Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian by John Piper

Author:John Piper
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Social Issues, Christian Life, Christianity, History
ISBN: 9781433528521
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2011-08-14T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

LIVING IN SYNC WITH

GOSPEL FREEDOM

It is a good and beautiful thing when Christians of different ethnic

origins (not just black and white) live and work and worship and relax

and eat together in joyful, Christ-exalting peace. There may be situa-

tions where living with all one ethnic group is inevitable. If so, I don’t

condemn it. But there are solid biblical, historical, and cultural reasons

why ethnically diverse Christians living, working, worshiping, relaxing,

and eating together is a Christ-exalting and beautiful thing—and there-

fore worth pursuing.

What we are doing in part 2 of this book is pointing to the biblical

foundations for the claim of part 1 that the gospel of Christ is the only

hope for Christ-exalting racial and ethnic diversity and harmony. We

saw in chapter 7 how Christ came on a mission to form a new people

not defined by ethnic distinctives but by faith in him. Then we saw in

chapter 8 that the crucial way he accomplished this was “by the blood

of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).

In chapter 9 we probed into the nature of the atonement that the

blood of Christ worked for us and saw the connection between that

atonement and our depravity and God’s election. In chapter 10 we

looked at the ethnic implications of justification by faith in order to see

how the atonement actually works for us. And in chapter 11 we focused

on how we, as helpless sinners, are made part of this great reconciling

work of Christ, namely, through the irresistible grace of God leading to

our death and resurrection with Christ called “conversion.”

Now what we will see in this chapter and the next is the way the

gospel governs not only the way we are converted but also the way

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GOD’S WORD: THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL

we live after conversion. Just as the gospel shattered ethnocentrism

and racism in the way it saved us and in the standing it gave us, so it

keeps on shattering them by the kind of life it brings about. One of

the clearest texts to show how the gospel goes on exerting this effect

is Galatians 2:11–16:

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because

he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he

was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and

separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the

Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was

led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was

not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them

all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how

can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” We ourselves are Jews by

birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justi-

fied by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also

have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ

and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will

be justified.

NOT IN STEP WITH

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