Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Jesus and Politics

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

For the first time, in Mark 15, we have Jesus in front of the political establishment, the Roman state. So we have to ask the question, “What is the relationship of Jesus to politics, of Christianity to the government?” Pilate asks three questions. He asks Jesus, “Are you king of the Jews?” and, “Why aren’t you fighting back?” Then he asks the crowd, “What shall we do with the king?” The answers to these three questions are a lens by which to explore the relationship of Christianity to politics. These three answers are 1) the ambiguity answer, 2) the revolutionary answer, and 3) the substitutionary answer.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 11, 2007. Series: King's Cross: The Gospel of Mark, Part 2: The Journey to the Cross. Scripture: Mark 15:1-15. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Today on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is exploring the life of Jesus as recorded by the Apostle Mark. It's a fascinating look into the life of Christ as both Savior and Teacher. After you listen, please consider taking time to rate and review our podcast. Your review can help others to discover our podcast and experience the hope of the gospel. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller. Tonight's scripture reading is Mark 15, 1-15, found on page 8 of your bulletin. Very early in the morning, the chief priests with the elders, the teachers of the law, and the whole Sanhedrin reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Are you the King of the Jews asked Pilate?

Yes, it is, as you say, Jesus replied. The chief priest accused him of many things. So again, Pilate asked him, aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of. But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was was amazed. Now it was the custom of the feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked pilot to do for them what he usually did. Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews, Aspilot, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests have

handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have pilot release, Barabbas, instead. What shall I do then with the one you call the King of the Jews, pilot, ask them, crucify him, they shouted. Why? What crime has he committed? Ask Pilate, but they shouted all the louder, crucify him. Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Burabas to them. He had Jesus's vlogged and handed him over to be crucified. This is God's word. Mark 15. In Mark chapter 15, for the first time we have Jesus not in front of the religious establishment

but the political establishment. He's not in front of the religious leaders but the government, the state, the Roman state. And so for the first time we have to ask the question, what is the relationship of church to state, of Jesus to politics, of Christianity to the government? And that's a pretty hot question, isn't it? And there are three questions basically that Pilate asks. He says, are you King of the Jews?

He asks, why? He says, the Jesus, why aren't you fighting back? And then he asks the crowd, what should we do with the King? And the answers to those three questions are a lens by which we'll explore what this passage teaches us about the relationship of Christianity to politics. The first answer is what I'll call the ambiguity answer. The second is the revolutionary answer.

And the third is the substitutionary answer. Ambiguity, revolutionary, substitutionary, and these answers help us understand something about the relationship of Christianity to politics, quite a hot issue. First, the ambiguity answer. Look at verse two, you'll see that their pilots are you king of the Jews, and we must keep in mind

that he is not asking Jesus a theological question at all. He is not saying, oh, are you the prophesied Messiah from the Hebrew Scriptures? Pilate doesn't care about that. He doesn't care about theological truth versus heresy. All he wants to know is, are you the king of the Jews? That is, are you in any way shape or form a political leader? Will your movement have any political implications?

Do you, will you, as a leader, have any impact on the patterns of political power? That's all he cares about. Do you have an political impact? Are you a political leader? Is this a political movement in any way? And it's crucial for us here tonight to see that Jesus Christ is deliberately and significantly ambiguous in his answer. In front of the Sanhedrin, when they said, are you the Christ, the King, what do you say?

Absolutely, it was very clear. We looked at that a couple weeks ago. But here, his answer is deliberately ambiguous and more ambiguous than the English translation gives out. Because literally, when he's asked, are you King of the Jews? Literally, all he says is, you say it with the emphasis on you. See, the pilot says, are you King of the Jews? Are you a political leader?

And Jesus says, you said it. Now what is that? Any of you ever hear that? I mean, I'm dating myself. The rock opera, Jesus Christ, Superstar. The place where Pilots talks that Jesus the first time is actually spot on. And where Pilots says, you know, Pilots says you know, pilots says, you know, pilots says, we all know that you are news, but are you king, king of the Jews? And Jesus says, that's what you say.

And pilot says, what do you mean by that? That's not an answer, and that's right. It's not a denial or an affirmation. Or another way to put it is, it's not a denial or an affirmation. Or another way to put it is, it's both a denial and an affirmation. See, what Jesus could have said, no, no, no, of course I'm not a political leader. I'm a spiritual person. And all I do is give people spiritual peace and happiness in their personal life. And what I'm doing is not going to have any impact on the political order. He doesn't say that. On the other hand, he doesn't say, yes, of course I'm a political leader. His answer is, I am and I'm not. What I'm doing is going to have a lot of political ramifications, but I'm not a political leader in your category. The answer is, are you a

political leader? Is this a political movement? The answer is yes and no. And it is absolutely crucial that you stay on that fence, friends. If you want to follow Jesus at all, you can not fall off on one side or the other. If you say to Buddha, are you a political leader, the answer is clear. No. And if you say to Muhammad, are you a political leader, the answer is clear.

Yes. And if you say to Jesus, are you a political leader, the answer is clear. Yes and no. And if you don't see the difference, you don't understand Christianity? The answer is clear, yes and no. And if you don't see the difference, you don't understand Christianity. Let's go into this a little bit. Jesus is deliberate.

Now, there's another place where he is ambiguous a little more fulsomely. And that's in Mark chapter 12, where people ask him, should we pay taxes to Caesar? And Jesus grabs a denarius, he grabs a coin, and he says, whose image is on the coin? And they say, Caesar's. And Jesus says, well, render to Caesar's the things that are Caesar's and render to God, the things that are God. Again, a deliberately ambiguous answer. And here's why. When he says whose image is on the coin, the inscription was a picture of Tiberius Caesar,

but the inscription said on a Daenerys, Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus. So what it actually said on the coin was, Tiberius King, son of God. And it was a claim to absolute allegiance. And we have to keep in mind that up to the time of Jesus, all governments claimed absolute allegiance. All governments were totalitarian. All governments, the temples and the state mutually supported each other. The governments were always done in the name of the gods.

The emperor or the king was all in some cases was a god, considered a god. And there was no idea of a limited state, no idea of a state in which you had human rights, or you had space for human rights, or space for conscience or protest. And Jesus Christ, from what we can tell essentially the first thinker to do this, calls for a limited state and basically says, well, Caesar's image is on the coin given the money. It's his, but God's image is on you. And you must only give your ultimate allegiance to God. See on the one hand, He says, sure, political engagement, of course, pay your taxes.

He's not for withdrawal, but on the other hand, don't you dare agree to what any government makes totalitarian claims over you. Don't agree to that, because when God's law and human law, the state's law, contradict God comes first. And that was revolutionary. And when Jesus called for a limited state, and when he said, don't you be politically involved but don't you dare ever allow political power to be ultimate, not in your life and not in society.

On the one hand, what was he doing? On the one hand, he was creating a tradition, a powerful tradition in which Christians, because of Jesus' ambiguity about this, yes and no, call into question and resist totalitarian claims of any government. This is the reason why, for example, because Jesus created space for this, to judge, to bring governments into judgment. This is the reason why in Eastern Europe, communism, the totalitarianism of the left. Who brought that down? Who resisted them?

It was the churches. But on the other hand, well, we're two, Naziasias and the totalitarianism of the right, you have Dietrich Bonhoff for those folks. Why? Why did they do civil disobedience? Why did they resist? Because there was a higher authority than God, higher authority than the state. God.

And the state could never make totalitarian claims. And if you want a perfect example of this tradition that Jesus created, when he said on the one hand, don't you ever think that political power is the ultimate power? Don't let any government actually speak in the name of God and say, God and us, we're the same. You must always be able to bring totalitarian claims and you must bring state under the

judgment of God's law. If you want a perfect example of this balance, you couldn't look further than Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham, jail. He was in jail because he was doing civil disobedience. He was protesting segregation in the South by disobeying the laws peacefully and going to jail. And a lot of people, basically white ministers, said, how dare you do civil disobedience? If you're a Christian, you should be a law-biting citizen.

You shouldn't question the government. You shouldn't do that. And Martin Luther King, Jr., right out of what we're talking about here, right out of this teaching of Jesus says this in of Jesus, says this, in the letter, you ask, how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws, just and unjust. Well, how does one determine whether a law is just or unjust, you ask? A just law is a man-made code that squares with a law of God.

An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law of God. But one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. In that amazing, there you have it. You see, on the one hand, yes, be involved, but on the other hand, don't. On the one hand, Jesus says, resist totalitarianism. But on the other hand, He says, by saying, when...polises, are you a king of the Jews? Are you a political leader?

Because Jesus doesn't say yes, what He's actually saying here is, my leaders must not take power and rule in my name. And the one place in the whole world where Christianity is not thriving is Europe. Because that's a place where people put together state churches, where they set up the same relationship between the state and Christianity that Jesus said shouldn't be set up. And because of that, there's a deadness and there's a stagnation. Oh, look, Jesus had these two groups in his own day. He had the Essenes and the Essenes said, withdraw, don't pay taxes, don't be involved politically.

Just come out and be holy. It's so impure all that political stuff. On the other hand, you had the zealots. And the zealots said, take power, take political power, and rule in God's name. And Jesus was saying, on the one hand, I want my followers to resist totalitarian claims, but on the other hand, not put your hopes in political power. That's not the way you bring into Kingdom of God. On the one hand, he's saying, I don't want you to withdraw, but on the other hand, he says, I don't want you to withdraw, but other hand, he says, I don't want you to think that that's how you make the country Christian.

Are you a political leader? Yes and no. If you say no, he's not a political leader, he's just spiritual. You don't understand, as we're going to see in the underpoint too, the radical, political rearrangements that happen when Christians live their lives out in the world. But in the other hand, if you say, yes, he's a political leader, then you're in danger of saying, and there's one particular Christian blueprint for how government has to go, and how political parties have to go, and how economics have to go,

and how everything has to go. And Jesus says, don't make that mistake. Don't be seduced to thinking that political power is the ultimate. That was a Romans problem. That's what a whole lot of other...don't think that that's the way to do it. It's not the ultimate power. Political power is penultimate. It is an inadequate vehicle for the enormous changes that I'm going to be bringing into the world. Isn't that amazing?

So class is Jesus Christ leading a political movement? Yes and no. And if it's too yes or too no, we're in trouble. Well, you say, okay, then how does Christianity, if it's not all that direct, if it's not just taking power and ruling in Christ's name, how does Christianity change culture and how does it change the social order

and that brings us to our next question. And answer. The second question is where Pilate sees Jesus refusing to pick up power and counter what's happening to him. You see, in verse 3 and 4, what we read here is, the chief priests were accusing him of any things, so Pilate asked him, aren't you going to answer? Don't you see how many things they're accusing you of? Okay, Pilate is saying, they're killing you.

They're railroading you. Look what they're doing. Look at the charges. Look at everything they're doing. Aren't you going to fight back? What's your counter move? What's your counter strategy? Pilate was a man of the world and he was trying to figure out what Jesus was going to do next

and look at the answer. Jesus made no reply and Pilate was amazed. Jesus made no reply and Pilate was amazed. Now I had never understood till this week when I was studying this and the commentators pointed this out to me that the word amazed is a positive word. Pilate was not just saying, you idiot, he wasn't amazed like that. The word has a connotation of wonder and marvel.

Pilate saw something Jesus was doing that amazed him. I believe he saw the contrast between Jesus and his enemies. On the one hand, his enemies were frantic, they were afraid he was gonna get off, and Jesus is so calm. On the other hand, his enemies are using power to harm him, and on, but Jesus is actually laying down his power to forgive his enemies.

This is pretty astounding, because every revolution has ever happened in the past, happens like this. You take power and you exclude or destroy your enemies. And Jesus Christ is about to start a revolution through loving his enemies and forgiving his enemies. Now the two things you see in Jesus Christ, this new personal peace and this new pattern for using your power, came out into His followers, and all I can do is, let me just speak for the first couple of centuries, we know that Christians following their Lord in these

two ways, this incredible inner peace and this new approach to laying down and using their power and service instead of accru laying down and using their power in service instead of accruing it and using it for exploitation, that the new inner peace, the new personal peace and the new pattern for power, that Christians by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, and by the hundreds of thousands went out

into Roman society with these two things, and it changed the social order. Now, if you wanna read a good book on it, you can look at Rodney Stark's book, The Rise of Christianity. It's a paperback, it's inexpensive, it's after 12 years, he's a sociologist, historian. Yeah, there are such things. And he was asking the question,

how was it that Christianity was so effective in changing the ancient Greco-Roman pagan society. Huge changes happened. For example, in most of the cities, the ratio of males to females was 140 males to every 100 females. Do you know why? Female and fantasied. That when baby girls were born, they were just thrown out. The husbands did it.

They just said, look, you know, girls, you know, you have to feed them, grow them up, and ultimately they're not really all that worth it. They threw them out, killed them. It was legal. Say, Christians wouldn't have any of that. Do you know that women in pagan society, if when you're married, women, you could not have any other lovers, you had to be sexually pure, you had to be sexually faithful, but your

husband could have mistresses if he wanted, if he wanted. I was a double standard. Christianity said none of that anymore. When they got rid of infanticide, and when they got rid of the double standard and when the early churches, for example, whereas the pagan said, if you're a woman and you die and your husband dies and you're a young widow, you've got to be married within two years because there's absolutely no particular reason for women to live unless she's married to a man.

It was required that you were married, whether you wanted to or not, you had to be within two years, Caesar said. And yet, Christians, the Christian community supported widows. So if they didn't have to get married unless they wanted to, women flocked to Christianity. They flocked. Now, it's very, very clear. They saw that they saw a dignity that they had.

They saw a humanity in the new Christianity. It utterly began to change the social order. Let me give you another example. Christians love the poor. Love the poor. So for example, we have a letter from Julian, who was one of the early Roman emperors that really didn't like Christianity and was very upset with how successful it was. And it was growing and growing and growing.

And he couldn't stop it. And in one of his letters, he writes this. He writes to a friend. He says, our religion is not prospering. The Christian religion is growing and growing. Why don't we realize how much Christianity's success is due to their radical care for the poor. Christians do not just take care of their own poor, they take care of our pagan poor as well,

whereas it is obvious for everyone that our poor lack aid even from us. Now what Julian was saying, he was very upset, by the way, he goes on in the letter saying, why can't we pagans take care of the poor the way the Christians can? They don't just take care of their own poor, they take care of our poor, they're promiscuous in their social conscience. It's, you know, the Jews take care of the Jewish poor

and the Greek take care of the Greek poor and the Romans take care of the Roman poor and the Africans take care of the African poor but these Christians take care of everybody's. And then they bring them into the community. And you mix the races because they have this idea that everybody's a sinner, you know, and therefore we're all equal before God. And lastly, Rodney Stark says, not only was this a radical concern for the poor, not only

was this remarkable, by the way, is this conservative or liberal class? You see, some of that stuff about infanticized Christians were against abortion, Christians were against the fan, infanticized, Christians were against the double standard, sexually for men. That sounds conservative, doesn't it? But what about all this stuff about the poor? What about all this stuff about mixing the races

and mixing the classes? That sounds kind of liberal, doesn't it? Is Christianity political? Yes and no. Is Christianity conservative? Yes and no. Is Christianity liberal? Yes and no. Do you see the revolutionary ambiguity of this? Hi, I'm Tim Keller. You know, there is no greater joy in how possible than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 4,

although Christ was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God. If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life, this hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter the circumstance, the hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In my book, which is entitled, Hope in Times of Fear, the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meeting of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unquenchable hope and joy even when we face the trials and difficulties of this life which can be considerable. Hope in times of fear is our thank you for your gift this month to help gospel in life reach more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to

gospelandlife.com slash give. That is gospelandlife.com slash give. Thank you so much for your generosity and as we prepare to reflect on the amazing love of Christ demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us, I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection. But let me give you one more. Rodney Stark talks about the fact that in the early two centuries after Christ, there were tremendous public health problems inside the cities.

Before the advent of modern medicine in many ways, after Christ, there were tremendous public health problems inside the cities. Before the advent of modern medicine in many ways, when plagues would happen in these cities, these crowded cities, when the disease sometimes spread, and there were these enormous plagues. There was an enormous plague in 165 AD, there was several of them. In some cases, a third to a quarter of the population in the urban places died. And people did understand back their contagion. Or they understood contagion. And when the plague got started, people just headed for the hills.

They left people literally in the streets, but the Christians were different. And the Christians became the first, you might say, public health movement. And what we're told, and this is definitely historical, Rodney Stark in his book points out that when everybody else was heading out, Christians decided that they were going to stay in the cities, and they were going to deal with the public health problem of their cities, and they were going to take care of the sick, even though it was so dangerous. And here's what we read. Rodney Stark says, Christians, and this is by the way, an eyewitness account, Christians in the plague showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only

of one, only of their neighbor. Heathless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and many died for they were infected by their neighbors, but when they departed life, they did so serenely and cheerfully, accepting their pains. Why? Don't you see? First of all, Jesus gave them that personal peace. So much personal peace and contentment that their neighbors didn't have, that they could

handle the loss of their comfort, they could handle the loss of their safety, they could handle the loss of their money, they could even handle the loss of their lives. If it meant pouring themselves out for the needs of their neighbors, they looked at the social needs, they looked at the sick, they looked at the poor, they looked at the needs of the people

around them in their city, and they poured themselves out. One of the reasons was because of that new personal piece that Jesus showed before pilot, but also because of that new attitude toward personal power. They did not idolize power. They looked at the sick, they looked at the women, they looked at the children, they looked at the slaves, they looked at the poor, and they loved them. And they drew them in.

And that changed society. That changed it radically. You gotta remember, only 1% of 1% get really involved in politics. What about the other 99.9% of the Christians? They were all doing political change because they were changing social arrangements. They were changing the way power operated in the Roman Empire. Are you a political leader? Yes.

And no. So there was the ambiguity answer, and there was the revolutionary answer. There was the ambiguity answer, and yet there's the reason why Christians were having such an impact on society. But that leads us to a further question. How do you get what those Christians had? You know, it sounds very inspiring. But have you got what it takes to look at, for example,

the injustices or the needs of the people in this city and to pour yourself out for them because you've got both an inner peace and a new pattern of how you use your power and how you use your wealth and how you use your leverage and how you use your time. Have you got what they had? And I bet you a lot of us are going to say, I don't know. That's pretty scary. Well, point three.

Point three is the last question. It's admittedly it's a three-part question if you look at the text, but Pilate turns to the crowd and says, what do I do with the King of the Jews? Should I release him? Why not? What has he done? What should I do with him? What should I do with his Jesus?

And the answer to the crowd is substitution. See when he says, what should I do with Jesus? The crowd says, you've got a guilty guy in there, Barabbas, an insurrectionist who is guilty of murder. You've got a guilty and you've got an innocent. You notice the last question that Pilot asked the crowd, what has this man done? You see that in verse 14? Do you notice that they ignore the question? Crucify him. What has this man done? Just crucify him. They don't even ignore the question. Crucify him. What has this man done? Just crucify him, see that?

They don't even answer the question. It's a way of saying, oh, we know he's innocent, but we want him dead. Substitution. Here's the innocent. Here's the guilty. Switch him. Substitute him. Put the innocent where the guilty should be.

Put the guilty where the innocent should be. Put the guilty where the innocent should be. Take the innocent one and punish him. Take the punishable one and treat him as if he's innocent. Substitution and how much more clear could Mark be, the gospel writer, to say, this is what Jesus' death was all about. He was taking our place. He was taking our guilt upon himself. He was taking our sins upon himself. He was taking our evil upon himself and being treated the way we should be treated. He

died that we might live. He was bound that we might go free. And this is the answer to the question, how do you get the power to be agents of social change the way those early Christians were? Because if you look at those early Christians, they didn't just look to Jesus as their example. They didn't just say, oh, he died for others. He loved others. He gave up his power for others. He forgave the enemies, these others. That wouldn't be enough. I don't have to tell you something. Good examples just crush me. They just make me feel bad. They don't empower me. They won't empower you. But when they saw Jesus Christ substituting Himself for them, I left out one line from that eyewitness account that Rodney Stark gave us about how the Christians gave their lives in caring for the sick in their cities

and dealing with those urban health problems. Listen, heathless of danger, Christians took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Jesus, and many departed their life serenely happy for they were infected by their neighbors and cheerfully accepted their pains. And listen, many Christians in nursing and curing their neighbors transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead. Christians looked at their neighbors and said, if I take care of my neighbor, my neighbor might survive,

my neighbor might live, but I might die because I might get infected. I might die that my neighbor might live. That's what Jesus did for me, and they willingly did it. See at the very center of Christian understanding a salvation is not a man who gets on a horse and goes off and takes power and saves us. That's not what he did. He lost his power. See, he transferred our death to himself, our sickness to himself, our evil to himself.

And so when the Christian said, the only way I can help the poor to become rich is if I become poor. The only way I can help the sick to become well is if I become sick. The only way I can help the dying to life is if I die." And they said, okay, Jesus did that for me. Do you understand the substitutionary atonement radically turns you into a radically, a radical agent for social change? It did back then. It can do it again.

When I was a new Christian, I was a young baby boomer. I was in school. I was in the night. This is 1970. And one of the things that us kids, really, in college were struggling with at the time was the injustice we saw, especially the racial injustice. There was a lot of going on in 1970.

And one of the things we saw is on the one hand, you had people said, all this rabble rousing in the street is a bunch of commie pinkos. Some of you don't even know what a commie pinko is, which shows how old you are, how young you are. And on the other hand, we had people saying, you got to get out in the streets and you got to be militaristic and you've got to be radical. And we weren't quite sure how Christianity fit into this. Now listen, from some friends of ours went off to a conference in 1970 and they came back and gave me a tape of the message they heard.

It was a sermon by, it was a message to this great big conference by Tom Skinner. It was an African-American evangelist preacher who lived right here in Harlem, who's passed away now. And he preached a sermon at that conference in 1970 that was astounding and was about Barabbas. It ended about this Barabbas, this incident. And I listened to it as a 20-year-old, brand-new Christian, and I've never been able to think about politics the same way again.

Let me just read it to you. Let me close the eye sermon by reading the end of his sermon. This is Tom Skinner talking about this. He says, Jesus came to change the system, so they arrested him. So now the Romans had two revolutionaries locked up and it's around festivity time So Pilate stands out before the Jews with these two prisoners and Pilates says you know Around this time of year I get very generous. I want you to know that I love you dear Jewish people Why some of my best friends are Jews?

Now I'm gonna release one of these two men to you. Which one do you want? Over here you've got Jesus, Burabus. That was Burabus's name was Jesus. And over here you've got Jesus of Nazareth. And Tom's going to put it down here. Pilot had two Jesus' on his hands. So it wasn't a question of whether or not there was going to be a revolution.

The question was which revolution? So pilot went on, over here I've got Parabas. Parabas has been burning the system down, killing people, do you want him? And over here I've got Jesus who claims to be the son of God. I've interrogated him and all I can tell is that because of him some dead people are alive and some blind people are seeing and some deaf people can hear and he fed a few thousand people, which one should I release? Jesus or Barabbas?

And with one voice they cried, give us Barabbas. Now here's the question, Tom Skinner asks, why did they want Parabas? Parabas is the guy burning the system down. He's killing people. Why did the leaders incite the crowd to get rid of him? Very simple. If you let Parabas go, you can always stop him. You can always stop Parabas' kind of revolution.

The most Parabas will do is go out, round up another bunch of grillas, start another riot, and you can always stop him by rolling your tanks into his neighborhood, bringing out the National Guard, putting down his riot, find out where he's keeping his ammunition, raid his apartments without a search warrant, and shoot him while he's asleep. You can always stop a revolutionary like Barabbas, but how do you stop Jesus? When they nailed into a cross, they did not realize that in nailing him to the cross, they were putting up on that cross the sinful humanity of all, the sinful nature of all humanity.

Jesus Christ nailed to the cross was more than just a political radical. He was God's answer to the human dilemma, and on that cross, Christ was bearing my sins in his own body, and he was proclaiming my liberation on that cross. He shed his blood to cleanse me of all my sin and to set me free. Then they buried him, rolled a stone over the grave, wiped their hands, and said, there is one social radical that will never disturb us again. Three days later, Jesus Christ pulled off what might be called the greatest political coup of all time. He got up out of the grave, and when he rose from the dead, the Bible now calls him the second man, the new man, the leader of a new creation, a Christ who is overthrown the

existing order and established a new order that will not be built on man. And Skinner looked down at the crowd and he said this, Keep in mind my friends, with all of your militancy and radicalism that all the systems of men are doomed to destruction. And that all the systems of men will crumble and finally only God's kingdom and His righteousness will prevail. So you will never be truly radical

until you become part of that new order. And then you can go out into a world that is enslaved, a world that is filled with hunger and poverty and racism and all those things that are the work of the devil, and you can proclaim real liberation to the captives. You can preach sight to the blind. You can set it liberty them that are bruised. You can go into the world and tell all that are bound mentally, spiritually and physically

your liberator has come. Every other revolution put new people in power, and Jesus says, I'm going to put a new attitude toward power in power. Every other revolution destroyed their enemies. This revolution comes into position because through the forgiveness of enemies. And therefore, Jesus' revolution can't be stopped by killing him. All that you did was further it. Is Jesus Christ a political leader?

He's the most political leader. He's the least political leader. The answer is yes and no. Do you see the revolutionary ambiguity of Jesus and politics? Let us pray. Our Father, we know that this is one of those places where the beauty of the Christian faith is its ambiguity, is its paradoxical nature. We thank you that you did not give us in some ways a clear, you gave us a rich answer. We are to be deeply engaged and yet not to think of political power as salvation. We are to resist injustice and we're especially

doing this total, resist totalitarian injustice and yet we are never to pick up the sword ourselves and say this is the way to bring in the Kingdom of God and we thank you for that and we thank you for the enormous good that you have already done through your people over the centuries, but we ask that you would take us now. And through a vision of your substitutionary atonement and your giving of yourself on the cross, make us the revolutionaries that we need to be. Following the footsteps of Jesus Christ who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many, it's in his name we pray to be. Following the footsteps of Jesus Christ who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many,

it's in His name we pray. Amen. We hope you enjoyed today's teaching on the life of Christ, and we hope you'll continue to join us throughout this month as we look at the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you were encouraged by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Thank you again for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 2006 and 2007. The sermons and talks you hear on

the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Well, Dr. Keller was Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.