Yeshua gave an important message in the Temple on the Festival of Dedication — Chanukah — and the scribes and Pharisees asked Yeshua at that time an important question about His being the Messiah. What did He tell them, and why didn’t He directly answer their question? The lessons of Chanukah applied then and to the coming Day of the LORD.
The only winter celebration mentioned in the Gospels is the festival of Dedication, or Chanukah. Yeshua was at the Temple during that eight-day celebration and stated boldly, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). This caps a string of clashes between Yeshua and certain religious leaders — recorded in John 7-10 and covering a two-month period from Sukkot, or the festival of Tabernacles, to Chanukah — over whether Yeshua was the Messiah.
Hallel.info has a primer on Chanukah, what it is and why believers in Yeshua the Messiah should care about it.
The Festival of Dedication, or Chanukah, does not just commemorate a battle of Greeks vs. Jews, but it was a civil war as well. Hellenized people of Israel fought against Israelites loyal to God and His instructions for life, the Torah. Antiochus IV (Epiphanies) only got involved when the Hellenized asked him to intervene to avoid losing to the “rebellious” faithful.
When asked if He were the Messiah on one Chanukah, Yeshua told the leaders of Israel, “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 faithfulness to the original and true intent of the words of God testified to His messiahship.
“You are to be perfect, just as your Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48) seems like an impossible goal until we understand the meaning of the word translated as “perfect.” Luke’s parallel — “be merciful” (Luke 6:36) — helps us understand perfect and shows us a deep meaning under the Festival of (Re)Dedication of the Temple, or Chanukah. To be mature believers, to be righteous, we must dedicate all of ourselves — devotion and weakness — to God.
Yeshua pointed to the actions He was doing through His Father’s power as evidence that He and the Father were “one,” that His “temple” — His body — was whole dedicated to God’s purpose (John 10:22–30). Our “temples” should be wholly dedicated to God as well.
The overarching theme of Chanukah is dedication and rededication of the physical temples of God. Yet the prophets’ warned that God can’t be contained in buildings (1 Kings. 8:27; 2 Chr. 6:18; cf. Jer. 7:1–7), even ones He ordered built (Ex. 25:40; Heb. 8:5). And Messiah Yeshua told a woman in Samaria that worshiping God “in spirit and in truth” doesn’t have to be in a building (John 4:20-24).
The apostles Paul and Peter taught that the physical bodies of believers, especially their minds, are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 1 Pet. 2:4–8). As such, believers are interconnected with one another through the Spirit and Messiah in a mutually supportive network (Rom. 12:3–13; 1 Cor. 12:12–26).
Paul said we believers also are “ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). The need for unified “good news” is so important that the Messiah prayed, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:20-21). Earthly leaders of nations recall their ambassadors or consuls general if they are not “one” in message and attitude with the leader. Yet many believers in the Messiah haven’t learned such “earthly things” in their treatment of other believers, and thus are working against the message of “heavenly things” (John 3:12).
What do the following six important women in the Bible have in common? How did their experiences shape the future of the people of God?