And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. – 2 Corinthians 5:18
I have been burdened by a lot of things lately that relate to the body of Christ, but one that breaks my heart the most is the way some churches have chosen to deal with the problem of a specific sin in the church – the sin of ethnic hatred or as it is mostly referred to, the sin of racism. I don’t know all the reasons why some churches have chosen to handle the issue the way they have, but I believe part of the reason would be a failure to understand the purpose of the church.
Every human being on earth is made in the image of God, we are all image bearers. The Bible commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. When a lawyer asked Jesus in Luke 10:29 “who is my neighbor?”, Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan, thereby teaching us that our neighbor is anyone around us. When we don’t love those around us, we are sinning. This love is not necessarily a warm and fuzzy feeling towards those around us, to love your neighbor as Jesus taught through the parable of the good Samaritan is to not refuse, belittle or reject anyone who needs our help when we are able to render it. We can say tat in a nutshell, when you boil it down, loving your neighbor is meting their need, when you have the resources (time, money, etc) to do so.
Technically, every unsaved person in a local assembly is just a visitor – no matter how long they have been attending, they are not part of the building blocks that make up the household of God.
How should we as Christians deal with this sin of racism? The same way the Bible calls us to deal with all sins – by calling the sinner to repentance. This is the mission of the Church. The Church is not a building, but a group of people who have been called by God Himself. According to Romans 8:28, the Church is made of people who have been “called according to His purpose”. While this refers to the body of Christ universal, it also applies to the local assembly of believers.
I am not by any means implying that the unsaved cannot come to the local assembly. While we can and should encourage the unsaved to worship with us when we gather with the saints, we should be aware, however that they are not part of the body of Christ even if they regularly attend a local assembly. Technically, every unsaved person in a local assembly is just a visitor – no matter how long they have been attending, they are not part of the building blocks that make up the household of God.
Ephesians 4 11-15 tells us that God gave us pastors and church leaders to equip believers through the word so we become discerning Christians, able to share the truth of the gospel with others. Christians gather in local assemblies to be equipped, and then scatter into the world to share the gospel. The local assembly was designed by God not for the unbeliever, but for the believers. That is why Church membership is crucial. Most Biblically sound Churches require a salvation testimony from those who desire to be members.
Those who argue against Church membership usually say things like, “there is no church membership in the Bible”. That is true, but there was no need for membership in the early church. Christianity was a very small insignificant sect in the first century and the few believers knew each other. There was only one local assembly of believers in Jerusalem, in Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. They did not need church membership; they were able to identify those who had made professions of faith. Not so today. Church membership enables the elders and the congregation to know those who profess to be believers. Knowing who the true believers in the church are is important in order to carry out Church discipline.
Church discipline purifies the Church and keeps believers in right relationship with God and each other. When a professing Christian offends another believer or is living in unrepentant sin, then it is the duty of other believers to remind them of who they are and to whom they belong by calling them to repentance. Matthew chapter 18 lays out how this should be done. Since the church is called by God Himself, holiness in conduct and life is required and expected of those who profess to be saved. Church discipline helps to maintain this.
What has all this got to do with the sin of racism? Everything. Anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but still harbors any type of hatred or ill will towards other fellow believers is either not saved or living in unrepentant sin. If the person is unsaved, then they need the gospel. This is how the Bible commands us to deal with the unsaved – we give them the gospel and pray the respond in repentance. However, if the person is saved and is harboring or struggling with this sin, then it is the duty of other believers who are aware to call them to repentance so they can be restored to right relationship with the Lord. If one-on-one admonition fails, then it might be necessary to begin the Matthew 18 process.
It is impossible for any Church to “reconcile races” because as Virgil Walker, the co-host of the Just Thinking Podcast said, “races’ don’t reconcile, people do
It breaks my heart when I see some churches trying to “reconcile the races” through various unbiblical programs and methods. What does it mean to be reconciled? The Webster dictionary online defines the word “reconcile” as
1a: to restore to friendship or harmony reconciled the factions
b: SETTLE, RESOLVE reconcile differences
2: to make consistent or congruous reconcile an ideal with reality
3: to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant was reconciled to hardship
Most of the activities that have been centered around reconciliation usually assumes that people with different skin colors and ethnicities automatically have differences that need to be resolved or broken relationships that need to be restored. People base this assumption on the American history of slavery. No one would denying the evils of slavery or the Jim Crow laws that discriminated against blacks in horrible ways, but that does not automatically mean that there is some tension or differences that need to be resolved between believers of different ethnic backgrounds. Even if some tensions exist, the biblical solution is not some program, the Biblical solution is the gospel. The goal should be to change hearts and only the gospel can do that.
Any reconciliation that can and should happen in the Church can only happen among believers in Christ. All true believers are already reconciled to one another in Christ. This is made clear in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 – And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
The mission of the Church (the redeemed people of God reconciled to Christ) is to take the message of reconciliation to the world so the unsaved might become reconciled to CHRIST. We have been called by God to reconcile people to Christ, not “races”. Virgil Walker, the co-host of the Just Thinking Podcast said it best when he said, “’races’ don’t reconcile, people do.” We are not saved as a group, we are saved alone, by faith alone, through Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.
Ethnic or racial reconciliation in the Church among believers is impossible apart from Christ. It is true that even among Christians, we don’t always love our brothers and sister as ourselves, but that does not mean we abandon the Biblical way of reconciliation and come up with our own. In all matters of the Church, the Bible is not only sufficient, but authoritative as well. Let us bring ourselves under the authority of the Bible even in the matters of race. If we know if a fellow believer who is not walking in love towards his brother/sister, let us seek to restore them back into fellowship through the word.
Soli Deo Gloria!