Racism isn’t new. It’s as old as sin itself. And it violates two of the most basic truths in the Bible. When Jesus confronted racism, He focused on these two truths.
Even Jesus grew up in a culture slimed with racism. In His day, the Jews nurtured a 700-year-old prejudice against the Samaritans. Generations before Jesus, the Samaritans were kin of the Israelites. Their kingdom split in 922 BC, and some of the Israelites went north and settled in an area called Samaria. But then they were conquered by a foreign kingdom, forced to accommodate foreign peoples, and eventually they intermarried with other races and became a mixed-race ethnic group.
So by Jesus’ day, the accepted narrative among the Jews was that the Samaritans were impure. Hatred between Jews and Samaritans was unquestioned, part of their heritage, knitted into their culture. You might even say systemic.
So this conflict was unavoidable for a Jew living in Palestine, and the Bible sketches several examples. We’ll borrow two to see how Jesus confronted racism and focused on the two most basic truths about humanity.
First, let’s go back to the story of the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37).
Jesus was asked by an “expert” in the Jewish law what was required to please God. Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
The “expert” winced at the last part. He looked for some wiggle room, “who is my neighbor?” That is to say, tell me the parameters here. Surely God doesn’t expect me to love, well, everyone? I mean, what about people I don’t even like?
To answer, Jesus told a story. A Jewish man is ambushed and assaulted and left for dead. Two men pass by, both of whom are supposed to be Jewish religious leaders. They don’t stop to help but pass on the other side. The heroes of the people just got demoted.
And then along comes a third person. “But a Samaritan on his journey came up to him…” It’s likely that Jesus paused there for effect. The crowd, rapt with attention, would have assumed the filthy Samaritan would take advantage of their protagonist’s distress. Beat him again. Rob him more. Mock his anguish. You can feel the crowd growing angry. And then, Jesus says, “…and when he saw the man, he had compassion” (Luke 10:33).
Even in our racially inflamed culture, it’s hard to fathom how radical that statement was. And as Jesus continues, the Samaritan shows lavish grace and mercy to the Jewish victim, no strings attached. Jesus’ point is clear. The Samaritan was the true “neighbor” to the Jewish man. “Then Jesus told him, ‘Go and do the same’” (Luke 10:37).
A second truth is illustrated by a pivotal conversation Jesus had with a lonely, adulterous Samaritan woman (John 4:1-26). He was traveling through the region of Samaria when He stopped to rest by a well while His disciples, hungry and weary, slipped into town for food. We soon learn why He stayed behind–to talk to this woman. Wrapped in rich details of their culture and the prejudices that forged barriers in their day, the lengthy story reveals just one thing—Jesus crosses all barriers, gender and race included, to bring someone to faith. He cares about every single soul, and He doesn’t let racial, cultural, or gender barriers prevent Him from telling the truth of humanity’s depravity and God’s overwhelming grace.
Grace, by the way, that is not bound by culture or bias.
Pulled together, these two stories provide bookends to God’s perspective on racism and why it’s a sin:
- All people are created in God’s image
Contrary to our cultural sentimental platitudes and the religious niceties of Eastern myths, the Bible does not teach that all people are children of God. Instead, the Bible teaches that all people are “neighbors.”
This is a critical point. We cannot dismiss the imposition God has put on us in this “neighborhood” we call humanity. Because it clarifies that even apart from Christ, people are still God’s creation. That’s why we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
See, racism is a sin against the created order. All human beings, the Bible teaches, are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). So, as Jesus says, we are all “neighbors” on planet earth, even though we are all sinners. And it also means that, ultimately, there is only one race—the human race, created in the image of God.
Let that sink in. God does indeed forgive all sin in Christ (Rom. 8:1), but some sins are, in fact, more heinous than others. Any sin in which some human beings treat other human beings as less than human is a sin against God’s design for humanity, the created order itself. Racism, sex trafficking, abortion, genocide. The list is pretty long. And each of these sins originates with the denigration of another human being, violating God’s creation and the image He has invested in that person.
- All people are sinners in need of a Savior
So, all human beings have an obligation to treat one another as God’s creation. In addition, racism and injustice demonstrate again that human beings are sinners in need of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to heal hearts and bring unity (Rom. 3:23).
For Jesus, racism and prejudice were expressions of the fallen human condition. Until that condition is confessed, and the human heart is transformed by God’s power and grace, nothing in society will change, either. Before racism is an institutional problem, it’s a sin problem (1 John 5:17). And it’s a sin that insults the Gospel. The racist implies that others are not worthy of God’s grace and ignores his own sin in the process (1 Tim. 2:6, 2 Cor. 5:19).
But in Christ, we are liberated from all sin, including racism. Remember that woman at the well? Once she trusted Christ, the first thing she did was go to her Samaritan friends and bring them to Jesus—the Jewish Messiah. Trusting Christ cleansed her racial prejudice (John 4:28-30).
People become “children of God” by being born again in Christ (John 1:12-13). Even so, once we come to Christ, we still live in the “neighborhood” of humanity. And remember, God shows no partiality in salvation. Be glad. Because, if God showed partiality, who among us would deserve to be saved? God intends for the church, the children of God, to demonstrate His design for humanity–that we are one race, now redeemed and expressing our redemption as the body of Christ (Gal. 3:28).
It was to us that Jesus said, “Go, and do the same.” The same as who? The same as Jesus.