Jesus the Revolutionary

I recently completed a book, that I have known about sometime, and also I have known of the author because of my activity in house "church" for sometime. The book is entitled "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola. Frank is a fine Christian man who has an online and offline ministry called "Present Testimony Ministry". He is a high school Psychology teacher and Philosophy teacher part-time. He is known as a "church planter" or what may have been called in times past, an Apostle. Though he would never accept any title. He loves Jesus above all things. His books are very well written with a tremendous bibliography of his resources of material he quotes. In his above mentioned book he lays out the history of our modern church practices. Much of that which I have already become familiar with in my personal research and study as well. His book becomes the second witness testimony for many of us that have so been enlightened by the Lord to see and understand the "traditions of men" over God's commandments (his Word). His book is a refreshing reminder to us who see what man has done to the Ekklesia and what Jesus intended to rid us from so that man may have a relationship with God and others.
I would like to quote from a portion of his last chapter in the book. Then I will expound some on it.
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If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will not be one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom.
A.W. Tozer

Frank writes:

"Jesus Christ is not only the Savior, the Messiah, the Prophet, the Priest, and the King. He is also the Revolutionary. Yet, few Christians know Him as such; unfortunately, I know this from experience. For several years now I’ve been working with house churches, writing, and speaking about radical church deconstruction and renewal. In many places I go, people ask me: "Why do you have to be so negative about the modern church, Frank!? Jesus is not a critical person. It is so unlike our Lord to talk about what is wrong with the church. Let us focus on the positive and ignore the negative!"

Such high volume sentiments express complete unfamiliarity with Christ as revolutionary teacher; radical prophet; provocative preacher; controversialist; iconoclast; and the implacable opponent of the religious establishment.

Granted, our Lord is not critical or harsh with His own. He is full of mercy and kindness, and He loves His people passionately. However, this is precisely why He is jealous over His Bride. And it is why He will not compromise with the unbreakable traditions to which His people have been held captive. Nor will He ignore our fanatical devotion to them.

Consider our Lord’s conduct while on earth.

Jesus was never a rabble-rouser nor a ranting rebel, yet He constantly defied the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees. He did not do so by accident, but with great deliberation. The Pharisees were those who, for the sake of the "truth" they saw, tried to extinguish the truth they could not see. This explains why there was always a blizzard of controversy between the "tradition of the elders" and the acts of Jesus.

Someone once said that "a rebel attempts to change the past; a revolutionary attempts to change the future." Jesus Christ brought drastic change to the world. Change to humanity’s view of God. Change to God’s view of humankind. Change to men’s view of women. Our Lord came to bring radical change to the old order of things, replacing it with a new order. He came to bring forth a new covenant—a new kingdom—a new birth—a new race—a new species—a new culture—and a new civilization.

As you read through the Gospels, behold your Lord, the Revolutionary. Watch Him throw the Pharisees into a panic by intentionally flaunting their conventions. Numerous times Jesus healed on the Sabbath day, flatly breaking their cherished tradition. If the Lord wanted to placate His enemies, He could have waited until Sunday or Monday to heal some of these people. Instead, He deliberately healed on the Sabbath, knowing full well it would make His opponents livid.

This pattern runs pretty deep. In one instance, Jesus healed a blind man by mixing clay with spittle and putting it in the man’s eyes. Such an act was in direct defiance to the Jewish ordinance that prohibited healing on the Sabbath by mixing mud with spittle! Yet your Lord intentionally shattered this tradition publicly and with absolute resolve. Watch Him eat food with unwashed hands under the judgmental gaze of the Pharisees, again intentionally defying their fossilized tradition.

In Jesus, we have a Man who refused to bow to the pressures of religious conformity. A Man who preached a revolution. A Man who would not tolerate hypocrisy. A Man who was not afraid to provoke those who suppressed the liberating gospel He brought to set men free. A Man who did not mind evoking anger in His enemies, causing them to gird their thighs for battle.

What is my point? It is this: Jesus Christ came not only as Messiah, the Anointed One of God to deliver His people from the bondage of the fall…

He came not only as Savior, paying a debt He did not owe to wash away humanity’s war, hatred, and ingrained sin…

He came not only as Prophet, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable…

He came not only as Priest, representing man before God and representing God before man…

He came not only as King, triumphant over all authorities, principalities, and powers...

He also came as Revolutionary, tearing apart the old wineskin with a view to bringing in the new.

Behold your Lord, the Revolutionary!

For many Christians, this is a new look at Jesus Christ. Therefore, to reveal the weaknesses of the church in modernity so that Christ’s Body can fulfill God’s ultimate intention is simply an expression of our Lord’s revolutionary nature. The dominating aim of that nature is to put you and me at the center of the beating heart of God. To put you and me in the core of His eternal purpose—a purpose for which everything was created.

What is needed, then, is a revolution within the Christian faith. Renewal movements will not do it. Revivals will not cut it. Both have been plentiful for the past 50 years. (I might add that they are repackaged every five years.) Renewal movements and revivals have never been potent enough to break the immense inertia of religious tradition.

Renewing and inventing new forms for church is like changing clothes on a mannequin. Doing so will never give it life no matter how avant-garde the garb is. No, the axe must be laid to the root of the problem and a revolution ignited!

What is needed is a complete upheaval of our current Christian practices. All traditions that find no soil in Scripture must be forever abandoned. We must begin anew . . . from ground zero. Anything less will prove defective.

If you are a disciple of the Revolutionary from Nazareth . . .the Radical Messiah who lays His axe to the root . . .you will eventually evoke a specific question. It is the same question that was asked our Lord’s disciples while He walked this earth. That question is: "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?"

>>END<<

A true radical must be a man of roots. In words that I have used elsewhere, "The revolutionary can be an ‘outsider’ to the structure he would see collapse: indeed, he must set himself outside of it. But the radical goes to the roots of his own tradition. He must love it: he must weep over Jerusalem, even if he has to pronounce its doom."

John A.T. Robinson

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Frank Viola [ http://ptmin.org ] is the author of a series of books on radical church renewal and reform. His passion is to see the centrality of Jesus Christ and the life of the early church restored. Frank is part of the house church movement, and he lives in Florida. Among his books are Rethinking the Wineskin, Who is Your Covering?, Pagan Christianity, So You Want to Start a House Church?, Knowing Christ Together, and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. You can reach him online at http://ptmin.org or email him at ptmin@aol.com This article is based on his book Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices [URL: www.ptmin.org/pagan.htm ]
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My added comments.

Most Christians do not understand how far Jesus stuck truth right into the faces of the self righteous and the religious of his day. Most Christians do not understand that Jewish practices and belief of His day and even today, were not even close to the Torah, or the Old Testament, for the Jews in hundreds of years developed their traditions of men as opposed to scripture. These became known as the Talmud, a full transcription of the Mishna and the Gemara. These were simply men's attempt to redefine God's law, by creating fence laws around fence laws and then their own interpretation of these. For example in Jesus time, to understand why he would heal a man's blindness as He did, one must read what their law said. Shabbat 108:20 reads thus : "To heal a blind man on the Sabbath, it his prohibited to inject wine in his eyes. It is also prohibited to make mud with spittle and smear it on his eyes.
Jesus didnt just randomly do this miracle in the way that He did, he did it with purpose in mind, to not just break their laws of tradition, but to show that He is the lawgiver and the judge, the Savouir and the King of all things created. The Jews had no doubt of His Messiahship because of many other things they had written to recognize who the Messiah was when He would come, Jesus did these things as well that proved He alone was who He claimed to be. There is no doubt in my mind or the minds of those that understand Judaism of that time and today, that they (the religious leaders of that day)knew He was the Messiah and crucified Him anyway. Their traditions, their positions of power and recognition, their religion held far greater importance than man's relationship to God. I want to provide one more example of Jesus flaunting their religiousity in their faces, and it may have been one of the many laws He broke which sealed his fate with these law makers of traditions of men. It wasn't long before they conspired to kill Him. Yes, the Bible uses the word conspired. For those of you who don't believe men conspire to commit evil.
Read this, According to the Mishna, " One should be willing to walk four miles to water in order to wash your hands rather than eat with unwashed hands. (Sotah 4b).
When Jesus didn't wash his hands before eating, in the eyes of the Pharisees, this made Him and the disciples equal to being a murderer!
(Challah, J, 58:3) HE WHO NEGLECTS HAND WASHING IS AS HE WHO IS A MURDERER."!That's right Jesus was a lawbreaker, a revolutionary. The revolutionary of all times!
For our Lord, spit right smack into the face of the legalist, the religious and their followers constantly.
Jesus, the essence of the Creator, the living Word, spoke for men for all time. Relationship with God is more important then all the garbage men can devise and all the traditions he can create. For their is one Law Giver, One Lord, One Judge, and One SAVIOUR and KING. Meet Jesus Christ - the greatest revolutionary who ever lived and ever will -forever. For it is no surprise when men trapped in the bondages of religion get free, they proclaim loudly my Lord and my God!
For Jesus came to set us absolutely free from the bonds and ties of religion to have relationship once again with God our Father, and with men and women and children as our brothers, and sisters with Him.
If ever a movie should be made, about Jesus again, it should be entitled. FREEDOM!
For there is no other name, under heaven or earth to which men can find true freedom then that which is in Jesus Christ- Saviour of the World.
The Revolutionary Extradonaire!

Are you a part to His marching army of the redeemed. You can be! YOu can join the revolution. All people are welcomed from every area of life. There is none that he won't accept. Religion may not want you. Jesus does. If he can take a prostitute, a tax collector, fisherman and more and turn them into His own, He can take anyone of any circumstance in this life, and make you a child of the King! A revolutionary.
You can see Jesus for the first time in your life, not common church folk, but one who opposed religion all the way to the cross. He came to set us FREE! Will you join me and hundreds that have come to know Him as such. He is right at the door of your heart knocking, and offering to come inside to eat with you and you with Him. Don't worry about the house being clean, the dishes done, the hands washed. Jesus eats with those with unwashed hands, for His presence makes everything clean. Jesus the Revolutionary is here amongst us. He is alive. He is alive in the hearts of those that know him beyond all the religious trappings and trim. He is drafting knew individuals daily to join him in a meal, with unwashed hands. For his very presence makes anyone and everything clean that comes in contact with Him. Come join the Revolution and see what God can do, and man in all his contrivances od traditions and rudiments and laws could never do. That is to set you free to live a life with Him for eternity. Eternal life begins now, not after you die. Real life, real freedom from this world. You have to first join the "Revolution". I joined, and have never regretted it since. I can ask for no greater leader, no greater mentor, no greater love then Him.

Dr. J.