Many Ethnicities, One Race

I have posted an interview with this same man, Thabiti Anyabwile, earlier in September. He has now written an excellent article called Many Ethnicities, One Race. He breaks down the way we, as a culture, have developed this idea of "races" and that we can't find a biblical grounding for this nor the way cultural tradition allows race to define people, the church, etc. Thabiti Anyabwile is a pastor of a church of FBC Grand Cayman and used to be an elder at Mark Dever's church. Here is just a little section of the article to whet your appetite:

The fall of man into sin is the reason racial animosity, hatred, and divisions exist. Apart from the corruption of man and man’s view of himself, God, and the world, we would not have witnessed the scale of misanthropy we have witnessed through the centuries. And this habit of racial thinking, hatred, and action belongs to the nature and disease of sin from which we need to be redeemed.

The question is, has God done anything about "race" and racism? (And it is both "race"—which is evidence of unbiblical thinking about man—and racism we should be concerned about.)

The Cross and the New Humanity
Perhaps the best place to see God’s answer is the letters of Paul. There we find that God has indeed answered in Christ, and he has done something more profoundly wonderful than most people have imagined.

Consider the apostle’s words in Ephesians 2:13-17:
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law and commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached to you who were far off and peace to those who were near."

Here the apostle holds up for the church at Ephesus, which is comprised of both Jewish and Gentile believers, the implications of Christ’s completed work for a doctrine of man. What’s his main point in these verses? Through the completed work of Christ on the cross a new humanity is created, one involving all nations and making them into "one new man" through union with Christ. Christ has taken the old race of Adam and made them one new spiritual race or ethnicity. We are no longer Jews and Gentiles in the earthbound, fleshly, divisive, and hostile sense; we are now God’s workmanship, a new nation and household, and a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).