Legitimate Differences and Illegitimate Divisions – Part 1

here is a lot of unresolved conflict in the world. The humankind is a race divided with barriers between everything from global powers to issues surrounding the domestic front. Where do we begin to resolve this? The beginning to the answer is found in Adam’s severance of his relationship with God and ultimately, reconciliation to the Lord. Paul’s teachings, particularly his epistle to the Roman believers, explains where and how reconciliation begins among ourselves and the world at large, and its necessity in becoming one body, united in Christ, for the purposes of God.

Though reconciliation to God starts individually for each of us, God’s agenda is much greater than that. He is creating in those reconciled to Him a new community/a new humanity that is united in Jesus Christ. That’s why the doctrine of the church is the goal of the Gospel, where men, women, boys and girls, united together in Christ, become a community of people who impact and change the world around them. Stuart Briscoe said, “When God created Adam, He created an individual, and when He created Eve, He created something completely different – He created society. If the answer to the fallen individual is Christ, the answer to a fallen society is the church.”

Paul’s great dilemma in establishing the early churches was one of disunity between the Jews and Gentiles, the reasons were centuries old. The Jewish people had been set apart by God to fulfill His purpose, and the Gentiles were excluded from that purpose. In the Old Testament, Jewish people had citizenship in Israel. They had the covenants of the promise. They had the patriarchs, the law, the temple worship, and the divine glory as son and daughters of God. They had hope and they had God. In contrast, the Gentiles were without any of this. Paul uses debilitating words to describe their condition: foreigners, aliens, separated, excluded, without God, without hope.

The Jews and Gentiles were very different, and their differences had become divisions. Their differences were of God, and are excusable, but the divisions were not of God and are inexcusable. The purpose of the Jewish nation was that they would bless the world and, therefore, their presence would enrich the Gentiles. Instead, they became elite and arrogant, looking down on the “uncircumcised” (Gentiles). In fact, Orthodox Jews began each day thanking God that they were not a slave, a woman or a Gentile. Something had become very poisonous. Their elitism created an immense arrogance, and although it was not legitimate, they could rationalize to themselves and to their sons who came after them.

The biggest controversy in the early church was that if a Gentile wanted to become a Christian, did they first have to convert to Judaism?  If a male, does he have to be circumcised (the OT external mark of the community of God – Israel)? Keep in mind, all of the converts on the day of Pentecost, when the Church came into existence, were Jewish. And there were many Jewish Christians who took the stance that unless a man was circumcised, he could not be saved. If you want to be one of God’s people, you have to become one of us, but actually it’s the opposite. If you become one of God’s people, then you become one of a much wider community in Christ for He has joined both Jew and Gentile together into one community. The Jewish elitism had become a thing of the past, and under the New Covenant, made redundant with Christ being the Chosen One, the Head of this new body.

In society today, particularly in the western world, Jew or Gentile heritage is no longer a problem. But there are general principles in this controversy that apply to many areas of our lives. There are legitimate differences that exist which have become illegitimate divisions. Prejudices exist against gender, age, race, culture, and even the individual abilities one has. But in Christ, we cannot think that one person or one group is more superior to another. That creates divisions and divisions become destructive.

Paul’s purpose in his letter to the Ephesians is to establish unity and reconciliation between the divisions. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). In verses 15 & 16, he says, “His purpose was that in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” What we need to understand is that if this reconciliation is in Christ, and we are brought near through the blood of Christ, and made one through the cross of Christ, then the division and fragmentation is, at root, a spiritual issue, which can only be properly rectified when it begins at the cross of Christ, through the blood of Christ, and being put in Christ. Meeting together at the foot of the Cross is not a sentimental thing. It is saying that what has caused this division is sin, and we meet on the basis of forgiveness, and desire to be cleansed.