Tuesday, June 2, 2020

The Power of the Gospel for Unity and Reconciliation

In a time of profound national division, let us remember the power of the gospel to foster powerful unity in the middle of great diversity.
Ephesians 2:12-14, 18-19: 12 Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
From the beginning, sin separated man and woman from God and also from one another. This sin stood (and stands) at the root of ethnic pride and prejudice. When Christ went to the cross, he conquered sin, making the way for people to be free from its hold and restored to God. In doing so, he paved the way for all people to be reconciled to one another. Followers of Christ thus have one “Father” as one “family” in one “household,” with no “dividing wall of hostility” based upon ethnic diversity.
As David Platt says about the unifying power of the gospel: “The gospel does not deny the obvious ethnic, cultural, and historical differences that distinguish us from one another. Nor does the gospel suppose that these differences are merely superficial. Instead, the gospel begins with a God who creates all men and women in his image and then diversifies humanity according to clans and lands (Genesis 10) as a creative reflection of his grace and glory in distinct groups of people. The gospel compels us to celebrate our ethnic distinctions, value our cultural differences, and acknowledge our historical diversity, even forgiving the ways such history may have been dreadfully harmful.”
Would you join us in praying that God, through the power of the gospel, would bring healing to our country in this time?