Introduction: The World Conference on Racism
This series begins against the backdrop of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. Willcock describes it plainly as one of the most useless conferences ever held — a gathering of liberals, communists, socialists, and one-worlders who genuinely believe that a conference can eliminate racism from the world. Its real purpose, he argues, is not the elimination of racism but the elimination of national boundaries, an assault on Western civilisation, and the advancement of world socialism and a one-world government under cover of moral outrage.
The South African government even called upon churches to hold special services in support of the conference — an invitation which liberal churches across the country enthusiastically accepted. The true church, Willcock insists, does not take its orders from earthly governments. But the conference provides a timely occasion to study what the Scripture actually teaches about the origin of the nations, racial conflict, and how Christians are to live in a racially divided world.
There Is Only One Human Race
Verse 26 declares that God has made of one blood all nations of men. That blood is the blood of one man — Adam. Every single human being who has ever existed descended from that one man and that one woman. In a very real sense, there is only one race on earth, and that is the human race. Whatever physical differences exist between people groups, all are related by blood, all are connected, all are cousins if you go back far enough to the beginning.
Biologically, all humans can intermarry and produce children — which is itself proof that they are not separate races in any evolutionary sense. The word race does not appear once in the Bible, nor is the concept of different races in the evolutionary sense taught anywhere in Scripture. The biblical divisions of mankind are tongues, families, countries, and nations — not colour or physical appearance.
The idea of biologically separate races is not a biblical idea — it is an evolutionary one. It was the early evolutionists of the nineteenth century who taught that the various races of men had evolved separately, and that some races were further advanced along the evolutionary ladder than others. That teaching was the foundation of Nazism, of apartheid, and of the most virulent forms of racism the world has known. Christians must reject it entirely, because Scripture rejects it.
The Tower of Babel: The Origin of the Nations
If all men descended from Adam and Eve, how did the vast diversity of nations, languages, and physical appearances come about? The answer is found in Genesis chapters 10 and 11. After the flood, the entire human population descended from Noah’s three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. God commanded them to fill the earth, but men rebelled and gathered instead on the plain of Shinar to build a great city and a tower — the city of Babel.
This was not stupidity — these were highly advanced people, only a hundred years removed from the flood, with long lifespans and great technological ability. The tower whose top would “reach unto heaven” was not a literal attempt to climb into the sky but an astronomical and astrological observatory, built to serve the counterfeit religion of Nimrod and Semiramis that had its roots in the rebellion against God. Their purpose was self-glorification and self-protection: let us make us a name.
God confused their languages by a direct supernatural act. Overnight, groups of people found themselves speaking different languages and unable to communicate with those around them. Naturally, each language group gathered together and then headed off in a different direction from Babel. Language was the original dividing point of the nations — not colour, not physical appearance. The nations came into being at Babel.
Genetics, the Ice Age, and Physical Differences
As each language group separated and began to travel in its own direction, it took with it a limited gene pool. With the passing of time, as groups became geographically isolated and intermarried only within themselves, certain physical characteristics began to concentrate and standardise within each group. This is simple genetics, not evolution.
The difference in skin colour between the darkest African and the lightest European is entirely explained by the concentration of melanin — the same chemical colouring agent present in every human being. In those who produce more of it, skin is darker; in those who produce less, lighter. There is no racial mystery here, only genetics. The same principle accounts for the differences in facial features, hair type, and other physical characteristics that distinguish one people group from another.
The one and only Ice Age — which creationists place shortly after the flood — also played a significant role in the spreading of the nations. Ice bridges made it possible for people to cross land masses and continents that would otherwise have been inaccessible, enabling the descendants of Noah to reach the Americas, the far east of Asia, and the southern tip of Africa within a few centuries of leaving Babel.
The Nations in God’s Sovereign Purpose
The great purpose of God in the diversity and distribution of the nations is stated here: that they should seek the Lord. The scattering of the nations was not merely a judicial act of judgment upon rebellion. It was simultaneously a providential act of mercy, in which God spread the human race across the earth so that all peoples in all places might have the opportunity to seek after him.
One Blood, One Saviour
All nations of men come from one man’s blood — Adam’s. But all who are saved from among those nations are redeemed by one man’s blood — the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam. As the first Adam is the head and representative of all who are in him by natural descent, so the second Adam is the head and representative of all his chosen people, drawn from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation.
The gospel is not for one nation and not for another. It is not for the white and not the black. It is the good news of salvation to all people — even as many as the Lord has chosen from all the nations of the earth. And that is the only place where true peace between the nations has ever been found, or ever will be found — in the church of Jesus Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free.