Racism is ridiculous because we are rescued by God’s grace not our race...

This week, we are looking at a section of a letter that is recorded in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of Romans. So far this week, we have discovered that the fact that God is right has now been made known through the message of the gospel. And it is the message of the gospel that provides the opportunity for all humanity to receive the forgiveness of sin and enter into the relationship with God that they were created for by believing, trusting and following Jesus as Lord and Leader.

We discovered that God rightly intervened and acted to redeem us, to rescue us from slavery to our selfishness, rebellion, and sin through His Son Jesus in order that we would be able to be declared not guilty of having a problem with God. We talked about the reality that God has every right to judge selfish rebellion and sin. And God cannot ignore His perfect Law and justice. God’s perfect justice demands that the selfishness, rebellion and sin of all humanity be punished. Otherwise God would not be just, would He?

So to demonstrate, or to prove to the universe that God is right, God sent His Son Jesus, who entered into humanity and allowed Himself to be publicly treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful lives, so that God’s right and just response to selfishness, rebellion and sin could be satisfied. You see, Jesus publicly died on the cross to prove that God is perfectly just and that God is perfectly right. The cross is public proof that God is just and demands justice.

We are declared not guilty of having a problem with God because of God’s gracious and generous intervention and activity in the world through Jesus, whose public execution for our selfishness and rebellion serves as the proof that God is right and just and the only One who can declare the person who has faith and confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel as being not guilty of having a problem with God. Today we will see Paul reveal the implications that God’s right rescue from rebellion through faith in Jesus have on humanity in Romans 3:27-30. Let’s look at these verses together:

Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.

In these verses, we see the Apostle Paul ask a string of questions designed to reveal the timeless implications that God’s right rescue from rebellion through faith in Jesus has on all humanity. First, Paul asks “Where is the boasting”? Paul then answers this question by stating that it is excluded. In other words, there is no room for pride when it comes to our relationship with God. Pride is shut out, there is no opening for boasting and pride to enter into a conversation about our relationship with God.

Now a natural pushback or question that may arise here is “Why not? Why is there no room for pride”? Paul, anticipating this response, responds with a second question: By what kind of Law? Of works? If Paul was asking this question in the language we use in our culture today, the question would sound something like this: “What religious, moral or ethical system did you perfectly follow to make you right with God? Was it what you did for God that enabled God to declare you not guilty of having a problem with Him?”

Paul then answered this question by stating that it was the Law of faith. But what does that mean? Paul’s point here is that it is not what we do for God that can make us not guilty of having a problem with God. Instead, it is what God does for us through Jesus Christ; and it is the placing of our confident trust in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ and the message of the gospel that make makes us not guilty. It is because of God’s activity and not our activity that we are rescued from selfishness, rebellion and sin. And because it is God’s activity and not our activity that rescues us from selfishness, rebellion and sin, there is no room for pride.

Paul reinforces this reality in verse 28 when he states that we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. The Apostle had a strong point of view; and that strong point of view was that it was by placing ones confident trust in what God had done through Jesus that resulted in a person being declared not guilty and being able to enter into the relationship with God that they were created for. Having a relationship with God was independent of what you did for God in order to remove the guilt that came from selfishness, rebellion and sin.

Now, for the Jewish people of Paul’s day, this would have been viewed as a scandalous statement. This would have put Paul at odds with the religious people of his day, just as the message and teaching of Jesus often offended and put Him at odds with the self righteous religious people that He encountered. Yet, instead of backing down, Paul laid down the gauntlet and dug his heels in with another set of questions: “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also?”

In other words, Paul is basically asking “do you Jewish religious people think that you have exclusivity because you are God’s chosen people? Do you think that you are somehow better than people of other races because of your race and religious heritage?”  Paul then answered his questions in a way that would have offended the Jewish people of his day: “Yes, of Gentiles also,”?

This answer would have been incredibly offensive for a Jewish person because they took great pride in their race and their religious heritage. They took great pride in being Jewish and being God’s chosen people. They took great pride that God chose them to receive the Old Testament; they took great pride that God chose them to have the temple; they took great pride in their performance and what they did for God because they thought they were better than every other race as a result of God’s choice of them.  

Now the big fancy church mumbo jumbo talk fifty cent theological term for what the Jewish people took great pride in is the word election. The word election refers to God’s special choice of people to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for.  The Jewish people believed that God had chosen them to experience a relationship with Him because they had come from the right race as descendants of Abraham and because of their superior performance for God.

Here, however, Paul reveals the reality that, from God’s perspective, there is one way and only one way that anyone is declared not guilty of having a problem with God. There is only one way to receive rescue and redemption from slavery to selfishness and rebellion and enter into the relationship with God that you were created for. And that one way is not based on ones’ performance for God; that one way is by trusting in God’s performance for you through faith in Jesus.

Paul explained that whether you are circumcised, which was a religious act that served to identify someone as being a part of the Jewish religious system, or uncircumcised, which referred to a person who was not Jewish religiously, freedom and rescue from selfish rebellion and sin comes by faith in Jesus. We are united by faith in Jesus as part of the community of believers called the church, regardless of race. And this should remove all possibility of racial pride.

And it is here that we discover a reason why the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel provide the solution to the universal problem of racism. And that timeless reason is this: The gospel best addresses the issue of racism because we are rescued by God’s grace not our race. You see, we are not rescued from the selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God because of what we do for God. We are rescued from the selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God because of what God has done for us through Jesus.

We are declared not guilty of a problem with God not because of our racial or religious heritage. Instead, we are declared not guilty of having a problem with God the exact same way, regardless of racial or religious heritage. No race is excluded; instead every race is included. That is why racism is ridiculous when it is placed in the lens and prism of the gospel. Racism is ridiculous because there are not many gods for each individual race. Racism is ridiculous because there is only One God who is the Creator and Sustainer of every race.  

And that is why the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel alone provide the solution to racism. The claims of Christ and the message of the gospel provide the solution to racism because since there is only one God, all of humanity, regardless of race, is rescued the same exact way. And that way is by God’s gracious choice to rescue, regardless of race, through His gracious activity for us and not our activity for God.

Just as no race is above the need for rescue from selfishness and rebellion that enslaves us and separates us from God, no race is excluded from experiencing God’s gracious choice to be rescued from that selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God through faith in Jesus. That is why racism is ridiculous when it is placed in the lens and prism of the gospel.

 

Racism is ridiculous because we are rescued by God’s grace not our race...