Justin Martyr and Supersessionism

By Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D.

Justin Martyr (A.D. 100–165) is important in the history of supersessionism because he was the first Christian writer to explicitly identify the church as “Israel.”[1] Justin declared, “For the true spiritual Israel, and descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham . . . are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ.”[2] He also said, “Since then God blesses this people [i.e., Christians], and calls them Israel, and declares them to be His inheritance, how is it that you [Jews] repent not of the deception you practise on yourselves, as if you alone were the Israel?”[3] Justin also announced that, “We, who have been quarried out from the bowels of Christ, are the true Israelite race.”[4]

For Jeffrey S. Siker, “Justin is a transitional figure”[5] in the development of supersessionism. Justin does not mark the beginning of supersessionism, but he does openly advocate a replacement approach concerning Israel and the church that had been forming for nearly a century: “Justin marks the end of an era, the culmination of a process in formative Christianity that had begun much earlier.”[6] Justin’s hermeneutical approach to the Old Testament was also important in the development of supersessionism. He reapplied Old Testament promises so that the church, not Israel, was viewed as the beneficiary of its promised blessings. Justin declared to Trypho: “And along with Abraham we [Christians] shall inherit the holy land, when we shall receive the inheritance for an endless eternity, being children of Abraham through the like faith. . . . Accordingly, He promises to him a nation of similar faith, God fearing, righteous . . . but it is not you, ‘in whom is no faith.’”[7] Siker adds, “According to Justin, the patriarchal promises do not apply to the Jews; rather, God has transferred these promises to the Christians and . . . to Gentile Christians in particular.”[8]