This is the first post in my series inspired by my readings on racial justice. Here, I’d like to discuss the equality of all people from a biblical perspective.
There are certain basic beliefs which underlie much of Christian doctrine and practice. They are simple building blocks which can be assembled, disassembled and reassembled to form larger ideas and applications.
Genesis 1 – 3 gives us a set of building blocks about humans. We have already used these chapters to formulate some ideas about women and men. In the Fall of 2017, I wrote a series of posts entitled The Beginning of us all. Here I will examine these verses again, but this time with an eye for their implications for race and human flourishing.
Genesis 1:26 – 2:4 say:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.
So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.
In these verses we are introduced to the first humans God created, Adam and Eve. We know from later passages of Scripture (Romans 5, for example) that all humans are descended from this original couple – Adam and Eve. Furthermore, because Eve was created out of the body of Adam (Genesis 2:21), we really trace our lineage back to Adam alone. That means that all people, of all races, are made equally in God’s image. Their lives are equally valuable to God, and should be equally valuable to one another.
Throughout Scripture we are repeatedly reminded that human life is sacred because all humans bear God’s image. For instance, in Genesis 9, God ordains a severe penalty for murder. Why? Because murder is the destruction of a human in God’s image: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:6) James 3:9 rebukes the sin of cursing our fellow humans and the hypocrisy of doing that as people who supposedly honor God: “With it [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God …these things ought not to be so.” Those two passages give us a broad application of this creation fact. Because humans are all in God’s image, God teaches us to treat them ALL with care. We are not to harm them in deed or word. Far from that, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. (And from the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 18, we learn that the neighbor we must love is not limited to someone of our own ethnicity.) Kevin DeYoung has also written about being in the image of God, and the implications that has for racial tensions. You can find one post from his series here.
Because of the ongoing discussion of the church’s role in issues of social justice, I want to make a practice of wrapping up each of these posts, listing implications and applications of the passages covered. Here is the first list!
The Bible teaches that all humanity is valued, with sacred dignity given to each person by God. Some of the implications of this are:
1.All human life should be protected. This includes the weak, vulnerable, mentally ill, physically sick, homeless, oppressed, prisoners, orphans, unborn, etc. We must equally care and protect all life.
2.All humans are my neighbor, so as I have opportunity, I am called to love my neighbor and to help my neighbor in need.
3. We Christians, of all people, should care deeply for the protection and flourishing of all lives, with special concern for the vulnerable. That motivates me to hear the cries of people of color in my country, and people all over the globe who are in precarious economies and societies. That motivates me to keep pressing for the protection of the unborn as well.
As Bible believing Christians, we should always remember that our witness as lights in the world and as the Body of Christ is what is at stake. Let us remember Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 13:34-35, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Loving our neighbor and treating others as we would want to be treated is not easy. It is great to remember that we have the help of the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill Jesus’ commands!