Jesus Rejected the Political Means
4 March 2011
By David Maas
218 Main Street, Unit 133
Kirkland, Washington, USA
eleutheria@prodigy.net
david.maas@gospeltoallnations.org
www.gospeltoallnations.org
Satan tempted Jesus in the Wilderness by offering to give him “all the kingdoms of the
world” including their glory and authority, if only he would “fall down and render homage” to
Satan (MATTHEW 4:8-9, LUKE 4:5-7). The Devil claimed the kingdoms of this Age “have
been delivered to me and I give them to whom I will.”
JESUS DID NOT DISPUTE LUCIFER’S CLAIM. Though he was chosen by God to be
King and destined to rule all nations, nevertheless Jesus refused Satan's offer of political power
and instead embraced the way of the cross. In the Divine order the way to true victory is
through humble obedience and self-sacrificial service, not political, economic or military might.
The Temptation in the Wilderness was not the end of Satan’s efforts to entice Jesus.
Following Christ’s rebuff in the Wilderness, “the Devil departed from him until a more
opportune time” (LUKE 4:13). Jesus faced this same challenge again. After a miraculous
feeding of a multitude the crowd “was about to come and seize him that they might make him
king” (JOHN 6:15). Many of his contemporaries would go on to reject Jesus as Messiah because
he was not the militaristic revolutionary they expected AND FOR WHICH THEY LUSTED.
The true Messiah of Israel did not come to overthrow the Roman government, but to “bind the
strong man” and thereby free men and women from the regimes of Satan, Death and Sin (MARK
3:27).
Pontius Pilate inquired whether Jesus was “the king of the Jews” when he interrogated him
(JOHN 18:33). Jesus did not deny his kingship before this representative of Rome and answered
Pilate, “you say that I am a king: I for this have been born.” But Jesus qualified his claim of
royal authority by stating “my kingdom is not from (ek) this world: if my kingdom was from
this world my own officers would strive that I should not be delivered up to the Jews: but now
my kingdom is not from here” (verse 36). This was not a claim to a strictly “spiritual,”
otherworldly or immaterial kingdom. Rather, it was an acknowledgment that the source or
origin of his kingship was other than that of the existing fallen world order. In other words, the
coming kingdom of God is of an entirely different political order than that of the nations of
this existing evil age.
Pilate found no fault in Jesus and was minded to release him. However, at the instigation of
the religious authorities of Jerusalem a crowd cried out for Pilate to release Barabbas, a léstés
(Greek), a “brigand” or “insurrectionist.” Apparently the presiding Temple authorities preferred
a violent political revolutionary to the Suffering Servant prophesied by Isaiah. Contrary to the
messianic expectations of his Jewish contemporaries, Jesus “took on the form of a slave” and
became “obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” It was because of his willingness to endure
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an unjust death on the cross that God highly exalted him and bestowed on him “the name which
is above every name.”
Christianity has a long and tortured history of mixing Church and State going back to the
fourth century when Emperor Constantine merged them in an act of political expediency. Within
a generation the once persecuted had become the persecutor as ecclesiastical authorities used
the power of the State to suppress doctrinal "dissidents," those who refused to adhere to the
“orthodox” party line. The temptation for Church authorities to use the political means to
impose “right” belief and conduct was simply too great. On the surface force always appears
easier and more effective than persuasion.
Christians who elect to advance their cause through the political means and the power of the
State should consider which path they have elected to take. Is it the path chosen by Jesus Christ
or the one offered to him by Satan? Should they as his disciples embrace what Jesus rejected or
emulate his example of humble obedience and self-sacrificial service? Or like the contemporaries
of Jesus are they still lusting for a militaristic messiah who will use political and military might
to slay all his (their?) enemies, impose God’s rule by force and exalt his followers in the here and
now?
Over the last generation a not insignificant percentage of U.S. Christians, church leaders and
organizations have aggressively embraced political activism, as if the Cause of Christ can be
advanced through a flawed and corrupt political system. Increasingly the political means is
displacing Gospel proclamation. It seems a little evil is necessary in order that a greater good
might come.
In the end Christians will discover to their dismay that political activism has been an
enormous mistake. By its very nature it is counter productive to the mission of Gospel
proclamation to all nations. Political power always corrupts those who wield it.
Partisan politicking is a poor substitute for Gospel Proclamation and lives lived in conformity
to the Cross. It is high time to reject the ways of the World and return to the task with which
Jesus himself has commissioned us; namely, the preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ and
the Kingdom of God.
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