Supersessionism - Types

Types

Both Christian and Jewish theologians have identified different types of supersessionism in Christian reading of the Bible.

R. Kendall Soulen notes three categories of supersessionism are identified by Christian theologians: punitive, economic, and structural.

• Punitive supersessionism is represented by such Christian thinkers as Hippolytus, Origen, and Luther. It is the view that Jews who reject Jesus as the Jewish Messiah are consequently condemned by God, forfeiting the promises otherwise due to them under the covenants.

• Economic supersessionism does not refer to money; rather it is used in the technical theological sense of function (see economic Trinity). It is the view that the practical purpose of the nation of Israel in God's plan is replaced by the role of the Church. It is represented by writers such as Justin Martyr, Augustine, and Barth.

• Structural supersessionism is Soulen's term for the de facto marginalization of the Old Testament as normative for Christian thought. In his words, "Structural supersessionism refers to the narrative logic of the standard model whereby it renders the Hebrew Scriptures largely indecisive for shaping Christian convictions about how God’s works as Consummator and Redeemer engage humankind in universal and enduring ways." Soulen's terminology is used by Craig A. Blaising, in 'The Future of Israel as a Theological Question.' See also Biblical law in Christianity, Antinomianism, Progressive revelation (Christian), and Marcionism.

These three views are neither mutually exclusive, nor logically dependent, and it is possible to hold all of them or any one with or without the others.

Jewish theologian and rabbinic scholar David Novak suggests that there are three options:

1. The new covenant is an extension of the old covenant.
2. The new covenant is an addition to the old covenant.
3. The new covenant is a replacement for the old covenant.

He observes, "In the early Church, it seems, the new covenant presented by the New Testament was either taken to be an addition to the old covenant (the religion of the Torah and the Jewish Pharisaic tradition, summarized in the Ten Commandments), or it was taken to be a replacement for the old covenant."

Novak considers both understandings to be supersessionist. He designates the first as "soft supersessionism" and the second as "hard supersessionism." The former "does not assert that God terminated the covenant of Exodus-Sinai with the Jewish people. Rather, it asserts that Jesus came to fulfill the promise of the old covenant, first for those Jews already initiated into the covenant, who then accepted his messiahhood as that covenant's fulfillment. And, it asserts that Jesus came to both initiate and fulfill the promise of the covenant for those Gentiles whose sole connection to the covenant is through him. Hence, in this kind of supersessionism, those Jews who do not accept Jesus' messiahhood are still part of the covenant in the sense of 'what God has put together let no man put asunder' ." See also Dual-covenant theology.

Hard supersessionism, on the other hand, asserts that "he old covenant is dead. The Jews by their sins, most prominently of rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, have forfeited any covenantal status." See also Antinomianism.

This classification provides mutually exclusive options. Hard supersessionism implies both punitive and economic supersessionism; soft supersessionism does not fall into any of the three classes recognized as supersessionist by Christian theologians; instead it is associated with Jewish Christianity.