GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from the Afrikaans Version: God het die mens geskape na Sy beeld.
Translator: Lynda Botha
In a previous letter I wrote about the Word of God, which does not prevent people from marrying someone with a different colour or race. I was again, for the umpteenth time, to put it mildly, at odds regarding this moot point with people dead set against marriage within different race and colour.
Our Lord only looks at people's souls. He does not distinguish between different skin colours when it comes to who becomes part of His sacred people. After all, my body is just a tent that I use here on Earth on my way to Heaven.
2 COR 5:1 “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
2 COR 5:2 “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.”
Here is my answer to this person and thereafter I will continue with my discussion:
When our Lord created humans, He created only one human race. Mostly everything else that changed and went wrong was because humanity chose to listen to Satan. Such as pests, diseases, disabilities, deformity and yes, even skin colour. By the way, no one can prove today that Adam and Eve were this or that colour. Fortunately, this does not matter, because just over 2,000 years ago, the fullness of time came.
GAL 4:4 “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law…”
Then this person wrote the following:
"Faith itself has nothing to do with race or God's Creation. He did not die on the cross for race, no; it was about faith, a battle between darkness and light which started before the foundation of this earth.” I say this with love. We cannot put different things together to create our own answers.”
It seems like a very nice argument, but you know, faith means nothing if there aren’t A human race in which there are people who makes these believes their own.
I don’t read in the Word of God that our Lord loved faith when He walked the path to Golgotha. I read in God’s Word that He loved the human race so much so that He walked the path to Golgotha He did that for each and every person in this world. Yes, for humanity as a whole and I will mention just one example:
JHN 3:16 “For God so loved the world (all people in this world irrespective of their colour or gender) that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him (all people who believes in Him irrespective of their colour or gender) should not perish but have everlasting life.”
JHN 3:17 “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world (not to condemn people in this world, irrespective of colour or gender), but that the world (all people in the whole world, irrespective of their colour, gender, disabilities, deformity or any other shortcomings) through Him might be saved.”
Then.
For me, it is only logical that people who belong to the same nation in the eyes of our Lord, may marry each other, and according to our Lord, all people who accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour belongs to the same nation.
1 PE 2:9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light;”
1 PE 2:10 “who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
Not only are all of us who accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour people of the same nation, but all of us who are part of that nation, is also heirs with Christ.
ROM 8:16 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”
ROM 8:17 “and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. From suffering to glory.”
It is totally inconceivable to me that people of the same nation, with Jesus as joint heir, who will all one day live in Heaven together, cannot marry each other. Do you know what saddens me when it comes to people who call themselves Christians? Many people are walking around with this prejudice in their hearts towards other people, but only towards people who are not of the same colour as they are of course. They will create a commotion if Christians marry each other from different nations and they are not of the same colour, but very few Christians will bat an eye when a Christian marries an atheist of the same colour as they are, unless of course they have different skin colours, then it is a horse of a very different colour and all hell breaks loose. You know, the only reason why a Christian -and I emphasize Christian – may not marry anyone else, is if that other person is not a Christian. But the guideline that our Lord laid down in this regard, are for the most Christians simply not a problem in the current times we live in today and therefore the Christian divorce statistical numbers are not declining a millimetre compared to the unbelieving world. It seems to me that Satan succeeded in blinding some people with ethnical colour, that the actual reason why Christians should not marry another person are obscured.
2 COR 6:14-16
14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”
15 “And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?”
16 “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
You insinuated that I was not well researched about what I wrote, and I quote what you wrote to me:
"It's very dangerous if one has not done proper research in topics and then give ignorant advice about a certain topic."
I only have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to guide me. I therefore quote everything I write out of the Word of God and then people can establish for themselves what they want to do with the information given.
Other similar letters were addressed to me and then they would compare for example humankind with birds and then their reasoning would be something like:
“Look at nature, birds do not mix, each living with his own kind, though they all live in the same tree.”
So, with my tongue in my cheek – if I may take poultry as an example. There is an English proverb that says: "What is good for the goose is good for the gander." There are also birds that eat other birds. Do I have to condone cannibalism then? No! Of course not. You see there is a substantial difference in the way our Lord created the animals and how our Lord created humankind. Let me show you.
GEN 1:25 “And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”
Have you seen?
The animals were created "According to their kind."
And then our Lord created humankind.
GEN 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
GEN 1:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them.”
Do you see the difference?
Our Lord created humans in His image. We are not created in our species like the animals, we are created in the image of our Lord. Said with great respect: Every human is created in God's kind.
GEN 1:26 “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;”
Our Lord made the animals in a certain way, but we are His highest creation, which were created differently in His image.
For this humankind who God created in His image, He sent His Son. So that the humankind created in God's Image don’t have to become lost.
As I have already mentioned, all the evils, pests, diseases, disabilities and, yes, all the different ethnic colours and other features that are unique to a particular race has derived from the Fall. I read and listened to so many Christians opinion regarding this matter, which is nothing more than racism fuelled by bad feelings, and I feel like shouting out the words of my hero Paul:
ROM 6:1 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”
ROM 6:2 “Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”
Unfortunately, because people will be people and not all people look at other people the way Jesus did, I would like to mention:
That if a Christian couple in love, want to marry each other across the so-called colour line, they must keep in mind, besides the pressures Satan are going to place on their marriage, there are always going to be other kinds of pressures as well. Pressures coming from one or other person, which will sound very religious by stating their opinion on interactional marriages or ethnical colour but will unfortunately be in actual fact very far from God’s inspirational behaviour. Because unfortunately human’s sinful nature will remain what it is.
Greetings,
Sakkie