Jesus Was Not a Communist

The entire conversation on communism, or socialism, and how it relates (if at all) to Jesus' teachings has become increasingly common lately. It's been brought up long ago, but the kerfuffle about it seems to be popping up more often alongside the sorts of social movements that are occurring/attempting to occur recently. This little poll on Debate.org shows that popular opinion is rather split on the issue. It's a popular, attention-grabbing enough of a topic that this article prefaces itself by saying that it asked two "Christian advocates for the poor" if Jesus would be a communist or a capitalist, to which both of them say, obviously, He would be neither, and yet the article continues to run off this premise as if it's the actual subject of the piece.

The title of this post may have given away the ending already, but let's start with some introductory information.

Why would people even argue that Jesus may have been a socialist, or even a communist? There are some bible verses that people enjoy using to attempt to push this narrative, I'll quote several of these up front without comment to set the mood.

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." - Matthew 19:21

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." - Mark 10:21-25

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." - Matthew 25:41-46

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. - Acts 4:32-35

Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." But Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. - Matthew 14:15-21

Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way." - Matthew 15:32

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward." - Matthew 10:42

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. - Matthew 4:23

There are several different themes seen here within these passages. There are plenty more, but I'm not going to cover literally every passage that has been used to attempt to justify the Jesus as a communist narrative, so these will do. Generally speaking, the themes we see here are concerning wealth and distribution of that wealth, provisions for the poor, hungry, etc., and Jesus' proclivity for helping and healing the sick, blind, etc. These are used in various ways by people who wish to use Jesus to push their own agendas.

Before we get into these themes, I'm going to make this simple: I'm going to explain the overall theme of the actual bible, which will quite readily dispel the vast majority of these false narratives. Jesus was not campaigning for any specific government system - He was here to spread God's word, show people how God willed for them to live, and compel people to follow Him (along with other stuff). God is the ruler of all things, He sits at the throne of Heaven. Jesus called us to behave as God desires us to, so any and all things that Jesus did and taught will ultimately tie back into this truth. This means if you believe Jesus was somehow preaching about communism (or capitalism, or any government system), you're immediately incorrect because Jesus is preaching about God the Father, who is the ruler of all things - not the free market, not the working people, not the queen of England.

When you're attempting to justify that somehow Jesus was preaching about socialism and not about God's kingdom, you're forgetting a very key factor about Jesus' teachings and Christianity in general. Just as we must have the free choice to love or not love God, otherwise it is not truly love, in the same way we must have the free choice to do as God wills, otherwise we are not truly doing as God wills. In fact, it is possible to do as God wills and still not enter into the kingdom of heaven, as it is all about the position of your heart.

People will still attempt to justify how their government system of choice just happens to be just like what Jesus taught, meaning that it's a good Christian government system. They are still wrong, and we'll get into the details now.

Wealth

Jesus insists multiple times to different people to sell all of their possessions for one reason or another, and is quoted in several different ways saying how a wealthy person may have quite a hard time finding his way to heaven. In Acts we see the disciples selling all their belongings and providing for people by distributing everything they had. These situations, quotes, and actions are used to attempt to show how Jesus was all about redistributing wealth, that no one should be rich, and that we should give and provide for all people so that no one is poor or hungry.

This interpretation is a classic case of simply skewing the words of the bible out of context to get them to sound like they agree with you. Yes, Jesus called multiple people to give away all of their wealth, and the disciples did indeed have a communal wealth-sharing community in acts. The problem here is that the meaning behind having the wealthy give away their wealth is completely lost in a socialist setting. Furthermore, the passage in Acts is being quoted highly out of context.

As briefly touched on above, our decision to do God's will must be a free act, or else we are not actually doing God's will. This means that any government system or otherwise that would force us to give away our wealth or care for the needy is actually taking away our free choice to do this on our own. This would mean that Christian people in a communist society would still be compelled to give of what they have and care for the needy despite the government "doing" it for them, as it must be a free action for it to actually count.

When Jesus calls for the wealthy to give away their wealth, He is suggesting it to them as something for them to choose to do. The passages in which He instructs people to give away everything and follow Him are taken out of context. Matthew 19:21 is prefaced by the man who Jesus is instructing to give away his wealth actually asking Jesus what it is he must do in order to attain eternal life. He asks this of Jesus, to which He initially responds that the man must uphold God's commandments. The man says that he has done so, and asks what he could lack, to which Jesus then responds, literally, "If you would be perfect..." as in, if you truly want to be the absolute best Jesus follower you could ever muster, go ahead and sell everything you have. Matthew 19:22 actually says that the man then goes away sadly, because he had a lot of stuff. Stuff he didn't want to give up.

This has nothing to do with socialism, but is actually related to how we aren't supposed to be attached to our earthly belongings. By giving away all of his belongings, this man would prove that he hasn't "built up his treasures" here on earth, but that he's more interested in building up his treasures in heaven and following Jesus. We are all called to give up our earthly attachments, even those of us who are poor. The reason it is "easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven," is not because he's rich, but because of what earthly wealth does to us. It is incredibly simple and straight forward for someone who has nothing to look toward the promises of heaven because his life is probably not too cozy here on earth. But a rich man - a rich man's life is comfortable and enjoyable. Riches can lead to sins like avarice, which can draw someone even further away from the kingdom of heaven. The easiest way to not be attached to your earthly treasures? Give them away, obviously.

Christian programs that help people use their money better are actually prefaced by the idea that when we are better able to handle and account for our money, then we are more able to use it to help others. It is not always literal that someone would give up their belongings, but rather what we are to give up is our attachments. Indeed, if all the rich gave away everything they had, they would no longer have anything to give. Those that maintain and increase their wealth are able to then use their blessings to be blessings to other people. They can't do that if they are greedy and attached to their wealth.

As for that passage in acts, it's highly out of context, moreso than the previous passages. What is happening in acts isn't the apostles just deciding randomly to enact communism, but it's actually part of the establishment of the church. The people who are selling their belongings and caring for one another are specifically Christians who came to the disciples because of the gospel. These people congregated to be part of Jesus' church. That is, these people who were selling their stuff and providing for each other were all followers of Jesus. They weren't the general populace of the country but they were the church. Jesus calls for his church to take care of one another, which is precisely what they were doing. This, again, must be a free action.

I've seen someone go so far as to say "Well, look, we'll just change the word "apostles" out for "government," and it's communism!" Yes, let's literally change the entire meaning of the passage, then it will mean what we want it to!

I understand how similar this can appear to be to communism by people who aren't actually Christians, or even Christians who don't truly understand how the church is supposed to operate. The problem is that, like everything in the bible, you can't just take something out of context and act like it totally backs up your claims. Acts is about the formation of the early church, and once Jesus died - which He did for the church - the disciples were the closest thing you were gonna get to Jesus. These people were absolutely trusted to act on their word because they were compelled by Jesus, God in the flesh Himself, and the holy spirit. They taught Jesus' word and spoke the gospel boldly. They provided for anyone who would become part of the church.

What I'm getting at here is that the only way to attempt to justify this as communism would be a communist system of government in which the church was the government. This would, in fact, not be a communist government because "the church" is not the people who own and run a church building, but "the church" is the body of Christ, the people that follow Jesus, the entire congregation of disciples. This would, funnily enough, be the closest thing to the actual "communist utopia" that people talk about - where people are compelled by the love of their fellow man to give up their own wealth for them, take care of them, and work for one another. It, however, would require that every one of these people was a genuine, hardcore Jesus lover because you're simply not going to get this sort of thing any other way. Nothing compels someone to give up their belongings, open up their home to strangers, feed the hungry, raise other people's children, and care for one another with absolute reckless abandon except for the love of Jesus Christ Himself. This is why communism as a government system must force everyone to do these things, because not everyone is compelled by their love for Jesus to actually give up everything for each other. Voluntary communism is not a thing without Jesus.

So, sure, you can argue that this is in favor of communism, if you just replace "communism" with "the church."

This theme of wealth distribution is the most frequently used to attempt to play the Jesus as a socialist narrative, but there are a few others we'll touch on. 

Providing for the Least of These

Jesus insists to His followers, and does it Himself many times, that they feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. He is shown more than once as miraculously using small provisions to feed many thousands of people and very often has concern for the poor and hungry, usually doing something to help them whenever He comes across them. These passages are used to show how Jesus would support the ideal of communism because it, if it ever worked correctly, would provide for these same people, which would make Jesus happy or whatever.

The passage in Matthew 25 is used most frequently to show that not only did Jesus insist that people help the needy, but that not doing so is in fact likely to land you in hell. This is melded with other false interpretations about works to form a narrative where people insist that Jesus was actually saying you must give to the poor, feed the hungry, so on and so forth, or else you're doomed to hell.

The fact of the matter is that the principle of free choice still applies here, though it comes alongside another principle: giving cheerfully. If you give to the needy out of fear of damnation, you still aren't doing it right. Jesus says that people who follow His word will help the needy - will, as opposed to must. What He's saying is that when you truly love Jesus and follow His commandments, you will simply be compelled to do the things He's called us to do. You won't be able to help yourself - it will come naturally. And you'll be happy to do so, because you know you're doing what Jesus would have wanted.

This means that those who never helped the least of these aren't damned because they never gave to the poor, but because helping the needy is a physical manifestation of the spiritual reality you experience within you. When you are genuinely following Jesus, helping the needy will come naturally, you will feel compelled to do so. That means that these people who did not do so were not as tight with Jesus as they thought they were.

So Jesus did instruct his followers to help the needy, though He also instructed His followers to spread the gospel and share the love of Jesus. The government will not do this when they forcibly take your money and give it to someone else - you miss out on what is actually the most important part of helping the needy, which is doing so because you're compelled by the love of Jesus Christ. If you're "helping the needy" by paying the government to do it for you, you basically might as well not be doing it at all. The government isn't going to spread the gospel and bring those needy people to Jesus - it will bring those needy people to the feet of their government, where they will depend on their government and not the God who is actually the one who provides for them. In fact, by allowing the government to take credit for providing for these people, you could easily argue that you're allowing these people to be led astray, away from God, the actual King.

Healing the Sick and Blind

Jesus frequently heals lepers, gives sight to the blind, and casts out a legion of demons at least once. Passages involving Him going around and making life better for large numbers of downtrodden and outcast are used to insist that Jesus would be thrilled if a communist government also went out and used their resources to heal the sick and at least care for the blind, since they probably wouldn't actually be able to restore their sight.

This is probably the weakest argument for Jesus as a socialist, but it is used nonetheless. The first and foremost, most blatantly obvious point to make is that Jesus cast out demons, gave sight to the blind, allowed the lame to walk, and so on because He was Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh, and therefore can actually perform miracles.

Now, the case is actually dismantled that much more, because we are taught that the power to perform miracles is in us through the power of the holy spirit (to clarify, it's not us who has the power, God still has the power, but simply acts through us). Which means that the only situation in which we could ever hope to even do anything miraculous like Jesus did is in the context of a Christian life. Which means, as we talked about before, the church has to be the one who does these things, not the government.

Conclusions

At each point we were brought back to how these things Jesus taught that seem socialisty on the outside specifically need to be performed by the people as free actions, not forced by the government. We cannot give freely unless we are free to give. If the government is forcing you to help the needy, you're not choosing to do so because you're compelled by your love for Jesus. This is directly at odds with the teachings of the bible.

Many people use this as an argument that Jesus would be a capitalist, as a free market allows for you to make your own choices in life, however, you still miss the mark. Jesus was God in the flesh, and that is what Jesus would be. There is no prescription for government in the bible, but for the church, the individual actions of each person. At the end of the day, what Jesus would be in favor of is for His church to bring glory to God through their upholding of the commandments that Jesus gave. No human system of government is a parallel to the God's kingdom, even a monarchy misses the mark - God is the King, and He desires for His people to uphold His commandments, but He wants them to do so freely and cheerfully out of love for Him and for one another. Good luck finding that in a monarchy. The only system Jesus would favor would be the church as He has already made very plainly obvious. Attempting to say it would be anything else basically misses the entire point of why Jesus came.