by Equality and diversity are words we hear mentioned very often in the world today. Governments, businesses, political groups, and social societies all claim to pursue equal treatment of everyone and the promotion of diversity. Few seem to realise that in man’s things this is an impossible dream. Man’s world is full of inequalities. Pursuit of equality is more often than not the striving of one special interest group to get the upper hand at the expense of others. Diversity, as man concieves of it, always results in discrimination and exclusion. This will be well-known to every Christian reader.
As ever, when we take account of the defective nature of man’s arrangements, it only serves to highlight, by contrast, the perfection of God’s arrangements.
God has made all men equal. While with men there are many variations of the ‘class system’, in God’s eyes there are only two classes of men: the saved and the unsaved. In man’s world of inequality there are innumerable barriers to progress and opportunity. Under divine arrangements, there are no such difficulties.
For God hath shut up together all in unbelief, in order that he might shew mercy to all.
Romans 11:32 (DBT)
There was a time when God, in His wisdom and according to His purpose, favoured one nation above all others on the earth. Subject to their keeping His covenant, they would be His “own possession out of all the peoples” (Exodus 19:5) – some translations say “a peculiar treasure”. Subsequently he shut up all men together in unbelief, in order that His blessed purpose might be fulfilled. He placed all men on an equal footing. There was no advantage to be had in race, or genealogy, or circumcision, or uncircumcision – rich or poor, young or old, wise or foolish, the king on the throne and the beggar in the street – all are presented with the same opportunity, the same mercy, the same Saviour.
I trust that everyone reading these words has taken advantage of divine mercy, and the divine provision of a Saviour. If not, then don’t delay for a moment! Mercy’s door stands open at the present time, but who can say how much longer it will be so? No-one knows the day or the hour except God Himself – we may not be left long enough for me to finish committing these few thoughts to the page.
When we are not longer shut up in unbelief – “not unbelieving, but believing” in the words of the Lord Jesus (John 20:27) – we find ourselves entering into a wholly new sphere of things. We find (if what we’ve entered into is truly Christianity) that there is no inequality there either. We find that there is an order to God’s house. We find that there is authority, to which we must be subject as we are subject to the truth, but no thought of inequality. We see throughout Christendom that systems of men have been established which are built on inequality – supported by heirarchies of men appointed by other men without scriptural warrant, and by superstition which is antithetical to faith. All this is directly contrary to the divine thought, and far removed from a true expression of what delight’s God’s heart. Again, if what we’ve entered into is truly Christianity, then we find that it is organic. We find ourselves as members of Christ’s body. This brings us on to the question of diversity.
Diversity in man’s things means, more often than not, division and contradiction. In God’s things, diversity means the divinely ordered working of a living body, with each member fulfilling its function, in its place.
“But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body, according as it has pleased him. But if all were one member, where the body? But now the members are many, and the body one…”
1 Corinthians 12:18-20 (DBT)
The apostle Paul, in speaking about the body in 1 Corinthians 12, goes on to describe its diversity, and put to rest any thoughts of superiority or inferiority amongst us, its members. Diversity in the body of Christ does not lead to confusion, or competition, or exclusion – when the body is operating, its diverse parts take their direction from the one Head of the body.
It is wonderful to take account of the perfection of God’s ways. Truly, we would be impressed by the majestic truth of the statement of Isaiah 55:9:
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.