Race and power: What did Paul say?

Pauline epistles
In his letters, Paul’s theological emphases on reconciliation and unity are made all the more interesting since many of the churches Paul wrote to comprised Jews and Gentiles. For instance, writing to the Romans, Paul prays for unity among them (15:6), that they will worship in harmony inwardly and outwardly for God’s glory. Schreiner notes, “God is not honored … if the believing community is fractured by divisions. He is honored when Jews and Gentiles, with all their diversity, stand shoulder to shoulder and lift their voices in praise to him.” Paul’s repeated metaphor of the body of Christ or the church (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:18,24) also emphasizes the intentional diversity of the church.

In Paul’s letters, when disagreements in the church arise, the instruction is never to separate to preserve a false peace, but to reconcile (Rom. 14:3,4; 1 Cor. 3:3,8; Phil. 2:2, 4:2) and “stand shoulder to shoulder.” Schreiner also wisely points out that in Pauline theology, only God, not mere human effort, can grant unity (Rom. 15:7). Paul discloses the “mystery” that Jews and Gentiles are now “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (3:6). This newly revealed mystery discloses something obscured in OT times but now “made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10).

Grudem explains, “God’s wisdom is shown even to angels and demons when people from different racial and cultural backgrounds are united in Christ in the church.” According to Grudem, Christians ought to be leading the abolition of racial and social barriers as “a visible manifestation of God’s amazingly wise plan to bring great unity out of great diversity and thereby to cause all creation to honor him.” Out of this same purpose Paul states that as far as divisions go “there is no Jew nor Greek” under the new creation in Christ (Col. 3:11).

Lipp further points to a lesson in the use of power exemplified in the Carmen Christi: “In the incarnation of the Son and his path to impotent suffering on the cross, we are thus to see an act of divine freedom and divine power.” This seems to mean for us that when we lay aside racial divisions, when we not only tolerate but show “affection and sympathy” and look to the interests of others (Phil. 2:2,4), we are participating in Christ’s divine “emptying” (2:7) and thus in glorification by the Father (Phil. 2:5,9).

Ephesians 2:11-23
As already seen, important New Testament ideas concerning unity are introduced throughout Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This passage speaks of reconciliation – primarily, between God and humans, but Paul enriches this idea when he goes on to specify that Christ brought peace both to “those far off” (Gentiles) and “those who were near” (Jews). Thus the Pauline notion of reconciliation is both vertical and horizontal. Not only are believers incorporated into Christ and made one (cf. 1 Cor. 12:12,13, 15:22,45-49; Gal. 3:27,28; Rom. 12:5; Col. 3:10,11), but this same concept is also “employed to argue that divisions of race and religion [are] a thing of the past.”

Furthermore, “the peace in view at this point [v.14] is between the two old enemies [Jew and Gentile], not with God, and making peace here, as in Col 1:20, is a synonym for reconciling.” If this is the case, then Paul’s idea of the two being made into “one person” is a jarring thought. In his metaphor, the former enemies are actually so unified as to be one entity. One wonders what Paul might say concerning the racial segregation in the modern-day church; perhaps that we are a double-minded person?

This horizontal dimension to reconciliation is found elsewhere in Paul. For example, when he implores in 2 Cor. 5:20 “be reconciled to God,” he is simultaneously asking for reconciliation within the church, as well as for between the Corinthians and himself. According to White, the root idea of the Greek word for reconciliation is ‘change of attitude or relationship.’ Paul uses the term to describe Jews and Gentiles united in Christ (Eph. 2:14), as well as “the alienated, divisive elements of a fragmented universe brought ‘under one head’”, that is Christ. (Eph. 1:10, Col. 1:20).

Liberation theologians emphasize that the church’s sole goal should be to see “the Christian hope of one world” fulfilled – “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” Again, whether or not one subscribes wholesale to liberation theology, on Paul's point in Ephesians it seems we ought to all be able to agree.