in which 'Io is mentioned, he concludes that “the worship of 'lo in Hawaii is specifically the veneration of Buteo solitarius, the Hawaiian hawk [`io], and that 'Io and Uli are one and the same god, 'Io being his esoteric name.” (E. S. C. Handy, Polynesian Religion and the Hawaiian cult of ‘Io, p. 97)

 

The Hawaiians were worshipping the created things, practicing Animism like the rest of the two thirds world.  Where I grew up in Palau there were a number of village gods such as the manta ray, shark, crocodile, various birds, rocks, trees, etc.  ‘Io the hawk created nothing … neither did Hananim who is a false god from long ago that has been co-opted by certain Christian groups and made to be YHWH.  You can read about a number of false gods of the nations having their names put into the Bible which is a form of blasphemy.

 

“And there are people who point to that and uh really, uh y’know again, like China and Japan as one of the main reasons because this is not their God, now he’s a foreign God come here and uh not using that native name, and this is one of the main things that we have found too, with Hawaiian people…” (Word to the World interview with Daniel Kikawa Feb. 16, 2006 #9)

 

God does not have native names.  He revealed Himself exclusively to Moses and Israel as the Great “I AM”.  His name is YHWH, “I AM THAT I AM”.  He IS a foreign god to those who worship other supreme beings, in fact to ALL Gentile cultures.  None of the supreme beings of the Middle East were said to be the true YHWH in the time of Moses, so why would the Hawaiians think they knew and were worshipping the true God under the guise of ‘Io?

 

So this one god and this Christian concept of god, is not really a white man’s religion brought here then it is really something that was here from the very beginning. (Wayne Cordeiro, New Hope Fellowship, interview of Daniel Kikawa by Wayne Cordeiro, July 15, 2005, http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/Cordeiro-Kikawa%20Connecting%20Point%207-15-05.html)

 

Sorry to inform Wayne Cordiero but the religion of Israel, which was the root of the branch of Christianity, is not a “white man’s religion”.  If you want to be exact it is an “olive skinned” man’s religion first and foremost and only came to the white man much later.  But it is certain, if a person starts from a Biblical premise (which Cordiero does not) they would know that the knowledge of God was in no way present in Hawaii “from the very beginning”.  This pandering to indigenous cultures brings people into mega churches but not into relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

 

Conclusion

 

The teachings of the New Apostolic, Emergent Church and World Christian Gathering of Indigenous People are promoting both Inclusivism and a new, radical, Replacement Theology.  It is therefore imperative that true believers get away from these false teachers who are teaching utter heresy and stand up for the truths of God’s Word before all mission work is lost.