At Alliance for the Peace of Jerusalem, we affirm that Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah of the Hebrew Scriptures who lived in the land of Israel—a necessary, important, and critical part of the gospel narrative.1 During this holiday season, Jewish people around the world will celebrate Hanukkah, a commemoration of God’s miraculous preservation of the Jewish people in Judea through the work of the brave Maccabees who successfully overthrew the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Jesus celebrated Hanukkah at the Temple in Jerusalem and chose this celebration to reveal two important truths about His identity: He is both Messiah and God.
The Hanukkah Story
From 175 to 164 BCE, Antiochus reigned as king of the Hellenistic Syrian Empire and carried out evil atrocities against God and His chosen people. He outlawed the Sabbath, circumcision, keeping kosher, and possessing the Scriptures. He brutally killed entire Jewish families for keeping God’s laws. He also set up a statue of himself and commanded the Jewish people to worship him, and he desecrated the Temple altar by ordering pigs to be sacrificed on it. In 165 BCE, the small band of Maccabees miraculously defeated Antiochus and his armies after three years of guerilla warfare.2
This history is recorded in the books of First and Second Maccabees.3 The only time Hanukkah is specifically mentioned in Scripture is in the New Testament’s Gospel of John.
Hanukkah in the New Testament
In the cold winter of Jerusalem during the celebration of Hanukkah, or the Feast of Dedication, Jesus stood in Solomon’s Portico along the eastern side of the Temple, surrounded by a crowd of listeners—some curious, others confrontational. Jesus’s disciple, John, recorded the following about this moment:
At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The [Jewish leaders] then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Messiah, 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. 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 [Jewish leaders] 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?”
The [Jewish leaders] 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.” (John 10:22–33)
Jesus chose the celebration of Hanukkah to reveal that He was both the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and God Himself.
First-Century Messianic Expectations
The Jewish people in first-century Judea were living under the heavy hand of Roman occupation, with their hopes for liberation burning brightly. The memory of the Maccabean revolt—when their ancestors had overthrown the Seleucid Empire and rededicated the Temple—was fresh in their memory. Prophecies from Daniel indicated that the Messiah had to arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple, intensifying the anticipation of a deliverer.4
But Jesus did not fit the description of what many expected. They yearned for a political liberator, a conquering king who would immediately overthrow Roman rule. They did not understand the prophets foretold of one Messiah with two comings. Messiah would first come as a lowly servant, bringing redemption from sin, before returning to establish His kingdom of peace on the earth.
The Messianic Mission
The prophets wrote of this humble servant who would ride on a donkey prior to his return on the clouds of heaven (Daniel 7:13–14): “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).
Jesus fulfilled the words of the prophet Zechariah as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, while Jewish believers waved palm branches and hailed Him as Messiah, the Son of David (Matthew 21:9). Later that same week, Jesus also fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah who wrote that the Messiah would first suffer and die to atone for sin:
We ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him (Isa 53:4–6).
During Hanukkah, when religious leaders challenged Jesus to declare His identity, He was both direct and ambiguous. “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me” (John 10:25). His miracles and teachings were a living testimony to His Messiahship: healing the blind, making the lame walk, cleansing lepers, restoring hearing, raising the dead, and bringing hope to the poor (Isa 11:1–2, 29:18, 35:5–6, 61:1–2; cf. Matthew 11:4–5). Most significantly, Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled the Messiah’s mission to atone for sin (Isa 52:13––53:12; Daniel 9:24–27).
Divine Identity: “I and the Father Are One”
The most controversial moment on that Hanukkah came when Jesus boldly proclaimed, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). This statement was a deliberate echo of the Shema from Deuteronomy—“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut 6:4). Jesus was making an explicit claim to deity that His audience immediately understood. The religious leaders considered His claim blasphemous and wanted to stone Him (John 10:31).
The timing of this declaration was also significant. During Hanukkah, the Jewish people remembered Antiochus IV’s desecration of the Temple and how he arrogantly called himself “Epiphanes” (meaning “god manifest”). On this Hannukah, Jesus presented Himself in God’s Temple as the true manifest God and the Shepherd of His people Israel, another title of God in the Hebrew Scriptures (Psalm 23).
The prophet Isaiah had long before prophesied the Messiah would be God in the flesh: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6).
Although most Jewish leaders at the time did not recognize this truth, many first-century Jewish people expected the Messiah to be divine. Some contemporary Jewish scholars recognize this belief in a divine Messiah as an ancient Jewish expectation. For example, Daniel Boyarin, a prominent Jewish scholar, writes, “The reasons that many Jews came to believe that Jesus was divine was because they were already expecting that Messiah/Christ would be a god-man. This expectation was part and parcel of Jewish tradition.”5
This holiday season, let us reflect on the truths of Jesus’ identity—that He is both Messiah and God—and let us look forward to His return, when He will bring peace to the Middle East and to the world. May we continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and yearn for the King’s return (Psalm 122)!
by Jennifer Miles
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1 Affirmation #3, “Our Hope for Peace: A Statement on Israel, the Nations and the Gospel,” Alliance for the Peace of Jerusalem, accessed December 20, 2024, https://allianceforthepeaceofjerusalem.com/statement
2 Chosen People Ministries, The Gospel According to Hanukkah, https://store.chosenpeople.com/the-gospel-according-to-hanukkah/.
3 First and Second Maccabees are found in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures; within the canon of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and in the Apocrypha of the Protestant church.
4 Daniel 9:24–27; cf. Josephus, Wars 6.312.
5 Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York, NY: The New Press, 2012), 56.
