(A NEW VIEW ON THIS TOPIC)
Right at the outset, I’ll warn you that I am going to come at this topic from an entirely unanticipated point of view before this blog is over, but first I’ll offer some introductory comments. Those who have heard me speak know that I oppose racism in any form. While I write about the ten tribes of Israel throughout history and their locations in the modern world, I vigorously oppose those who try to put this historical topic in any kind of racial “superiority” context. By tracing the Israelites through history, we can prove that the Bible has to be the Divine Word of a Creator God who authored his prophesies millennia ago and has the power to bring them to pass throughout every period of mankind’s history. God himself challenges readers of the Bible in Isaiah 41:21-26 to believe in his reality because of this very fact.
The Israelites have received God’s best blessings, but they have not received them because they were/are “better” than other races or ethnic groups. Far from it. They have received these blessings because God gave these blessings to the peoples and nations who were to descend from his friend, Abraham. The blessings promised to Abraham in Genesis 17:1-8, 22:15-18 and other scriptures were unconditional, and were passed on from Abraham to Isaac, Jacob (later re-named “Israel”) and then to the 12 tribes which descended from Jacob/Israel. The modern nations of Israel descended from Abraham have these blessings because God has been faithfully keeping his promises to Abraham’s birthright descendants throughout history. When God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt during the Exodus, the Israelites were a race of slaves. If it had not been for God’s promises to Abraham, the Israelites would never have developed into mighty nations and empires. Next let’s examine some myths about race.
Additionally, the Bible is very clear that all races on earth today have descended from Noah and his family after the Flood. Some try to teach the Flood was a regional event, allowing for humans not descended from Noah to be alive on earth today. That theory is debunked by the Bible. Genesis 7:21-23 makes it unmistakably clear that “all flesh [man and air-breathing animals] died” in the Flood. It states “every living substance” was destroyed on the earth if it wasn’t on the Ark. It lists that all humans, animals, birds, cattle, creeping things on the earth died if they weren’t on the Ark. If the flood was not global, there would have been no need for an Ark. So much for the regional flood theory. The Genesis account indicates that only eight people survived the Flood on the Ark (Noah, his wife, Noah’s three sons and their wives), and I Peter 3:20 affirms this fact.
I’ve twice seen a documentary on cable-TV called “Supervolcanoes” in which scientists assert that the DNA of mankind’s modern races is so similar that they had to come from a very small breeding population that survived an ancient catastrophe. If my memory serves correctly, the scientists on the program believed that mankind’s global population at one time in ancient history had to be less than 1,000 people. The Bible agrees, and give us the exact figure. There were only eight left. Since Noah, his wife and three sons were one nuclear family, the modern diversity of mankind’s races came from the wives of Noah’s sons. Looking at the creation, God clearly loves variety. He didn’t make just one kind of tree, flower, bird, animal, fish, etc. He created a copious variety of species and the innate capacity within each Genesis “kind” to diversify into many subspecies. Because God loves a wide variety of species in every other kind of life, it is apparent from mankind’s races and ethnic groups that he likes variety among mankind as well! Paul wrote in Acts 17:26 that God has made all nations of “one blood.” All nations of mankind are made in the “image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:26). There are no exceptions. Matthew 28:19 cited Jesus Christ’s command to his apostles to go to “all nations” with the gospel of salvation. No nation was excluded by him, so Jesus Christ is clearly an “equal opportunity savior!”
One other racial myth I’ll briefly mention is the “serpent seed” teaching. This teaching asserts that Satan or fallen angels interbred with human females and created a “serpent seed” race. This is utter nonsense. Genesis 1 teaches that all physical life can only come from the interbreeding of a male and female within the same Genesis “kind” of life form. Angels and mankind are entirely different “kinds” of beings. They do not even exist in the same dimension! How could angels give themselves human “flesh and blood” sperm when they have spirit bodies with no blood or sperm at all? This is an absurd heresy, and if you want more information about it, you can read the article “The Serpent Seed Heresy” available at the articles link of this website.
Now for the new point of view on this subject I promised in my first paragraph. I ask you to think about the implications of I Corinthians 6:3 that the saints shall “judge angels” once they are saved and become spirit beings themselves. They will not only see God, but they will interact with the entire angelic realm. Have you ever thought about what angels look like in their natural state? Let’s look at some examples. Revelation 4 gives us a peek at the angelic beings around God’s throne. Verse 6 tells us the apostle John saw angelic beings that he described as best as he could. There were four angelic creatures there, and they were “like” a lion, a calf/cow, an eagle and one was “like” a man. They also all had six wings and eyes “before and behind them.” There are 24 “Elders” pictured in this visionary scene of God’s throne and John didn’t give us any description of their appearance. Notice that John was struggling to describe the appearance of these angelic beings with human words. He said they were “like” animals familiar to us or “like” a man, but were not actually the same as animals or men. Notice that the beings were described as being like a lion (the king of wild beasts on earth), an eagle (the dominant bird of prey in the skies), a calf or cow (the dominant domestic animal) and a man. If these angelic creatures depict the dominant species among animals on earth, is it not logical to infer that the lesser ranks of angels depict all other (lesser) types of wild animals, birds, and domestic animals on earth?
The records of ancient civilizations who worshipped their “gods” supports this inference. The “gods” of Ancient Egypt, Assyria, India and other civilizations depict their deities as having human bodies and the heads of birds, jackals, dogs, elephants, crocodiles, etc. I would propose to you that these ancient civilizations knew exactly what their deities looked like in appearance and built images or made pictures of them. All these “gods” of the non-Israelite nations were fallen angels lusting to be worshipped as if they were real deities like the God of Israel–the true Creator. Even Satan himself is called a “serpent” or “dragon” indicating he has a reptilian type of appearance. Remember that God loves variety in the classifications of life he made on earth. We should assume the same variety in the types of angelic beings. We should expect an immense variety in the appearances of the angelic beings he has created. The cherubim pictured on the Ark of the Covenant placed in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle/Temple of Ancient Israel had wings (Exodus 25:20), while the cherubs in Ezekiel 10 had some form of “wheels” along with a man’s hand underneath their wings (verse 8-10). Verse 10’s description of a cherub having a “wheel within a wheel” in its body sounds like what we would call a gyroscopic appearance. Ezekie 10:14 gives descriptions of these cherubs as having four-faced heads and includes language indicating they were the same “creatures” seen at God’s throne by John in Revelation 4:7.
This is sufficient to make us realize that the majority of angels, in their natural state, don’t look anything like us. However, they are righteous beings and God has surely made them glorious, gifted and beautiful in their own right. The above has been a description of the righteous angels. You don’t even want to read a description of the appearance of the fallen angels.
Now back to the topic of racism. Are you ready to interact with angelic beings that don’t look remotely human and yet are brilliant and have personalities of their own? If people are bigoted against or afraid of fellow humans who merely have different skin colors, and other physical variations among the races, how can God allow such people into his kingdom where they will have to “judge” and interact with angels of many non-human appearances all the time? God is not likely to put such people in rulership positions over angels if those people can’t even tolerate the minor racial differences we see among people on earth. Now you can see an argument why racism might keep people out of the kingdom of God. If people can’t handle the very minor differences among humans here on earth, how can God allow them into his kingdom where there will a very wide and diverse angelic population that doesn’t look human at all? On a personal note, people who know me well know that I am an avid bird-watcher. If God brings me into his kingdom, I’d be delighted to have a retinue of angels who all had bodies like ours and the heads of birds (an eagle-headed angel would be very neat!). With what kind of angels would you feel comfortable?
If people of different races could temporarily visit heaven in vision and see angels in their natural state, I think they would look at each other much differently when the vision was over. These people of different races would likely say to each other when the vision was over : “Man is it good to see a fellow human being again! We are so alike!” God is evaluating our attitudes and thoughts all the time. Those who readily accept their brothers and sisters in Christ who are of other races are not likely to have any problem interacting with angelic beings of diverse appearances in the kingdom of God. Are you in that category?
