Striving for Equality 1-4-09
In a recent episode of the television show Eli Stone, the lead character Eli (a lawyer who receives prophetic visions through the effects of a brain aneurysm) handled a case in which a recently transgendered person sued a Methodist church to regain their position as pastor. The person had been the female pastor of the church, then secretly led a cross-dressing double life, and then underwent the “gender reassignment surgery” (a sex change operation). Then this person was fired; thus the lawsuit for discrimination. Throughout the episode, it was interesting to note that the “congregation” was not upset about the gender change, cross-dressing, or any of the other glaring issues; what caused the upset was the double-life/lying to the congregation issue.
Now of course this is a television show written by people with little desire to know God’s truth; but what I find fascinating is an exchange by one of the attorneys (of whom it is revealed used to be a member of this particular congregation in the lawsuit) and the client about a Bible passage:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28 NIV)
The discussion summed up this passage as: everyone has equal access to God. The show was striving to show that being one in Christ meant that everyone was close to God. This is common to what the “secular” world would like to believe, and it is unfortunately all too common in the church these days.
For some reason, more and more Christians are jumping onto the equal access to God message. It seems that if there is something in your life that is keeping you from God, then the answer is to change the message to allow that something. And then these same Christians wonder why God is not blessing his people!
Too many people spend way too much time and energy on attaining equality. People see themselves disadvantaged or oppressed because of race, gender, sexual orientation, creed, economic status, and numerous other reasons. Even in the churches, you can find men wanting to be women, women wanting to act like men, new converts asserting power and “mature” Christians submitting to bizarre new doctrines. All trying to attain “equality”, which is seen as being synonymous with “parity”. The difference between the two is seen in this passage:
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2 NIV)
Equality means that everyone has an atoning sacrifice in Jesus; parity means that everyone has the same atonement. From this parity idea, we get groups that have opened up the church leadership to women and the membership to those who are not only living godless lives, but glory in it (such as with homosexuality); some have even made the transition to perverting the Gospel to encourage such perversion and godlessness! But this is not what God wants us to teach.
While God is patiently waiting for man to repent and enter salvation, he is not compromising on righteousness in any way. He has said from the beginning that certain things (including homosexuality) are sin and are condemned; Jesus did not change that position one bit! While all homosexuals have equal access to God, there is no parity between those who will repent and obey Christ and those who will not. What those who wrote that television show chose to ignore was the context of the passage that they used; the full passage is this:
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29 NIV)
You can only be “one in Christ Jesus” if you are a son of God through faith and baptism. There is only one name that we can call upon – Jesus. There is only one gate through which we enter salvation – Jesus. There is only one message of truth and salvation – the Gospel of Jesus.
Many people love the analogy of a mountain, saying that there are many paths up the mountain. That is actually true – but every one of them leads to death and destruction except for one: Jesus Christ. Let’s lead people up that path!