The Bible’s Surprising Views on Race
Racism and ethnic divisions have been the loudest conversations of recent months in America. This important discussion, unfortunately, has often not found a home in the Christian Church. We feel that many of the church-based conversations on race overlook a key understanding from the Bible.
Racism and ethnic divisions have been the loudest conversations of recent months in America. This important discussion, unfortunately, has often not found a home in the Christian Church. At Gateway Center for Israel, we feel saddened by this. We also feel that many of the church-based conversations on race overlook a key understanding from the Bible.
When you take a close look at the entire structural narrative of Scripture, you quickly see that humanity is divided into two groups: the Jewish people (Israel) and the rest of mankind—the Gentiles (Nations).
This began with Abraham, the called-out patriarch of the Jewish faith. God mandated a physical distinction (circumcision) to reflect His spiritual, covenantal promises to Abraham’s descendants. It was God’s sovereign choice, combined with the faith of Abraham, that gave the Jewish people this elect distinction amongst all other peoples. Israel was assigned to be the bearers of God’s redemptive purposes on the earth. So, according to Scripture, there are just two primary racial-ethnic distinctions for mankind: Jews and Gentiles, or Israel and the Nations.
In Eph 2, writing to Gentile followers of Jesus, Paul uses a Second Temple illustration to describe a “dividing wall of hostility” between Jews and non-Jews. He then teaches that the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, tore down that wall, making peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in Himself “one new man” from the two. Through the work of Jesus, Gentile believers have been grafted into accessing Israel’s covenantal promises and are now equal heirs of these promises – but, importantly, are not intended to take the place of Jewish people or take on Jewish identity to receive these promises.
As the early Church grew, Gentiles began to outnumber Jewish followers of Jesus. By the third century, some Church fathers tragically began to teach that one could not be Jewish and be a believer in Jesus at the same time. Jewish practice was forbidden—and the seedbed for Christian anti-Semitism was formed. Some theologians believe this segregating action of separating Christianity from its Jewish foundation is the original wound that has spawned our modern-day struggle with racism.
Though you cannot find “racism” as a term in the Bible, you will find words like partiality, strife, pride, lying, greed, envy, wickedness, jealousy, selfishness, rage, and murder—which are all fruits of racism. At the root of every ugly, racist issue is sin, which rebuilds Paul’s “dividing wall” between our Creator and our fellow mankind.
I remember the offense I felt in my heart when a pastor first passionately reminded me that Jesus is Jewish. The Holy Spirit showed me the racist attitudes and feelings I had towards Jewish people in that vulnerable moment, though I had been previously unaware of them.
We do not minimize the need for us as American Christians to peer deeply into the soil of our hearts to confront racial or ethnic hostilities in our collective history. But we believe that we should also examine our hearts for hostilities toward the one key ethnic distinction that God has made—that which is the deepest, oldest “split” in the church—Jewish and Gentile. Revelation 7:9 paints a heavenly picture of people of every nation, tribe and ethnicity gathered around the throne of the Jewish Lamb, Jesus, worshipping Him with the saved remnant of Israel. As followers of Jesus we labor toward the day when Israel and the Nations will be united in their love and adoration of the King of Israel, Jesus. Until then, we must continue to mine out the divisions of hostility in our hearts, with the help and power of the Holy Spirit.