Christ in 3 Maccabees

3 Maccabees 1 sets a pagan king at the threshold of the one place on earth he may not enter, and in that barred door it touches a theme the New Testament carries to its centre. After his victory at Raphia, Ptolemy comes to Jerusalem, is overwhelmed by the temple, and resolves to walk into the inner sanctuary - the hagiasma , the holy place - which the law opens to no one but the high priest, and him only once a year (vv. 9-12). The structure of that restriction is exactly…

3 Maccabees 2 turns from a proud king at a barred door to the man who stands in the gap and prays. As Ptolemy presses to enter the sanctuary, Simon the high priest lifts a great intercession - Lord, Lord, King of the heavens, and Sovereign of all creation, Holy among the holy ones (v. 2) - rehearsing how God brought down the proud of old and pleading that He guard His house, resting the whole appeal not on Israel’s deserving but on God’s character: not in our righteousness…

3 Maccabees 3 is a chapter about a whole people slandered and condemned for no crime but their faithfulness, and in that picture it touches a thread the New Testament gathers up. A hostile rumour is set loose against the Jews by men banded together to injure them (v. 2), seizing on the separateness of their law as a pretext; yet the Jews keep unwavering loyalty toward the kings and adorn their lives with works of righteousness (vv. 3-5). It is the exact lot the Gospel prom…

3 Maccabees 4 is a chapter of grief and of a hidden hand. After Ptolemy’s decree, the Jews of Egypt are torn from their towns, bound, and herded to Alexandria - grey-haired elders driven on, brides with dust on perfumed heads and weeping where wedding songs had been, husbands wearing halters for garlands (vv. 4-8) - then penned in the great hippodrome before the city to be destroyed (vv. 9-11). The cry that rises from them is the cry the Scriptures everywhere say God hears…

3 Maccabees 5 is a chapter of certain death turned aside three times by an unseen hand. The Jews of Egypt stand bound in the hippodrome while Ptolemy commands Hermon to drug five hundred elephants with frankincense and unmixed wine and drive them, maddened, to trample the people at dawn (vv. 1-6); they answer with a ceaseless cry to God to deliver them (vv. 7-9). The deliverance comes not by their strength but by God’s quiet government of a king’s own mind: He pours out a…

3 Maccabees 6 stands at the climax of the book, and its great theme is the God who remembers and delivers. An aged priest, Eleazar, lifts his voice in the hippodrome as the drugged elephants advance, and his prayer is one long act of remembrance - Pharaoh and his host drowned, Sennacherib’s army cut down by an angel in a night, the three young men unburned in the furnace, Daniel unharmed among the lions, Jonah raised from the deep - each rescue named as proof of the God wh…

Christ Connection - Hearts Turned by God

The book of Proverbs says, "The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will" (Proverbs 21:1). Ptolemy did not choose to let the Jews go. God chose for him. This is the glory of the Christ-to-come - not that He needs to overthrow earthly rulers by force, but that He can turn their hearts as easily as water flows. Jesus’ own crucifixion will be the perfect expression of this power: not defending Himself with armies, bu…