With the arguments about race realism, Kinism, natural affection, ordo amoris, etc., Galatians 3:26-29 is surely an important passage. I am going to be preaching on it soon, and reading Dr. Joseph Pipa's commentary on Galatians here is helpful. Depending on how he would further flesh things out, in essence I have much if not total agreement with him, though the rub does come down to the distinctions between race and culture. I will give my commentary on his commentary below, but first, here is what Dr. Pipa says:
"...in Christ we are joined together in the family of God in spiritual equality [his italics]: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.' As he is dealing with those who really belong to the people of God, he establishes that baptism, not circumcision, is the sign of membership of His family. Baptism is the great badge of unity....We are diverse members; we have different gifts, abilities, and functions, but we are all part of the one body. ...Because of union with Christ, we are one body, one family, and there are no second class citizens in the family of God. That is what the apostle is driving at with these three pairs of distinctions. He says there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free man, male nor female. He begins with the racial distinction that has created the problem in Galatia, Jew and Gentile. Because Christ has abolished this division (Eph. 2:11-22), with respect to standing in the church there are no racial or ethnical divisions. The same is true economically. Paul says that there is neither slave nor free. Now the New Testament does not abolish the economic institution of slavery. The Bible governs that institution, but it does not abolish it. [Bold mine] In the church, however, we are not to relate to people on the basis of their social or economic standing: 'My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favouritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, 'You sit here in a good place,' and you say to the poor man, 'You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,' have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and have become judges with evil motives' (James 2:1-4)? The same holds true for gender relations, There is neither male nor female. Circumcision created a distinction between male and female, but this sacramental distinction no longer remains. Women as well as men are baptized to testify to their equal standing within the church of Christ. No one in the body of Christ is spiritually superior to another. We note, however, that this abolition of distinction of standing is not an abolition of distinction or function of authority. God has appointed authority structures between master and servant, employer and employee. In the family God has commanded children to obey their parents and wives to be in submission to their husbands. In the church, God teaches that office bearers are to be men and that women are not to teach or exercise authority over men (1 Tim. 2:11-15). Therefore, within the equality that belongs to all in the body of Christ, there remains a diversity of authority and rule. Moreover in the church, we may rightly glory in our heritage and culture. [Bold mine] There is nothing wrong with cultural distinctives, as long as we do not make them marks of superiority in the Church. The fact that Jew and Gentile became one does not mean that a Jew stops enjoying his heritage and that a Roman Christian cannot still glory in certain things in Roman culture and civilization. The church is not the great melting pot in which we must lose all cultural distinctions, but rather a place where they come together under the headship of Christ and actually are part of the beauty of the church. Heaven will be like a great bazaar, an international market, in which all the cultures of the earth will be represented. Of course, all that is unbiblical will have been removed and all that is biblical will be brought to perfection. So we may rejoice in our culture, not arrogantly, but with humility, recognizing that there are good things in various cultures and that some cultures are superior to others. In the church, however, we do not draw lines on the basis of superiority or inferiority of culture." Pipa, Galatians: God's Proclamation of Liberty by Christian Focus, pages 139-141. My thoughts: It is clear that Dr. Pipa acknowledges there are superior and inferior cultures. He acknowledges that we may humbly take delight in our own heritage and culture, and that heaven will be an expression of each nation/race/culture with sin removed from it. Even in the Church and kingdom of God, Dr. Pipa makes clear that we are not to be a giant melting pot. Pipa also makes clear that equality in Christ and His kingdom does not erase inequalities or distinctions that are natural and in this world and its kingdoms. Slave and Master, men and women, Jew and Greek are still distinct, and it seems Dr. Pipa would acknowledge that there are still natural superiorities and inferiorities present between the sexes, races, and in class/work distinctions and economies as well. It seems the big question is this -- if the churches are not to become melting pots, how will that be possible without some degree of segregation between the cultures, and therefore between the races? I cannot imagine that Dr. Pipa would deny that culture is in some sense downstream from race, and that race shapes culture. I do think race realists (and generally speaking I am a race realist so long as you let me define what I do and do not mean by that term) would do well to acknowledge that culture is shaped by more than just race (such as religion, technology, topography, diet, education and nurture, the leavening of the gospel in that land or lack thereof, whether or not that nation is under the blessing of God, or many generations of judicial hardening, etc.) but who can deny that our race, our lineage and natural inclinations and proclivities and aptitudes or lack thereof, has much to do with our culture? I do not believe within the local churches of any given nation that we have to have a hard and fast segregation policy based solely on race or nationality, but there are arguments to make concerning good order in the churches that do not run afoul of what James 2:1-4 teaches us, as Dr. Pipa quoted above. Many of our Reformed/Presbyterian denominations have separate Korean churches or even Korean presbyteries. If we did that for white churches, would that be automatically sinfully racist? When a language barrier is there, it seems almost required to separate, if we take our confessions seriously that people need to hear the gospel in their own native/vulgar tongue, to hear with understanding. To just give one simple and historical example, when slavery was allowed in our nation, was it automatically wrong to have the slaves sit together, separately in the church from their slave masters and their families? I would argue that it could be sinful, that it could be unwise or mitigate against the unity of the church, but it also could be a matter of good order and not sinful or unwise at all. So I urge avoiding knee-jerk and emotional reactions on all these matters (sadly we are well past that point and almost all that you see are emotional meltdowns), but rather, thinking through things carefully and biblically, with sound reason and discretion. Others will know the history far better than I do, but my understanding is that throughout church history, including at times in the Reformed and Puritan era, men and women were segregated in their seating arrangements, or perhaps even in what door they entered the church through, as a matter of good order and focus on worship. Is this somehow a denial that men and women are "one in Christ", or is it saying that the families are dissolved, etc.? No, not necessarily. This seems to be a clear matter of good order. If women had to sit separately simply because they were woman and regarded as the weaker sex and were to be reminded that they were second place in the kingdom of God, yes that would be sinful (unless, I don't know, the women were becoming haughty and needed to be humbled or some extraordinary circumstance like that). There was a time when Reformed churches gave communion/Lord's Supper tokens, and even a time in history when those who were not permitted to take the Lord's Supper were required to leave while the Lord's Supper was being administered. Is this sinful partiality or discrimination? What should be urged, I believe, is to remember and recover these natural distinctions, recognize that outside of the church there are cultural and racial superiorities and inferiorities (for a host of reasons), that race and culture are intimately connected and related to one another, and that good order within local churches requires maintaining certain distinctions, while also recognizing our Spiritual unity and equality in Christ. We are all part of His body, and His kingdom is a kingdom of grace. But as each individual person forms a different part of Christ's body (ear, toe, arm, leg, etc.) in the local church, so do different races and cultures form distinct national churches, and if nations are comprised of particular peoples (that is, races or ethnicities) then a church expressing its particular culture will do so by being comprised predominately of its particular national people, the particular race or ethnicity of that nation and land. Present circumstances of multi-culturalism (which really indicates also multi-nationalism or many nations or races within our own nation in the USA today, foreigners and strangers) make this trickier, yet that is a proof that being flooded with other cultures and races of people into any given nation is problematic ordinarily, for the nation, society, and potentially for the churches as well. Further, it is not hard to recognize that, in God's providence and at this present time, some nations and races are characterized by purer forms of worship and in general greater godliness than others. That is not utterly immutable, for any nation that calls upon the Lord is blessed, and any nation and its race or people who apostatize and turn their back on the Lord will be cursed and judged by Him. But we can see the lines of God's blessings in a big picture, general sense, down through generations, as well as His judgments and curses down through generations. The white, European nations have been greatly blessed by God historically, with natural and spiritual blessings, and whether or not that can be drawn out directly from Gen. 9:27 and the sons of Japheth (as Poole, Henry, and others interpret or at least list as a likely interpretation), we can be "race realists" or "history realists" and see God's hand of providence and kindness upon our people. We have colonized and Christianized many lands, including those of other nations and races than our own. We have often been, by God's grace and kindness, leaders, superiors, trailblazers in this. There is a reason Africa has to be Evangelized and have missionaries come to them from white Christian countries. I would not argue that this could never be reversed, and the USA so apostatizes that we fall into paganism and idolatry. Likewise, God could do so great a work in Africa that eventually they are sending missionaries to us. But throughout history, since the time of Christ, has this ever happened? Is Africa anywhere close, in general, to being in a position to do this on a large scale, or even more than a mere trickle? Even if Africa were converted overnight, they would not have the natural capacities or infrastructure or wealth to send out missionaries all over the world overnight. That is simply reality, not hatred or bigotry. Further, should we as white persons desire the destruction of our own people for the sake of the elevation of a foreign people? God forbid. Paul was a missionary and Apostle especially to the Gentiles, yet he makes clear in Scripture he has a natural affection and great burden for his "brethren", his "kinsmen according to the flesh". Was the Apostle Paul confessing sin there in Romans 9? No, he was confessing what we all should have, a special burden for our own people, not just our immediate family and their conversion, but the conversion of our race, our people. Clearly this "partiality" was not sinful, and this "favoritism" was not wicked, nor did it make his Gospel endeavors to Gentile lands ineffective (and yet, Paul even admits that his hope and goal is to provoke the Jews, his kinsmen, to jealousy by preaching to the Gentiles). Certainly Paul in Romans 11 indicates this also has Spiritual/redemptive historical significance, but that does not exclude or preclude his proper natural affection for his own countrymen. Today, we think we are supposed to have the same affection for Israel/Jews that Paul had! Rather, the application for us is that whatever race or nationality we are, we should have a special love and do have a natural affection for them, because they are especially our "flesh" (Rom. 11:14) in an intimate way that is not true of foreigners and strangers (other races than our own). I could go on, but I think you get the point. People are emotionally dancing to the tune of Egalitarianism, Liberalism, Communism, Feminism, Globalism, so that the ARP rushes out a sloppy statement on racial matters and superiorities akin to how the OPC rushed out to defend their favorite female pastor and theologian Aimee Byrd. The RPCNA and PCA adopted the ARP's statement on race, and are erecting study committees to root out this "dark evil" that they imagine. They hastily depose and even excommunicate an RPCNA minister, Sam Ketcham
who loves black people and loves the Southern Presbyterian missionary endeavors to blacks from the 19th century. By the way, the RPCNA presbytery that excommunicated Rev. Ketcham did not have a single black person among them. Shouldn't we at least reflect on that for a moment? I would love to see us all be able to sharpen and round out one another. I think we race realists could be benefited by that. But when you are excommunicating such men hastily and slanderously, undoubtedly praying against us as enemies of God as much as you are praying for our "repentance" to return to Egalitarianism and Feminism, you have to be rebuked and refuted and warned against yourselves. Perhaps some of you are doing this in ignorance, as Peter said of the Jews who crucified Christ and Paul even said of himself. But that ignorance is not bless nor an excuse on the day of judgment, even if it means there may yet still be hope of repentance for you, and I sincerely pray that there is and am convinced some of you reading this will repent by God's grace. So consider, weigh, repent, and return to the truth of God's Word and God's design on these matters, for the glory of God, good of His Church, and for the good of all races and peoples, but especially the white race in our white nations that are being replaced and overrun, more often than not, by wicked and inferior foreigners who worship idols, hate us, and hate above all our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Comments
Post a Comment