By Rev. Leon Mohammed
With the ever-increasing tragedies of strife and violence in the world, there is a growing need for the promotion of understanding and good will among men. With the explosion of technology in travel and telecommunications, the planet continues to shrink, becoming more and more a global village. Wars, terrorism, and attempted genocide that were once continents removed now appear instantly in graphic color in our living rooms. This bringing of men into close proximity to one another serves to underscore the need for finding ways to bridge the chasms of generational hatred and conflict. More than ever before, the world needs to understand Biblical oneness.
The convention of sociologists and demographers has divided us into races, Caucasian, Negroid, and Mongoloid. These “racial” categories have served further to underscore differences in physical appearance, even prompting some to offer the spurious observation that there are mental, as well as physical differences between the “races.”
Any attempt to elevate one group of people, be it on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, language, color, or religion, to an elite status, suggesting that they are physically, emotionally, or mentally superior to the rest of mankind is idolatry, plain and simple. It is motivated by the spirit of pride that says in the words of the first self-exalted being, “I will exalt my throne above . . .” (Isaiah 14:13). When one group elevates itself above any other group and consequently demeans the status of the other, it either has assumed to itself super-human status or has assigned to the other sub-human status. This is idolatry, very little different from ancient emperors assuming to themselves divinity (like Antiochus IV, the Selucid king who even took the name Epiphanes which meant “God manifest”).
This was the fundamental sin of Nazi Germany that resulted in the Holocaust, the slaughter of six million Jewish people, including one million children. When German leaders came to think of Aryans as superior to the rest of mankind, it was relatively simple for them to justify the enslavement of inferior peoples and the elimination of sub-human species. They even categorized all Jewish people as vermin whose extermination was necessary for the betterment of the world.
The dehumanization of any group of mankind is also sin. The record of history is replete with instances of man’s inhumanity to man that have resulted in the creation of subclasses and even the neurasthenia of whole segments of the population. When this is done by a class that considers itself to be superior socially, morally, intellectually, or physically to the subjected group, it also the sin of idolatry.
The truth is that we are one race, the human race, that is denominated into many tribes, either by God’s design or by man’s choice. Paul clearly sets this forth in his Mars Hill discourse: “[God] has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, so that they should seek the Lord . . . for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ ”(Acts 17:26-28).
God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth... that we should seek the Lord... for in him we live and move and have our being.
We must understand that we are all the children of God (God’s
creation) and that we are descended naturally from one father, Adam. We are not descended
from some primordial ooze, and we are not evolving into a higher species through the
survival of the fitest. Though we have many differences, we are all members of the one
human race that God created. As such, we must respect the distinctives of our fellow human
beings, looking upon differences not as causes for division but as mutually-complementing
contributions to the montage of human existence. It was God, not blind fate or evolution
that created our distinctives, and every distinctive has a contribution to make to the
overall welfare of the human race.
Throughout Bible history, God has chosen men to fulfill his purposes. The Bible is not a record of man’s search for God–it is the account of God’s search for man. Accordingly God has sought to elect men and women to accomplish his will. The most prominent of these elections was that of the nation of Israel. This was not, however, a call to elitism, the creation of a master race, as it were. The Jewish people have always recognized their calling to be that of witnesses to God’s truth as revealed through Torah; however, the collective Jewish people have never seen themselves as a superior race or class as a result of their election. They see their calling as more responsibility than privilege.
When the covenant of God with Israel was renewed and perfected for them through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, it was also extended with greater flexibility to the nations of the world. The Jewish believers in Messiah Jesus became God’s witnesses through the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8) and took the message of God’s salvation through Jesus throughout the Gentile world. Those who believed upon Jesus were themselves also elected, grafted into Israel, and made fellowcitizens with the saints of Judaism and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:11-19). The Gentiles who believed in the Jewish Messiah were converted to the new covenant Judaism which came to be called Christianity. Just like many Gentiles had become Jews before the time of Jesus by being circumcised, being taught the Torah, and being immersed in the mikveh, so Gentiles who believed in Jesus became Jews by being circumcised in heart, taught the Word of God, and being baptized in water.
This grafting of the Gentiles into the olive tree of Israel was not, however, the achievement of an elite status. It was adoption into the servant nation. The status of the believer was that of a slave to Jesus Christ and a minister to the world. Though many sects within Christianity have considered themselves to be in some way superior, the truth is that believers are elected, not elite, and they are totally equal in their salvation. Someone has said that Christians are forgiven, not perfect. They are still one in their humanity with the unredeemed balance mankind.
As believers in Christ we must recognize our oneness. Faith in Jesus adopts us into sonship of God so that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for [we] are all one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28).
Like Israel of old that was denominated into twelve tribes, we may always be a tribalized people, denominated into families, ethnic groups, and nations. We must always recognize, however, that this is no reason for separation, division, strife. We are of one race, the human race. We are you, and you are we!
Rev. Leon Mohammed is an authority on the Judaic heritage of the Christian church and its application in the lives of various ethnic communities. He is presently engaged in research on the presence of African peoples in Biblical religion.
Guestbook | Table of Contents | Restore! Magazine | Restoration Foundation Home