In our last post, I presented several examples of how God had presented himself to many people, in person, through Christophanies, through angels, and through the Holy Spirit. The Jews and their leaders had all these examples as well, so why was Israel not ready for the Messiah? Because of disunity. Anytime a God-human relationship is turned into a religion, disunity develops because Satan can exploit humans and their desires. Satan created distractions so they could not focus and accept the paradigm change they actually taught and believed. The Messiah’s coming was key to their belief system, so what happened to cause them to miss it?

From the time of Malachi, the last prophet and last book of the Old Testament until the announcement of the birth of Christ by the angel Gabriel to Mary, was what has been termed the 400 years of prophetic silence where, as far as we know there was no prophetic word from God. That’s a long time – about twice as long as the United States has existed.

Yet a lot happened during this timeframe. Daniel did prophesy about this time period long before it arrived, and his prophecy about these events were fulfilled during this time. Alexander the Great came upon the scene and captured the known world in record time. He was only a few years over the age of 30 when he became ruler of the known world. Yet, his reign was short-lived, and his kingdom was divided into four parts with the Seleucid Kingdom becoming one of the most dominant ones for the nation of Israel.

One of its rulers, Antiochus Epiphanes, desecrated the temple altar in Jerusalem which led to the Maccabean Revolt. This was a priestly family who led the revolt and, because of their eventual success in obtaining freedom from the Seleucids, was given the role of being military leaders of the Jewish peoples. The only problem with this was that they were now both priests and military rulers simultaneously. One of them eventually proclaimed himself king which led to the Hasmonean Dynasty which lasted for a little over one-hundred years. So, you had a king being both king and high priest. We saw previously that when this happened and was not God-ordained as was the case with Saul and Uzziah, it led to unwanted consequences. The problem with something wrong being perpetuated for so long is that what is wrong becomes normalized and eventually is not seen as wrong at all.

There were now no longer God-ordained checks and balances between these two offices. The high priest became a political position which led to all sorts of greed and atrocities. This led to the rise of Herod the Great, an Idumean force-converted Jew, who expanded the Jewish temple but also sided with Rome who held the priesthood captive by maintaining control of the high priest’s vestments and ephod. The high priest had to come to the Roman prefect before he could perform any of his duties on given Jewish festivals or any holy days.

So, how did this disunity creep into Israel? The main culprit was the positions of high priest and king held by the same person under Hasmonean rule. This prevented the spiritual check and balance between the king and the high priest. This crowded out the purpose of a prophet who was despised, ignored, and/or killed if such a one did arise (Mt 23:37). Certain Scriptures were ignored while others were over emphasized. Only those prophecies that were understood and agreed to by Jewish scholars were widely taught. This led to the Jewish belief that the Messiah would be a conquering king to relieve them of all oppressors. This led to some Jews becoming militant and the leaders becoming afraid for their positions and their nation if such a one came and fought against Rome. This made them more exclusionary to non-Jews and increased their animosity for those not like them. This thought process prevented them from fulfilling one of their main mandates from God which was to bring all people unto Himself.

Not only was there a distraction from the way Jews worshipped and the Roman empire which held sway over their governance, there was also a lot of theological and philosophical debate between Jewish leaders which created division and left most people unsure of what to truly believe.

Pharisees followed both the oral and written law strictly and tried to apply it to every aspect of life. While they believed in all books we have in our Old Testament, they had oral interpretation which they also treated just as strongly as the Word of God itself. Emphasis was on obedience, not relationship. Then there were some Pharisees who were more conservative in their beliefs and practices and others who were more liberal in their interpretation of Scripture.

Sadducees rejected the oral law and any other sources of authority besides the written Torah, i.e., the first five books of the Old Testament. They ignored historical books, like Joshual and Judges; poetry books, like Psalms and Proverbs; and Prophetic books, like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. There was always much theological and philosophical debate with the Pharisees.

Essenes were known for their celibacy, fasting, meditation, and communal sharing of goods, but they were also criticized for their isolationism and sectarianism. They believed the Pharisees and Sadducees to be hypocrites and traitors to their Jewish religion. They felt they were the better arbiters and keepers of Scriptural teachings.

Herodians believed that Herod and his successors were the best option for the Jewish people under the Roman rule, and that they fulfilled some aspects of the messianic prophecies. They took their current world as being scriptural so they could justify their lifestyle and their current world view.

Zealots were militant Jews who advocated armed resistance against the Roman occupation of their land. They ignored all prophetic scriptures expect those which supported their belief that the Messiah would come as a conquering king, defeat all their foes, especially Rome, and set Israel up as the ruling nation of the entire world.

As we can see, dissent arose not because Scriptures were ignored but because different aspects of Scripture and prophecy were emphasized more than others or even completely ignored. So, what did this mean for Jesus as he came upon the scene? Stay turned and we’ll discuss this topic next time.

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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens