The Revolutionary Content of Jesus' Resurrection

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15: 20-22 NIV

True revolutionaries in the Jesus Movement willingly admit that Jesus died in their place to completely dispense with the issue of their ever having to be held personally liable so as to be condemned or adjudged guilty by God for any negative being or doing acts or omissions in their past, present or future.

However, it was God’s raising Jesus from the dead that gives life, purpose and direction to those elite revolutionaries who willingly lay down their lives for the poor and oppressed by engaging in the counter-hegemonic struggle for liberation of the oppressed and social/economic justice for the poor.

God was in the man Jesus when he came to rescue humankind from not only physical and spiritual death, but also social, economic, political, philosophical, psychological and theological death—all that humans have produced in rebellion against God. That God chose to act through a human being whom He raised from the dead is a sign and signal to the Jesus Movement revolutionary that God will raise her/him up from death in all its earthly manifestations.

Because Jesus conquered death, so will the revolutionary who follows Jesus’ revolutionary path—a path that calls for disruption of the status quo, subversion of the Eurocentric world-system and merciless assault on the bastions of false Eurocentric-oriented Christian religion.

God’s raising Jesus from the dead also announces the hope that the last, least and lost can be raised from their spiritual, social and economic death and given new life that manifests itself in their active engagement in counter-hegemonic revolutionary struggle.

Because God demonstrated his ultimate power in raising a very dead Jesus to life—a life that will never die again—the Jesus Movement revolutionary believes that God will use that same mighty power to raise up the millions of people of color who are dead in trespasses and sins and shrouded in the grave clothes of the myth of white supremacy.