Ethical Issues Facing American Society: Racism

1/15/12 “Racism” Romans 9:1-13
I. Introduction
A. What the Bible says about ethical issues confronting American society
B. Racism = an attitude of antagonism or superiority toward those of another race
C. This may be the issue which has hurt our witness more than any other.
1. We are still trying to outlive that.
2. Bible belt = the place known for racial prejudice
D. Sadly, there are Christian people who still are trying to defend racism from the Bible.
1. There are two main arguments used:
a. God’s separation of the races at Babel
b. God’s separation of Israel from the pagan nations.
2. It is argued that these show that God is a God of racial separation, that that’s part of the way He has ordered the world.
3. And that we are resisting the natural order of things when we mix races and undo the separation.
E. A short history of race
II. The creation
A. One race, one family
B. All equally made in the image of God
III. The fall: set brother against brother (Cain and Abel): disdain, antagonism, violence in the heart of man
IV. The Tower of Babel (Gen.11)
A. Separated mankind into groups, ultimately each group became an ethnic group
B. Part of the curse, to hold man back from being as productive & successful in his evil as he might otherwise be able to be.
V. The calling of Abraham and era of Israel
A. One group, the family of Abraham, was chosen as God’s people.
B. To be separated from the Gentiles: don’t assimilate, don’t tolerate, don’t imitate. This is emphasized.
C. But it was clear from the beginning that the choosing of the Jews was not an ethnic choice, though it may have seemed so on the surface.
1. Many who were NOT Abraham’s blood descendants WERE included in the chosen people: Ruth, Rahab, Zipporah (Moses’ Midianite wife), Moses’ African wife (Num.12:1), Uriah the Hittite, Doeg the Edomite.
2. Many of Abraham’s descendants were NOT included in the chosen people: Ishmael, Esau, etc.
3. Romans: If God extends His grace to all men, what about all His special promises to Israel?
D. Rom.9:1-13 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls – 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
1. 6 “But it is not as though the word of God has failed.” God’s promise wasn’t to the children of the flesh in the first place.
2. 7 Ishmael was Abraham’s child, but he wasn’t Mine.
3. 8 It is NOT the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise.
4. 8b The children of the promise are COUNTED as offspring (whether they are offspring according to the flesh or not).
5. 11 Not because of works, and ultimately not because of blood relation.
6. If God’s preference was ultimately ethnic, He would’ve included ALL of Abraham’s children and no one else.
E. We need to remember that one of the reasons God blessed and protected and singled out the Jews is because they were the family of Jesus, in a sense Jesus resided in the loins of Israel.
1. Israel was the womb of Jesus. And while Jesus was in that womb, the womb received special care and protection.
2. Ultimately God was protecting and blessing and promising His Son by caring for Israel. And by protecting and blessing and promising His Son, God was protecting and preparing and promising our salvation, whether Jew or Gentile.
F. All this became clearer during the waning of the era of Israel.
1. Prophecies of Gentile inclusion especially connected to the coming of the messiah & the coming of the Spirit. (Is.9:1-2, 11:10-11, 42:6, 45:22, 49:6, 55:5, 56:3, 56:6-8, 65:1; Joel 2:28; Mic.7:11-12)
2. The ten northern tribes scattered among the nations
3. The exile into a Gentile nation and the return of a tiny fraction of the Jews
4. Being conservative in order to be safe, less than one tenth of one percent of the actual descendants of Abraham know that they are or identify themselves as such.
VI. The coming of Christ and the Spirit
A. The NT world
1. Jews and Gentiles
2. Jews and Samaritans
B. The coming of Christ
1. Came to the children of Israel, but...
a. First to the Jew, then to the Gentiles
2. Dealings with Gentiles
a. Syro-Phoenician woman
b. Centurion with the sick servant
c. Impressed by the faith of the Gentiles
3. Pointing to a new economy
a. John 10:16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
b. The Great Commission: Go into every nation...
C. Pentecost and following
1. Languages, tongues
2. The Spirit comes upon all mankind: “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:9-11)
a. Samaritan Pentecost in Acts 8
b. Ephesian Pentecost in Acts 19
3. The undoing of Babel: bringing people back together in Christ
a. People miraculously able to understand one another just as at Babel they were miraculously prevented from doing so.
b. Prevented from building the building of man
c. Enabled to build the building of God
d. Babel was the disintegration of the human family into different races and nationalities. Pentecost, brought all peoples together and reunified them as one universal family in Christ. This universal family embracing all races and nationalities is called the church.
D. The apostolic era
1. The struggle of the Jewish Christians to accept the Gentiles into the church. This is one of the biggest issues in the NT.
a. The Council of Jerusalem — Acts 15
b. Peter: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35)
2. “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.” (Galatians 3:28)
3. “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 and 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.” (Eph.2:14f)
VII. The end of racism
A. “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!’” (Revelation 7:9-10)
B. No separate services in heaven. We’ll all worship together.
VIII. Church history: The sad story of race relations in the church after Constantine
A. When the Roman emperor is converted to Christianity around 312AD Roman becomes the privileged ethnicity in the church. (This is why the church became centered in Rome, and eventually was called the Roman Catholic Church.)
IX. Conclusion
A. Christianity is not focused on any one ethnic people.
1. Ultimately those who are related to each other by the blood of Christ are much closer related than those who are merely related to each other by the blood of human family ties.
2. Ethnic diversity should be welcomed and embraced in the Christian church.
B. One of the troubling things about racial divisions in Christ’s church is that we’re committing the sin of “I don’t need you” which Paul condemns in 1Cor.12:21.
C. It is hard for man to overcome racial prejudice. But the power of Christ can overcome the power of racial baggage — this is part of our calling.
D. Ultimately the issue of race comes down to grace.
1. Everyone else is just as much a creature of God made in His image as my group is.
2. My people are just as fallen and just as sinful and just as unworthy as every other ethnic group is.
3. It can’t be by grace if all races are not equal.
4. If God’s grace is extended only to one special category of people, it is not grace.
5. There is not a superior race. But there is a superior grace.
6. Racism gets trumped by gracism.
E. Let’s not fall into the trap of having the kind of grace God has. Yes, you heard that right. (Repeat.)
1. The kind of grace God has is when a superior being takes pity on an inferior being and extends kindness and mercy. Only God can have THAT kind of grace.
2. The kind of grace we operate by is not our grace to others, but our recognition of God’s grace to us AND to others, all of us equally unworthy. We don’t extend OUR grace to those who need it, we tell them about God’s undeserved grace to us and to all needy people.
F. Racism denies grace. It lies about the gospel. That’s basically what Paul said to Peter in Gal.2:14.