To speak and preach against racism has become a fad in our society and in much of the Christian church. In some cases this seems to have been carried to such an extreme that it has pushed concern for the reconciliation of men to God into a second or all but forgotten place.
That inexcusable injustices have been and are being experienced by many of our fellow-citizens no one can deny. And that the correction of such injustices is long overdue and that the Christian church has often failed to speak out against them when it ought to have done so is also plainly evident. Having lived in the South for extended periods of time we have observed such ridiculous things as separate drinking fountains, buses, etc., enough to be able to appreciate the evils of such discrimination and the need for their correction.
At the same time, what impresses one as he tries to look at such problems in the light of God’s Word is that the policies and methods often being pursued by Christians and churches with respect to them are almost exactly opposite to those God’s Word by precept and example teaches us. The current fad seems to be to play these matters up as supremely important. The New Testament preachers did exactly the opposite! Let no one say that they lived in different times and that therefore their methods are not appropriate to ours. The differences between Jew and Greek or master and slave were differences fully as great as any which exist in our society. Instead of saying that first we must erase these differences and only then can we begin to consider men’s relationship to God, the Bible exactly reverses the order. Man’s relationship to God is revealed as of such transcendent importance that all other relationships fall into comparative insignificance beside it David had certainly committed a crime against a loyal soldier whom he had had murdered, against his wife whom he had seduced, and against his family and people before whom he had east a stumbling block that all but wrecked both. These things the Bible nowhere minimizes. Yet in his prayer of penitence he confessed, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight” (Ps. 51:4). This sin against God must first be set right if anything else were ever to be so.
Similarly Paul, the great missionary, did not set out to organize an anti-slavery crusade or an anti-discrimination campaign as a preliminary to the gospel. If he and his fellow-missionaries had done that their efforts would likely have been forgotten long ago with most of such other temporary reform movements. Paul always preached to all kinds of people, “to the Jews and also to the Greeks” “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Before that gospel, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female.” By it all become “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). He showed how relatively insignificant those apparently big differences between people were when they saw and experienced the infinitely bigger reconciliation to God through Christ. And so he could address these various types and classes of Christians in I Corinthians 7: “Art thou called being a servant (slave)? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free. use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a Servant. is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God” (vss. 21–24).
He even found it necessary to warn slaves who as Christians now found themselves on the same level with their masters not to lose their heads in their new status: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service. because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise. and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing…” (I Timothy 6:1–4).
We see the same principle at work as Paul wrote his letter to his friend Philemon. That letter was written as the apostle sent the at one time irresponsible, but now converted slave, Onesimus, back to his master and his service, to be received, “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but bow much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (vs. 16).
Under this power of the gospel reconciling all kinds of people together unto God the abuse of slavery eventua1ly simply disintegrated. Centuries later we see something similar happen when slavery was outlawed from the British empire under the influence especially of leaders in the evangelical revival. It seems to me that as the church of today faces the fad of anti-discrimination and anti-racism it urgently needs to relearn the old lesson of the gospel. Men born again and reconciled to God by his word (I Peter 1:23) are indispensable to a real reconciliation of social and racial antagonisms and differences. Only as salvation came to the house of Zacchaeus in the person and labor of Christ did the traditionally greedy and self-seeking publican begin to love his neighbors and mend his relationships with them (Luke 19:2–8).
Rev. Peter De Jong is pastor of the Dutton Christian Reformed Church, Dutton, Michigan.
That inexcusable injustices have been and are being experienced by many of our fellow-citizens no one can deny. And that the correction of such injustices is long overdue and that the Christian church has often failed to speak out against them when it ought to have done so is also plainly evident. Having lived in the South for extended periods of time we have observed such ridiculous things as separate drinking fountains, buses, etc., enough to be able to appreciate the evils of such discrimination and the need for their correction.
At the same time, what impresses one as he tries to look at such problems in the light of God’s Word is that the policies and methods often being pursued by Christians and churches with respect to them are almost exactly opposite to those God’s Word by precept and example teaches us. The current fad seems to be to play these matters up as supremely important. The New Testament preachers did exactly the opposite! Let no one say that they lived in different times and that therefore their methods are not appropriate to ours. The differences between Jew and Greek or master and slave were differences fully as great as any which exist in our society. Instead of saying that first we must erase these differences and only then can we begin to consider men’s relationship to God, the Bible exactly reverses the order. Man’s relationship to God is revealed as of such transcendent importance that all other relationships fall into comparative insignificance beside it David had certainly committed a crime against a loyal soldier whom he had had murdered, against his wife whom he had seduced, and against his family and people before whom he had east a stumbling block that all but wrecked both. These things the Bible nowhere minimizes. Yet in his prayer of penitence he confessed, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight” (Ps. 51:4). This sin against God must first be set right if anything else were ever to be so.
Similarly Paul, the great missionary, did not set out to organize an anti-slavery crusade or an anti-discrimination campaign as a preliminary to the gospel. If he and his fellow-missionaries had done that their efforts would likely have been forgotten long ago with most of such other temporary reform movements. Paul always preached to all kinds of people, “to the Jews and also to the Greeks” “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Before that gospel, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female.” By it all become “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). He showed how relatively insignificant those apparently big differences between people were when they saw and experienced the infinitely bigger reconciliation to God through Christ. And so he could address these various types and classes of Christians in I Corinthians 7: “Art thou called being a servant (slave)? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free. use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a Servant. is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God” (vss. 21–24).
He even found it necessary to warn slaves who as Christians now found themselves on the same level with their masters not to lose their heads in their new status: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service. because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise. and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing…” (I Timothy 6:1–4).
We see the same principle at work as Paul wrote his letter to his friend Philemon. That letter was written as the apostle sent the at one time irresponsible, but now converted slave, Onesimus, back to his master and his service, to be received, “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but bow much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (vs. 16).
Under this power of the gospel reconciling all kinds of people together unto God the abuse of slavery eventua1ly simply disintegrated. Centuries later we see something similar happen when slavery was outlawed from the British empire under the influence especially of leaders in the evangelical revival. It seems to me that as the church of today faces the fad of anti-discrimination and anti-racism it urgently needs to relearn the old lesson of the gospel. Men born again and reconciled to God by his word (I Peter 1:23) are indispensable to a real reconciliation of social and racial antagonisms and differences. Only as salvation came to the house of Zacchaeus in the person and labor of Christ did the traditionally greedy and self-seeking publican begin to love his neighbors and mend his relationships with them (Luke 19:2–8).
Rev. Peter De Jong is pastor of the Dutton Christian Reformed Church, Dutton, Michigan.