Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11

“The visible demonstration of Christ’s exaltation and lordship in seen in His people’s communal lives which form a new society. This is nothing less than a new beginning to humanity in which all the old divisions, hatreds and stratifications have lost their bitterness and meaning. . . . a new order which is asserting its presence in the world and so witnessing to Christ’s transforming power in modern society.”

Ralph P. Martin, Colossians: The Church’s Lord and the Christian’s Liberty (Grand Rapids, 1972), page 118.

The sub-divisions and social collectivities we might perceive as too obvious to ignore — race, generation, class, and so forth — it’s not just that we are to be above these divisive categories. It’s not just that we are to be too generous at heart to let them sway us any more. Rather, we are to understand that now, in Christ, these distinctions no longer exist. The only existence they continue to have is inside our thoughts and feelings, between our two ears. But in Christ there is not Greek and Jew, etc.

If we would never allow a racial division in our churches, and we wouldn’t, let us neither allow a generational division or any other merely human line of separation. Any thought grounded in an “us/them” assumption falls short of the gospel. The wonderful reality we are seeing in one another moment by moment is Christ.