Everything is made to worship God
God has a plan for history. His purpose is that the world he created should reflect his glory. All creation is intended to show the praise of God, for everything God has created finds its fulfillment in echoing the wonders of God’s character. The whole world is created to give God glory, as Psalm 148 says:
Praise him, all his angels,
Praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon,
Praise him all you shining stars…
You great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning
And hail, snow and clouds…
Fruit trees and all cedars,
Wild animals and all cattle,
Small creatures and flying birds,
Kings of the earth and all nations,
Young men and women, old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the Lord.1
Genesis chapter one shows God taking the initiative as the universe unfolds in its complexity of stars, sun and moon, land and water masses, and vegetable and animal life. This great diversity, held together in the unity of creation, shows God’s greatness as nothing else could. The millions of species of beetles, the billions of galaxies each with its billions of stars, demonstrate God’s wisdom and power. Unity is not uniformity. Uniformity would be a piece of music written with one single note; unity is a chorale sung by a choir. God’s glory shines through the diversity of species and life forms united in their dependence on the Creator.
Since everything that is made reflects the character of the One who created it all, women and men have a vital role to play. Genesis 1:27-28 tells of the creation of human beings and of God’s purpose for them.
So God created human beings in his own image, In the image of God he created them; Male and female he created them….God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it….” And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
The first people were not made to lounge in a garden, but to launch out to the world. There is an outward-bound thrust to humanity. The human race is made to represent God on the earth. They have the capacity to resonate with God’s qualities as nothing else can. God wants to see the world filled with beings who find their meaning in him. This plan has not changed throughout the vicissitudes of history.
The entry of evil into the world that God created made things much more complicated. Sin defaced the bright image of God in every living person. The likeness of the Creator was so tarnished as to be unrecognizable. Deceit and distrust displaced the God-given love one person has for another. Greed took over from holiness. Violence broke the unity that held the creation together. Discord shattered the symphony, as people trusted in themselves rather than in God. They brought chaos by worshipping created things rather than the creator. Diversity degenerated into confusion.
Yet God promised ultimately to defeat evil. In Genesis 3:15 he told the serpent, “The offspring of the woman will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” In this cryptic phrase, God pledges that there will be an Individual who will defeat evil at the cost of his own suffering. Salvation is an act that only God can bring about. It has to come through a mediator, and it affects the whole human race. God’s promise that his love will triumph through suffering is given to the representatives of all humankind. It holds for the Chinese, the Native American, and the European too.
Jesus Christ fulfilled this covenant promise, the protoevangelion of Genesis 3:15. He is the Seed of the woman. He crushed the head of the serpent, the evil one, the accuser.
God wants people to glorify him and enjoy him forever, because it is for this that we are made. His purpose is that every human language be used to tell of his goodness and that each ethnic group, race and tribe contribute to the universal song of praise to the Creator and the Redeemer. God is a missionary God. As John Piper says, “mission exists because worship does not.” Worship is ultimate and eternal. Missions is temporary, a necessary expedient to bring people to worship God. As long as there are people who do not render reverence to God, and as long as the Lord tarries, missions are needed to spread abroad the love of God.
God’s Plan Involves Nations and Peoples
Genesis 10 shows the human race divided into ethnic groups, lineages, languages, territories, nations and peoples (Genesis 10:5). God made people to be together, and he sees human beings as they relate to each other.
Languages and customs do make barriers that we have to cross when we try to understand each other, but they also have great capacity to glorify God in a myriad of ways. All the segments of mankind can be redeemed to show the power and wisdom of the One who created humans in all their diversity. Every language can tell of his goodness and power.
Genesis 10 has the same sense of harmonious pattern that we see in Genesis 1. The 6,703 languages that God has spread abroad in the earth3 show how he takes pleasure in variety. Diversity within the unity of dependence on God reflects his glory and his creative power. Genesis 10 shows the peoples of the world in their potential to reflect the goodness of God.
In Genesis 11 we see the nations in their misery, alienated from God through pride and greed. The fall of the nations in Genesis 11 is very much like the fall of the individuals in Genesis 3. The comforts of a city enticed the builders of Babel rather as the flavor of the forbidden fruit lured Eve and Adam (Genesis 3:6). The fruit held a lot of eye appeal to Eve and the construction bosses wanted people to look at their temple as it towered above the flat plain. As Eve and Adam wanted the fruit for the cleverness it gave, so the city builders sought the fame that comes from “making a great name for themselves.” The three-fold temptation that trapped Adam and Eve’s was also the downfall of Babel. In a word, it was the appeal to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).
To short-circuit the impending disaster, God dispersed people around the earth. He confused their language and scattered them abroad (Genesis 11:8). The net result of all their labors is a half-built ruin. Since the motley cultures and languages were not held together in the unity of worship to God, the chorale degenerated into cacophony.
Jesus Brings Unity
Our Lord Jesus Christ had a great deal to say about His Father’s plan to bring the diverse peoples of the earth into divine unity. “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God,” (Luke 13:29) is just one of his many statements on this theme.
The central theme of the Bible is Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection, which will bring some from every people group on earth into the forever family of God. Each of the four Gospels and the book of Acts quote Jesus’ instructions to bring the good news to the whole world. He promised that he would send his Holy Spirit to give his followers power to make disciples of all nations.
But more than talking, Jesus did something to make unity possible. “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:19, 20) Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is the only center strong enough to rebuild the shattered shards of the human race into a vessel worthy of his presence. The early church was held together by the confidence that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Diversity Increases in the Early Church
For the first couple of decades the followers of Jesus were almost exclusively Jewish. Some spoke Greek and some spoke Aramaic, but they all lived in communities centered on the synagogue, all ate only food prepared according to the law of the Talmud, all regarded a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem as a high point of their religious life. The earliest church showed no more diversity than did Judaism of the time.
As the church began to expand, however, it had to deal with the issues at which Jesus had only hinted when he said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10:16) The good news spread through the eastern end of the Mediterranean and west to Mesopotamia. In Antioch in Syria, the third largest city of the Roman Empire, a people movement to Jesus began among non-Jews.
The worldwide church shows huge diversity, held together by dedication to Jesus Christ and based upon the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. In every nation on earth there now are some who are “fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:19-20). Jesus’ people are called by many different names. Some do not even call themselves Christians, as the first followers of Jesus were not called Christians, but prefer the name “Messianic Jew” or “Muslim follower of Christ.” It was the Gentile believers in Antioch who were first dubbed with that derogatory epithet. The point is not the name of the association, but the unity of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s death and resurrection made possible the unity of his body on earth.
Romans: A Practical Approach to Unity and Diversity
Romans is a letter from a missionary to a mission church. Paul grapples with the question of how to maintain unity in Christ in the face of human diversity. “The Gospel…is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Romans 1:16).
Paul lays down the principles by which different ethnic groups can get on together in the same church. “Some consider one day more sacred than another; others consider every day alike. Everybody should be fully convinced in his or her own mind….If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord” (Romans 14:5, 8). This is the nitty-gritty stuff of living in unity with diversity.
All who come to Christ receive what he has to give into their empty hands. He gives the life-changing power of his Holy Spirit. “The law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death….the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:2, 6). “Now that you have been set free from sin and you have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:22). Jesus offers forgiveness of sin. More, and very importantly, he gives the strength to leave sin behind. Unity is found as people of every stripe face the cross of Christ and are drawn by its life-changing power. Unity is found in the simple statement, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
As the good news spreads it transforms not only individuals, but also whole societies. Just as a person who comes into Christ is made new, so a whole group of people can turn to Christ and find new life without losing their cultural identity. In Christ, their language and many of their customs remain the same, but some things are changed. The presence of Christ reduces drunkenness, revenge killings, sexual promiscuity, grinding down the poor. The Gospel of Jesus Christ changes life for the better.
Heaven Is A Mixed Neighborhood
We may think that the varied hues of humanity will be bleached to a heavenly uniformity in the unmediated presence of God. Some suppose that the distinctions of tribe and people group will be pressed out on an apocalyptic ironing board. Not so. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book of the Bible, shows many different “nations, tribes, peoples and languages” as together they worship God and the Lamb (Revelation 7:9). Eternity does not obliterate the diversity of mankind. Revelation 21:3 actually says, “They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” Most translators balk at the plural and render it “his people,” but the text maintains the diversity of people groups and tribes and tongues as God wipes away every tear from their eyes.
God’s glory is reflected in a variety of styles, languages and musical styles. The multitude without number worshipping God in heaven is from every tribe and tongue and language and people. In our world there are both the unchurched and the unreached. The unchurched are those who could go to church if they wanted to, but do not choose to do so.
The unreached, on the other hand, are those who do not have access to any church. There is no church in their neighborhood, or the local Christians speak a different language or eat things they may consider unclean. We long for these groups of unreached people to join God’s family and find eternal life in Jesus Christ. But for them to hear and see an invitation that they can understand and accept, someone has to cross a barrier of language and custom, as the apostle Paul did. Only thus can the full human diversity be brought into the unity of Christ.
Unity and Diversity
Jesus promised that when he was lifted up from the earth, he would draw all people to himself (John 12:32). When people are moving closer to Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, they can find unity. God is glorified by the vast array of stars and galaxies, and by the manifold forms of life. The varied ways of men and women also give him glory when they are directed to him. The unity in Jesus Christ is imperfect as yet, but it is real. True unity is founded in people’s faithfulness to God and in the faithfulness of God to his people.
The church in our time is no longer centered on the North Atlantic nations. Most followers of Jesus live in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Most cross-cultural missionaries come from those regions, where the churches are growing the fastest. The simple affirmation, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is the unbreakable cord that ties together the church of Jesus Christ, the largest movement of all human history. To say, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” is to affirm that the Jesus who walked the hills of Galilee and who died on Golgotha is God, Savior, and Victor over sin and death. He is big enough to encompass great diversity, and strong enough to bring unity.
This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 5, No. 5 (Sep/Oct 1999).
