First century zealots were a group of people who were intense Jewish nationalists and outraged at Roman rule. There were various conflicts and uprisings led by one main family of Zealots and they all ended in tragedy. Whether the zealots liked it or not, Rome was the power of the day and Caesar was in charge. Zealots were deeply religious and even associated with one of the rabbinical schools of the day. One of the two biggest differences between the two Jewish rabbinical schools of the time was that one school (Hillel) was intensely focused on Jewish worship while the other (Shammai) were intense nationalists and as such focused on the recovery of Jewish national identity. While Jews for the most part were not in favor of Roman rule, zealots were distinct.
In his famous work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim states how Jesus was completely opposite to the zealots. “Only the Kingdom of which Jesus was the King was, as he himself said, not of this world, and of far different conception from that for which the Nationalists longed.” There in a nutshell Edersheim has described the difference between Christ and not only Jewish zealots but every kind of zealot in history. The difference is one of longing. You might be a zealot if your longing for a particular national identity and geo-political entity trumps your longing for the Kingdom of Christ that is not of this world.
The fact that Jesus consistently avoids a nationalistic pursuit should not be lost on Christians when we read the gospels. It should not be lost on us when we see an absence of this pursuit in the proceeding New Testament epistles. We simply do not see this thrust in the New Testament. Most of all, we don’t see it in Jesus.
Jesus denied Satan’s temptation to give him all the kingdoms of the world. If his desire was to reform a Jewish nationalistic identity, surely it would be easier to take Satan’s offer and avoid the cross. After the display of Jesus’ power in feeding the 5000, the crowd wanted to take him by force and make him their king. Surely, if Jesus desired to reclaim and protect the Jewish way of life, he could have used that supernatural power to go with the crowd and stir the world to overthrow Rome. He is the One who can feed the whole world. Who wouldn’t want him on the throne? If Jesus could but speak so to cause a whole band of soldiers to fall over, surely he would have no real opposition to eradicating Roman rule in Jerusalem. Instead, Jesus rebuked Peter for the use of the sword, healed the ear of one of his captors, and went peaceably to his trial.
Probably the most explicit statement from Jesus is heard as he faced the Roman Governor Pilate. John 18:35-36 Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." If we read this carefully, in verse 35 Pilate describes Israel as Jesus’ own nation. Pilate is talking about the geo-political entity and its religious leaders. In verse 36 Jesus corrects Pilate stating that HIS Kingdom is not of this world. If Jesus was here to restore, reclaim, or reform a geo-political or earthly religious entity, his disciples would right now be fighting to free him. One of Jesus’ disciples, Simon, was a former zealot, and even he did nothing of the sort. The Kingdom of Christ, to which everyone in Christ belongs, is not of this world. For Christ, the way of his Kingdom was the cross, and he made the cross the entry point of his Kingdom for all mankind.
We who are in Christ share Christ’s purpose, and our longing is for his Kingdom which is not of this world. Jesus has led us by showing us a pin-point focus on purpose and destination that all of his disciples must follow. That is not the way of zealous nationalism, but a zealous mission of the cross. If the church loses our way on this, we lose the hope of the gospel. We lose everything. We need to protect ourselves from being zealots and the way to do that is to follow Christ.
You might be a zealot if the name of Jesus is being used for nationalistic reform rather than gospel proclamation. Even so, a Christian is zealous. It’s a missionary zeal for a Kingdom not of this world. John 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world--to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."
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