How should a Christian view apartheid?

Well now, to come back to 1 Cor. 12, it says in verse 13, "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." Now I feel a constraint upon me to say what I am going to say. The great point here is that all, whether Jew or Gentile, are made of one mind — one spirit — for the setting forth of Christ. Now I want you to weigh what I am going to say, which is this, That although we here are not a company composed of Jew and Gentile, yet in this tent there are two quite different races, two different nationalities with different natural ideas, ways, and methods. In consequence of this I believe that we have an opportunity for the display of Christ, which scarcely any other people on the face of the earth enjoy. An opportunity, for instance, which the Christians have not in England. What have they in England? English Christians, in France French Christians, in America American. In America they have the opportunity, but as far as I know they do not generally avail themselves of it. The white and black races are not manifestly one in Christ. In South Africa the negroes form separate congregations. They are not one. We, in this country, of India, have a splendid opportunity of shewing out a little bit of the truth that was being pressed on the Corinthians at that time; that, no matter what the nationality, one spirit animates the whole. Let this be true, then the Jew no longer exhibits the Jew, or the Gentile the Gentile. It is no longer English and native: the natural tendencies are overpowered by a stronger power still, and instead of the display of what is national, Christ is displayed in all.

We see in this striking passage how very definitely Jew and Gentile are blended together in one body IN CHRIST. There is a need that Christians should study this passage carefully. We may say that it concerns Jew and Gentile only, but there is a principle in this that can be applied today. The writer has had the privilege of visiting Christians in several foreign lands. He found the tendency to look at the assemblies in their own country as a separate entity, and found them asking the question, Why need we trouble as to what obtains in the way of Christian fellowship in other lands outside of our own? The writer felt deeply that the only way of counteracting this tendency is to pay attention to the teaching we have just been considering. We need to have engraved on our hearts the truth that there is one body and one Spirit and one hope of our calling. The church of God is one wherever Christians are found, whatever their nationality, language, social position, or colour of skin may be.

Such is the position of a Christian. Hence all questions as to acceptance with God are absolutely settled for him, by His grace in Christ; and no matter who or what he may be, whether here or there, black or white, high or low (I do not speak of heterodoxy or sin), every Christian is to be accepted equally as a member of Christ's body. We must rejoice to accept them all as belonging to that one Head, not only for heaven by and by, but for church fellowship now. For what can be more self-condemnatory than to acknowledge a relationship for Christ which you are ashamed to own for yourself and others on the earth? Is it not of the essence of Christianity to act now on what is unseen and eternal? To allow circumstances to outweigh this does not seem to evidence real faith or genuine love. Be it our joy then as it is our duty to remember in practice that we are called now to be witnesses of what God has done for all that are Christ's, always supposing that there be no question of plain scriptural discipline. There will be no doubt of it in heaven; there should be none on earth among those who are of heaven. The trial is now, and faith and love should surely show their colours in the day of trial. It was all well to love David when as a king he sat on the throne; but the test of affection as well as of intelligence in the mind of God was when David was chased upon the mountains like a partridge.

Verse 28. "There is in [Him, and consequently among you] neither Jew nor Greek," etc. (ouk eni). The force of these words and their bearing on the state of the Galatians is evident. The effect of their Judaizing, had been to revive national distinctions, and even to create others of which they were before unconscious. For the essence of legalism is to insist on the difference between the Jew and the Gentile, and to assert the superiority of the former. Then again, the Jew was bound by law; the Gentile free, though in a false and evil liberty of natural wilfulness. But both these conditions are forgotten in their new standing as in Christ. The Jew's bonds are undone by the dying of the Lord, and the Gentile is no more an alien dog, but has a portion with the children in the blessing of their common God (Rom. 3:20, 30). In the law, too, the women had a lower place, religiously, than the men. The males were the appointed worshippers at the great national conventions, and the doers of the service of God's sanctuary; the women merely echoing in their subordinate place what men only might originally speak or do. But now males go not up alone to keep God's feasts. Believers of either sex are "heirs together of the grace of life." The presence of the Father, and the throne of grace on which He sits, are accessible to both alike in the same prevailing Name, and by the one indwelling Spirit. "Ye are all one [man] in Christ Jesus," says the apostle. It is a description of their common participation and membership in the mystic unity of Christ's body, the Church. They stand in Him according to the truth and glory of His title as the last Adam; even as they were, though of common origin and nature, diverse and mutually hateful as the children of the first Adam. As a common sin produced all manner of social and moral inequalities, so a common righteousness, and that of God, fills each vessel of His grace out of the exhaustless fulness' that is in Christ. If the generation of God's children be a numerous one, yet the life which they have, as His own free and ever blessed gift, is "in His Son" (1 John 5:11).

In Christ all fleshly distinctions disappear. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (ver. 28). All these differences pertain to the old creation. All are brought into equal blessing and privilege in the risen Christ. It is a question of our place and portion in Him. Let us be careful to confine the passage thus. Ere this, it has been used to set aside or slight the relationships of life; and it has been brought forward as justifying the woman in taking the man's place in the services of God. But this is to utterly pervert the plain words of the apostle. All the relationships of life are sanctioned by God in Christianity as previously, and are all regulated in the Epistles of the New Testament. And it must not be forgotten that the woman's place was ordered and settled before the fall, and has not been touched by it, save that bitterness and sorrow have come in, as solemn results.

Eph. 2:13. "Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Believers from among Gentiles are spoken of here in contrast with those from among the Jews who have believed, for such were ceremonially near. Christ is "our peace" for He has made us, naturally and religiously opposed as we were, to be in perfect amity together. That which distinguished the Jew and had given him advantage over the Gentile had ever existed as a barrier between them. Christ has made both one having broken down the middle wall of partition. This He has done through His sacrificial work upon the cross. He shed His blood and offered His flesh, entailing for Him the condemnation upon all that both had been, to which they both were righteously entitled. In consequence then of that which He has done we are made nigh — distance is gone; we are both one — His death has removed the enmity between us: instead of Jew and Gentile there is now — "one new man." We must needs view this truth abstractly — we must look away from what we are in our actual responsible condition and take account of what we are in Christ. There are no fleshly distinctions — "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free" (Col. 3:11). Galatians adds, "neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). Colossians says, "Christ is all, in all." There are then no natural, no racial, no religious, no cultural, no secular distinctions.

Further, we are "in Christ Jesus," and consequently we are "all one," with all distinctions obliterated, whether national, social, or natural. When we get to the last chapter we shall find that in Christ Jesus there is new creation, which accounts for the removal of all the distinctions belonging to the old creation. This new creation work has reached us as to our souls already, though not yet as to our bodies. Hence we cannot as yet take up these things in an absolute way. For that we must wait until we are clothed upon with our bodies of glory at the coming of the Lord. Still even now we are in Christ Jesus, and hence can learn to view each other apart from and as lifted above these distinctions.

Peter's opening words then are precious, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him." Evidently he had himself considered that God was a respecter of persons, for his education was such as to give Israelites a higher place in God's sight than all other nationalities. In the church of God all of this must be totally leveled; and God used this miraculous way of impressing such truth upon Peter.

Considerable and charming simplicity is to be observed in Cornelius throughout. There was simple following of the Lord in all things step by step, and when he had Peter beneath his roof he said, "Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God." There was no reserve, and no desire for the suppression of any part of the counsel of God. What a contrast with this day of itching ears! Peter has at last perceived that God is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that fears Him, and works righteousness is accepted with Him. This does not go beyond the admission of the fact, that blessing is for Gentiles as truly as for Jews; as yet the truth of the one body was not declared. Of this Paul was the honoured administrator. To him it was given to unfold the heavenly union of all saints with the risen and exalted Head by the Holy Ghost. Peter went no farther than to admit the Gentiles to an equal place with the Jews: "God gave them the like gift as to us."

Having then already dwelt a little upon what is one important and primary element of "the faith," I add, further, that believers are brought into great relationships. Not only are we "converted" and "saved," being brought into peace and liberty, but we are called to realise also that we are no longer merely English persons or French, Jews or Gentiles, but that we are children of God, and that we are such now. We, therefore, turn our backs on our boasting in our nation and our city, and our family, and all these various forms of men's vanity, which is merely boasting of something of the flesh. We are called out of that now. This is also part of "the faith once delivered." In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free (Gal. 3:28). What does this mean? It means just what I have been saying.