Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
State troopers struggling with reckless drivers have sometimes been accused of racial profiling, in which the real charge is that of driving while black. But the issue has been raised again in the United States’ struggle against terrorists. A columnist has pointed out that terrorists are not often Arabs or sometimes Arabs but always Arabs. They are the result of schools in Arab countries—and some schools here—that have taught hatred of America and proclaimed holy war.
As Christians, we must embrace racial profiling not of Arabs but of ourselves. There is a racial profile that is given to believers. We are made members not just of a new group but of a new race. The Apostle Paul teaches that there are two heads of mankind. On the one hand, we are all descended from Adam, the representative head of all mankind. Adam’s children were born bearing his image. But Christ is the Second Adam, and His people also bear His image.
Racism tears apart peoples and nations. America wants to hold before the world an example of democratic unity that embraces many races and cultures. Without the leaven of the gospel, that measure of toleration would not have been achieved. This is because both sides of the gospel undercut racism. Since Adam represented all in his sin, all have sinned in Adam, the representative of one race—the human race. Because Jesus is the Second Adam, He represented all who are united to Him. As in Adam all died, so in Christ all are made alive. Christians are those who were no people, but now are the people of God (1 Peter 2:10). Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).
That citizenship is marked by baptism. Baptism is a naming ceremony as well as a sign of cleansing. We are baptized into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). It marks our inclusion in the family of God, in the people who are called by His name. Of course, being given God’s name in baptism does not guarantee that our names are written in heaven’s book of life. Yet baptism is the sign of that registration. Not only do we bear God’s triune name, He bears our name. Our name as His people is engraved on the palms of the Savior’s hands, the hands that were pierced for us on the cross (Isa. 49:16).
We think of ethnic churches. In some areas of the United States, many churches are made up mostly of Hollanders, some who came into the United States by way of Canada. In West Philadelphia, where I was brought up, Westminster Presbyterian Church had a Scotch-Irish identity. When I first visited Belfast, I met people with the right names—names of people at Westminster Church, such as Robinson, McRae, and Stuart.
Ethnic churches in this sense, however, are named for the peoples and nations of their origin in the divided tribes and nations of the world. Above that, there is a spiritual ethnicity shared by all Christians. They are the people of God. Adam was, as Paul says, “of the earth,” formed of dust. The New Adam is heavenly (1 Cor. 15:45–47). Paul says that when the last trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised incorruptible. We shall be changed to bear the image of the Last Adam, the Lord from heaven.
Yet even now, before the resurrection, we possess new life in Christ. We have been united to Him, not only as the New Adam who represents us, but as the living Lord who gives us life.
How then do we show the profile of the new race, the new humanity of Christ? Paul paints the picture for us in contrasts. He tells us that if we will walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). He describes on the one hand what the works of the flesh look like, beginning with sexual sins, then including not only idolatry but jealousy, bursts of anger, and selfish ambition. On the other hand, he describes the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There you have the racial profile of those who are united to Christ, the new humanity in Him.
As the Second Adam, Jesus represents us. We are accepted as righteous because God accepts us in Christ. We have the gift of His righteousness. Yet our union with Christ is vital as well as representative. We partake of the life of the risen Lord. Not only are our names written in heaven, our life is changed on earth. Jesus, who ascended to carry our names before the Father, has descended in the power of His Spirit to remake us in His image. Our Lord Jesus does not renew us from a distance. He is present by His Spirit to give us the spiritual profile of the new humanity in Him. We died to sin in the death of Christ; we rose to new life in His resurrection. He has done it. We live by faith, claiming the reality of what He did for us and does in us.
The presence of the Spirit of Jesus is personal. We know living fellowship with the Lord through the Spirit. The Spirit pours out in our hearts God’s love. Since it is God’s love for us that the Spirit gives, we experience that reality. The Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the Lord’s. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper seal to us the reality of the broken body and poured-out blood of Christ. The Word and the sacraments that bind us to Him also bind us to one another.
Will others recognize the racial profile of the new humanity in Christ’s image? Unless we deny Him and substitute our achievements for Holy Spirit transformation, the answer is “Yes.” In the turbulence of our times, the profile of the new humanity will be evident by His grace!