Jesus is the end of racial intolerance

(Colossians 3:11)

One of the worst issues facing humanity is the problem of racial intolerance. Racism, bigotry, prejudice or just plain hatred based upon the colour of the skin or a geographical ancestry is simply disgusting. It is a disease of plague proportions and a blight and stain upon the face of humanity.

Mankind has attempted to overcome racial intolerance for many, many years but without success. They have enacted laws to prevent or punish villainy between people on the basis of racial persecution, but you cannot change the hearts of people where hatred lays hidden.

But in these words today we find there is a solution to these prejudices. Jesus is the end of racial intolerance and all of the problems associated with it.

Jesus is the end of racial intolerance

Looking at this scripture today we see that it is clear that in God’s eyes and in Jesus Christ there cannot be any distinctions.

11 Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scyth’ian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:11)

Look closely at these words. One of the great forms of racial intolerance in the days of Paul was that between Jews and Gentiles or Greeks as he puts it. He shows there is a divide between these two as the circumcised and the uncircumcised.

And Paul states that there cannot be these divisions in Jesus Christ. We are to treat all people the same regardless of who they are or what is their racial or ethnic background. There cannot be prejudice between the brothers and sisters of the Lord and so Jesus is the end of racial intolerance.

In essence we must become colour blind to the colour of the skin, and ethnically blind to the background of different peoples. And I should add, this is not just between the brethren in the church, we must similarly act and perceive ALL peoples in the same light because Jesus is the end of racial intolerance.

There cannot be prejudice and bigotry in Christians as they walk with Christ. We know and expect that Jesus accepts everyone and anyone who will come to Him and believe. So if He accepts people of all races and ethnic backgrounds, we MUST do the same.

And we do not do this because we have to. We don’t do it because there is a law that will punish us if we fail to do so.

We do it out of love.

The love of God for all people

It is because of the love of God that Jesus is the end of racial intolerance. It is because He loved us that we also learn how to love Him and our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

God loves and gives life to all of the people on the earth and it is not His will or desire that anyone should be lost. He does not distinguish between skin colours or ethnicity but speaks to all believers as, “My children.”

There is no place in God’s love for racism or intolerance of any kind. Consider the words of 1 Corinthians 13 and apply them to racism and you will see how God’s love cannot show any forms of intolerance.

4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

If we are to emulate and have the love of God formed within us, and if we are to live and walk in the love of God, how can we tolerate bigotry and racism?

Look at the words of the scripture. These are not the words of racial intolerance or bigotry. Are racists and bigots patient and kind? Do they reject jealousy and boasting? Racists are arrogant, rude, selfish, resentful and they rejoice at what is evil.

In fact, as you read these words from 1 Corinthians 13, even though it is talking about love, it could as easily be a manifesto speaking about the polar opposite of racial intolerance, because racists are everything that love is not.

And that is why Jesus is the end of racial intolerance. But we need to consider one more thing that takes this matter one step further.

We are all children of Israel

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are no longer citizens of this world but are citizens of the kingdom of God.

The inheritance of the kingdom of God was promised to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob, whom God named Israel. And the basis of this inheritance was through faith. Abraham received the promises because he believed God and he became the father of ALL who have faith. Consider these words:

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants–not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” –in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (Romans 4:16-17)

In these words we see that God made Abraham the father of many nations, not based only upon his physical or bodily descendants, but also upon those who share his faith in God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it is through our faith that we become children of Abraham and heirs to the promise of eternal life in God’s kingdom.

Because of this we should no longer consider ourselves in earthly terms. We should not think of ourselves as black, brown or white. Nor should we think of ourselves as African, Australian, American, British, Indian, Mexican, Nigerian, or any other nationality you can think of.

We are now, in Jesus Christ, the children of the promise and children of Abraham. And if this is the case, which it is, we are now his spiritual descendants through faith and are part of the broad spiritual race of Israel, heirs to the promises of God.

So if we are now all Israelites through faith and brothers in Christ, then the basis for racial intolerance ceases to exist because we are all one nation under Christ.

Thus I can confidently say that Jesus is the end of racial intolerance through the love of God and the working of His grace by making us all equal and all one race as Israelites and descendant of Abraham by faith.

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