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The Biblical Basis for Multi-ethnic Congregations

Brad Beier

May 2001

In the 1980s, more than 600,000 legal, and an estimated equal number of illegal, immigrants enter the United States per year. The numbers have increased yearly, and immigrants tend to have a higher birthrate than native citizens.[1] In North America in 1993, there were 500 ethnic groups which spoke 636 languages (26 of those languages are considered major languages).[2] In Philadelphia, residents say of the ethnic mosaic in their city, “Walk our streets and you tour the world.”[3]

In most urban centers in the United States a panoply of races, ethnic groups, and international immigrants go to schools together, shop at the same malls and supermarkets, use the same medical facilities, and even dine at the same restaurants. Is there any reason, then, for 11 A.M.every Sunday to be segregated?[4] Have we made an effort to evangelize and enfold “these unreached people who were beyond our reach prior to their immigration from closed countries?”[5] They are generally very receptive to the gospel because of how the Holy Spirit uses the seismic changes in their lives upon migrating to a strange land. I hope to present in this paper a biblical historical[6] case for planting multiethnic local congregations[7] of Christian churches. We will consider this under three sections:

1)Adam to Babel: from unity to diversity; 2) The reconciliation work of Christ for the nations as seen in Acts and selected epistles of Paul; and 3) The eschatological multiethnic assembly of the redeemed. Please note that this Biblical survey is far from exhaustive!

  1. Adam to Babel: from unity to diversity.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness.”...So God created the man

in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”

Genesis 1:26a, 27-28b

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth in brilliant colors and perfect beauty, He crowned creation by forming man from the dust, breathing the breath of life into him, and making woman from the man. The Creator designed the first humans in His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Col3:10; Eph 4:24). God blessed them and made them to be rulers and progenitors of the whole earth. From the one man in the pristine garden, the Lord brought forth every subsequent human being.

In this genesis, God did not create different races or ethnic groups. Rather, God certainly “must have put the kind of gene in man to produce diverse people as we have them today. The biblical assertion…shows the unity of man and woman.”[8] This common ancestry of the kaleidoscope of peoples from every nation is what Paul refers to in Acts 17:26: “And He made from one man every ethnic group of mankind, to inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” How in the world (literally) did the vast variety of humanity’s colors, cultures, and languages arise from Adam and spread across the globe? Before we consider how such diversity entered the world, we must recall that first sin entered the world.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned….[T]hrough the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners…” (Rom 5:12, 19a). The first man broke the covenant that God made with him, and consequently, his sin was reckoned to every human’s account. This arrangement is not unfair[9] because as the Westminster Shorter Catechism #16 sums up the Scriptural evidence, “The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.”

Thus, the diversity of mankind is united not only in original creation, but also in original sin. Every person has in common not only the imago Dei, but that image marred by sin. “Jews and Gentiles alike are under sin….There is no one righteous not even one, there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one….There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:9b, 10-12, 22b-23). Ephesians 2:3-4 explains in more graphic detail how we all are slaves to sin: “All of us also lived among [the spiritually dead, who follow the ways of this world and of Satan] at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”

Truly, God is not delighted to call his creatures objects of wrath, but Genesis 6 relates that Yahweh was so grieved that He had made man that He purposed to annihilate mankind for all his pervasive perversity. The flood of God’s wrath did not touch Noah, who found favor in Yahweh’s eyes, or Noah’s family, and God told his servant after the deluge, “As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it” (Gen 9:7). Notice that this command is the same as the one given to Adam and Eve in the garden, before the Fall. There is continuity in God’s plan. The many descendants of the one original family were reduced to one family once again in Noah; but God’s intent was for people to populate the planet.

Accordingly, Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, “from whom the whole earth was populated” (Gen 9:19). Genesis 10 introduces the table of seventy clans that descended from these three sons; each section concludes with a formula summarizing the preceding narrative in terms of families (genealogy), languages (linguistics), lands (territories), and nations (politics).[10] Thus the story of the radiation of every nation is first recorded in genealogies, but in chapter 11 the explanation is given from a complementary vantage point[11]: the account of Babel.

Nimrod built the city of Babylon (i.e., Babel), one of the first centers of his kingdom (Gen 10:10). At this city the monolingual world of men came together to build a great tower to make a name for themselves, no longer obediently scattering throughout the earth. God had given Adam the gift of speech as a blessing, so as to name the animals and speak to his wife and to God; men, however, were now perverting speech in order to usurp God’s rightful rule. Yahweh would not allow this kind of man-exalting effort to continue and He confused their speech and scattered them from that place. God put “an end to their arrogant humanism and their one-world policy.”[12] But the judgment of God was sprinkled with grace. VanEngen remarks:

I see Babel as judgment, yes, but also as grace. The beauty of resplendent creativity shines

forth in the wonderful multiplication of families, tribes, tongues and peoples of humanity. Rather than destroy humanity (which in the Noahic covenant God had promised not to do), God chooses to confuse the languages. This confusion, although an act of judgment, mercifully preserves all humanity in its cultural and ethnic distinctives…[13]

The subsequent migration of divergent families and the development of different “dialects and languages reveal that in God’s divine design He planned diverse cultures from the beginning—not a single centralized society of mankind.”[14]

The implications of God’s preservation of the various peoples spill over into Genesis 12, which is the narrative of Yahweh’s call of Abram to leave his country, people, and father’s household and go to a distant land. The promise of God to Abram is this: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing…and all families on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:2, 3b). The blessing of a great nation through and great name to Abram was for the purpose of him being a blessing to others. Not only will smaller people groups (families) be blessed through this man, but larger entities like nations (Gen 18:18) as well. God’s blessing would “be experienced by nations, clans, tribes, people groups, and individuals.”[15] Of course, this promise is passed on to Abraham’s grandson Jacob: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through your seed” (Gen 28:14b).

Through the seed of Jacob, that is the people of Israel, the multitude of nations would be blessed. Moreover, the individual Seed of the woman prophesied of in Genesis 3:15 would reverse the curse put upon mankind, heal the Babel judgment, and perfectly and ultimately fulfill the Abrahamic covenant promise. All peoples are created equal in terms of the image of God and in their sinful nature. The offer of the gospel promise of the Old Testament (OT) universally incorporates every nation and people group who receives the promised Seed. When such innate solidarity humanity is seen clearly, a multiethnic church becomes a possibility.[16]

Even in the OT, a trickle of Gentiles from the nations came into the covenant community of Israel and worshipped with the people of God. The biblical illustrations of this phenomenon abound; one is when King Solomon dedicated the temple of God. Solomon prayed on behalf of the non-Semitic foreigners who would hear of God’s great name and mighty hand, come from distant lands to the temple, and pray. The King requested that these Gentiles’ prayers be answered so that all the peoples of the earth might know and fear Yahweh, as His people Israel did (1 Kng 8:41-43).

Not only is a slow trickle of diverse peoples evident in the days of Israel’s kings, but numerous texts prophesy that a veritable flood from all the people groups will unite in worship one day[17]. Isaiah is replete with such eschatological predictions of multiethnic worship as 56:6-8:

And sons of foreigners who bind themselves to Yahweh to serve Him, all who keep the Sab-

bath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—these I will bring to my holy

mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer….for my house will be called a house of

prayer for all the peoples. Adonai Yahweh declares, He who gathers the banished of Israel:

“Yet even more I will gather unto them who are gathered.”

2. The reconciling work of Christ for the nations as seen in Acts and selected epistles of Paul

As previously mentioned, the Seed of the woman through the godly line of Abraham and Jacob would become the Savior of the world. Of course, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah and Son of God, fulfilled the promise of salvation which God displayed in the “sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to [God’s] people Israel” (Lk 2:31-32). Jesus was born a Jew and was sent first to the lost sheep of Israel, but a study of His ministry will show that He ministered among and called to salvation the Gentiles.[18] After His resurrection, Jesus sent His disciples just as the Father sent Him, and He told them to “make disciples of all the nations” (Mat 28:19). The Lord said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mk 16:15). Luke recounts that the Master taught that “repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:47).

Acts

Accordingly, Luke opens the book of Acts with Jesus’ instructions to the disciples: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth” (Ac 1:8). Jesus makes clear that the Gospel audience is to be world-wide, membership in the Kingdom of God is multiethnic, and the power by which disciples will be made of all the nations is of the Holy Spirit. Acts records the gospel’s spread throughout the Mediterranean world in just such a manner, radiating from the Jerusalem outward to the farthest reaches of the known world.

Luke relates to us in Acts 2 that in A.D. 30 on the day of Pentecost, God-fearing Jews and proselytes from every nation under heaven were in Jerusalem; each language heard the Spirit-filled disciples of Christ declaring praises to God in his own tongue. Peter preached to the multiethnics and 3000 responded to Peter’s call to repentance and baptism in Jesus Christ’s name, so that their sins would be forgiven and they would receive the Holy Spirit who was promised “for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Ac 2:38-41). The significance of this multilingual gathering and conversion is highlighted upon comparison of this event to the Babel narrative.

At Pentecost the Lord of the nations beautifully healed the judgment which was given to the nations at Babel. The confusion of languages that scattered the peoples in order to discourage self-exaltation is now dealt with in such a way that the multiplicity of languages remains, but the people can now understand the one message of salvation in their own tongues. Hence, this is not a reversal, but a remedy of Babel, for the diverse languages remain. The gift of the Holy Spirit transcended the language barrier, so that the people may be joined into the Body of Christ as one. Once again, the peoples are scattered, but this dispersion is not to prevent them making a name for themselves; rather, they are to scatter and proclaim the great name of the Lord Jesus. Fernando comments:

Pentecost also signals the breaking of barriers that have separated the human race since Babel, with the formation of a new humanity in Christ….[According to Gempf,] “Babel and

Eden are not ‘undone’ as much as they are redeemed and their negative effects nullified.”[19]

God does not imperialistically homogenize the church into one cultural expression. Rather, the Holy Spirit unifies the diversity of ethnic expressions among the nations, breaking down barriers, so that the many may worship as the one. The Pentecost event inaugurated the international church.

The same Peter who preached at Pentecost ministered mainly monoculturally to the Jerusalem Jews. However, he was the first to take the gospel to the Gentiles when he ministered to Cornelius, a centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment (Ac 10:1). This was quite a radical event, since Peter the Jew had entered the house of and eaten with an uncircumcised (in the flesh) Gentile to whom God granted repentance unto life (Ac 11:1-3, 18). But soon, cross-cultural evangelism and multiethnic church planting became the normal means for the good news to spread throughout the nations.[20] Almost everywhere in the early church, the gospel was first preached in synagogues to Jews and Gentiles who met together.[21] Would those who first worshipped together in the synagogues now break off into ethnically-segregated house churches?

Acts 13 lists the diversity of leaders of the church Antioch: Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus; Symeon who was nicknamed Niger (Black); Lucius (a Gentile name) of Cyrene (a North African city); Manaen, a foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul, an ex-Pharisee Hebrew and Roman citizen. We will now turn to Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, to see how he carried the message of reconciliation to such a plurality of ethnic groups.[22]

Romans

Among the fifteen language groups named which were present at Pentecost, there were visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.[23] Surely some from the Roman party were among those who repented and believed in the Christ. Presumably, Saul of Tarsus (later Paul), a devout Pharisee, was in Jerusalem on that day to witness or at least hear about this divine demonstration of power. This same Paul later wrote an epistle, “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints,” saints both Jew and Gentile[24] (Rom. 1:7a). Many scholars hypothesize that those who saw the wonders and heard the wonderful preaching on Pentecost are likely those who began the church in Rome.

First-century Rome “was the greatest city in the world with over one million inhabitants (one inscription says over four million)”;[25] perhaps fifty thousand of those were Jews (including proselytes).[26] In A.D. 49 the Roman emperor Claudius proclaimed an edict that expelled Jews and Jewish Christians from Rome (c.f. Ac 18:2). When Nero succeeded Claudius in A.D. 54, the edict was automatically annulled, which allowed Jewish believers to return.[27] During the first two and a half decades of the gospel’s spread in Rome (c.f. 15:23 “many years”), and especially during the time of the expulsion, Gentile believers grew in number and influence in Roman Christian assemblies. Their faith was “reported all over the world” (Rom 1:8b) by the time Paul wrote the epistle in A.D. 57.