One Blood - God’s Design for Humanity

 

You may see this seemingly twice here. But it's not... not really... but it is. oh, just read it all, for Jesus' sake!  Love one another...  STOP THE BIGOTRY!!!

One Blood-God’s Design for Humanity (Part 1)

From the very beginning, YHWH made it very clear that we are one family. Not many races, not divided by value or worth… we are all one blood.

Genesis 1:26-27 says: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Every human being, no matter the shade or tone of their skin or where they were born, is made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. That means every life has value because it reflects Him.

The book of Acts says it plainly: Acts 17:26, “And He made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” The Greek word for “one blood” is ἑνὸς αἵματος (henos haimatos), literally “of one blood.” YHWH made one human race. All our differences, language, culture, even skin shade, came later, but our origin is the same.

When sin entered the world, so did pride, jealousy, and division. By Genesis 11, at Babel, humans were already exalting themselves and trying to build their own name instead of worshipping YHWH. God scattered them into nations, but His plan was never for those nations to hate or oppress one another.

His promise to Abraham proves this: Genesis 12:3, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” From the very start, His plan was to bring blessing to all nations through the covenant family.

YHWH Himself shows no partiality. Deuteronomy 10:17 says: “For YHWH your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.” The Hebrew phrase here is לֹא־יִשָּׂא פָנִים (lo yissa panim),“He does not lift up a face,” meaning He does not favor one person or group over another.

This theme runs straight into the New Testament. Ya’akov (James) warns believers not to show favoritism: James 2:1, “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the Lord of glory.”

Sha’ul (Paul) echoes this in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua.”

This is the heart of it: God made one human race, and in Messiah He calls us back to that unity. Racism, favoritism, pride, all of it is rebellion against His design.

One Blood: God’s Design for Humanity (Part 2)

Jim Crow and God’s Word on Oppression

In Part 1, we saw that YHWH made all humanity of one blood and shows no partiality. But history shows us what happens when humans reject His design. Pride, fear, and hatred creep in, and entire systems are built to put some people above others. One of the clearest examples of that in American history was the “Jim Crow” era.

After slavery was abolished in 1865, many states, mostly in the South, passed a series of laws that came to be known as “Jim Crow laws”. These laws forced racial segregation everywhere, schools, buses, restaurants, water fountains, theaters, neighborhoods.

It wasn’t just separation, it was oppression. Black Americans were denied the right to vote through literacy tests and poll taxes. They were kept from good jobs, land ownership, and education. And if anyone resisted, they often faced threats, violence, even lynching, and the law rarely defended them.

This is exactly the kind of thing YHWH calls evil. Through the prophet Isaiah, He warned:

Isaiah 10:1–2, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!”

The prophet Amos cried out:

Amos 5:24, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

When a society enforces injustice, YHWH sees it. The Torah commanded Israel to treat the stranger, the outsider, with dignity and equality:

Leviticus 19:33–34, “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am YHWH your God.”

Jim Crow laws directly violated this heart of the Torah (God’s Laws); they wronged neighbors instead of loving them. They turned society into a hierarchy where some had rights and dignity, and others were crushed.

Yeshua came right into this broken world and said something radical:

Matthew 5:43–44, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

That would have been just as shocking to His hearers then as it is to us now. It means that even when a system is unjust, like Jim Crow was, God’s people are still called to walk in love, to refuse bitterness, and to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Jim Crow was thankfully finally struck down by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but the scars remain, and so does the temptation in every generation to build new forms of division.

The Spiritual War and Messiah’s Victory

We’ve seen how God made all humanity from one blood (Part 1) and how sin twisted that design into systems of oppression like Jim Crow (Part 2). Now we need to see what’s happening behind the scenes, because this is not just a history lesson. It’s a spiritual war.

Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Racism, hatred, pride, and division are not just bad habits, they are weapons in the enemy’s hand. The adversary knows that if he can divide humanity, and especially divide the Body of Messiah, he can weaken our witness and keep people from seeing God’s love.

But Yeshua came to destroy those dividing walls. Sha’ul (Paul) writes:

Ephesians 2:14–16: “For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

The phrase “one new man”, εἰς ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον (eis hena kainon anthrōpon), shows God’s heart to create a single, unified people in Messiah. The wall of hostility is gone. That means there is no room for one group to claim superiority over another.

Even prophetically, Scripture shows where all of this is heading. John’s vision in Revelation gives us a picture of the end of the story:

Revelation 7:9: “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.”

There it is, every tribe, every language, every shade of skin, worshiping together before Yeshua. That is the Kingdom. That is the goal.

So what does this mean for us right now? It means we refuse to take part in division, racism, or favoritism. We stand for justice but never rejoice at someone’s downfall. We speak truth about evil but guard our hearts against hate. We walk in the Spirit, because only the Spirit can keep us from slipping back into the enemy’s traps.

As Paul said in Romans 12:21:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

PART 4 (?)

Title: One Blood, One Call, God’s Vision for Peace

Acts 17:26 tells us clearly: "And He made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation." This is not a suggestion, not a poetic metaphor, it is the Creator's declaration about humanity. One blood. Not many. Not divided. One.

If we really believe that, then we have to start living like it.

The Torah testifies to this unity. Genesis 1:27 says "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Every human bears the tzelem Elohim (צֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים), the image of God. There is no hierarchy of worth before YHWH based on skin tone, ethnicity, language, or nation.

The prophets condemned division that leads to injustice. Isaiah 58:6 says, "Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke?" Oppression, whether legal, social, or economic, is sin. Period.

Yeshua prayed in John 17:21 that we would all be one, "that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me." Division destroys witness. Unity magnifies His Name.

And Sha'ul (Paul) wrote in Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Meshiach Yeshua." That was radical in his day. It is still radical now. But it is the Kingdom reality.

The Jim Crow era was one of the most blatant rejections of these truths in modern history. From the late 1800s through the 1960s, a series of laws across the United States enforced racial segregation, separate schools, separate buses, separate water fountains, even separate Bibles for courtrooms. These were not neutral laws; they were designed to keep people divided and to deny dignity to those created in God's image. This was a direct rebellion against the Word of God that declares equality in creation, dignity in image-bearing, and unity in the Spirit.

But Yeshua came to destroy that very division. Ephesians 2:14 says: "For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the dividing wall of hostility." Sha'ul was speaking of Jew and Gentile, but the principle stretches across every human division. Meshiach tears down the wall, whether it is built of stone or of man-made laws.

Our call today must be to repent for where we have believed lies about human value, and to speak peace, not division. Not just peace that avoids conflict, but peace that heals wounds. Micah 6:8 tells us exactly what is required: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Doing justice means tearing down walls that divide. Loving mercy means refusing to celebrate the downfall of anyone, even our enemies. Walking humbly means admitting where we have been wrong and choosing the narrow road of righteousness.

Call to Action:

We must:

• Speak life where there has been death.

• Build bridges where there have been walls.

• Love where there has been hatred.

• Forgive where there have been wounds.

This is not optional. This is what it means to follow Yeshua, the Prince of Peace. The world is watching. Our children are watching. And heaven is watching.

Let us be the ones who live as if "one blood" really means something.

Shalom begins here.