Segregation and God's Word

Compiled by Martha Andrews, M.A. in Rel. Ed., ex-college teacher of Bible (11th edition)

The only true yardstick of segregation is not custom, opinion, nor court decree, but the inerrant Word of God.

Old Testament Reveals God's Creation and Separation of Races, Racial Purity; Forbidding, Punishing Intermarriage; God's Chosen Race.

God Created Species, Commanded Purity of Breed

Genesis 1:11, 20-21, 24-25. God Created all living things and commanded every creature to bring forth after its kind. (Animals group with kind through God-given instinct).

Mixing Caused the Flood

Genesis 6:1-7 “…and they took them wives of all which they chose.” The promiscuous co-habitation of “sons of God” (Seth's Godly line) with “daughters of men” (Cain's worldly line), resulted in breakdown of morality, provoking the Lord to destroy the earth by flood.

Origin and Separation of Races

Genesis 9:18-10:32. After the flood Noah's sons Shem, Ham (meaning “dark”), and Japheth fathered three racial groups which migrated to different continents. “…and by these were the nations divided after the flood.”

Negro Made the Servant Race by Divine Decree

Genesis 9:24-27 (Upon Ham's wrong-doing) “…Cursed be Canaan (Ham's son—posterity) a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren…” God created every race for a purpose.

Separation by Language

Genesis 11:1-9 Confusion of tongues at Tower of Babel was an act of God to separate peoples and disrupt man's first attempt at collectivism.

Mixed Races Incompatible

Genesis chapters 12-25. Abraham's Egyptian handmaid Hagar gave birth to Ishmael; Sarah, the pureblood woman, to Isaac. The boys of different lineage were incompatible. God had Abraham send Hagar away with Ishmael to form a separate people (Arabs), without inheritance with Abraham's seed.

Racial Purity Sought for God's Covenant People

Genesis 24:3-4. “…Thou shalt not take a wife unto my son (Isaac) of the daughters of the Canaanites (dark) among whom I dwell; But thou shalt go unto my country and to my kindred and take a wife unto my son.”
Genesis 28:2. “Arise (Jacob), Go to…the house of Bethuel thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban.”

Separate and Different Peoples Pre-Determined

Genesis 25:23. “Two nations are in thy womb (Esau and Jacob), and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels.”

Mixing of Strain Forbidden

Leviticus 19:19. “…Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind; thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee.”
Deuteronomy 22:9-11. “…Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together…” Surely such purity of strain would apply to God's master-creation, man.

Segregated Worship a Divinely-Inspired Order

Deuteronomy 23:2 “A bastard (one born to illegal parents, half Israelite, half Canaanite) shall not enter the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation…” (“Bastard” in Hebrew means “mixed”. Amalgamates could be saved, but not worship with the pure-blooded.)

Intermarriage Forbidden, Punished, Prevented by Segregation

Deuteronomy 7:1-3. “Neither shalt thou make marriage with them (Canaanites)…”
Joshua 23:12-13. “If ye…cleave unto…these nations…and make marriage…God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you.” (Only as long as Israel remained a separate people was there victory).
Ezra 10:2. “…We have trespassed against God, and have taken strange wives.” Ezra 6:21, chapters 9-10, Nehemiah 10:28,30; 13:23-30. Ezra and Nehemiah settled the race problem by segregation and severe punishment for mixing.

Intermarriage Weakens Nations

Ezra 9:12 “…Give not your daughters unto their sons neither take their daughters unto your sons…that ye may be strong.”

Negro's Characteristics Unchangeable

Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots?” Black blood mixed reverts back thither; white blood mixed is lost forever.

God Set Apart a People For Himself

Isaiah 43:21. “This people (Israel) have I formed for myself…” The whole Bible is built around God's Chosen People. Even tribes of Israel were segregated from each other (Numbers 36:3).

New Testament Approves Physical Segregation, Points Way to Spiritual Integration Through Christ

Christ Teaches Individual Merit—Not Equality

Matthew 25:14-30. Parables of talents shows that God endows people differently; the goal should be individual excellence—not equality.

Paul Stressed Contentment With One's State

Philippians 4:11. “…I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content…” (See I Timothy 6:6).
Hebrews 13:5. “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have…”

Separation by Geographical Bounds

Acts 17:26. “And (God) hath made of one blood (common heritage, Adam) all nations of men…and hath determined…the bounds of their habaitations.” God Himself is the author of segregation. The word “blood” was not in the original.

Separation From Spiritual Unequals

II Corinthians 6:14-17. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers…wherefore come ye out from among them and be ye separate…”

Master-Servant Relationship Established by Scripture

Colossians 3:22. “Servants, obey in all things your master…fearing God.”
Colossians 4:1. “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal…” Justice and equal provision do not require integration herein.

Brotherhood Defined

Mark 3:25. “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother.”
John 1:12-14. “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to them that believe (trust) on His name; Which were born not of…flesh…,but (born again( of God.” (See Romans 8:14).
Scriptural brotherhood is a mystical union of born-again believers.
Universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man is not scriptural.

“One in Christ” Is Via the Cross

Galatians 3:28. “There is neither Jew nor Greek…bond nor free…male nor female…for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” This refers to spiritual unity of kindred souls. All who confess to God that they are sinners (Romans 3:23), believe in their hearts that Christ died for their own sins (I Peter 2:24), who earnestly repent (Luke 13:3), and receive Christ as their personal Saviour (John 3:16-17), are cleansed and born (again) of the Spirit (John 3:3), become children of God and spiritual brothers in Christ.

Races in Heaven

Revelation chapters 4-7. Prophecy of the church triumphant (raptured body of the redeemed) pictures a spectrum encircling the throne of God composed of people of every nation and race blended into beautiful unity, yet preserving their distinctions as colors of the rainbow.

Nowhere Does The Bible Call For Race Mixing.

The 2000 years of segregation imposed upon Israel by Divine authority, infraction of which brought severe punishment, gives no grounds for the charge that segregation is displeasing to God, unjust to man, or inherently wrong. “Love,” “charity,” “brother's keeper,” “brothers in Christ,” are not synonyms for “integration.” Christ demonstrated that there can be love and charity without revolutionary change in social order.

Racial Agitation is Marxism

The social gospel emphasizes reformation instead of salvation. Social reformers advocating integration, wittingly or not, are followers of the Marxian doctrine of a one-world, classless society with one race—the human race. Integration by force serves the following Communist objectives: divide and conquer, amalgamate the races, centralize power in an autocratic federal government; and set up police state using the Negro's “civil rights” as a front for federal policing. Integration is from the Communist platform whose program calls for reinterpreting scripture to serve their purposes.

The Answer To Race Relations

Only when man gets right with God can he be right with man. The answer, therefore, is not reformation by man, but transformation in Christ.