Christ came primarily to reconcile man to God, but he also looks to see people reconciled to their neighbours.
We begin with the Bible statement of our common humanity. It was to this that Paul appealed when addressing the Athenians on Mars Hill; a people who considered themselves to be superior in every way to all other peoples. The apostle said in Acts 17.26-28: 'From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him; though he is not far from each one of us.
We have a common origin from one man and we are all God's offspring; in him we live and move and have our being.' Psalm 8 teaches what a human person is. God has crammed us all with glory and honour because we are made in his likeness. It is precisely because of this God-given status that James forbids us ever to curse or dishonour another person. Everyone we shall ever encounter is made in the image and likeness of God. To demean or deny any human's full dignity and glory is to demean and deny the glory of God himself. In Acts 14, Paul addresses the people of Lystra who in their debased religion attempted to offer sacrifices to him and Barnabas as gods. As with the Athenians, Paul emphasised to the Lystrians their common humanity and their shared experience of the common grace of God.
It is God who provides the seasons and our daily food, and the precious gifts of family, relationships, friendships and creativity are given to those made in God's likeness. Thus, the most basic ground for racial reconciliation is simply a recognition that all people are made in the image of God and crowned with that glory and honour.
Fallenness
Secondly, we have a common shame. We all share the image and likeness of sinful humanity and every being we shall ever meet has to be prepared to pray in the words of David in Psalm 51.3: 'For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.' Paul teaches in Romans 2 that all have inherited a sinful nature and we all sin. We all fail to obey the law written on our own hearts and we will never meet anyone over whom we may feel morally superior. We all bear the same shame.
James teaches that a sin against one part of the law is a sin against every part because the law is one. The differences of colour, language and culture are insignificant in comparison with what unites the human race: our glory and our shame. We are not only the children of God, but, as Paul teaches in Ephesians 2, we are by nature the children of wrath deserving and living under God's judgment. Our colour, race and culture will count as nothing when we stand before the judgment of Christ Jesus. Our common humanity and common shame will be the only issues at such time.
New humanity
Thirdly, the biblical basis for racial unity includes our new humanity in Jesus Christ. Scripture describes how our rebellion against God results in tragic division between man and woman, between neighbours, tribes, peoples and nations. Genesis tells of the spread of such division across the earth and how God confused languages at the tower of Babel. But that division of language never sets aside our common humanity or God's plan for salvation. God purposes salvation for one people from every nation because despite differences between nation, tribe and language, there is only one race of humans.
Throughout Christ's earthly ministry, he recognised the human dignity of every person he met, be they Jew or Gentile. This is in complete contrast to the sense of superiority many Jews of his time felt over other peoples because of God's election of the people of Israel, in spite of the Old Testament's repeated teaching that such election did not in any way indicate any moral superiority.
John 4 tells of Jesse's gracious treatment of the despised Samaritan woman. Jesus first approached her with a request for a drink of water. Throughout his ministry, Jesus went to those who were despised because of their race or their sex or their sin and they received him gladly. This is his example for us.
In John 17, we see that the passionate prayer of Jesus before he dies is that we his people will experience the kind of unity that the members of the Trinity experience: 'That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.' This is the longing of Jesus Christ who shared his glory with us by dying for us on the Cross in order that we might become one. His heart cries out that: 'They be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.'
Christ's desire today
This is Christ's desire today. Not white Christians over here and black Christians over there but complete unity. This is how the world will know that the Father has sent the Son. How can we resist this prayer of Christ, the foremost thought upon his heart as he goes to the cross and his longing for us today? And yet there is widespread teaching today that if we want our churches to grow, we must introduce homogeneity; one race, one culture, one economic group. Such planning is a sin against Jesus Christ and by it, in effect, we say to Christ we know better than he how to bring unbelievers into the kingdom of God.
Jesus' final command was to his disciples to go into all the world with the gospel. The giving of the power of the Spirit at Pentecost demonstrated what this would mean. In Acts 2, Luke describes a reversal of the tower of Babel as Christ brings together a new humanity from every tribe and nation. Peter's reply in verses 17 and 18 shows Christ creating one new Spirit-filled people from every nation on the earth. Paul stresses in Ephesians 2 that Christ's people are being built 'together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit'. One temple, not a white and a black, and a rich and a poor temple.
One body
In Ephesians 4, Paul 'as a prisoner for the Lord' urges us 'to live a life worthy of the calling' we have received. What kind of life is this? 'Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.' We are to humble ourselves and be bound through the bond of peace into the one body of Jesus Christ. Such unity is absolutely central to the nature of the gospel.
Paul teaches us that the unity of God's people from every nation is the mystery of the gospel and not on the periphery but at its very heart. In Ephesians 3, Paul teaches that Christ intended through the church that 'the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms'. When does the church demonstrate this, so that the heavenly beings sit up and take notice of us? It is when we reveal to them the mystery of the unity of the people of God. Christ's death brought about this unity, reconciling us to God and to one another. Christ did not die only to reconcile us to himself but to one another also. Anything less than this dual reconciliation is a rejection of what Christ taught and lived, prayed, died, rose and ascended for, of what he has given his Spirit for and will consummate in his receiving us as his own, as one people, as one church.
What stands in the way?
What stands in the way of this is our pride, our security, and our comfort in our colour, history, heritage and cultural identity. In every age these things have made the church so slow in obeying the great commission. But such disobedience, such rejection of Christ's prayer on the night he died, such arrogant presumption as to how the church will be built, is nothing other than idolatry. In Philippians 3, Paul writes about his own cultural identity. He calls it the flesh. 'If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the 8th day, of the people of the Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for the legalistic righteousness, faultless.'
We need to be prepared to say with the apostle: 'OK, I am white, I am English, I am evangelical, I am reformed, or whatever you want to put in there,' and also say: 'I consider this manure (the word Paul uses) just dung in comparison with knowing Jesus Christ'.
Humble ourselves
So how do we move forward from here? Paul says that the answer is to humble ourselves before God's Word and before one another. We must recognise our idolatry and cry out to God to convict us of what the whole Bible teaches about the unity of the human race and of people in Jesus Christ. We need to confess to God and to one another that we have despised Christ's high priestly prayer, his plan for the church and the mystery of the gospel, that we have dishonoured the name of Christ and torn asunder his body. This is not a hard work to do. Christ has already done the hard work on the cross and he is our peace between God and man and between men.
'Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.' Never let us go to church again to offer God our worship and our gifts with an unreconciled heart toward other people. Let each one of us go to church next Sunday as those who are committed to the association of all God's people so that Christ's prayer for us might be fulfilled. He is praying now that we may cross racial divides and serve one another in love. Let it be the longing and commitment of all our hearts that racist or prejudicial thoughts should be put aside forever.
Jerram Barrs is director of the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, USA.
