The Abolition of Race

Martin Luther King Jr. may have had a dream, but God our Creator had a plan and that plan was to abolish racism, once for all, on the cross.  There by assimilation of the races in Christ, according to Ephesians 2:13-23, esp. vv.14-16: For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one (meaning, the two races, the Jewish race and everyone else) and has broken down in his flesh the . . . hostility . . . that He might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.  There is the abolition, you can read it for yourself.  And there is the means (by assimilation to himself) and the instrument (through the cross).  There, men of faith, is the death notice of race.  We must post a “Do not resuscitate or revive” notice on its stinking corpse.

What this means is that Christ has cancelled race at its very foundation!  The hostility which fed it has been destroyed—killed is the word used.  And from that point on, racism is baseless, and we are, properly speaking “post-racist.”  We will not hear much about being “post-racist” in the world or in the news because there is only one way to attain it: by being in Christ!  If you are in Christ, you possess the benefits of the cross; one of which is the death of race.  Yes, it is true that we are more familiar with Jesus dying for our sins, paying the penalty of sin due us, and we talk more freely about the liberty that comes with the forgiveness of sin (freedom from guilt, sin, shame and recrimination), but that is simply because we have failed to focus on what assimilation to Christ means for race, its divisions (hostility) and distinctions (apparent, outward and obvious differences).   Now to the verse in “O For a Thousand Tongues,” we can add to “he breaks the power of cancelled sin,” “he breaks the power of cancelled race” because, on the cross, in his flesh, Jesus killed race dead.  He abolished race.  And that is not a dream, that is reality—according to the plan and purpose of God, all the races were restored in Christ to their original, from Adam unity and to the peace that flows from knowing, for certain, that by faith we are one in Christ . . . with no distinction.  Yes, we are one.  And our challenge is now to lovingly behave in accordance with the truth—we must die to racism, and live to Christ as the one new race, as children of God, as co-heirs with Christ!  Having been delivered from our racist past, we are to be the “post-racist” people of God united in spirit and in truth.  Let nothing/no one separate what God has joined together!  (Mark 10:9)

The only path to reconciliation to God, and to reconciliation with each other, is by way of Jesus Christ and through his death and resurrection.  Take this Easter message and run with it.  How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him who brings good news!  (Isaiah 52:7)