We need a Christian Hanukkah

What do I mean? Let me start with some background. After the death of Alexander the Great his empire was divided up among his four generals. One of the four, Antiochus Epiphanes, took control over the land of the Jews and began to impose the Greek culture upon them. In 167 B.C. he stepped up his campaign by issuing a series of draconian decrees that virtually prohibited the Jews from practicing their religion under penalty of death, and forced them to worship Greek gods instead. He then defiled the temple by sacrificing a pig in the Holy of Holies to the god Zeus.

Finally, the Jews rebelled under the leadership of the Maccabees and overthrew the Greeks. They then cleansed the temple and their culture from the Greek defilement and restored their God-given religion. Their victory is celebrated today in the Jewish holiday known as Hanukkah (meaning “dedication”).

What I now realize is that we who are part of the New Covenant assembly of believers need to rise up and do the same thing. Not physically, but spiritually. Because the same Greek culture has also defiled our worship and hindered our service to God as defined under the New Covenant. The defilement began shortly after Jesus went up into Heaven. It came mainly by way of the so-called early Church Fathers whose teachings were heavily influenced by pagan Greek philosophers, such as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. And also with the help of a Jew named Philo who lived around the time of Jesus. His writings almost undid the work of the Maccabees in his attempt to re-Hellenize Judaism, insisting Moses was the source of much Greek philosophy.

In time, the Church Father's teachings evolved into the approved doctrines and religious practices that became known as Roman Catholicism. Although the Reformation introduced many important reforms, it was never able to fully delver us from Catholicism itself. This is evidenced by our continuation of the Catholic hierarchical system, the division of the body into clergy and laity, the unscriptural holy days, and the construction of earthly temples spoken of as “God’s house.”

But most egregious of all were the doctrines formulated in the third and fourth centuries that declared under penalty of death that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was a Triumvirate, a committee of three. And that Jesus was part of this Greek concept of God.

But just as God did in the time prior to Messiah’s first coming, He is planning to deliver His people again from this ungodly Hellenistic defilement and cleanse His temple, the Body of Messiah. Father God, who is Yahweh, must be restored to His rightful place as our one and only God. And Jesus must be restored to his rightful place on the throne of David. He needs to be recognized as our virgin-born Messiah, our sinless savior, mediator and high priest – but not Yahweh. He was proclaimed in the Bible to be the son of God, but never God the Son.

I know this war cry will be challenged by many who have lived their whole Christian lives under the Greek influence (as I did), and now cannot abide by any other teaching. Just as many Jews resisted the DE-Hellenization of their religion in the days of the Maccabees. But the yoke must be overthrown and the temple cleansed.

What particularly intrigues me is that Antiochus IV is often said to be a foreshadowing of the anti-Christ. Given that so many Christians adamantly believe Jesus is Yahweh, or some part of Yahweh, I can see that the false Messiah, however he is manifested, could easily “take his seat in the temple [the deceived false institutional Church] displaying himself as being God” (1 Thess. 2:4). In fact, a couple of Popes have already done just that.