For Racial Healing, Start with Scripture.
Steve Ham is the Senior Pastor at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. He wrote an article titled Racial Discrimination Needs Justification More Than Justice on September 11, 2019. The article appeared on the Living Waters website.
Please see the full article, here:
https://www.livingwaters.com/racial-discrimination-needs-justification-more-than-justice/
I include here several large blocks of text that, in my opinion, spell out the opportunity the church has to employ the doctrine of Justification as a tool for racial healing:
“Understanding Justification
Justification is an important doctrine because it eliminates class distinction. Paul makes this very clear as he talks about it in the context of Jews and Gentiles. Of course, we know that there is a difference between Jews and Gentiles, and Paul even acknowledges it. “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners” (Galatians 2:15). Paul and Peter were born as Jews under the Old Covenant law while Gentiles were not. Even so, Paul makes a striking statement that levels the playing field for everyone. “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16).
Do you see the leveling in this? Even though there is an outward difference by heritage and culture, Paul and Peter both know that there is no better class of Christian. Nobody is justified by works of the law.
We are all level in either being separated from God and under the condemnation of sin or being covered by the goodness of Christ who died on our behalf through having faith in him alone. Either way there is no class of goodness that any of us who are classified by the word “human” can claim of our own. Justification is a declaration by God upon sinners who otherwise by their own merits would stand condemned. Instead, through faith in Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for our sin, God looks at us through the righteousness of Christ and makes a glorious declaration of “not guilty.”
What Can the Church Do About the Racism Epidemic?
Because of the Great Commission, the church is already spread through nations, tribes and tongues in the world. We have individual believers everywhere in every setting who can live out the ramifications of justification and preach its hope.
None of us need a bigger voice than what we already have in our own individual context. We can speak and act in our own mission fields that we often categorize as vocations, families and neighborhoods. If we are living and speaking out the racially equalizing message of justification in our mission fields, can you imagine the impact of the church? It’s easy to forget that the church is so dynamic. There are Christians placed everywhere all over the world. Why should we underestimate what our voices and lives can do in our own settings? We are empowered in the Spirit to live out the equalizing effect of justification and preach its truth. Our power is in a message that brings equalizing force to racial discrimination with eternal gain for anyone who hears and believes. The voice of the church is everywhere if only we will all speak out in our own settings and point to justification in Christ as the greatest equalizing power in the world. There may be a cost for using that voice in our own settings, but Christ never said that people would accept us. In fact, he said we would be persecuted for the sake of his name.
I would rather mobilize every church member with the eternally equalizing message of justification in the commission that Christ has actually given us rather than having a priority of changing a social landscape that can never give people a real solution to their biggest problem. Not one of us needs to feel impotent when facing this massive cultural problem. We simply all need to be individually obedient to the commission Christ has already given us. Instead of pushing the ideas of social commentators in the hope that they might go viral and impact the culture, we need the Great Commission to go viral with the equalizing message of justification that brings everyone level at the foot of the cross.”
Conclusion
Let’s make use of the tools Scripture offers whenever we seek to solve a problem!
Michael Oswald
Michael Oswald is a follower of Jesus who lives in Boise, Idaho. Unless otherwise specified, the opinions expressed in this article are his own.
© 2019 Michael S. Oswald
“Reasons for the Faith, aka Apologetics” 