Are all people on earth related?

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth" — another truth that unbelief disowns — that God is not only the maker but the Lord, the master and disposer, of all — "He dwells not in temples made with hands." Thus the apostle finds himself at issue with both the Gentiles and the Jews. "Neither is worshipped (served) with men's hands, as though he needed anything," — contrary to all religion of nature, wherever and whatever it may be. "Seeing he gives" (such is His character) "to all men life and breath and all things; and has made of one blood:" here again he is at issue with man's ideas, especially with those of Hellenic polytheism, for the unity of the human race is a truth that goes with that of the true God. It was seen among men that various races had each their own national god, and thus naturally the falsehood of many gods was bound up with and fostered the kindred pretension of many independent races of men. This was a darling idea of the pagan world. They held themselves to have sprung from the earth in some singularly foolish manner, at the same time maintaining that each was independent of the other. On the other hand, the truth which divine revelation discloses is that which man's mind never did discover, but, when propounded, at once brings conviction along with it. Is it not humbling that the most simple truth about the simplest fact should be entirely beyond the ken of the proudest intellects unaided by the Bible? One would think that man ought to know his own origin. It is just what he does not know. He must know God first, and when he does all else becomes plain. "He has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth."

Man was created on the sixth day — last of all the works of God. The work of the sixth day (as that of the third) was in two parts, first cattle etc., then man (Gen. 1:24-31). In connection with the latter there was divine consultation. "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." When lower creatures were required it sufficed to say: "Let the waters bring forth … let fowl fly," etc., and the creatures required were forthwith alive upon the scene. The grave consultation recorded in Gen. 1:26 should of itself suggest to the most cursory reader that now a being of a different order from all others was to be brought into the world. Man is thus a distinct and independent creation, having no link whatever with beast, fish, or fowl. "Created" is repeated three times in v. 27, as if the Spirit of God would be beforehand with his rebuke of evolutionist absurdity. Moreover, Adam was the FIRST man. The whole structure of Holy Scripture falls to the ground if there were really men before, or independent of, Adam; for the entire volume of inspiration revolves around two men — the fallen first man Adam, and the peerless Second Man, the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 15:45-47). One man and one stock is God's account of our race and its head. "He has made of one blood all nations of men … we are the offspring of God" (Acts 17:26-29). Such was the elementary lesson administered by Paul to the learned heathen in Athens.

Man was God's crowning work of creation (see ADAM), and He set him in dominion over the sphere in which he was placed. It is impossible that man could by evolution have arisen from any of the lower forms of created life. God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, and man is responsible to Him as his Creator; and for this reason he will be called to account, which is not the case with any of the animals. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement." Heb. 9:27. All have descended from Adam and Eve: God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord [or God]." Acts 17:26-27.

What, then, about the universal brotherhood of men?

This idea springs out of the one we have just dealt with, and is a corollary to it. It also has some truth in a creatorial sense inasmuch as God has "made of one blood all nations of men" (Acts 17:26). It is not true in any other sense. The Scriptures draw the most distinct line imaginable between the believer and the man of the world. In his first epistle, 1 John 3 and 1 John 4, the Apostle John has much to say to the Christian as to his brother. And who is the brother in question? Any other child of Adam? No, any other child of God; any one who is "born of God." John, indeed, wields his pen in the clear and cutting style of his great Master and speaks of "the children of the devil" in contrast to "the children of God" (1 John 3:10).

A universal cousinship, in very attenuated degree, exists amongst men. The only true Christian brotherhood is that which exists amongst Christians as born of God.

And in the same way the “Brotherhood of Man” is a phrase that may be used to denote that all men are born of a common stock, made, as Scripture says, “of one blood” (Acts 17:26). But if pressed in a spiritual sense so as to imply relationship the result is mischievous in the extreme, undermining truth of the most vital kind.

That the delusion is wide-spread needs no proof. The New Theology, more truly named Ancient Error, teaches it. And recently the highest ecclesiastic in the land recommended for use in the churches a special prayer in which God is addressed as “the Father of all,” and which includes a petition that “by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit a fuller realization of our brotherhood, man with man, in Thee” might be granted.

Then we find the generations of the sons of Shem. Without pretending to enter into particulars, this I may remark — that in the Bible there is not a more important chapter than Genesis 10 as regards the providential arrangement of tongues, families, and nations. Here alone is given the rise of different races, with their sources. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was thus divided? For this was a new state of things, not only not at all in the world before the flood, but not for some considerable time after it, and their distribution in their lands. This is the divine ethnology. Here man is at sea; but where he does arrive at conclusions, this at least is the common consent, as far as I know, of all who have given their minds to the study, that there are three, and only three, divisions into which nations properly diverge. So it is here. The word of God is before them. More than that: it is the conviction of all men, and men worthy to be listened to, that not more surely are they divided into three grand lines than that these three lines had a common origin. That there was only one such root is the statement of the scriptures. The word of God is always right. The details are of the highest interest, more especially when compared with the predicted results in the latter day, where we see the same countries and nations re-appear for judgment in the day of Jehovah. But into the proof of this we cannot now pause to enter.

At the same time, according to the ablest enquirers (as Pritchard, Cuvier, and others), all races of men are derived from one stock. The American efforts to shew the contrary are excessively poor; contradictory as to Africa, and false as to America. Their object is to make of negroes another race. Livingstone's facts go to shew their physical peculiarities to be a natural result of heat and damp. But I am content to be ignorant of its cause.

83 Hence saying a biped mammal without reason is not a man means merely not reputed a man, is false. He is not reputed 8 man because he is not one. Such a thing may exist, but it is not that thing to which the name has been given, and which is in fact a totally different thing from what the irrational biped is. You may call the irrational biped mammal man if you like, and the rational one fear or crut, if you like to be foolish, but the two things are as distinct as they were before. The fear is a fear, and the man is man. Mill's statement is childish trifling. Nor is it the whole of the attributes, which assumes all classes to have no existence but in words, as the nominalists, confounding different kinds of classes. If a man was born with one leg, or six fingers, he is a man still, though some of the regular physical attributes are wanting or excess. You will say this is only accidental difference. That is, you fall into the distinction of essential and accidental. Besides, attributes as a whole differ. There are black or Negro races, Turanian and Caucasian races. Supposing for a moment I say all descendants of Adam are Caucasian. But he Negro is not a Caucasian; therefore he is not a descendant of Adam. Suppose the Negro has the general physical constitution of man, the power of progress, the faculties, language, the consciousness of responsibility, conscience, reference to the idea of God, abiding relative affections of wife and children, has to say to God and men, as subject and fellows, an immortal soul, for we are only supposing, should I say he is not a man?

84 I do not believe a word of the theory of distinct races, and the want of truth in the idea makes the conclusion difficult to me; because known relationship to God is shut out by it, which I believe to be of the essence of man's nature; but if all this were true that God had created two races of men, "A man's a man for a' that." I utterly reject the idea, but the difference of black and white, prognathism, and even woolly hair, would not hinder his being a man if God had created him apart. It would set aside one great and important origin of a class, namely, common origin. The only question would be, Is that essential to being a man? I believe it is fully, but on Mr. Mill's ground it would not. They have not the same attributes, but in his sense they would be men, they have the attributes which constitute a man. His reasoning is false. I believe the theory to be wholly false, because it denies what is, as revealed, essential to man. Actually in relationship to God I do not believe such men could be; but if they were, they would be men, though the whole of their phenomenal attributes were not the same, and they had not the same ancestor. If you take in all men as one race, as I do, there may be several attributes different; but while their moral nature, and even physical, essentially is the same, they are men, Adam's children. If there be no essential attributes (that is, what makes man a man), and accidental ones, a yellow-haired German of olden time is not a man if I am.

A. Undoubtedly, as angels are called sons of God in Genesis 6 and Job, so also it is extended to the human race as distinguished from the beasts that perish. Indeed man distinctively was made in God's image, after His likeness, which is never said of angels. Hence in the third parable of Luke 15 the two are spoken of as sons naturally; and Paul, in preaching to the Athenians, adopts the sentiment that we are His offspring, even the heathen. With this agrees the statement in Ephesians 4:6: "one God and Father of all." So far Dr. Crawford was more scripturally correct than the late Dr. Cavendish in their controversy. But this universal Fatherhood of God only makes man's wickedness and unbelief more inexcusable and ruinous. It has to do with nature only, which is now fallen and sinful, and proved to be God's enemy by rejecting His Son, sent to save. Salvation is in no other than Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son, and our Lord. Then only are we who believe His sons by grace.

The whole human race is (we read in Acts 17) the offspring of God “who hath made of one blood all nations of men.” That is, God is Creator, and, in a secondary sense, father of the whole family. Man was made of the dust and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. “The first man is of the earth (the dust) earthy” (1 Cor. 15) and to dust he returns. We do not read of any such infusion of breath into the nostrils of lower animals. Special attention was given to man as the destined head of creation. Hence when we reach the end of the long genealogical tree of Luke 3 we read the words, “Adam which was the son of God,” or more correctly, “Adam which was of God.” Mark these words; man came directly and immediately from God. Just as Seth was “of Adam,” so Adam was “of God.” The degrading theory of evolution from a lower animal—a gorilla, an ape or a toad—has no place here, nor should it have in the conception of him who was created in the image and likeness of God.