Jesus grew up and lived as a young man ‘in the Jewish homeland under Roman occupation,’ during the era of ‘postexilic Judaism.’1Dallas Willard, ‘Jesus,’ in Glen G. Scorgie et al eds., Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Zondervan, 2011), 58. He was steeped in the traditions and practices of mature Jewish religious faith, shaped by the vision of the Law and the Prophets — that sweeping understanding of a good world, plagued by evil yet existing wholly under the dominion of God, where goodness, life, and love lie at the centre of the universe.
Given this outlook, Jesus’ activity and teaching were concerned with his role in delivering human life from what might be called universal bondage — the multiple forms of tyranny and terror, spiritual, moral, religious, and cultural, as well as (eventually, in the new creation) political, physical, and environmental, by which human existence is held captive.
Liberation as Central to Jesus’ Mission
This preoccupation with wholescale liberation was utterly integral to Jesus’ self-understanding. Where many of his contemporaries distorted and misapplied the law of God, Jesus cut through to its heart and intent, setting it in sharp relief against the traditions of ‘the scribes and Pharisees.’ To free human beings from oppression, enslavement, poverty, captivity, and disability — in all its forms, internal, external, and personal, sooner or later — was not incidental to his mission but constitutive of it.
All such concerns, he declared, are addressed and resolved through him, ‘in the power of the Spirit’ (Luke 4:14-21). When Jesus read from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, he was not merely citing a messianic proof text but announcing his comprehensive program: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Luke 4:18-19).
The Scope of Jesus’ Liberation
These freedoms flow from the Person and action of the Christ of the gospel rather than forming its core. They describe what life ultimately looks like within the kingdom of God — the main theme and thread of Jesus’ teaching. Strictly speaking, they are not themselves the good news, which bears more specifically on God’s saving work in Christ: his personal presence with us, and the victory and dominion of the kingdom secured through his death and resurrection.
Yet this freedom from terror and tyranny is very good news. It is inseparably linked to, and consequent upon, the Good News, the gospel of the Lord Jesus’ life, death, and exaltation — his establishment, through mercy and judgment, of God’s saving kingdom. This kingdom, present and available now and forever, was the animating centre of Jesus’ own teaching (Acts 1:3) and that of his Apostles after him (Acts 28:23, 31).
Transcendence of Human Authority
Within the domain of God’s kingdom, Jesus’ attitude as king was noticeably and remarkably independent of human authority and power. At every juncture of his public ministry he exercised transcendent authority across every realm — thought, speech, and action; the natural environment; the unfolding of events; and human health, whether spiritual, physical, or mental.
‘The effects of his power were obvious, and that is repeatedly brought out in the Gospels. That it did not derive from human sources was also obvious, for human authority was mainly set against him and eventually caused his death. He was questioned concerning the source of his authority (Luke 20:2), but no one doubted he had authority … He endowed his followers with that same authority (Luke 9:1-2; Acts 1:7-8).’2Willard, ‘Jesus,’ 60.
He showed proper deference to human authority where it carried genuine divine warrant. Yet he never lost sight of the original and ultimate source, ground, and goal of all true power and authority: the saving purpose and sovereign rule of God.
A Reversal of Values
Jesus’ vision of God’s gospel and kingdom ran counter to common human instincts about what really matters and who counts. Many of the things people normally prize, he said plainly, are abominable to God (Luke 16:15). Those he called blessed are precisely the ones the world considers unfortunate: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the persecuted (Matt 5:3-11).
This reversal extends to every area of human evaluation. The last shall be first, and the first last (Matt 20:16). The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves (Luke 22:26). Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Jesus and the gospel will save it (Mark 8:35).
The Direct Personal Presence of God
Human life has shrunk. ‘Whereas once the great depths in life were sought in the cosmos, and in God himself, now they are increasingly sought in ourselves … What is unseen becomes unreal but what is experienced within, privately and personally, is the touchstone of reality.’3David Wells, ‘Losing Our Religion,’ in David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson eds., Ruined Sinners to Reclaim (Crossway, 2024), 809. Against this modern reduction, Jesus insisted on the twofold dimension to human life — the visible and invisible, the temporal and eternal, life ‘in the world’ and ‘eternal life.’
In Jesus’ view, these two dimensions are not parallel tracks but interlocking and interacting realities. All current human existence is therefore twofold. In his preaching, visible human life is meant to be oriented toward, in contact with, and under the direct influence of the presently invisible ‘kingdom of heaven’ (Matt 4:17) and ‘kingdom of God’ (Mark 1:15). The liberation Jesus offers is not just external but internal, not primarily political but spiritual, not just social but personal. It is the liberation of the whole person for life in the whole reality of God’s good creation.
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- 1Dallas Willard, ‘Jesus,’ in Glen G. Scorgie et al eds., Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Zondervan, 2011), 58.
- 2Willard, ‘Jesus,’ 60.
- 3David Wells, ‘Losing Our Religion,’ in David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson eds., Ruined Sinners to Reclaim (Crossway, 2024), 809.