Jesus - A Political Revolutionary??

The Jews expected a Messiah who would deliver them from the hands of Rome, but Jesus had a different plan in mind!

DR. CRAIG: In the case of the Passover crowds in Jerusalem, when you look at the account of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy, they thought that this was the coming Messiah. They thought that this was the man who would throw off Israel's enemies (and that meant Rome) and re-establish the throne of David in Jerusalem where he would be ruling over all Jews and Gentiles alike. And during Passover week Jesus, I think, proved to be a profound disappointment to these crowds who were expecting him to overthrow Rome and to establish David's throne. Instead, when Jesus was asked about paying taxes to Caesar, he gave a very anti-revolutionary response: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” And so you see how that crowd was so fickle and turned against him under the instigation of the Jewish chief priests and the temple authorities so that now they began to cry out for his crucifixion and death.

JOHN ANDERSON: And you still see today in these troubled times, at least here, calls for a new Messiah. What we need is a benevolent dictator. I hear it all the time. There's still this search for someone who can lead us out. Surely one of the great lessons is that there's no human being who can. There are great leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt) but they're not able to, if you like, introduce nirvana and peace on Earth. It doesn't happen.

DR. CRAIG: Right, and Jesus said the Kingdom that he came to bring was not an earthly kingdom, but it was a spiritual Kingdom of which everyone who is his disciple is a member and follows him as our Lord. But it is not one that is established by force and violence and political means.