The Hammer or The Cross?

Jesus wasn’t the conquering Joshua taking the promised land or the hammering Judas retaking the temple. He came not with a hammer, but a cross.

A Marvelous Chapter

Daniel 11 is a marvelous chapter of the Bible. Through the angel (probably Gabriel), God tells Daniel the story of the time in between the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New Testament. The story accurately details the story of the wars between two of sections of Alexander the Great’s divided kingdom. So accurately that mainstream scholars have decided that Daniel could not have written it before it happened. They say that after the events happened someone pretended to be a prophet named Daniel. I on the other hand think that God can tell the future to whoever he wants, and that he told it to Daniel centuries ahead of time.

Details, Details

The details are, well, detailed. Israel sits between two sections of the fractured Greek empire. To the South is the land of Egypt, under the leadership of Alexander’s general, Ptolemy. To the North is the land of Syria, under Alexander’s general, Seleucus. This chapter narrates with precise detail the political and military engagements between these two powers. I won’t tell you all the historical details now, but there’re available if you want them. Here’s the upshot: for over 100 years, Israel was mainly under the power of the southern kingdom of Egypt and Ptolemy. Then in about 200BC, the northern, Seleucid kingdom takes power: “Then the king of the North will come, build up a siege ramp, and capture a well-fortified city. The forces of the South will not stand; even their select troops will not be able to resist. The king of the North who comes against him will do whatever he wants, and no one can oppose him. He will establish himself in the beautiful land, with total destruction in his hand” (Daniel 11:15-16).

Blasphemy Collides

Here is where the events of the world collide with the place and the people of God. The Seleucid king, named Antiochus III, takes the land of Israel around 200 BC. It’s a beautiful land, because it’s where God and his people live in covenant. God’s presence in the temple is the manifestation of his beauty (Psalm 27:4). After Antiochus III, the story focuses on the worst of the worst leaders of that season, his son Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Some say he called himself, “God manifest,” while others called him “Epimanes,” “the madman.” He was a political manipulator and maneuverer, who weaseled his way to power in the kingdom of the North even though he was not the rightful heir. He is a type who foreshadows the Antichrist, setting up “the abomination of desolation” (11:31) in the temple. This is the horrendous blasphemy that will culminate in the desecrations in the last days, which Jesus said would signal the times of tribulation (Matthew 24:15). Antiochus entered the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, the rebuilt temple the people had worked and prayed for for so long. In the temple, Antiochus ended Israel’s sacrifices. He set up an altar to Zeus and sacrificed a pig, an unclean animal, on the altar.

The Hammer

That was the last straw. A few brave heroes of the people said, “Enough!” The prophecy says “the people who know their God will be strong and take action” (11:32). A priest named Mattathias lived about 15 miles from Jerusalem, and he refused to accept these blasphemies. With his five sons, he led a revolt against the powers who had perverted God’s people and God’s place. He led a revolt to restore beauty against the ugly days in the beautiful land. Mattathias’s son, Judas, was the greatest leader of them all, earning the nickname, “The Hammer” (“Maccabeus” in Hebrew). The group became known as “the Maccabees” and the revolt as “the Maccabean revolt.” The Maccabees hammered against the pagan powers, eventually defeating them. In December, 164BC, they restored the temple in worship to the Lord, Yahweh. The word used to celebrate this victory is “rededication” or “Hannukah” in Hebrew. For the next hundred years the Jewish people ruled their own land, yet divided into sects like Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, until Rome defeated them in 63BC, leading to the arrival of Messiah.

The Cross

When Jesus arrived, the people were expecting Messiah to be another Maccabee, to bring the Hammer down on Rome like Judas had done with the forces of Syria and Antiochus Epiphanes. But Jesus Messiah had a very different mission than Judas Maccabee. While the weapon of Judas Maccabee was the hammer of military victory, the weapon of Jesus Messiah was the cross of military defeat. Jesus Messiah wouldn’t overthrow the rulers of the day in a political, earthly, visible victory. Judas Maccabee’s revolt had produced a very mixed kingdom of about 100 years. Jesus Messiah’s revolt has produced a very different kingdom for 2000 years and on into forever.

Now here’s the upshot for us: we are tempted to want to take up the hammer of Judas Maccabee rather than the cross of Jesus Messiah. We want to use the weapons of the world to fight the world. That’s always a losing strategy. Recently, Alex Harris (brother of Joshua Harris who wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye) reflected on his knowledge of and connections to the now infamous issues of the Shiny, Happy People, the Duggar family. Alex explains that the homeschool movement tried to raise up a “Joshua Generation” that would mobilize Christians into positions and places of power. The problem, Alex says, is that the vision of “the Joshua Generation” tried to play the world’s game on the world’s terms.

“The vast majority of the Joshua Generation members I referred to above have, like me, abandoned the mission,” he says. “There are many reasons for this: Christian nationalism is bad theology (and often bad history). The world isn't the caricature we were taught. We read the Bible and see priorities that don’t line up with GOP policies. We’ve seen the hypocrisy and abuses of our leaders. Some have deconstructed, leaving faith or evangelicalism behind. Others, myself included, have developed a more biblical view of political and cultural engagement, disentangling faith in Christ from the misguided project of cultural dominion we were given as kids. This is because the Joshua Generation mission is ultimately not biblical!”

He ends with this gut-punch: “We were never supposed to be like Joshua. We're supposed to be like Jesus.”

Jesus wasn’t the conquering Joshua taking the promised land or the hammering Judas retaking the temple. He came not with a hammer, but a cross. Yes, we must know our God, stand and act—but not with the power of the world. Instead, we know God, stand, and act, not taking up the hammer of Judas Maccabee but taking up our cross and following Jesus Messiah.