American Milk and Honey
by Douglas Wilson
On my long list about Doug Wilson, near the top is thanks to God that Doug loves God’s Word. He urges, rightly, Christians to have no problem passages. He stands, rightly, against compromising exegetes that want to be cool in the eyes of cool people, so-called academics and such. Wilson gets in trouble for this, takes heat for it, and does a little jig around the corner for the privilege of receiving reproaches.
He has taken some hits for this book, and for pointing out from Scripture that God chose Israel, made promises to Israel, and intends to grant a coming generation of Israel repentance and faith in Christ. This will not just be okay, it is necessary according to the New Covenant, and it will lead to greater riches for the world.
He includes an entire appendix of Reformed men from previous centuries making the same point. This is because many who identify as Reformed in our century reject any expected and specific revival among the Jews.
I’ve thought about what to say at this point in my review for a while. I love so much of what I’ve learned from Wilson, and pray for the fruitfulness of his bright light and joyful testimony. And also, his supercessionism is as surprising and inconsistent as it is wrong.
Supercessionism is the teaching that God is fulfilling His promises to Israel in the Church. From Wilson’s glossary, he defines:
“Supersessionism is the belief that the Church is Israel now. All the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ, and only there (2 Cor. 1:20 bibref2corinthians1 bibref2corinthians1v20). This means that the promises given throughout the Old Testament are the present possession of Christians, not Jews.”
Some call this replacement theology, though of course those who believe it reject that it’s “replacement.” Wilson makes a distinction between hard and soft supercessionism, and claims to be a soft supercessionist, meaning that Wilson expects some of the promises to Israel to come about, especially those about a great Jewish conversion to Christ in Romans 11 bibrefromans11.
He also says:
“[Christians] have always considered ourselves to be in some sense the true heirs of the promises God made to His people. And this means that consistent Christians must always be supersessionists of some stripe.”
But how is it consistent to say that God will fulfill part of the New Covenant? If God will give the house of Israel and the house of Judah new hearts and cleanse them from all their iniquities, why wouldn’t God also cause their cities to be inhabited and the waste places rebuilt? It’s the same verse (Ezekiel 36:33 bibrefezekiel36 bibrefezekiel36v33)! There are promises for the nation of Israel, not just for Jews in it. At least a hard supercessionist is all the way wrong, not walking down the covenant street wearing one pant leg.
The fact that God will use Gentiles to make the Jews jealous is right in the text, Romans 11 bibrefromans11, verse 11 and verse 14. Our jealousability is more than our home Bible studies, it is our receiving of the blessings of God – Deuteronomic sort of blessings – that provoke Israel to repentance and faith. I happen to think this is well-nicknamed as Kuyperianism, and as a anti-supercessionist Dispensationalist, I think Kuyperian Dispensationalism is the right juxtaposition.
So I’ll recommend this book because it’s good to irritate hard supercessionists. And maybe the whole process will provoke the soft kind to examine whether they are really reading, as consistent Christians, what God says about the “true Israel of God.”