Scripture Daily

Context No. 1166 of 4322 · 2 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

2 Maccabees 7:13-17: in context

13When he too was dead, they shamefully handled and tortured the fourth in the same way. 14Being near to death he said this: “It is good to die at the hands of men and look for the hope which is given by God, that we will be raised up again by him. For as for you, you will have no resurrection to life.” 15Next after him, they brought the fifth and shamefully handled him. 16But he looked toward the king and said, “Because you have authority among men, though you are corruptible, you do what you please. But don’t think that our race has been forsaken by God. 17But hold on to your ways, and see how his sovereign majesty will torture you and your descendants!”

This is the account of seven brothers tortured to death, one by one, for refusing to break God's law, while their mother watches. Here the fourth brother, near death, speaks his defiance: it is good to die at the hands of men and look for the hope God gives, that we will be raised up again by him. But for you, he tells the persecuting king, there will be no resurrection to life. And the fifth brother warns the king that though he has power now, he should not think God has forsaken his people, and that God's own majesty will one day deal with him.

What holds these dying young men steady is the hope of resurrection. The fourth brother can say it is good to die at the hands of men, not because death is not terrible, but because he looks past it to the hope that God will raise him up again. His whole endurance rests on a conviction about the future: this torture is not the end, because God raises the dead. It is one of the clear expressions of resurrection faith in the Old Testament era, and it is what makes their courage possible. They can refuse to save their lives by compromise precisely because they believe their lives are not finally in the king's hands but in God's, who can and will restore them beyond death. Take away the resurrection and their choice makes no sense; hold onto it and their defiance becomes reasonable, even hopeful. It is the same faith that would later steady the Christian martyrs, that the one who can only kill the body is not the one to fear, because there is a God who raises the dead. The hope of resurrection is what let them look their killers in the eye and say, you have no such hope, but we do.

Is the hope of resurrection real enough to me that, like these brothers, I could refuse to save my life by compromise, trusting the God who raises the dead beyond anything a persecutor can do?

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