Amen. Thank you, Darren. Our scripture reading today is actually going to be shorter than it is printed in your bulletin, but it is going to be in chapter 3 of Galatians, beginning at verse 28. Paul writes, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, you have told us so much in scripture. You have told us about the ways in which we are united together in your Son. You tell us— you command— tell us of your judgments that have seen us divided as people, but you have shown us by that union that your judgments do not last forever; that you will restore your people and keep us united in your Son. It’s in His name we pray. Amen.
Years ago, my father said to me— and this is a true story, that’s not the start of a joke— my father said to me, ‘Jesus was the first socialist.’ That’s a very controversial statement, even at the best of times, and perhaps it is a declaration which many of us could choose to take immediate offense to. But nevertheless, it is thought-provoking.
Was Jesus a socialist with a capital ‘S’? Karl Marx, the world’s most famous socialist, was born to Jewish parents, yet he was baptized Protestant along with the rest of his family in order to improve their social status; and then he later embraced atheism. Do you think that he and Jesus would have been in agreement?
Now, there may have been some similarities between Marx’s socialist utopia and the ideals of the gospel: life, freedom, justice, equality, and progress. But were these ideals defined the same? They also shared a preference for a centralized government to be the steward of all property on behalf of the people. But no, I do not believe that Marx and Jesus would have really held much in agreement.
Christian socialists will often cite Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, where he provides us with examples of how the early church supported one another through an apparent socialistic sharing and everything in common. He writes, ‘And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings, and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And also there was not a needy person among them; for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.’
But was this practice prescribed for the whole church always, or was it only descriptive of a practice in the early Jerusalem church? Did every believer have an equal share of rights to this property, or were all things used at the direction and command of the apostles for the benefit of all believers? Was the early apostolic church the beginning of the first people’s revolution? A revolutionary spirit that travels down through the winding twists of time to our modern day where they’ve raised up modern prophets like Bernie Sanders—who is also technically Jewish—or like AOC to preach their socialist gospel? No, not in the slightest.
Despite the prevalence of both Christians and Jews being numbered historically among party members, socialism and communism are not born out of a Christian ethos nor a Jewish one. But the socialistic aspects of Christianity are not political socialism, nor does the biblical witness and historical interpretation support a prescription of these communal practices as being normative. It accepts them as being descriptive of the kingdom ideal, foreshadowing what we look forward to in glory.
So, no, Jesus was not a capital ‘S’ socialist. But I also don’t think my dad was wrong when he made that statement. Jesus is not a socialist; He is not a Republican; He is not a Democrat; nor is He a Libertarian or Green Party member. Jesus is a monarchist.
Jesus is the King, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus is the benevolent dictator and the absolute authoritarian autocrat. No political party has a binding claim upon the Christian conscience, despite their attempts to exploit the Christian religion for political ends. Jesus transcends all party politics, and so what we believe about Him must surely influence all of our political decisions.
We currently live in the world under the God-ordained authority of this American republic, and Jesus and His elect also live out our kingdom life under the authority of His theocratic monarchy under the sovereignty of God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ our King and great high priest. All authority, all dominion over creation belongs to Jesus. His rule is benevolent because He alone knows what we need, what is truly best for us, and He alone provides for us, His people.
Jesus Christ alone is our Lord and King; therefore, we are obligated to obey Him in all things. Jesus is also our Brother—God’s firstborn Son and our elder Brother—and so He is heir to the promises of God. Yet not only is Jesus our elder Brother; we, the elect, are united into Him, so we also share the same inheritance with all the children of God.
Our focus this morning, though, is with this greater implication which comes from these words of Paul: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’
This is a result of our salvation. This is a significant benefit of our union with Christ. The statements of Paul within the surrounding context of its letter refer clearly to unity in Christ, much as he does in 1 Corinthians 12, where he says, ‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.’
Yet this verse is also cited out of context as being the Christian standard and rationale for all forms of socialist equality. Now, although absolute equality is a laudable goal and norm for us sinful people to aspire to, it is simply not feasible in this world. Christians live in the world while not also being of the world, a fact which Paul was all too aware of, for social and class distinctions certainly remained even among church members.
Recall Anisimus, a Christian slave, and Philemon, his Christian slave owner. Distinct gender and family roles also remained, as well as distinct national and civic identities continued. So, Paul does not declare here in the name of Christ an end to distinction between nations and ethnicity, social and class structures, or between the two divinely created sexes, because each pair was instituted by divine fiat and thus are intended to be good.
Even as each division was the result of divine judgment, however, what Paul does declare here is the end of this sinful division based upon these pairs. The negative aspects of each of these divisions are direct divine consequences of human sin and the fall.
Division and strife between the two sexes is part of the curse imposed upon Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit: ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee,’ from the King James, or ‘Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you,’ the minority reading from the ESV. Division and strife between different social classes is traced back to the curse of Ham, whereby the Lord cursed his descendants to serve the descendants of his brothers because of Ham’s sin against Noah, his father.
When Noah said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers,’ he also said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.’ Division, animosity, and strife between the different racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups have cursed and plagued humanity ever since mankind’s attempt to build themselves a city and a tower with its top into the heavens, trying to reach up to God.
Therefore, its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. But because of Christ’s redemptive work upon the cross, now in Him, these harmful divisions experienced in these kinds of relationships can be, will be, and are restored.
We have hope that they can be restored now in our interpersonal relationships. We know that they will be restored in all of our interpersonal relationships in the kingdom of God, and they are restored to God’s eye view as our Heavenly Father looks upon His adoptive children, seeing no division and favoring all equally. These hurtful dividers are restored to their pre-fall condition and status.
While we were not divided in each of these ways when Adam and Eve were still in the garden, each division came about by the divine will, so there is something good about them, even though our expressions of them have historically been negative. These relationships have been redeemed and are restored to goodness in Christ.
During the feast of Weeks on the Day of Pentecost, immediately following Jesus’s death and resurrection, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and the other believers gathered together in Jerusalem, a great miracle occurred: they spoke in tongues.
Now, the miracle was not their suddenly speaking a language which they did not know prior, nor were they uttering some form of ecstatic babbling that no one but the Lord could possibly hope to understand. But the miracle is that regardless of the language they spoke, everyone understood them perfectly in their own original primary language, whichever they understood best. And so the curse of Babel was reversed and restored.
During His earthly ministry, after it was requested that James and John be seated at Jesus’s right and left hand when His kingdom comes, Jesus replied to them, ‘But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all; for even the Son of Man came not to serve, but to be served, but to serve.’
Before instituting the Lord’s Supper on that night when He was betrayed by Judas, Jesus dressed as a servant, wrapping a towel around His waist and washed the feet of both the faithful and the faithless.
So, following the example of Christ, we are called to serve one another and to serve our unbelieving neighbors. Peter tells us, ‘As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.’
As we are each commanded to carry the gospel, the evangelion, throughout the whole world, so do we become angels—ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. And James tells us to show no partiality towards a person’s status because of our union and equality in Christ.
Therefore, regardless of our social status in this life, we are all commanded to serve the Lord, because by serving others we serve Jesus. This service is practiced for our future vocational priestly service in heaven and in His kingdom when the elect from all the nations will be before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple.
And He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. Then no man or woman will be greater than any other; each of us will be a servant, and no nation will be subject to another because all will be under the lordship of King Jesus. And so the curse of Ham is reversed and brotherhood restored.
Now for the real sticky, divided relationship: some may prefer the minority reading of Genesis 3:16, found in the ESV, and say that this curse is strife between the sexes that’s caused by the woman’s desire shall be contrary to her husbands, while the older and I believe more correct interpretation is that the curse is ‘he shall rule over you.’
The words which give us ‘rule’ here carry the negative senses of lording it over and of dominion, as in to dominate, not righteous and fair authority over someone, but an authority characterized by negative, oppressive, and superior elements against those ruled, forcing others to be subservient and in submission.
However, please remember that submission itself is not a negative necessity. When a decision needs to be made, someone must ultimately be in charge to be the final decider, to be the head. Their duty is to decide for the good and benefit of all, or both, not just for their own benefit, nor just for their mere personal preference, nor for the detriment of the other.
And scripture is very clear upon a plain reading that within the marriage relationship, this decider ought to be the husband with some very important spiritual qualifiers. The non-misogynistic Paul tells the church in Ephesus, ‘Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord; for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior.’
‘Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.’
According to scripture, the Christian marriage covenant relationship exemplifies in miniature the relationship between Christ and His church, the Lamb and His bride. Wives are to submit to the authority of their husbands because the church submits to the authority of Jesus Christ and His holy word, just as husbands are to love their wives sacrificially for their good, for their purity, preservation, and gracious benefit in the same way that Christ loves the church, His bride.
And so it is through our application of Christ-like holy submission and holy authority in these relationships that the curse for Adam and Eve is reversed. So we see our divisions repaired, even while appropriate distinctions and other real differences remain. Spiritually, these relationships have been redeemed. They no longer must be sinful divisions between us; they can now be holy and God-honoring.
But unfortunately, in our redeemed yet still sinner state, this restoration is imperfectly expressed. So every Christian must look ahead to our eternal future in glory when we will finally experience them perfectly. Yet this does not stop us from trying to improve these interpersonal relationships in our own lives and out in the world.
Christians should work against racism and all other forms of sinful discrimination. Christians should work against the oppression of the powerful against the weak. We should work to prevent and reduce the exploitation and abuse of workers by their employers, and Christians should love one another better, proving ourselves to be Christ’s disciples.
Christians should work to listen to one another better, to improve our communication and understanding. We should be lovingly submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, practicing mutual submission and respect born out of love and our increasing Christ-likeness by the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us.
Circling back to our beginnings, what does this have to do with Jesus being a socialist? Everything! See, the absolute ideal of non-political socialism is total equality in all things: no more us or them, no more haves or have-nots, providing equal status while still allowing for our human differences and other immutable distinctives like race, sex, age, intelligence, etc.
So Jesus is both the ultimate egalitarian and the only true socialist, and it’s proven by our union in Him. Israel is claimed by the Lord as His firstborn Son. Jesus is the prophetic servant of the Lord. Jesus is Israel’s rightful king as the Son of David, and as God’s only begotten Son, born of the virgin Mary by the power of the Most High overshadowing her, He is the only perfect representative and mediator for elect Israel, the church.
Naturally, the firstborn son should be the father’s greatest heir and will receive the best of the inheritance. And the lawful right of the firstborn according to scripture is a double portion. But the more heirs you have, the smaller the portion. If a father has two sons, then the firstborn would receive two-thirds and the other one-third. If the father had five sons, then the firstborn would receive about 33 percent, while each of the others received 16.
Now, like Christ, we also have the right to be called sons of God. But as we are so very many, to divide the inheritance of our Heavenly Father among all of the elect and Jesus, each of our portions would be so small as to be wholly inconsequential, irrelevant, and perhaps even undesirable.
But again, this is where our union into Christ matters. Paul tells us, ‘For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ;’ and continuing with, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.’
As God’s only begotten Son, Christ receives the inheritance of the firstborn, but He’s also the appointed heir of all things. So if He’s the heir of all things, what does that leave for us, the adopted children who are not eternally begotten, pre-existing creation? Nothing, right? All things means all things, doesn’t it?
Except we are baptized into Christ; we are united together and one in Christ. We are each Abraham’s heir. Like Christ, as Jesus is the singular heir, so we too—because with Jesus we also all count as firstborn sons. So yes, Jesus is a socialist. He shares the entire inheritance with all of His siblings, each of us equally possessing it all undivided and whole—all things held together in common yet still ordered under the benevolent authority of our Brother, King Jesus.
United into Christ, baptized into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, redeemed by His atoning sacrifice, justified by Christ’s word, and sanctified by Christ’s Holy Spirit, when the Father looks upon each of His chosen children, He sees our elder Brother standing there in our place. Because we are clothed in Christ, and one by one we shall stand before the divine throne—each of us distinct and individual, but in God’s mercy and grace, our Father sees no difference between us and Christ.
He makes no division when He gives us our inheritance of life in the kingdom. Remember that the true meaning of the word ‘shalom’ is not just peace, but peace is a sense of wholeness. There is no division. Look around you—those things which only ever serve to divide people divide us because of our sin. But the good news is, there is no division in Jesus. He is the great uniter; He restored and rescued us from this evil age when He gave Himself for us upon that cross.
Just as our sins were united and put to death as He died there, so now we are raised to new life and united together in His resurrection and inheritance. So long were we people divided by our sin, but now in Christ, we are restored. Amen.