The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel: Background, Exegesis, Application

Greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is Tuesday, September 4th, 2018, and yeah, if you are a news junkie, you are on a high right now. Certainly, it is a fascinating day on many, many levels. And I don't have any problems if you keep the Kavanaugh hearings on in the background, or if you here in Arizona are maybe keeping an eye on the assignment by the governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, former Senator John Kyle, going back to the Senate for about a year and a half or so, in the place of John McCain.

All sorts of stuff going on today, but obviously we're here at an early point in the day because of the release of the statement on social justice and the gospel. And if you are on social media, then you know that's the big discussion of the day, and for good reason.

The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel and Its Immediate Significance

And so what I want to do during our time here on the program today is to talk a little bit about the statement, and then to make some application of the statement, and look at some scriptural passages and illustrations.

Because one of the responses that we are seeing to the statement immediately is, well, yeah, everybody agrees with that. That's not really saying anything. And obviously it is saying a lot of things. I mean, the very first statement, aside from affirming the highest view of scripture, which will immediately separate us from many, from all those who view inspiration and inerrancy as silly American doctrines and things like that.

But the denial in Section 1, we deny that Christian belief, character, or conduct can be dictated by any other authority, and we deny that the postmodern ideologies derived from intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory are consistent with biblical teaching.

Well, given the inroads that all of those are having in almost all seminaries in the United States and Bible colleges, I learned this week that there are Bible colleges that have walks of shame for white students, and seminaries that are taking time out of their study schedule to do white privilege seminars and things like this.

I mean, it's all over the place. And the statement very plainly says there is one source of authority for how we as Christians are to be defined as Christians, and it is not the current incarnation of critical race theory.

And that's why this statement is important, at least if for no other reason than on a historical basis, someone's going to be able to look back and say, yeah, there were people that were warning, ringing the bell, giving the warning, standing on the wall.

Whether that warning will be heeded is difficult to say because it is very plain to me that the next generation finds it much more consistent with their generation to embrace categories of critical race theory and things like that than to critically analyze without emotion the movements that are going on around them, especially within society.

And so making application to some specific examples is something I would like to do as a part of the program today. Now, what is our involvement with this? Well, if you go to statementonsocialjustice .com, just spell that out as one word, statementonsocialjustice .com.

If you look at the signers, under initial signers, you will find my name there along with John MacArthur, Vody Baucom, Phil Johnson, Tom Buck, David Miller, Michael O 'Fallon, Tom Askell, Daryl Harrison, Josh Bice, Justin Peters, and others are listed there under the initial signers.

And what that means, obviously, is that these are the primary people that have been involved in the discussions that led up to the writing of this document. The challenge, of course, was to try to arrange a schedule where you can get an entire group of men, a number of whom are international travelers in the same room at the same time.

And it just so happened that Dr. Baucom was coming to Dallas. I was with Dr. Baucom, and we discussed this issue in his home in Lusaka only a few weeks before this meeting took place. And so this group of individuals met.

We discussed many of the key issues that were relevant to not just issues of social justice, but also the influx of other foreign concepts that were being pushed into the church. It seemed to many of us that after the MLK50 celebration and the T4G get-together very shortly after that, that a door had been kicked open.

And you had the ReVoice conference going on, you had all sorts of material relevant to egalitarianism and changing views of human sexuality. And a number of us began communicating with one another and basically saying, who flipped the switch?

Obviously, I will say that I was guilty of having assumed that, especially within the Reformed camp, that the necessity of positive exegetical defense of a position that you're putting forward would be sufficient barrier for the incursion of these concepts into the Reformed community.

And I was obviously naive about that. I don't think I was the only one. I think a lot of people had assumed, well, yeah, we see this and this denomination there and that denomination there. And we expect that.

We expect this amongst the liberal Presbyterians and the liberal Methodists and people like that. They don't have a meaningful theology of Scripture. They don't have a high view of Scripture. They have a very crippled view.

And that's going to lead to this. This is inevitable. But now we were seeing in Southern Baptist institutions and Reformed institutions and Reformed conferences, we were seeing and hearing the very things that we assumed could never be here because of the need to provide a strong exegetical foundation.

And so we got together and we talked through the issues and shared with one another what our concerns were and learned from one another and began work on what will eventually be a fuller response to what has been going on.

And this statement's just the beginning. There will be more that comes forth. I think one of the only reasons that I was involved was the freedom that we have as a small ministry without a lot of political entanglements as far as necessary relationships with certain institutions and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

I think that gave me the freedom, and especially in the nature of this particular program, we're not on a radio network. There have been people, for example, and we'll talk about this, there are people who want to sign the document, but they can't, or at least in their mind they cannot.

There are people who want to sign this document who have been told they cannot, who have been told their jobs will be lost, who have been told that it's just far too risky, and they've chosen not to. And they've let us know, well, we'll pray for you.

We agree with what it says. But it's just the cost is too high to take a stand on this topic. And it's ironic because other people are saying, well, there's nothing there. I mean, hey, everybody believes that.

And yet the reality is, many others know, that there could be a real cost here. And I think the reason that I was invited to be a part of it was that even during the course of the MLK 50 thing, because of the nature of the dividing line and because of the fact that either Rich and I are just not bright enough to network or we've just always chosen not to do so, we're just comfortable.

The way things are, this is good, and it becomes uncomfortable when you start trying to network with other people and then you get all the entanglements and what's this person going to say and what's that person going to say.

And I'm just not the political type. Everybody who knows me knows I detest politics. I'm just going to say what I need to say and do what I need to do. And so I think because of that freedom, I was one of the first people to start responding, not because I'm some expert on all the books that have been written on intersectionality or something.

I didn't even know what it was. But because I saw the danger to the gospel, I saw the fundamental, eisegetical nature of what was being said. And I jump on stuff like that. That's what I've been doing for a long, long time.

And I'm hearing people making claims that exegetically are simply indefensible. And so we had taken the lead in responding to some of these things, and I think that's the primary reason that I was invited to be there.

I'll say up front, I even said to a couple of the primary organizers, Look, if having me there ever becomes a problem, just let me know and I will not be offended and stay far, far away because I don't want to be a problem.

I know I'm radioactive. We have offended a lot of folks over the years. It's sort of necessary when you try to present the whole council of God. And so what has been my role in this particular document?

Well, I did not write it by any stretch of the imagination, but I was one of those given the opportunity to be involved in editing, in providing suggestions, concerns. What about this? What about that?

Could we say this differently? That kind of online collaboration. And obviously it's extremely difficult to write something like this and to really, well, I talk, I mean, if you transcribed everything that I've said on this program on this particular subject over the past number of months, it would be significantly longer.

Than the statement is. And so brevity and concise expression and that kind of thing is truly the challenging aspect of putting together a statement like this. And of course, there are going to be those who will not sign because, well, you know, I would not have used that verb there.

Okay. Nothing, nothing can be done about that. Obviously, our concern is not that you be able to say, I would have said it exactly like that. There's not a single word I would have. No statement will ever, ever, ever be like that.

The concern is that a very large portion of the evangelical church in the United States, whatever you want to call that, reformed, let's say the conservative, reformed, even conservative, non-reformed, yet still evangelical churches.

And a lot of men, a lot of women who have been observing this and I've sort of felt marginalized. I mean, if we want to do the victim mentality thing, if we could, we could do that. We could, we could start doing trauma counseling for our side and claim victim status and stuff like that seems to be the way that is the way of today.

You've got to be victim intersectionality, all the rest of that kind of stuff. We could easily do that. But I think most of us are of the mindset that we're just going, what has changed? And the first thing we think about is not my feelings about it.

It's where is this going? Where is this going to go for my kids? Where is this going to go for my grandkids? The adult thing, I said that purposefully, I don't believe that victimology is the response of a mature person.

A mature person thinks the future. A mature adult does not focus upon my own emotions, my own felt needs, and my own traumas, all the rest of that stuff. You are thinking about others, and especially you're thinking about those that God has put in your life that are most precious to you, the people of your fellowship, people in your family, your children, your grandchildren, especially.

What are they going to be facing? What is going to be coming for them? When this side, the social justice side, tries to come up with biblical categories, it's painful to watch. Not only what has to be ignored, but what has to be read into the text.

And then when especially someone like myself sees this already deeply planted in our theological institutions, you need to understand everyone who's being trained in ministerial, to become ministers to the next generation, right now in many schools that you would not expect it to be the case, have already been deeply infected by this.

I've seen this in social media. The kind of response that you get, very, very emotional, not biblical at all, but a very, very emotional intersectionality, oppression categories, the whole nine yards.

And that's what's coming. That's what's going to be in the pulpit. And to be called out for saying, well, this is divisive. Well, it is divisive. And it is specifically designed to be divisive. And when you see people actually defending the idea, and we're going to be looking at this a little later on, defending the idea of leaving churches solely based upon your racial comfort.

People suggest even promoting rebellion against proper authority within local churches based upon the color of the skin of the people who have been chosen by that congregation to be elders. This kind of thing is happening.

And there is no end game to it. There is no end game to it. It's not like, okay, can we all just have one big old reconciliation meeting, say everything's forgiven, and then we'll just go on from there?

No, that's not what is wanted. That's not going to accomplish anything. Instead, there seemingly is this idea of putting permanent divisions in place where one ethnic group will always be in some kind of penitential status toward another ethnic group within the church.

And if you understand the basis of the unity of the faith, the imputed righteousness of Christ, the equality of every believer, the fact that God has called his elect from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

Once you understand that, you see just how desperately dangerous this kind of a movement is, no matter how much biblical language you attempt to use to cover it. So, the statement, we were actually looking at, I think, at an earlier point in time, but you know how it is, trying to coordinate people, trying to get people to do stuff when they're supposed to get it.

Honestly, I got my edits in like two hours before the deadline type thing, because we're all very, very busy people. Everybody's been involved with this. It is interesting that I made mention to a number of the brethren who were involved with this at one point, that we just have to recognize that most of us, this is an important, vital issue, but it is not our life.

We don't get up first thing in the morning thinking about this particular topic. I have all sorts of other things I'm involved with. Some of you know I'm doing a debate on homosexuality this weekend, and I've just got all sorts of textual critical stuff I'm supposed to be doing.

We cannot dedicate ourselves entirely to any one of these topics. For many people on the other side, this is their life. This is what they wake up thinking about and go to bed thinking about. And that certainly gives them an advantage that we need to recognize.

One sentence, I just wouldn't put it that way. The importance in having signatures is the recognition on the part of everyone who signs that we reject the insertion into the life of the Church, into the very bloodstream of the Church.

Of these foreign, incompatible sources of authority that very clearly, in my opinion, have overridden the exegetical realities of Scripture and have given a foundation for some of the other stuff that we're going to be looking at and some of the things that people are saying.

Again, statement on socialjustice .com. I don't believe that it should be right or appropriate for people to be sitting back and just looking at who's signed, who hasn't, and when you get enough signatures or enough big names or whatever else it might be, that now jump on the bandwagon.

It's not a bandwagon. Let me address the reality of the political situation here. People who are not going to sign the statement. This is especially true within the Southern Baptist Convention. And the reason for this, we need to just simply understand, and I can talk about this straightforward because I'm an elder in a church, it's not a Southern Baptist Church, it's a Reformed Baptist Church, but we're not even an ARMCA Church.

We are an independent entity. We support many other people, but we don't owe fealty to some external organization in that sense. There is an 11th commandment in Southern Baptist life that I learned about in 2004 when I responded to Mark Seyfried, who at the time was teaching at Southern Seminary, on the subject of justification and found myself a pariah among Southern Baptists.

Because the 11th commandment of Southern Baptists is, thou shalt not speak ill of another Southern Baptist publicly. What that means is you have to do it privately, and it happens privately all the time.

But, thou shalt not speak ill of another Southern Baptist, and since clearly there are Southern Baptists who are in the lead in promoting critical race theory and social justice categories within the Southern Baptist Convention, then word has gone out among Southern Baptists that in certain institutions it has been directly stated.

An early copy of the statement was obtained, and the leadership said, got everybody together and said, thou shalt not sign. You shall not do it. So there are people who would like to sign it, but their very employment is up in the air if they do.

And the reason? You don't foment division. Well, I would of course argue that the fomenting of division has already been done. It was just done slowly and over time through the appointments of certain people, the bringing in of certain theologies that should not be there in the first place.

But, that's the reality. There are people who, because they work with this entity or that entity, whether it's Southern Baptist or other denominations, would like to stand with us and read it and go, I agree with everything it's saying, yeah, but I dare not say so.

There are ministries, and look, when you look at your donor list and you've got a certain amount of budget you've got to meet each month, it's very easy to say, I can tell this person, that person, that person, take a stand on this and it could be the end of that.

I get it. I understand. Each one of us is going to have to stand before our Lord someday and answer for what we did and did not do. And I can't stand in anybody else's place and I can fully understand their situation.

Obviously, for me, the danger, going down the road, the danger to what's going to happen to the church in the future is far more important than this ministry or me or anything along those lines. If I can use what small influence I might have to explain why we should resist the insertion of these unbiblical categories and these unbiblical movements, these divisions within the body, then I just simply have to do that to be consistent.

I believe that the exegesis that I have offered and will offer here in a few minutes has been pretty consistent over the years on this. And when people try to accuse me of inconsistency on that in social media, I normally go after them pretty strongly and demonstrate they don't have a leg to stand on.

But for others, young person, family, brand new mortgage, brand new job, between you and the Lord on that, I hope at least you'll be praying about it and praying that the Lord will heal the divisions.

Because the church does not need to be divided along ethnic lines at this time as the society around us becomes more and more secular and more and more hostile toward the Christian faith. Now, what I would like to do is, as I normally do, I think that the strength of the document is its biblical character.

And so, if I can contribute anything toward the promulgation of that document, what I can contribute has to do with the biblical foundation and especially an emphasis upon positively what should bring unity to the faith, unity to the church.

And that is a recognition of what God has done in Christ in a solid understanding of the gospel. This is the basis upon which we must base our understanding of the unity of the body and how people are to relate to one another within that body.

Colossians 3 and the New Man in Christ

So the first thing I did back in during the MLK 50 thing was to go to Colossians chapter 3. And I have seen absolutely, absolutely no meaningful exegetical refutation. In fact, normally what you get is, oh, well, yeah, yeah, we all agree with that.

But, and it's like, no, the but that you're adding shows that you haven't listened to what was actually said. But that's not the only text. There is one that is known to a lot of folks. If you want to look in your Bibles, in the Revelation, singular, Revelation chapter 5, we know at the end of this beautiful heavenly vision, and I think it is important to emphasize the fact that this comes at the end, the emphasis of chapters 4 and 5 is on God upon really the triune God, because you have the seven spirits there and then you have the lamb standing as a slain.

And so there's all sorts of incredibly important things we can derive from looking at that. But it comes at the end of this worship, adoration, exaltation. And then even in heaven, this recognition of this lamb standing as a slain and he is worthy and there's the uniqueness of what he's done.

And even that lamb standing as a slain, lion of Judah, all this terminology is going to be used throughout the Revelation, all meant to provide contrasting statements of truth about the glory of Christ.

If you've paid attention, for example, to my debates with Muslims over the years, I always emphasize when they're trying to say Jesus is just a prophet or he's just a man. Jesus is a prophet and Jesus is a man, but he's not just these things.

He's so much more than these things. That's where you're missing the boat is you're trying to limit what the New Testament revelation about Christ is. And the author of the Quran didn't even know what that New Testament revelation was.

That's one of the primary issues. And so when we get to Revelation 5 -9, the focus really isn't taken off of the lamb at all, but the content of their new song is an amazing thing. And it does teach us something that I think is very important in regards to our own situation today.

And so it says they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to receive or to take the book and to open its seals because you were slain and purchased for God in your blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

And so the object is not expressed, but the very term agaradzo, to redeem, to purchase, assumes something or someone that is being redeemed and purchased. And so you will notice the lamb is worthy to receive the book and to open its seals.

Why? Because of his redemptive death. You were slain and agaradzoed to God, purchased for God with your blood. People, if you want to avoid sexist language, because it's not expressed, so you've got to put something in there.

People from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. So you've got phuleis, gloses, la 'u, and ethnus. Poetic? Yes. But what it does is it helps us to see the parameters in which the New Testament revelation places the extent and purpose of the redemptive work of the lamb.

And it's men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. It is not men from one particular ethnos, one particular glosa. But at the same time, there's nothing here that says an equal number from any one particular one either.

That is completely and totally up to God. Because this is all God's work. There's nothing here about you have made it possible and therefore these people have done it. The whole man-centeredness thing just falls apart in so many of these texts.

It just doesn't make any sense. And you made them, to our God, kings and priests, and they will reign upon the earth. So notice, all of this is something that is done by God, by the lamb, by the power of the lamb, through his redemptive sacrifice.

I cannot emphasize too strongly the fact that if you really understand this, if you really have a biblical theology of atonement, specific, definite, substitutionary, redeeming atonement, not the squishy, liberal, look how much God loves us, but there really isn't anything about God's wrath, and there really isn't anything about propitiation, and there really isn't anything about God's justice or judgment or anything like that.

Not that kind of squishy stuff. Have you noticed that all the squishy denominations fall into whatever the society is doing at that time? They have to. They have no foundation to not fall into the pit.

But if you have a real biblical understanding of what the lamb accomplished, what it means by your blood, what it means to agradzo, to redeem, to purchase, purchase for God by your blood, this is a specific, powerful action based upon an eternal decree, an eternally chosen path of Father, Son, and Spirit that cannot be thwarted by the creature man.

All to his honor and glory. When you have that understanding, then you recognize that once you start bringing into the church, this is what got me into so much trouble, but here I go again. When you start bringing into the church divisions based upon ethnic experience, ethnic history, you are doing so at the cost of the price that has been paid for the redemption in the first place.

You are introducing a distinction into a body that God has wiped the distinctions out of by saving that entire body in one way. And at the time of the writing of these words, this was a multi-ethnic body filled with many people who otherwise, if what we're seeing today is appropriate, if what we're seeing in people saying you can go ahead and segregate yourself, if being around too many white people triggers you, then get away from them.

If that kind of an idea was present in the early church, there would have been, during the lifetime of the apostles, so many different ethnically based and ethnically derived churches, you couldn't have kept count of them.

There were all sorts of reasons for one person in the church to divide from another person in church because of what had happened in the past, but that's not what we see. That's not what you see in the worship of those in heaven.

One of the beautiful things is, are any of the martyrs divided from other martyrs in their worship of God? And yet there were Christian martyrs from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Whole rainbow of skin hues, but they're all united in their worship of God.

The point being, if they are united in heaven, that is supposed to be represented upon earth. And how can that be? It's not just simply, oh, we just really hope to get everybody to like everybody else and stuff like that.

No. The reason is found in the nature of the gospel itself. And in the all-powerful work of that shed blood, which is intentionally given for a specific people. In perfect harmony with the Father's decree of salvation, the Spirit's work of application.

The triune work. And so, keeping that in mind, we find a parallel that I think is very, very important that I want to bring to your attention as well. And I'll make some application from there. In Ephesians chapter 2, most of us know that we have there the discussion of the breaking down of the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile.

And we know that Jew and Gentile does not map directly onto any type of possible ethnic division within the church. However, let me point something out. What is very clear, what is very plain in the scriptures is that the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile was considered significantly more important than any possible ethnic-based division.

So, in other words, the distinction that was introduced by the old covenant, the nature of that covenant, the formation of the covenant people, and then in the fulfillment in the new covenant now going out to Jew and Gentile, very plainly for the New Testament apostles, recognizing what has happened there and the making of one man, one body, and the overcoming of that barrier wall was far more important than any perception of division based upon, fill in the blank, white versus black, Asian versus African or Russian or Chinese or whatever.

Any ethnic type of division pales into insignificance in comparison to Jew-Gentile situation. And if the Jew-Gentile situation has been dealt with by God, what does that mean? So, in Ephesians 2, we have, but now in Christ Jesus, you, the ones who were formerly Makran, far away, have been brought near in the blood of Christ.

Hmm. Blood of Christ. Revelation chapter 5, you, blood of Christ, by your blood, you have redeemed them. You have, hmm, seems to be a common element in the discussion. So, there was once a division. If you're familiar with the terms Makran and Angus, then you know, you who were formerly far have been brought near.

By what? By the blood of Christ. It is, it is the exclusivity of the atoning work of Christ, only way to be brought near. We're not, you know, all forms of religion call themselves Christianity that have become pluralistic.

Oh, we're just one way amongst any of us. It's not Christianity. Can't be. Because if, to be brought near is, to be brought near in the blood of Christ. Not by the blood of any other martyr, not by the blood of anyone else, but by the blood of Christ.

And so, this division, this standing outside, has been ended because God saves in one way. And whether you're black or white or green or pink or orange or teal, it doesn't matter. If you're going to be brought near, if you're going to have peace with God, there's only one way it's going to happen.

And that is through the blood of Jesus Christ. The new Adam, that makes a new humanity. For He, Himself, is our Irene, our peace. He is our peace. Not you're dealing with hurts you've been taught that you're supposed to be feeling from stuff that happened 50 to 150 to 300 years ago.

You don't get peace from that. He is our peace. You want to know why we can have peace in the body of Christ? Why we don't even have to bring up what happened in the past and relive it over and over and over and over and over and over again?

In a constant set of penitential acts? Because our focus isn't upon that. It's upon Him, who is our peace. Our Irene. He is our peace.

Who made...

And it's interesting, it uses a participle there. The maker, the one making, the two, one. And how does He make the two into one? By breaking down the barrier, the middle wall that is acting as a barrier between the two.

He breaks that down. He destroys that. How? Verse 15. And this is an interesting formulation, but He does so by abolishing in His flesh, and this would be a reference to His self-giving on the cross, the enmity.

The enmity. It's been abolished. May I suggest to anyone who brings enmity into the church, you are doing so against the very nature of the gospel of Christ itself. That's what I was trying to say with that meme that got me into so much trouble.

When you come to the Lord's Supper, come to the Lord's table, stop talking about white spaces and black spaces. Most of us don't even think along those lines. Don't even have the categories for thinking along those lines.

And wonder where you got them from. But you bring those to the Lord's table, and you don't understand this text. You don't believe it. You're rebelling against it. One man destroyed the dividing wall, and he does so in His flesh, in His sacrifice.

The enmity is gone. Now, what is that enmity? Well, it's the law of commandments in dogma sin that is contained in ordinances. He has destroyed those. In order that, He might make the two into one, and you've got creation here.

Might create out of the two, the one. In Him, a new man, having made peace. Making, actually, literally, making peace. So, this is a real peace. It's not just, well, we should be striving for peace. No, it's a real peace.

Thus, establishing or making peace because there is one new man. And, hmm, new man, where did we hear that before? Oh, that's Colossians 3, isn't it? That renewal in which there is no distinction. In all those different things, which included ethnicity, politics, everything else.

One new man, establishing peace. There will not be peace in a social justice dominated church. Because you've lost the means by which true divine peace is made. Because even if you can enforce some kind of peace based upon the current version of social justice, this society is changing so fast, next week you're going to have to modify what you did last week.

You need to have an objective, solid foundation. That's only found, the only peace that's going to be meaningful is that which is found and made by Christ. And might reconcile them both in henni somati, one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity, the ekhron.

Please listen to what that says. I was having a conversation with a dear brother in the Lord, a brilliant man, said just in passing to me, and I did not pick it up and debate it at that point in time.

You don't have to debate everything someone says at every time someone says it. You learn that. My day you learn that at about 16, now you learn it at about 56. But the comment was made to me, I don't know how anyone can argue against racial reconciliation.

I argue against that phrase, and I'll argue against it right now. If what you mean by racial reconciliation is that the blood of Christ reconciles men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, well, duh.

That's a given. That's just sort of a tautology. That's not what racial reconciliation means when it's being used within the church today. What you see with racial reconciliation today is this penitential demand.

When you have a walk of shame for white students at a Bible college. Now, look, if you have a walk of shame for racists at a Bible college, that's different. You see, if racism is a sin, and one of the things that is said in those statements is racism is a sin.

If racism is a sin, then what color skin you have has nothing to do with whether you can or cannot commit it. And so if everybody, white, black, Asian, Russian, whatever, can walk that as a public confession of having had racist animus in their hearts, great.

But you and I both know that's not why it's there. It's about you're guilty for what your ancestors did, and you've got this privilege and that privilege, and so you need to do this and that. And that is not what we're talking about in Ephesians chapter 2.

If you mean racial, as in merely ethnic groups, okay. But let's not forget there is only one human race. And by reconciliation, that is a deeply theological term. It's right here, might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross.

Jew and Gentile, and the Gentiles are all thrown in here. There is no room for even recognizing ethnicity here. If you're a Gentile, you're reconciled on the exact same basis as the Jew. And every other Gentile, one body to God through the cross.

Just one, because there's only one way. There's only one righteousness. There's only one sacrifice. And so the reconciliation is accomplished by God, not by us. But there can be reconciliation in the body.

If two brothers fall out, and we talk about reconciliation, okay. What does that have to do with ethnic reconciliation? Because everything that I hear when people say, well, we need to pursue racial reconciliation in the church.

What do you mean by that? Well, what that means is, and then immediately, you will leave the categories of Ephesians 2, Colossians 3, Romans 5, or anything else. And all of a sudden, you've got intersectionality and oppression, and let's just be honest, Neo-Marxism.

You get critical race theory stuff. Well, you know, that person's ancestors did this out of the other thing, and they haven't shown sufficient repentance for what their ancestors did. Type of an argument.