Jesus the Revolutionary

The Bible says, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, that "If any man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether ­ the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new" (J.B. Phillips).

It is often forgotten that our Saviour was born into a climate that was every bit as revolutionary as that of South Africa today.

The dream of the great majority was for political justice, and to be delivered from the tyranny of the oppressor. They looked forward, with intense longing, to that day when a deliverer would come who would give them their freedom, and a proper place in the sun.

And they believed this deliverance must come by force.

It is not difficult for us to understand why the Jews believed the Messianic kingdom would be established by force, for many Scriptures prophesied that this would be so.

We read in Isaiah 11:4, that, "He, the Messiah, shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth".

Apocryphal books like The Similitudes of Enoch, and The Psalms of Solomon assured the people that the Messiah would be a man of violence.

This is how Zechariah understood the scriptures when he said, "The Lord God . . . spoke by the mouth of his holy, prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us" (Lk 1:70-71).

The temptation of Jesus

The gospels make it quite clear that Jesus was constantly tempted to use his unlimited powers to fulfil these prophecies, which spoke of a violent, Messiah. Some scholars say possibly five of his 12 disciples, were Zealots, that is men committed to the physical overthrow of the Roman rulers.

We may be sure that these men were constantly at him, arguing for revolution.

James and John spoke for them all when they asked Jesus for positions of responsibility in the kingdom he would establish, once the oppressor had been cast out (Mk 10:37).

After the feeding of the 5000 the people tried to force him to be their leader in their struggle for freedom (Jn 6:15).

We can see, then, that great pressure was brought to bear on Jesus in an endeavour to force Him to embark on a policy of revolutionary violence.

But He constantly resisted this pressure.

In the wilderness He rebuked Satan for tempting him to be a political Messiah (Mt 4:8-10). In Gethsemane, when He ordered one of his disciples to sheath his sword, He added, "They that take to the sword shall perish by the sword" (Mt 26:52).

When the Herodians tried to trap Him into declaring that He supported civil disobedience, by asking the question, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" He replied "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" (Mt 22:21).

Face to face with Pilate Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight" (Jn 22:11).

There can be no doubt at all that Paul rightly interpreted the mind and teaching of Jesus when he wrote, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

"Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment" (Ro 13:1-2).

Jesus resists this temptation

We can say, then, that Jesus, though living in a time of latent revolution, refused to be a revolutionary in the accepted meaning of that word.

He refused to attack the structures of His society, and overthrow them by violent means in order to obtain a more just social order.

This conclusion is of the utmost importance for Christians, for we are under constant pressure to join the revolutionary movements of our time.

We live in the most revolutionary period of human history.

There is the communist revolution. There is the racial revolution. There is the feminist revolution. There is the revolution of underprivileged races, and of the young against the old. Everywhere we look there is revolution.

The great question is, "What should be the Christian response?"

The answer of many is that Christians should be at the forefront of revolution. We should march with the revolutionaries, and fight with the revolutionaries to overturn what we see to be an unjust and oppressive society.

And if peaceful demonstrations and actions do not succeed, we should take to violence.

This is the teaching of Liberation Theology, the ideology behind the World Council of Churches' action in supplying violent movements with money.

Jesus, the true

revolutionary

But, if we do these things, we are out of step with Jesus, who came to bring peace, not a sword (Jn 18:11).

And we can hardly call ourselves "Christian," for we are called, as Christians, "to walk in the same way in which He walked" (1 Jn 2:6).

Nevertheless, in a very deep sense, Jesus was a revolutionary, for he established a new society that was far more radical and revolutionary than anything imagined by Lenin, Marx and Engels.

This new society would have a totally new way of establishing a just society.

It would have a new way of dealing with offenders ­ by forgiving them; with money ­ by sharing it; with social classes ­ by making them irrelevant; with racial and national differences ­ by treating all men as brothers; with enemies ­ by loving them.

Jesus established the most revolutionary society ever known to man, and the one which has been far and away the most effective.

In every age men and women, born again into the kingdom of Christ, have been the means of bringing about vast improvements in the lot of man. Things today are by no means what they should be, but they would have been a thousand times worse if Christ had not been born.

The Zealot type of revolution, the revolution of blood and destruction of the idealist and dreamer, has been tried many times throughout history, and the result is always the same. It simply leads to the replacement of one tyranny by another, of one unjust society by another unjust society.

How much better, and how much more radical, is the way of Jesus! He stands before the whole world and says, "You must be born again" (Jn 3:3).

Before the world can change you must change. A changed individual will lead to a changed family, to a changed society, a changed nation, and a changed world.

Jesus and Jesus alone deals with the core problem behind all our problems, namely that the human heart "is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer 17:9).

No revolutionary movement that leaves out the fact that man is, a sinful and fallen creature, can ever hope to succeed.

Jesus alone can promise to fulfil the prophecy of Ezekiel, "A new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you: (Ez 36:26).

And this is what the whole world is waiting for, a new heart and a new spirit.

Without this a just society will never come.

Tuesday

COLOSSIANS 3:1-10

"In these you once walked" (v7).

It is undeniable that the great evangelical revival of the 18th Century, set in motion, under God, by the Wesley brothers and by George Whitefield, led to a revolutionary change for the better in the social fabric of Great Britain.

So many movements for social reform had their origin in that revival.

Describing the change in men, which alone can lead to a changed society, John Wesley wrote, "When man truly repents and believes the Gospel, then God within him works a miraculous change.

"The mighty miracle of regeneration is wrought, and the whole soul is recreated in Christ Jesus, and is renewed after the image of God.

"This is the change whereby the earthly, sensual, devilish mind is changed into the mind which is in Christ Jesus."

Wednesday

MATTHEW 5:38-48

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (v44).

The committed hard-core revolutionaries in Palestine in the time of Jesus were known as "Zealots."

About once every generation Zealot bands revolted, with their leader claiming to be the promised Messiah.

In 4BC a Zealot by the name of Judas Galileus led an assault on a Roman garrison at Sepphoris, only 7km from Nazareth; and, 10 years later, urged the people not to pay taxes to Rome.

Barabbas, chosen instead of Jesus, is described as a man "who had committed murder in the insurrection," that is, an insurrection or rebellion led by Zealots.

Gamaliel, in Acts 5:36-37, mentions two false Zealot messiahs in his day ­ Theudas and a certain Judas of Galilee, who had led uprisings against Rome, and had perished.

According to Josephus an Egyptian came to Jerusalem about 54AD pretending to be a prophet, and gathered together 30,000 men with which to attack the Roman garrison in the city.

He says in the "Wars of the Jews": "Felix prevented his attempt, and met him with Roman soldiers . . . the Egyptian ran away, while the greater part of those who were with him were either destroyed or taken alive."

This was the "fullness of time" (Gal 4:4) into which God sent his Son, a time ripe for revolution.

But Jesus came to preach love and not hate, peaceful change from within and not violent change from without.

Thursday

LUKE 4:16-21

"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (v21).

Dr Carl F.H. Henry, in Liberation Theology, p.193, says:

"The Gospel resounds with good news for the needy and oppressed. It conveys assurance that injustice, repression, exploitation, discrimination and poverty and dated and doomed, that no one is forced to accept the crush of evil powers as finally determinative for his or her existence.

"Into the morass of sinful human history and experience the Gospel heralds a new order of life shaped by God's redemptive intervention.

"Christ's gospel is comprehensively liberating. While "Liberator" is less than a fully adequate title for Jesus Christ, it nonetheless declares that whatever else Jesus is and does he also singularly unshackles the chains that enslave the human race.

"Not only will Jesus Christ, the coming King, some day topple every oppressive power, but he has also served notice that the battle is already underway to the very death.

"In his own person Jesus has already struck the forces of iniquity a mortal blow; their very days are numbered and the ways of wickedness are surely doomed.

"Moreover, the emancipating Redeemer grants new life to the penitent, and enlists them as a committed community, as a new society, to his ongoing victorious combat over the force of evil.

"Even now the risen Christ is active in history, leading his followers in resistance against sin and Satan."

Friday

COLOSSIANS 3:11-17

"Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all" (v11).

Many people believe racial tension is confined to such countries as America and South Africa. Actually is is a problem that is found all over the world.

There is discrimination in Brazil against their black people; in Germany against Turkish immigrant labourers; in India against Anglo-Indians; in Japan against Koreans; in Israel against their Arab citizens; in Australia against their aborigines.

Indeed it would be difficult to find any country with mixed races where there is not discrimination against one or more of these races by the dominant race.

In the early Church they had believers from many races, and from all social classes. From the very beginning they found their unity and one-ness in Christ.

Our vision is for a world where all men from all races and classes can alive together, work together, and play together without the slightest disharmony.

But this can only be true when Jesus Christ has filled their hearts with His love.

Saturday

ROMANS 13:1-7

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities: (v1).

"There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." Therefore to disobey lawful authority is to disobey God.

Commenting on this verse John Calvin wrote: "The reason why we ought to be subject to magistrates is that they have been appointed by God's ordination. If it is the will of God to govern the world in this manner any who despite His power are striving to overturn the order of God, and are therefore resisting God himself, since to despite the providence of the One who is the Author of civil government is to wage war against him."

Christians must set an example in the community by their respect for all in authority, by obedience to law and order, and by their honesty in paying taxes.

The Christian must be an exemplary citizen because in this way we serve God.

There may be occasions when civil authority is in conflict with the commandments of God, when we must "obey God rather than man" (Acts 5:29); but we must make sure we are not making this higher command an excuse for serving our own selfish ends.

Sunday

MATTHEW 26:47-56

"Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and He will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels?" (v53).

The arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane was accompanied by violence. We read that "a great crowd" came with Judas, armed with "swords and clubs."

It seems they came prepared to use these weapons and at least one disciple was prepared to defend his Master; for we read that "one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear."

An ugly fracas might have developed if Jesus had not said, "Put your sword back in its place;" and healed the wounded servant (Lk 22:51).

It was in this setting of violence that Jesus repudiated all violence.

He could so easily have overwhelmed his enemies by calling on assistance from heaven, but he refused to do so. He knew his cup of suffering had to be drunk, and that the hour of drinking had come.

The lesson for us all is clear. No matter how urgent the temptation we must never use force to obtain our ends, but rather trust in God to vindicate our cause.

Monday

MARK 1:40-45

"I will; be clean" (v42).

Tom Skinner, in Christ the Liberator, p.205, says: "There is no possible way you can talk about preaching the Gospel if you do not want to deal with the issues that bind people.

"If your gospel is an 'either-or' gospel, I must reject it. Any gospel that does not talk about delivering to a man a personal Saviour who will free him from the personal bondage of sin, and grant him eternal life, and does not at the same time speak to the issue of enslavement, the issue of injustice, the issue of inequality ­ any gospel that does not want to go where people are hungry and poverty-stricken and set them free in the name of Jesus Christ ­ is not the Gospel."

Dr Carl F.H. Henry, in Liberation Theology, p191: "The Christian Church must reject attempts to politicise an unregenerate world into the Kingdom of God.

"It must also reject interpretations of evangelical conversion devoid of active social concerns as fulfilments of Christian responsibility.

"God works through the Christian community to change the world. Its task is not to force new structures on society at large, but to be the new society, to exemplify in its own ranks the way and will of God.