4 Maccabee: A Story of Redemptive Suffering
4 Maccabees recounts the final testimony of the priest Eleazar, a mother, and her seven sons as they are tortured to death (4 Maccabees 1:7-9). 4 Maccabees says their resolve in the face of death was inspired by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (13:9-10), Isaac’s willingness to be sacrificed by Abraham (13:12), and by Daniel in the lion’s den (16:21). They embody Israel’s long history of righteous sufferers ready to do what God wanted, even if it cost them their lives.
The most instructive takeaways from 4 Maccabees are the numerous parallels to the Gospels. Let me summarize the top 10 parallels that show the theological tradition into which the story of Jesus’ suffering fits:
- Righteous human suffering can provide substitutionary atonement for sin
- 4 Maccabees 9:23-24: “Fight the holy and dignified battle for our godly way of life. The just providence that watched over our ancestors might become merciful toward our nation and might punish this cursed tyrant through that battle!”
- Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (See also Matthew 20:28)
- Atonement is accomplished by shedding blood
- 4 Maccabees 6:28-29: “Have mercy on your people. Make our punishment sufficient for their sake. Purify them with my blood, and take my life in exchange for theirs.”
- Mark 14:24: “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”
- People were amazed when they saw how they suffered
- 4 Maccabees 1:11: “All people, including the ones who tortured them, were amazed at their courage and patient endurance.”
- Mark 15:39: “When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Matthew 27:54; Luke 23:47); Matthew 27:14: “And He did not answer him with regard to even a single charge, so the governor was quite amazed.”
- Suffering ensures the unfaithful leaders in the land of Israel will be defeated
- 4 Maccabees 1:11: “they caused the defeat of the tyranny that had oppressed their nation. They conquered the tyrant by their endurance. As a result, their homeland was purged of its filth through their actions.”
- Matthew 23:37–38: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! ….Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”
- False accusations are made to condemn a person under the pretense of saving the nation
- 4 Maccabees 4:1: Onias was an honorable and good man. Simon was unable to injure Onias, even though he falsely accused him of all kinds of crimes, pretending to act on the nation’s behalf.
- Matthew 26:59–60 (NAS): Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward.
- The way you live your life validates your message
- 4 Maccabees 7:10: “Your actions made your words about divine philosophy convincing.”
- Mark 2:9–11: “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—He *said to the paralytic, ‘I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.’”
- Oppressors can kill God’s faithful but not ultimately harm them
- 4 Maccabees 9:7-8: “Even if you are able to kill us because of our godly character, don’t think that you can truly harm us by these tortures. We will gain the awards of moral character through this suffering, and we will be with God, for whose sake we suffer.”
- Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
- Unjust death condemns the system that carried it out
- 4 Maccabees “You are the most barbaric tyrant of all. Don’t you think that you are being tortured worse than I am, since you are seeing the proud logic of tyranny defeated by our endurance for the sake of our godly way of life? …You bloodstained tyrant, you won’t escape the revenge of divine wrath!” 9:30-32 (For more on how their unfair death leads to condemnation of the tyrant, see 10:10-11, 15; 11:3-4; 12:18)
- Matthew 27:24–25: “[Pilate] took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves.’ And all the people said, ‘His blood shall be on us and on our children!’”
- Martyrs consciously give their life to accomplish a redemptive purpose
- 4 Maccabees 6:27: “You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law”; Seventh youngest son willingly gives up his life to exaggerate the tyranny’s evil “After praying against the tyrant, he threw himself into the container of burning coal and so gave back his life.” 4 Maccabees 12:19
- Mark 15:31–32: “In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!’”
- Martyrs expected resurrection as a reward for their faithfulness to death
- 4 Maccabees 7:19: “since they believe that they, like our patriarchs Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, do not die to God, but live to God.” 4 Maccabees 9:8: “For we, through this severe suffering and endurance, shall have the prize of virtue and shall be with God, on whose account we suffer”
- Mark 8:31: “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (See also Mark 9:31)
because of them our enemies did not rule over our nation, the tyrant was punished, and the homeland purified—they having become, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. And through the blood of those devout ones and their death as an atoning sacrifice, divine Providence preserved Israel that previously had been mistreated.
In this martyr tradition, suffering validates the sufferer’s cause and condemns the unjust system that puts righteous people to death. The torturous deaths of the priests Onias and Eleazar and the mother and her sons all condemned Antiochus Epiphanes and invoked God to free the Jewish people from his oppression. Within a few years of their suffering and death, the Jews gained their national independence.
The same type of destruction came to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who killed Jesus. Within a generation after Jesus died, Rome invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the regime that orchestrated his death. And his blood freed every follower from their sins. Jesus didn’t build an army and establish an independent Jewish state. He gave up his life to establish an eternal and global kingdom of the redeemed.
Lead Servants Change the World
When Jesus discarded the military model that political revolutionaries in his day embodied and instead embraced the redemptive path of Maccabean era martyrs, he established his pattern for leadership. He came to serve and not to be served. His disciples must therefore be “lead sacrificers” rather than leaders who rally other people to serve them in ways they themselves would not.
Jesus ultimately redefined what people expected the “Son of Man” to do. Daniel 7:14 envisioned a time when all nations would serve the Son of Man, but Jesus says the “Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” Jesus combined the role of Isaiah’s “suffering servant” with Daniel’s “son of man.” Isaiah 53:11 defines the greater purpose of the servant’s suffering: “My Servant will justify the many, since He will bear their iniquities.”
Jesus rescued the many by deciding not to rescue himself. He suffered undeservingly to invoke God’s mercy for all. In doing so, he carved a path for all his followers to bring redemption to the world by sacrificing themselves for the cause. It is not an easy path to follow, but it is his plan to change the world. It’s why he told his disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).
Any Christian leader who chases political positions to force the world to change through policy or power has missed Jesus’ path. Jesus’ kingdom doesn’t use political power to change the world. We can’t vote Jesus’ kingdom to come. Our position may be a king or a member of congress, but change must be earned through selfless service and not power plays. The kingdom comes as we embrace Jesus’ way of demonstrating love, undermining injustice, and staying faithful, even if it kills us. Admittedly, in our world, the more common consequences are losing your job, getting kicked out of the club, and condemned on social media. Those consequences have real economic and social pain.
Jesus did not attract followers by making it easy. He taught his disciples, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
I rarely have the courage to walk that road, but Jesus has showed us how. It is a sobering path to follow, but we must each answer the invitation from Jesus every day. Are you ready and willing to serve others, even if it means losing the life our world tells us we should be selfishly fighting for?
