After a prolonged series of articles critiquing some of the positions espoused by some Christian Nationalists, the series will conclude with some thoughts that should keep the Church from drifting off into error. At worst, the ball will roll into the rough, but the water hazards should be avoided. First to be considered are some biblical considerations. The Bible has made plain distinctions in terms of what should separate people. Even in terms of marriage, it has drawn lines. In 1 Cor. 7:39, quoted above, the limit on the widow is that she would marry in the Lord. Again, it says, “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” Let me emphasize the part of the verse that says she is free to marry whom she wishes. There is no limitation here, except one: that he be united to Christ by faith.
There are additional passages that bring clarity to these issues for the Christian. For example, in Ephesians the apostle Paul writes about the removal of the separation between the people of God. There are two groups: Jews and Gentiles. The distinguishing marks between these people have been removed by Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.[1]
There are a couple of worthwhile items to note from this text. First, the movement among the Christian community is toward unity not separation. There was a dividing wall between the Jew and the Asian, African, European man, but in Christ that division is removed. Second, consider the use of the word Gentile. The people groups included in that word are all of the ones that are not Jewish. In the Old Testament God dealt the same way with all people that are not Jewish. He did not do so based on any racial consideration, but because of the covenant promises that were given to Abraham, the father of the Jews.
To further flesh out the removal of the distinction between Jew and Gentile there is the Bible’s explanation of the way man is reconciled to God, and there is only one way: through the Lord Jesus Christ. In a text that is often quoted to flatten out any distinction between people at all, it is still correct to note in Galatians 3:27-28 that the way of salvation for all men is singular. In the Lord Jesus Christ, none are treated preferentially. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”[2] Note the essential unity of all God’s people in Christ. There is no category for separation among God’s people as seen in the fact that they all come to the Lord in the same manner.
The Bible actually recognizes that essential unity both in the area of sin and salvation. It does emphasizing there is no room to create a distinction among people. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”[3] Sin is in all, justification is received as a gift by all, Christ’s blood propitiates for all, and faith is the agent through which that redemption comes for all. But there is separation in the Bible, and there is something to be learned when that happens as well.
What leads to separation in the Bible? Adam separated from God by the Fall. That is the first instance of separation in creation. Before Adam ate the forbidden fruit it was consistently described as good, even “very good.”[4] However, all of that changes drastically through the introduction of sin. After Adam eats, separation happens for the first time. “And they heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”[5] It is sin that separates man from God. Without sin there would not have been separation. As noted by Abraham Kuyper, “If sin, as a disintegrating force, had not divided humanity into different sections, nothing would have marred or broken the organic unity of our race.”[6] And yet, from that first instance of separation flow all the other ones where people are divided.
Adam and Eve’s family is torn apart when Cain is banished after the murder of his brother Abel (Genesis 4:12). At the Tower of Babel, God confused their language because they were lifted up in pride against Him (Genesis 11:6-7). Abraham and Lot separate because their herdsman are quarreling because of greed (Genesis 13:7). Jacob and Esau go their different ways both because of Jacob’s deception and Esau’s rashness (Genesis 27). When the united kingdom is torn in two it is because of Solomon’s sins of idolatry brought about by the influence of his foreign, idolatrous wives (1 Kings 11:9-11). But this separation is not presented as eternal or unalterable. That can be seen where other foreigners, like Ruth the Moabitess, Rahab of Jericho are accepted in Israel and even included in Christ’s genealogy (Matthew 1:5). Separation was not permanent, or racial.
Even in the Old Testament there was a way for this separation to be reversed, as seen in way the division between Jew and Gentile could be removed. It was not by removing racial distinctions, but by becoming a worshiper of the Lord, marked by the covenant sign of circumcision. “If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.”[7] All nations could be admitted if they would adopt the worship of the True God and become His people.
The only exclusion that is made is for the Moabites and Ammonites and the reason for their exclusion is not racial, but a matter of sin. “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the LORD forever, because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.”[8] Notice that Ammon and Moab suffer from behavioral obstacles which flow from their opposition to God’s people, not any kind of genetic or racial distinctive. And that leads to the biblical conclusion that once sin and enmity are no more, so will the separation be.
The presentation of the church triumphant is not one where division remains. As sin is finally and totally removed in the glorified state, the harmony of creation is restored. “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”[9] There are hints of this final renewal in the inclusion of the foreigner in Israel.
The weight of this biblical presentation must be held up against any kind of exclusion whether in some form of Kinism, race-realism, or anti-semitism. Certainly there is a recognition that there are different kinds of people, but, especially within the Christian church, there is to be a unity among believers. That is because any man who is in Christ is the recipient of God’s perfect love and affection. And if God is pleased to send His Son to be the sacrifice for the guilt of sin for the African, European, Asian, and Jew there should be no place in the church to create division and exclusion.
Pastor Geoff Gleason
Cliffwood Presbyterian Church
—————
[1] Ephesians 2:14-17.
[2] Galatians 3:27-28.
[3] Romans 3:22b-25a.
[4] Genesis 1:31.
[5] Geneses 3:8.
[6] Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976), 79-80.
[7] Exodus 12:48.
[8] Deuteronomy 23:3-4.
[9] Revelation 7:9-10.