The Restoration Mind . . .

RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION

I have come to set fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until the ordeal is over! Do you suppose I came to establish peace on earth? No, indeed, I have come to bring division. --- Lk. 12:49-50

Whatever else we may say of revolution it certainly conveys the idea of disturbance, fomentation, an unsettling. It implies radical change, upheaval, trouble. In using such terms as fire and division in describing his mission, Jesus identifies himself as a revolutionist.

He is indeed the Prince of Peace and the angels sang of “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men” at his birth. And it was only Jesus who could say “My peace I leave with you” and “Peace unto you.” Yet in this passage and in Mt. 10:34 he displaces peace with fire and with the sword. Fire, sword, division --- this is the language of a revolutionist. Jesus came to disturb the world, not to lull it to sleep with platitudes.

This can only mean that the peace that Jesus gives is but for those who love God and turn their back on a life of sin. The world itself is sinful and it will remain so. In calling the elect out of the world, thus making them the ecclesia (called out ones), he actually created division. Had Jesus not come the world would have gone on in its sin, undisturbed and untroubled. It is his cross that sets a son against his father and a father against his son, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother. The cross is an offense to the world in that it points to the goodness of God and the sinfulness of man. The cross is divisive in that it sets those apart who respond to the love that God demonstrates through the sacrifice of the Christ.

God thus began a revolution when he sent Jesus to a world that did not want to change, for the very presence of the Christ demanded change. Jesus set this world aflame through the gospel that transforms the old man of sin into the new humanity. The point of the gospel is that it changes lives. Prostitutes quit being prostitutes because of Jesus. Thieves cease their thievery because of Jesus. Hateful, envious hearts are transformed into shrines of the Spirit because of Jesus. But every case of change is its own little revolution, for most of those around do not want the changes to occur. To stand up for Jesus often means to stand alone. It is the fire of his love and his judgment that separates one man from another. The pathetic case of the slave girl in Acts 16 is to the point. She was possessed of an oracular spirit, which enabled her to tell fortunes, and was a means of great profit to her owners. When Paul drove the spirit from her, freeing her from her satanic bondage in the name of Jesus, her owners turned on Paul with a vengeance. They did not want her free in Jesus, for this change in her denied them of their financial gain.

It was this kind of thing that caused the apostles to be dubbed “those who have turned the world upside down,” or as the NEB renders it “men who have made trouble all over the world.” Earlier in this journal we presented an essay on Jesus Was Not a Nice Man. One could just as well be presented on Jesus Was a Trouble Maker. And he made troublers out of his disciples. They cause trouble because they changed people’s lives, something the world by its very nature abhors. This tears families apart and separates kith and kin.

Often a man has to rebel in order to serve, and so there is a relationship between revolution and service. Jesus was in trouble with the clergy of his time because of his insistence on serving the down and out. He came to minister to human needs and found the clergy in his way. The cry of Moses to Pharaoh was “Let my people go so that they can serve me.” The clergy often impedes human progress, discourages benevolent ministries, and hampers spiritual growth in order to preserve orthodoxy. To break through the barriers erected by institutionalism one has to rebel. Almost without exception it is the case that, even in our own congregations, people are persecuted to the degree that they become free in Christ. To serve one must be free. To be free one must be a rebel. Let my people go . . . is the cry of revolution. And it is a principle of restoration, for restoration comes only through change and change only through revolution.

The prophets of Israel were revolutionists as well as reformers. They called for radical change, such as in Ezek. 21:26: “These are the words of the Lord God: Put off your diadem, lay aside your crown. All is changed; raise the low and bring down the high. Ruin! Ruin! I will bring about such ruin as never was before, until the rightful sovereign comes.” Or as Isaiah sounds forth: “Cease to do evil and learn to do right, pursue justice and champion the oppressed; give the orphan his rights, plead the widow’s cause” (Isa. 1 :17) . Prophets and apostles have always called for newness. It was not so much a changed social order that Amos and Jeremiah pled for, but a new covenant relationship between God and man. It is a qualitative change in man that God calls for, which is the point of becoming a new creation in Jesus Christ. This is the point of restoration: man restored to God’s likeness.

This is the business of the Restoration Movement. We are rebels in that we want to be free. We want to be free so that we may serve. We want to serve so that we can be healers for God and restore fallen man. to his likeness. Our concern for such institutions as the Lord’s Supper and baptism is mediate rather immediate, for these are but means to a larger end. We are not interested in getting people baptized the right way per se, but we are concerned about their relationship to God. And we know that baptism fits into the picture somehow as a means. This is even true of unity. It is a means, not an end itself. The end is the salvation of the world and the glorification of God. But it is a necessary means in that nothing else will do, so we must realize it even if the price is revolution.

I share the view of the conservative Edmund Burke that while revolution is ethically defensible it is to be resorted to as the last resort. This means that we are not to be rebels just to be rebels. It may not be amiss to think of God’s act in Jesus on the cross as the last resort. We rebel only when it is clear that it is the only way to bring about the necessary change.

It is the nature of revolutions that they are conducted by those in the minority. Fidel Castro had only 82 men, but he was heard to say that if he had it to do over he would have had but 10 or 12. The communist take-over in Russia was managed by a very small percentage of the populace. And our own American Revolution that gave birth to a new nation was staged by a handful of people against the most powerful country in the world.

This is even more dramatically true of those revolutions that are intended to set God’s people free of oppression and tyranny. If revolution is “the larva of civilization,” as Victor Hugo has said, how much more is it a principle of reform for God’s people. And how much can be done by so few! We are witnessing this most gloriously in our own time, for we can see that just one dedicated person can make a big difference in a large congregation.

Those who are made uneasy by revolt and would prefer that we have no rebels around at all for the sake of peace would do well to study the words of Richard Whately: “The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.” It is our neglect of duty that has produced our rebels, so we should thank God for them, unless indeed we love neglect more than duty.

I realize that talk of revolution is not nice talk. We have to concede that Mao Tse-tung was right when he said: “Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery.” It is of the same stuff as surgery and war. Which of the prophets was not persecuted, which of the apostles was not harassed? Recently I joined a friend, a fellow rebel, for dinner with a Church of Christ elder who talked of better days, of change, of growth, of freedom. Afterwards I remarked to my friend: “He sincerely wants all these things, but he doesn’t want to get his nose bloodied in getting them.” Revolution is not a piece of embroidery, as Mao says, for it involves blood, guts, and tears. It means war.

I must emphasize in closing that in all this we are, of course, speaking of peaceful revolution. We join Paul in insisting that the weapons of our warfare can never be carnal, and this includes hate and strife as well as swords and bombs. All great revolutions, certainly spiritual ones, are the work of principles rather than of bayonets. Nor does this mean that the rebel is not to be one of patience and forbearance. He does nor call out the troops at the drop of the hat. He rather learns to stay and to put up with a lot. John Locke saw this as a principle of revolution, which he saw as a gift of God to free men. He pointed out that man will bear “many wrong and inconvenient laws and all the slips of human frailty without mutiny or murmur,” but in a long train of abuses and injustices the people rouse themselves to put the government into the hands of men who will secure the ends for which it was first erected.

Our folk have endured a great deal. Time is running out for the keepers of orthodoxy who insist on keeping our people in bondage. It is later than they think. Let my people go! is a cry resounding in our own time and throughout our ranks. We had all better get with it. And for those who need the encouragement of the future and the verdict of history, I leave with you the words of Ben Jonson on revolution.

Let them call it mischief; when it is past and prospered, it will be virtue. — the Editor