Justification by Faith as the Answer to Racism

Justification by Faith as the Answer to Racism February 26, 2017

Over at the new Houston Graduate School of Theology blog, I have a guest post on Justification by Faith: A Resource for Confronting Racism.

To practice any form of ethnic or racial exclusion means that one either does not understand or does not believe in justification by faith. Let me be clear. The denial of ethic privilege and racial superiority is not merely an implication of justification by faith; rather, it is a core element of the doctrine. They are mutually exclusive because justification constitutes a church of Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, Greek and Barbarian, White and Black, African and Arab. Churches and Christians that practice racial segregation even for pragmatic reasons deny the biblical teaching and the application of the doctrine of justification to the koinonia of the church. Justification is the act whereby God creates a new people, with a new status, in a new covenant, as a foretaste of the new age. If we see justification as a comprehensive doctrine that affects the salvation of sinners and the corporate life of the church, then we will finally understand why it is that Paul insists that there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Eph. 4.6) and why there is one loaf at the table of the Lord as we who are many partake of one loaf (1 Cor. 10.17). Justification by faith is our shield against any merit loaded legalism and the basis for the unity of the church comprised of the multi-ethnic people of God. Paul’s letter to the Romans, the great letter of justification by faith, includes a timeless exhortation to Jews and Gentiles at its pinnacle: ‘Let us then pursue the things that make for peace and mutual encouragement’ (Rom. 14.19) – that is what justification by faith looks like when it is worked out in the local church.

 

 


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