All One in Christ

"Ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28)

Diana and I were married in an old country church in the backwoods of Georgia. The church has stood since the late 1700's and is practically impossible to find unless you know somebody who goes there. Several years after we were married we went back and visited the church again. This time the pastor gave me a book of lost church records they had found in an box in the attic. The records dated all the way back to the early days of the church and into the common age. I believe the last entry was in the 1960's.

When I began reading the records I grew more and more surprised at what I had found. Over and over again there were documented accounts of slave owners and slaves, members of the same church, and their interactions. I had never come across this kind of history, especially not so close to home. But the book was very revealing.

In it were recorded instances of slaves disrespecting their owners and being excommunicated from the church for a season, that is, until they repented and were brought back into fellowship with the church. It was very evident that slaves could attend the church, and even be members (to some extent of the meaning), but their role was one of complete submission. There was no equality in the sense of human rights. But I often wonder how the church viewed them in Christ? Did they see their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as spiritually equal? Unfortunately  I do not have an answer to this question. But Paul does address this issue very pointedly.

"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:26-29)

Paul contends that if we are in Jesus Christ by faith, then we are all brothers and sisters of the same faith, and therefore, equal in spiritual standing. There is no hierarchy of spirituality. Unfortunately, many Christians fail to realize this. It's quite easy to see pastors, deacons, and elders as being spiritually superior to us common folk of the faith. It's even easier to fall into this lie if our culture teaches us that we must fall into our respective rung on the social ladder.

But Paul says all believers have been baptized into the same Jesus Christ. No one has attained a greater spiritual standing by right or sacrament, but we are all equal by faith. He tells us, there is no such thing as Jew or Greek in Christ. Slaves and free men are a thing of the past. Even the perception that men are superior to women is destroyed by faith in Christ.

In Jesus Christ we are all made brothers and sisters by the same blood. We are called out of our respective nations to be made into one holy nation, the nation of God. We have new identity in Jesus Christ and new citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. And though we are temporarily bound by the constraints of this world (our nationality, language, ethnicity, gender, class), in Jesus Christ, all that is done away with.

You are saved by grace through faith just as your pastor is saved by grace through faith; just as parents and children are saved by grace through faith; just as Chinese believers are saved by grace through faith; just as Iranians are saved by grace through faith; just as Koreans are saved by grace through faith; just as Americans are saved by grace through faith; and so on, and so on, and so on...

And being equals in Christ we have an equal inheritance in him. Jews will not receive a better inheritance, neither will the apostles, nor your pastor, nor your brother or sister. We will all inherit eternal life in Jesus Christ to the praise of his glory.

So, if you are in Christ, would you let me call you my brother and my sister? Would you be my brother and my sister?

With love in Jesus Christ,

Jay Silvas