Pulse
3 Aug 2026

At this writing, the dispute between the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and the Vatican remains unresolved. The conflict has to do with the decision by the group of bishops belonging to the Society to unilaterally ordain priests and bishops, without the approval of the Vatican.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, has clearly warned the group that it faces excommunication if it proceeds with this. Without the ‘requisite pontifical mandate,’ the Cardinal emphasised, such consecrations would be considered a ‘schismatic act’ and that ‘formal adherence to the schism constitutes a grave offense against God and entails the excommunication established under Church law.’

SSPX has also issued a formal Declaration which signals its departure from the official teachings of the Vatican in some important respects. One of these divergences has to do with the relationship between the old covenant and the new. The Declaration states unequivocally that the Word incarnate has ‘rendered the Old Covenant definitively null and void.’

Although the official teaching of the Roman Church can be broadly described as ‘supersessionist,’ its understanding of the relationship between the old covenant and the new and Israel and the Church is profoundly more nuanced. The official doctrine understands the relationship within the schema of ‘promise and fulfilment’, not replacement.

Incidentally, although it is frequently used in the literature discussing this subject, the term ‘supersessionism’ is in fact a poor coinage. Not only is it clumsy, it is also susceptible to caricature and misconstrual. It is better to carefully describe the relationship between Israel and the Church than to use the label as a shorthand.

Commenting on the Declaration, George Weigel rightly points out that the assertion of the SSPX ‘would have shocked St Paul.’ I would add that it would also have provoked the same reaction from Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word.

Wasn’t Jesus recorded to have said, ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them’? (Matthew 5:17). The eminent New Testament scholar, Donald Hagner, explains that to fulfil ‘literally means “to fill to the full” … From this basic meaning comes such derivative meanings as “accomplish,” “complete,” “bring to its end,” “finish.”’ To fulfil means to bring the old covenant to completion, not render it null and void.

The same schema of ‘promise and fulfilment’ should also govern our understanding of the relationship between Israel and the Church. The Bible does not teach that God has two peoples – one earthly (Israel) and the other heavenly (the Church). God has only one chosen people who have their origin with the calling of Abraham.

In Genesis 12, we have an account of God’s calling of Abraham. ‘I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ (12:2-3). Even from this passage, we learn that Israel’s calling is never an end in itself – Israel was to be an instrument by which God will bless the nations.

The major prophets of Israel envisioned a day when the Spirit of God will gather the nations to worship the one true God as his one holy people (See Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:24-28; Isaiah 2:2-4).

Scripture also teaches that the promises that God made to his people Israel in the old covenant are all fulfilled in Jesus Christ, his incarnate Son. This is clearly expressed by Paul, who wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that ‘all the promises of God find their Yes in him [Jesus Christ].’

Thus, Jesus Christ is the true Israelite, the very embodiment and recapitulation of the history of Israel. The broad parallels between the life of Jesus and the history of Israel bear this out.

Just as Israel was called out of Egypt, so Jesus also comes out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15). And just as Israel spent forty years in the wilderness, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. The crucial difference, however, is this: where Israel fails in obedience, Jesus succeeds.

As the body of Christ, united to her Saviour, the Church shares in the blessings promised to Israel. The Church is not a separate people alongside Israel, God’s old covenant people. The Church is made part of the one people of God, like branches grafted into the olive tree, as Paul’s vivid imagery shows (Romans 11).

The New Testament makes a distinction between ethnic Israel and true Israel, as Paul’s statement ‘… not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel’ (Romans 9:6) makes perfectly clear. In the very next two verses, the apostle puts the same point across in another way:

Not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants. It is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of promise (9:7-8).

So, when Paul says in Romans 11:26 that ‘All Israel will be saved’, he could not possibly have meant every single ethnic Jew, and certainly not the modern state of Israel.

In fact ‘Israel’ itself is given a new and expanded meaning in the New Testament. In Galatians 6:16, Paul calls the Church, ‘the Israel of God’. However, this does not mean that ethnic Jews are totally eclipsed and abandoned – they have become part of the one eschatological people of God, the Church.

Thus, when Paul declares that ‘all Israel will be saved’, he is referring to the entire people of God who are gathered around Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord – Jews and Gentiles who have called upon the name of the Lord (Acts 2:21).

Thus, God has not revoked the promises he made to his people (Romans 11:28-29). In fact, in Christ he has spectacularly fulfilled the promise he made to Abraham in Genesis several millennia ago.

In treating the Old Covenant as ‘null and void’, the SSPX has not only departed from the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, it has also deviated from the clear testimony of Scripture.

It has presented a crude ‘replacement theology’ that is quite foreign to the biblical witness.

Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.