"Hanukkah - Part 2"
How does the celebration of Hanukkah, a festival NOT found in the Old Testament, provide greater insight into biblical themes such as the Messiah? How is Hanukkah handled in the New Testament?
Go to "Hanukkah - Part 2".
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Jesus at Hanukkah
Now look at verse 22.
At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem;
This was Hanukkah. Now again, “at that time” is specific. All this other stuff that is going on in chapter 9 and 10 is setting the stage for what’s going to come.
it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.
Now the Portico of Solomon today would be approximately located to the east of the Mosque of Aqsa,on the temple mount, on the southeast corner overlooking where the Kidron begins to turn into the Tyropean. And it was from there the apostle James would later be martyred, thrown off from the tower above it.
The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.
Now, the term “works” here would have the connotation, “semeion mipla’ot”, “signs and wonders”. “These bear witness to Me.” This goes back to John 5, the five things that bear witness to Jesus.
“But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” (John 10:26-32).
Now remember, we know everything that was in the temple from the Mishna. The only stones that were in Solomon’s portico were, of course, the stones of the disassembled altar.
In the story of Daniel, the prophet predicts what will happen with Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees. Antiochus is a major type of the Antichrist, who slaughtered a pig in the temple before an image of Zeus, the Greek god, to whom he gave his own physical features. This is a major type of the Antichrist. And the altar – the stones of the altar (the “mizbeach”, we call them in Hebrew) – were holy. The Jews couldn’t throw the stones away. But neither could they sacrifice on it anymore because they were defiled by pig’s blood – an un-kosher animal – sacrificied to another god. They didn’t know whether to throw them away – they couldn’t throw them away because they were holy – but they couldn’t use them anymore, they had to build a new altar because they were defiled. So they had the stones stacked up in the temple, waiting for the Messiah to come.
At Hanukkah they believed the Messiah was going to come and tell them what to do with the stones. So the Messiah comes at Hanukkah and what do they do with the stones? They pick up the stones and try to stone the Messiah. It would be hard to believe those weren’t the stones of the altar based on what it says in the Mishna, because there were no other stones in Solomon’s portico. And the Mishna records everything in some detail. So based on the historical record, it would seem probable those were the stones.
The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.