When Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, he was not articulating a political theory. He was borrowing a theological one. The equality of human beings does not come from nature, which distributes strength and intelligence and circumstance with breathtaking inequality. It does not come from government, which has historically been the primary instrument of human oppression. It comes from God, from the Genesis declaration that every human being is made in the image of the Almighty, that every person, regardless of birth or background or ability, bears the mark of the Creator.

This is the most radical idea in the history of political philosophy, and it is entirely biblical. In a world stratified by class, caste, and conquest, the Gospel announced something that cut across every human division: in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. All one. Not identical; the Gospel does not flatten legitimate distinctions. But equal in dignity, equal in value, equal in the worth that God has stamped into every soul He has made. The ground is level at the foot of the cross, and there is no hierarchy of skin color at the throne of grace.

God does not look on the outward appearance. He told Samuel that plainly when He passed over all the impressive older brothers and chose the youngest, overlooked shepherd boy to be king of Israel. God looks on the heart. He does not see skin. He sees the soul. And He loves what He sees enough to have sent His Son to redeem it. In the book of Acts, an Ethiopian, a Roman centurion, a Pharisee turned apostle: three continents, three lineages, one Savior, one Gospel, one grace for every race. There is no white Christianity, no black Christianity, and no brown Christianity. There is Christ, who is for all and in all who know Him.

The answer to the racial division that still fractures our society is not a political program or a corporate apology. It is the Gospel, the cross of Jesus Christ, which kills the hostility between people the same way it kills the hostility between a holy God and sinful humanity. Every person you meet bears the image of God. Treat them accordingly because the One who made them does. The church at its best is the most powerful picture of reconciliation the world will ever see, people from every nation, language, and background gathered around one Lord, one faith, one baptism.