One Human Race

GOLDEN TEXT: “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” —Acts 10:34,35

ACTS 10:9-15, 25-28, 34, 35, 44, 45

SPEAKING to the Athenians from Mars’ Hill, the Apostle Paul declared that God had made all the nations of the earth of one blood. (Acts 17:26) This is to some extent a symbolic statement, for actually the Lord directly created only our first parents, all others of mankind having sprung from them under the divine decree to multiply and to fill the earth.

Adam was a son of God. (Gen. 5:1,2; Luke 3:38) God was his father in the sense of being his life-giver, but he lost his sonship through sin and God no longer kept him alive. David wrote that in God’s favor is life, but God withdrew his favor from Adam, so he died. (Ps. 30:5) This was in accordance with the warning given to him, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”—Gen. 2:17

From the time, therefore, that Adam sinned and came under divine condemnation, which condemnation was inherited by his progeny, the expression, “universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man,” has not been strictly true. We could, however, speak of the human race as being the erstwhile children of God Whom the Creator still loves and whom he sent his Son to redeem. The human race has not been cast off forever.

Because mankind has been estranged from God through following their own selfish and wicked ways, there has been little of the Spirit of brotherhood among men. Those out of harmony with God seldom find themselves in harmony with one another. It is the love of God in the heart, and the will of God controlling the life, that unites a man with all others who similarly have come under the controlling influence of the Spirit of God.

But not many of the human race thus far have been so highly favored—only as many as the Lord has enlightened by the Gospel and called to follow in the footsteps of the Master. Compared with the countless millions of the human race, these have numbered very few. Jesus spoke of them as a “little flock,” but assured them that it was the Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom.—Luke 12:32

When that kingdom is fully prepared and set up in power and great glory throughout the earth, all mankind will be given their opportunity to return to God, come under the influence of his Spirit of love, and become his children. This work of restoration will be so all-inclusive and far-reaching that all shall know the Lord, his law being written in their “inward parts.”—Jer. 31:31-34

The Scripture assignment for our lesson is only indirectly related to the caption, “One Human Race,” for it has to do merely with the opening up of kingdom privileges to the Gentiles, privileges which previously had been offered exclusively to the Jewish nation. When Jesus first sent his disciples to minister the kingdom Gospel he said to them, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, nor into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go, rather, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”—Matt. 10:5,6

After he was raised from the dead Jesus commanded his disciples to carry the witness world-wide and to make disciples from among “all nations,” beginning at Jerusalem. In giving these seemingly contradictory commands Jesus was acting in keeping with a time prophecy recorded in Daniel 9:24-27. Sixty-nine symbolic “weeks” were to elapse from the issuing of a certain decree until “Messiah the Prince.” Actually this was a period of 483 years, which terminated when Jesus was baptized. Each of these weeks was seven years in length, and the prophet declared that beyond the sixty-nine weeks the special covenant with Israel was to be “confirmed” for another week, or for seven years from the time Jesus began his ministry.

Daniel also prophesied that the Messiah would be “cut off” in the midst, or middle, of this seventieth week, “but not for himself.” This is a reference to Jesus’ death for the sins of the whole world, and it occurred three and one-half years after his baptism. This left another three and one-half of that seventieth “week” during which the exclusive covenant with Israel was to be continued, and Jesus knew that if after Pentecost his disciples began their ministry at Jerusalem this short period would have elapsed by the time they reached out to other nations or nationalities.

And now the time had come for the Gentiles to have the opportunity to share kingdom privileges with the Jews. However, the apostles, all of them being Jews, were not themselves prepared in their hearts and minds for this change of dispensation. Peter was especially prejudiced against the idea that Gentiles could be “fellow-heirs” with the Jews. (Eph. 3:6) So miracles and visions were necessary to assure him and the others that God’s blessing was now upon this extension of the ministry to Gentiles.

QUESTIONS

What did Paul say concerning one human race?

When will God actually be the Father of all mankind?

Explain the prophetic background of Peter’s experience in connection with the conversion of Cornelius.

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