Lockdown restrictions were just starting to ease, and I was queueing to pay for goods in a local store. Feeling a bit ‘crowded’ I asked the young man behind me to, ‘Please respect my space’. He stared at me for a moment and then, to my astonishment, began to hurl abuse, accusing me of discrimination because of his colour. Stunned to be misunderstood, I opened my mouth to protest, while noticing the wide-eyed little girl hanging anxiously onto his hand. But I could say nothing, the angry roar terrifying her and unnerving me, left no space for a response. I turned away upset and shocked, his furious tirade following me to the till.
Discrimination is an emotive word in the 21st century. It’s nothing new. It has affected all humanity throughout the centuries. It seems it began in the Garden of Eden when Yahweh judged Adam and Eve for their disobedience, speaking first to the serpent, saying, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” [Genesis 3:15]. Disobedience created two classes of people! As scripture unfolds these classes are identified as the ‘righteous’ and the ‘wicked’. “Into these two orders,” writes C.H. Spurgeon, “the Scriptures are accustomed to divide the whole population of the globe…The two divisions of the human race have always been in existence and at enmity.”
Humanity has been plagued by discord since Eden, finding itself on different sides of countless great ‘divides’. Rich/poor, slave/free, upper/lower, master/servant, black/white, male/female, amongst many others. None of these are as serious as the one division set up by Yahweh: the righteous and the wicked. We fight passionately for equality in matters that concern us, but Yahweh gave His beloved Son for the one that concerned Him. “A crimson line runs between the righteous and the wicked, the line of the atoning sacrifice” [Spurgeon]. Yahshua came to give everyone a chance of unsurpassed equality, an offer of freedom from sin that will make us joint heirs with Him in a magnificent kingdom beyond our wildest imagination [Romans 8:17].
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