Christian Race Realism, part 2: Scripture
July 4th 2024
In the introduction we considered the need for the teaching of race realism in light of prevailing anti-white hatred and the church’s failure to oppose it. We then defined race realism in this way:
Race realism is the recognition that mankind is divided into distinct races, that the differences between the races are large and relatively permanent, and that this racial diversity ought to be acknowledged, celebrated, and defended.
After explaining this definition, we gave our reasons in particular for pursuing Christian race realism. The first was our desire that, when considering this natural matter, we might hear not only nature, but nature’s God, its Creator and Governor, as he speaks in his inspired and infallible Word, the Bible.
Now, as race is a natural matter, it would be appropriate, even natural, to begin first with natural arguments, such as we will present in the following article. Scripture itself presumes nature, and never contradicts it, guiding us to the right understanding thereof (see Petrus van Mastricht, Vindiciae Veritatis (1655), I, 2). We therefore judged it best to begin first with the Bible, not only to honor the Holy Scriptures, but also to clear away doubts of our Christian readers, some of whom suspect that race realism is an ideology foreign to Christianity, with no warrant in the Word of God.
In considering what Scripture says on race, we will look first at God’s creation and providence, then at Israel’s civil law, then at some points from the New Testament.
I. Creation and Providence
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord.
Acts 17:26–27
This statement Paul made on Mars’ Hill summarizes well what Scripture says on race, speaking first of creation, that God made one race of men, then of providence, that he ordered history in such a way that the one race became a multitude of separate nations.
So first, creation. God “hath made of one blood all nations of men.” “God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27), and from the one man Adam, his wife Eve (Gen. 2:22; “Male and female created he them,” Gen. 1:27), from which two came the entire human race. Thus Adam called Eve “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). There should be no doubt at all that Scripture says, man is one blood, one race, one large extended family.
Then second, providence. This is sometimes called by theologians “continued creation,” as the same Creator who made the world in the beginning, by the same omnipotence upholds, directs, and brings to pass all things in that creation that have ever happened since. Paul says that God, by wise prior determination, made man “for to dwell on all the face of the earth,” a fulfillment of his original blessing of man at creation, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Notice especially the manner in which God made man to fill the earth: “and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” That is to say, God’s plan for man was not globalist egalitarian conformity, but nationalist particular diversity. He established each nation’s peculiar time and place. That is to say, nations are real, and really distinct, by God’s good providence.
Some would object here, Paul speaks of “nations,” not of “races.” But we should heed the apostle’s warning “that they strive not about words to no profit” (2 Tim. 2:14). “Nation” in scriptural usage speaks of the same natural reality as our term “race.” Both terms refer to natural divisions developed over time within the one extended family of mankind. The only difference is that compared to our usage of “race,” “nation” in Scripture speaks of a narrower portion of mankind. But if the narrower and more specific is proven, why not the broader and more general? “Nation” in Paul’s usage proves ethnic particularity is real, even more strongly than if he merely spoke of “race.”
Moreover, it is not as if Scripture has no conception of ethnic categories broader than “nation” but narrower than “mankind.” Genesis 9 tells of God’s providential division of all men into three large races: “And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth…. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread” (Gen. 9:18–19). Then Genesis 10 shows in detail how the more narrow nations or sub-races descended from these three. More could be explained here, but for our purposes it is enough to say, when Scripture speaks of the natural reality of nations, it by extension speaks of the natural reality of race. This is underlined in Genesis 10:32, “These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations.” Noah’s three sons had widely extended “families” which we call “races,” and these families developed over “generations” into “nations.”
Let us now consider more specifically what the Bible says about the racial distinctions which the Lord has brought about by providence. It testifies to such distinctions in at least seven categories:
1. Ancestry. We saw this already in Genesis 9–10. The Bible does not speak scientifically of genetics, but it does tell us that man’s “families” (races) and “nations” are produced by natural procreation, “after their generations” (Gen. 10:32). Race may be more than blood, but it is never less.
2. Appearance. The Bible recognizes that God in providence has made races look starkly different. It acknowledges some men are permanently black in skin, and uses it as an image of how all men are permanently black in heart: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jer. 13:23). The Hebrew there for “Ethiopian” is more literally “Cushite,” but the parallel New Testament Greek term “Ethiopian” (Acts 8:27) means by etymology, “scorched face.” Compare the likely etymology of the name “Ham” (father of Cush, Gen. 10:6), from a Hebrew root signifying heat or sun. The Bible lends weight to the ancient and modern speculation that black men turned black because of generations of life under the hot African sun. Compare Song 1:5–6, “I am black, but comely…. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.” Note moreover the change observed from white skin to black in Lamentations 4:7–8, “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies…. Their visage is blacker than a coal.” It should be clear from these things, not only that Scripture recognizes racial color difference, but that it passes some aesthetic judgment on it. The Bible celebrates David as “ruddy” (a description proper only to fair skin), “and withal of a beautiful countenance” (1 Sam. 16:12; 17:42). It also praises Christ’s purity and excellence under the image of white skin, “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand” (Song 5:10).
3. Geography. We already saw regarding nations that God “hath determined…the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). Deuteronomy 32:8 confirms this, “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people.” As he gave to ancient Israel the promised land, so he apportioned to other nations their own places. Genesis 10:5 says specifically of Japheth’s sons, “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.” Even the promises of salvation for nations outside Israel presume they live in different places. Gentile salvation thus is pictured as a pilgrimage: “And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob” (Isa. 2:3), “They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD” (Jer. 50:5).
4. Language. Scripture freely recognizes language as a marker of racial difference. Non-Israelites are “people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand” (Ezek. 3:5–6), and even within Israel, the pronunciation of one Hebrew word, “Shibboleth,” marked tribal boundaries (Judg. 12:6). Revelation uses “tongue” as a synonym of other more distinctly ethnic terms: “every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (5:9; 7:9; 14:6). Consider also how Genesis 11 describes the origin of distinct languages. As man was just beginning to diversify into the separate races, still “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech,” (v. 1). Linguistically-united man presumed at Babel to build a tower to reach heaven, and God punished his pretension with linguistic confusion: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (v. 7). The result of linguistic division was geographic division, and therefore racial division, by the course of isolated procreation over generations: “So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth” (v. 8). Pentecost was not, as many assert, a reversal of Babel, at least insofar as it did not remove the natural diversity of language (or of race; note those speaking in tongues were Jews, and Galileans, Acts 2:1, 5–7), but only temporarily overcame it for spiritual ends, by an extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit. The division of man’s races, as it was caused in part by the division of his languages, so it is proved by that division, which has only deepened since Babel. Moreover, it may be argued from Revelation 5:9 that diversity of tongues will remain in heaven, but whether or not this is so, though distinction of language did come in part as punishment, it is not sinful in itself, or any barrier in itself to spiritual unity among believers.
5. Character. Scripture also freely recognizes that, just as distinct nations reproduce, appear, are located, and speak distinctly, so also do they live and act distinctly. This is evident in their distinct national sins. In Isaiah 33:9, “a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive” are also called “a fierce people.” So in Deuteronomy 28:50, “A nation of fierce countenance.” So also for Israel itself, which is distinguished in both Old and New Testament as “stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,” a people who “do always resist the Holy Ghost,” as their fathers did (Acts 7:51; cf. Deut. 9:6; 1 Thess. 2:14–16). Remember the Canaanites, a race so grossly wicked beyond others that the just solution to their evil was annihilation (Deut. 7:1–4; cf. 9:5; Lev. 18:12). Compare Paul, who when speaking to the pastor of a church of Cretians, says of them without qualification, “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:12–13). Clearly in Christ there is hope that men of the most godless races may repent and “be sound in the faith.” But just as clearly, men are not sound in the faith by nature. By nature, all men are dead in sins (Eph. 2:1; Rom. 3:23), and some races of men reveal that deadness in ways peculiar to their race.
6. Power. In recognizing such moral distinctions between nations, Scripture is decidedly not egalitarian: at least in some distinct respects, some nations are superior or inferior in virtue. This is also true regarding power. Over the course of history, some nations rule, others are ruled. Some are weak, others are strong. Though Israel was relatively small in number (Deut. 7:7), God made her “a great and mighty nation” (Gen. 18:18; cf. Deut. 4:7), and under Solomon, exceeding great, even over other nations (1 Kings 4:21). God also singles out certain heathen nations as particularly mighty: for example, Daniel’s prophecy describes the Roman empire as “strong as iron, forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things” (Dan. 2:40), and Luke gives us a glimpse of the fulfillment of that prophecy when Caesar Augustus decreed the taxation of “all the world” (Luke 2:1). It seems evident to us that this is also a fulfillment of the ancient promise to the grandfather of the European race: “God shall enlarge Japheth” (Gen. 9:27). Compare also in Genesis 9 the notable lack of blessing upon Ham, who shamed his father (v. 22), and the just curse of abject slavery pronounced upon Ham’s son, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren” (v. 25, again in vv. 26 and 27). Opinions differ on this passage, and agreement on its interpretation is not essential to maintaining race realism, but if later history sheds any light, it appears this curse on Ham’s son Canaan is rightly taken also as a curse upon the father, and on his other children by extension. Whatever the case, “servant of servants” would aptly describe the future fate of many of Ham’s black African children.
7. Religion. Not surprisingly, according to its peculiar religious purpose, Scripture also identifies distinct races by their distinct religions. Consider the continual contrast of the LORD God of Israel over and against “all the gods of the nations” (Ps. 96:5) and “the idols of the heathen” (Ps. 135:15). Scripture recognizes the “gods of the Egyptians” (Jer. 43:13), and similarly the gods of Babylon (Isa. 21:9), and of the Sepharvaim (2 Kings 17:31; 18:34; cf. 19:12), though they are properly “no gods, but the work of men’s hands” (19:18; Gal. 4:8). And it also recognizes that such distinctive national idolatry is typically permanent: “Hath a nation changed their gods?” (Jer. 2:11). The Bible does hold out hope that the nations one day will abandon their false gods, but that will be a marvelous exception to the present state of things, only made possible by God’s extraordinary grace (Ezek. 36:25), grace such as is evident in measure in the present ingathering of the nations under the New Testament (Matt. 28:19).
II. Israel’s Civil Law
We have considered various testimonies to God’s creation of man, and his providential distinguishing of mankind into races. Now we look specifically to the Mosaic civil law. This is not because we believe it must be copied and pasted intact into modern constitutions—it was a specific law for a specific people in specific circumstances, according to the nature of all civil law. However, it is still to be admired, studied, and imitated according to its general equity, that is, the universal natural and moral justice inherent in it. We are to look on ancient Israel’s God-given civil law and say, “What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law?” (Deut. 4:9). And at the least, we must assert that anything the holy God commanded for ancient Israel is in itself entirely free from sin. Therefore in principle it could never be immoral to enact similar laws in modern nations, if done with prudence according to their peculiar circumstances.
1. Nationalism. A profound Scriptural testimony to race realism is that Israel’s divinely inspired civil polity is explicitly nationalist. Throughout it discriminates between native Hebrew Israelites, often identified in family terms as “the children of Israel,” or “brethren,” and others who were “strangers” or “sojourners” (see e.g. Deut. 4:44; Lev. 25:47; Deut. 1:16; 15:3; etc.) To put this another way, when their constitution spoke of the people for whom it was written, it spoke of them in terms of blood. By analogy with the Constitution of the United States, the Israelites could say their national founding document was written for “ourselves and our posterity.” This does not mean assimilation of certain foreigners was never possible (as we will see below), but it does mean that foreigners never defined the essence of the people.
2. Tribal land ownership. One specific proof of the nationalist character of the civil law regarded land ownership. Israel, defined by blood, was also in some respect defined by soil, though less essentially (for the nation still existed when in exile). Moreover, the ownership of this soil was tied to specific bloodlines in a unique manner, God allotting not only large portions to each tribe, but also more narrow portions “by their families” (Josh. 13–17), which they were legally forbidden from transferring to other families or tribes, a restriction applied with careful prudence in the hard case of the daughters of Zelophehad (Num. 27; 36), and maintained also by the requirement of restoration of purchased land in the forty-ninth year Jubilee to the families that originally held it (Lev. 25:8–10). Compare Naboth’s noble resistance unto death when Ahab desired his vineyard, “The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee” (1 Kings 21:3).
3. Protectionist economics. There were further measures in Israel’s polity that righteously discriminated along racial lines. Nowhere in Scripture is slavery ever described as sinful; indeed, the holy God himself sanctioned it in his holy nation, but he did so with ethnic distinction. Foreigners could be enslaved for life, even in their generations (Lev. 25:44–46; cf. Josh. 9:23, 27; 1 Kings 9:20–21); however, “If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee” (Deut. 15:12), unless the Hebrew slave remained of his own will (Ex. 21:2–6). So also for charging interest on loans: it was lawful to charge “a foreigner,” but unlawful to charge an Israelite “neighbor” or “brother” (Lev. 25:35—37).
4. Rule by kinsmen. So far we have seen that the polity God himself appointed recognized Israel as a distinct nation of men, defined by blood, and gave to that nation distinct privileges above ethnic foreigners. This becomes all the more clear when considering the legal requirements for leaders. The king had to be “one from among thy brethren,” and “brethren” should not be spiritualized here to mean only a believer in the Lord: God specifies, “Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee” (Deut. 17:15). In the first king, Saul, and in David’s hereditary line that followed in the kings of Judah, this law was strictly kept, under strictly ethnic terms. Similarly, lesser magistrates were to be chosen from wise men “among your tribes” (Deut. 1:13–16), just as Jethro wisely counseled Moses after the Exodus to “provide out of all the people able men” (Ex. 18:21; cf. v. 25, “out of all Israel”). The equity of these requirements is evident: a people will be best ruled by their own men, who more than others will have a natural affection and interest in their peculiar good. Also evident is the inequity when strangers rule instead of kin. God counts it as a curse: “The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low” (Deut. 28:43; cf. v. 13; Isa. 1:7; Lam. 5:2).
5. Segregation from foreigners. The legal contrast between Israelite and stranger is also evident in the strict laws that segregated Israel from the surrounding foreigners. God built the “middle wall of partition” between Jew and Gentile (Eph. 2:14) to be high and strong. Though properly the dietary laws were ceremonial and religious, they had serious civil consequences: Jews could barely even eat with strangers, as much of their food was declared unclean (Lev. 11; cf. Neh. 13:3; Acts 10:14, 28). In specific as regards the Canaanites, they were not only to be avoided, but utterly destroyed (Deut. 20:17). God is very specific about the Canaanite nations in Deuteronomy 7:1–5: no covenant with them, no mercy unto them, no marriages with them (cf. Neh. 10:30); rather, destroy all of them, with all their altars, groves, and images. That Israel did not carefully obey these orders brought them much distress throughout their history (e.g. Josh. 9:18; cf. 23:12–13).
6. Hospitality to strangers. Apart from the Canaanites, this ethnic segregation was not so strict that no foreigners could ever be present in Israel. The stranger and sojourner was recognized and protected (Deut. 10:18–19), could be circumcised and keep the Passover (Ex. 12:48), and could live as a servant in an Israelite home (Lev. 25:45; Ex. 12:45). Scripture highly values hospitality to strangers (e.g. Job 31:32; Gen. 19:2; Matt. 25:35), as should we. However, none of the cited passages dissolve the distinction between native and alien, but rather assume and affirm it. True hospitality, whether in a home or in a nation, never requires the dissolution of the boundaries between one people and another.
7. Assimilation of foreigners. However, in nations today there is a way in which certain foreigners can become, not mere sojourners, but more organic members of the people, namely by assimilation or naturalization. Was this true in ancient Israel? It appears this could happen in least in some respect by marriage: through her first husband, then through Boaz, Ruth the Moabitess gained certain legal standing in Israel (Ruth 1:4, 16; 4:5, 10) and became an ancestor of King David (4:17). Perhaps it could also happen in other ways, though whether and how is not always clear: for example, was David’s mighty man Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 23:39) a resident foreign soldier, or a naturalized Israelite? And either way, how was he granted an exception to the ban on Canaanites?
In whatever way strangers may have been assimilated, it is clear that it was not without restrictions, even those that were racially specific: “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation…because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt” (Deut. 23:3–4). Compare verses 7–8, “Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast as stranger in his land. The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation.” It is not the place here to explain exactly what these laws meant and how they were applied: it is enough to underline that the Israelite nation had, by God’s design, race-realist immigration policies.
8. Intra-ethnic marriage. We mentioned Boaz and Ruth, who were not the only ethnically-mixed married couple in Scripture (cf. e.g. Moses and Zipporah, Ex. 2:16, 21, and Joseph and Asenath, Gen. 41:50). So there was some legal provision for the recognition of such marriages. However, this should be recognized with the following clarifications.
First, not every example of the choices of Old Testament believers is approved merely because it is recorded in Scripture, nor is passive civil toleration itself a proof that all such marriages were strictly legal. Israel often enough ignored its righteous laws.
Second, the examples of mixed marriages in Scripture may be “inter-ethnic,” but are not all “inter-racial” by our modern terms: Ruth’s ancestor Moab was the son of Abraham’s nephew Lot (Gen. 19:37), and Zipporah’s father was a priest of Midian (Ex. 2:16, 21), Midian being a son of Abraham himself by Keturah (Gen. 25:2). It seems mostly likely that Moses’ “Ethiopian” (in Hebrew, “Cushite”) wife whom Miriam and Aaron complain about (Num. 12:1) is Zipporah herself, called a Cushite because “Cush” was sometimes used as name for the region in which the Midianites lived.
Third, even noting all exceptions, the vast majority of marriages recorded in the Scripture take place within the narrow confines of one nation, or even one tribe (see e.g. Chron. 1–9).
Fourth, certain foreign marriages were explicitly forbidden in the civil law (as with the Canaanites, Deut. 7:3), to the extent that some were legally annulled even after they were contracted (as in Ezra 10:2–3, 19), perhaps even after they were consummated (as appears from v. 44).
Fifth, certain specific persons were explicitly forbidden from choosing foreign spouses. The high priest could only marry “a virgin of his own people” (Lev. 21:14; cf. Ezek. 44:22). It is reasonable to think Deuteronomy 17:15 imposed similar requirements upon the king by good and necessary consequence: contrast the disaster of Solomon’s foreign wives (1 Kings 11). Moreover, for the daughters of Zelophehad, the LORD’s command was, “Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry. So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe” (Num. 36:6–7). This last restriction is instructive, teaching that marriage, though a matter of personal choice, still is not thereby permitted to harm family, tribal, or national interests. Moreover, it appears that laws against miscegenation cannot be unrighteous in themselves, as the righteous God did institute them in these cases.
We will discuss racially-mixed marriages again in the application article, but here we would highlight the zeal of Abraham in seeking a wife for his son from his kindred, though they lived far away (Gen. 24:3–4), Isaac’s imitation of the same (Gen. 28:1–2), and the joy of Laban in finding a potential son-in-law in Jacob, “Surely thou art my bone and my flesh” (Gen. 29:14). Compare Adam’s joy expressed in much the same way when he first saw Eve, after she was made from his own side (2:23).
In light of all these things, if some would assert that race realism in general, or in specific a preference for intra-ethnic or intra-racial marriage, is unique to the Old Testament economy, and not at all a matter of universal, permanent, general equity, we would simply say here, the burden of proof for this assertion rests entirely on them.
III. New Testament
The New Testament of course does not, and cannot, overturn the moral teaching of the Old, nor need it be repeated to remain in force. “One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law” (Matt. 5:17–18). We add here only a few brief new considerations.
1. Incarnation. Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, took on a true human nature, and in this nature, like all men, he had a race, nation, tribe, and family. Moreover, none of these was chosen arbitrarily, but with great purpose, that he would be “made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3; 2 Sam. 7:12 with Ps. 110:1). Thus Matthew and Luke both feature genealogies of Christ. It will suffice to say here, those who use religion to dismiss race as irrelevant, cannot understand this matter well.
2. Salvation. There was provision for salvation of all nations in the Old Testament (e.g. Ex. 12:48), but the international character of true religion was made more clear under the New (Matt. 28:19). However, nothing about salvation changes a man’s race, or its natural importance. Indeed, we have already seen that national distinctions will remain in heaven (Rev. 5:9; cf. 21:24), and thus it stands to reason they remain on earth, even in church. Noteworthy in this respect is the question of the salvation of the presently apostate Jews. Together with many Christians I look forward to a day when they will be engrafted back in their own olive tree (Rom. 11:23). Few confess, however, that this perspective assumes race realism. If the Jewish race is not real, it certainly cannot have promises made concerning it.
3. Duty. A special love for kin and nation is a part of natural affection. No one needs Scripture to know he ought to have such love (cf. Eph. 5:29). However, Scripture does explicitly affirm it, by the fifth commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Ex. 20:12), by Paul’s example of compassion for his unbelieving “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:3), and by sharply rebuking those who are so degenerate as to be “without natural affection” (Rom. 1:31; 2 Tim. 3:3), especially within the church: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Tim. 5:8). A few moments of thought on what this means in our day, when the majority of professed Christians utterly despise race realism, should make the godly weep with Jeremiah (Jer. 9:1–3).
4. Silence. Finally, the New Testament says nothing to reverse the race realism evident in the Old Testament. The Bible simply is not “anti-racist.” This negative could be disproven by one counter-example; however, having explored the Scriptures, we have not found a single one. This is perhaps the strongest argument of all. If Scripture defines sin as transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), and no law can be produced which race realism is proven to transgress, then it is simply not a sin, and every moral objection to it falls down of its own accord.
We could address further objections here, but it seemed better to wait for the fifth article. To summarize what we have said, the Bible teaches that race is real. Yes, race is a natural reality, and Scripture a supernatural book. However, this should be no barrier to hearing what it says on race. Indeed, as the Holy Scriptures are given to make men wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:15–17), we ought to receive their teaching with all the more reverence and urgency, even when they tell us earthly things (cf. John 3:12).
Articles in this Series
Christian Race Realism
2. Scripture
7. Bibliography