The Head that Wears the Crown

The Great High Priest and King Has Come

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Henry IV, Part 2, Act II, Scene 1

I have heard it said that much of the Shakespearean corpus is about succession and legitimacy. Simply put, succession deals with “who” is going to lead. Legitimacy deals with “why.” Certainly, those issues were more important in days past than to the modern man, who has both answered in “self-determination” and “democracy.” Those issues were incredibly important to the citizens of greater Judea during the first century and explain the political tensions and environment during the life of Jesus and his followers.

God went silent after speaking to Malachi, closing the “Book of the Twelve” (what we call the Minor Prophets). He’d done so before—the Bible is really laid out in four periods of special revelation. But history continued. In Greece, the city-states warred, and Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle lived. The latter tutored Philip of Macedon’s son Alexander personally for over three years before he succeeded his father and then conquered the entirety of the eastern Med. The Mediterranean Sea could fit within the contiguous United States, and the land mass of the “Lower 48” is roughly equivalent to what Alexander conquered. Aristotle continued his correspondence with Alexander even into his campaigns. Was it something he taught the young King that propelled him?

Alexander’s exploits included defeating the Persians, and with Persia came Israel. While he generally demanded some level of Hellenization everywhere he conquered, he left Israel alone, even, it is said, sacrificing at the Temple and honoring Yahweh.

Alexander died at the age of 32, and though formally his half-brother became king (and later his posthumously-born son), the real power was with his generals. In the eastern Mediterranean, that meant that Seleucus took the northern region from Asia Minor to the Indian border, and in the south, it was Ptolemy in Egypt. These two kingdoms warred over Palestine, with the Seleucids eventually winning out. The Seleucids were not as sanguine about the cultural independence of Israel as Alexander was and made it a goal to Hellenize the Jews. This included encouraging the speaking of Greek, constructing gymnasiums (in which all the competitions and exercises were done naked, scandalous to the devout), and Seleucid control of the Temple. Antiochus, the Seleucid King knew that if he controlled the High Priest, he had much better control of the people. His title was “Epiphanes” or “God Manifest” after all. So, he helped engineer a Temple takeover.

Back before the Jews returned from exile, Ezekiel had proclaimed that when the Temple was rebuilt and dedicated, the line of Zadok had to be the sole occupants of the office of High Priest. Furthermore, the Zadokian line had to administer the entire sacrificial operation. Ezekiel is quite clear, repeating this directive four different times. And the Jews were faithful in this. Onias III was the Zadokian High Priest when the Seleucid meddling had him thrown out, and a succession of puppet Hellenizers were put in his stead.

This made the faithful quite irate, as without a valid High Priest, the Temple was empty and ineffectual role-playing. The national sins would pile up, and when this had happened before, God had decided to pick up and leave. This was a big deal to the devout in Israel. Mattathias, a Levite, his five sons, and the Hasideans (a devout group of Jews) led and fought a guerrilla war against the Seleucids, eventually winning with Judas Maccabeus being the hero leader.

As is the case after any civil war, the civic identity of Israel, now an independent entity, was a mess. Onias III had been killed in treacherous fashion near Antioch. His son, Onias IV, in whom the Zadokian line of succession lay, had fled to Egypt and began a “Temple in absentia” of sorts at Leontopolis, with the blessing of the ruling Ptolemies.

Did the Maccabees send an envoy down to Egypt to recover Onias IV? No, they did not. The Maccabees (who were Levites, just not the right Levites) took over as High Priest and administrators of the Temple.

How did this make the devout in Israel feel? How would you like to be a Hasidean, who saw your brothers die fighting the Seleucids because of their imposed corruption of the Temple, seeing the corruption continue in the form of another invalid High Priestly line? The very religious purpose of fighting the Seleucids, not for some principle of independent rule but of being the faithful administrators of Yahweh’s local presence, was now all for naught. And from the bitter ashes of the Hasideans rose the Pharisees.

The genesis of the Pharisee movement was this: how do the Jews maintain a faithful presence in the light of a corrupted Temple? The answer they came up with was the Oral Law Tradition, an ever-increasing set of additional rules and regulations that would be administered on top of the Torah in an effort to keep the sins of the people somewhat in check since sacrifice was no longer a valid means to return to a righteous state. Furthermore, the Synagogue system grew and flourished as the source of conservative nourishment. The intentions were good, in theory at least.

This is where all the rules and regulations came from, rules that were impossible to keep. This is where “not eating with a Gentile” came from and where the “wall of separation” came from. And so on. When Jesus came, He was not pleased. “You have heard it said,” but, “I say” was a direct attack on the audacity of adding to God’s Word, to the holy Torah.

After twenty years of rule as High Priests, the Maccabees also claimed the role of King as well. Remember, the Maccabees were Levites, which meant they were not of the tribe of Judah. This was problematic, given verses such as the following:

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Genesis 49:10)

The devout were doubly incensed. Not only was the entire Temple cultus (a fancy term for the practices, rituals, and ceremonies associated with worship) completely corrupted, but now the King was illegitimate as well?

Therefore, there were major issues in Israel with both succession and legitimacy. No one in power was legitimate, and succession has been co-opted. The ruling elite were the liberals of their day, and the conservative opposition party was more concerned about treating the symptoms than the real disease.

In Luke 1, Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth while pregnant. Elizabeth’s husband was a chief priest of the division of Abijah. Remember that when David was King, he reformed the priesthood and appointed Zadok the High Priest, organizing the 24 divisions for service in the Holy Place. Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, was one of those chief priests, a Levite. Chief priests could only marry within the Levitical tribe. Hence, Mary was a Levite.

This presents us with an astounding reality. That is, Jesus, a Judahite by his earthly adoptive father Joseph, was also a Levite by his mother, Mary—he was a descendant of both Priests and Kings. This is a remarkable fact often lost when we don’t read our Bible in a careful way.

When Jesus’ ministry begins, there are 2 major competing groups in Judaean politics, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were the conservatives who adopted progressive means to accomplish their ends and who also understood the corruption of the Temple. There were also the Sadducees (etymologically, the name is related to “Zadok” in an attempt to borrow legitimacy), who were the priestly ruling class. The Sadducees were liberal in that they rejected the Prophets (called the Tanakh). This made sense because it was the prophets who proscribed their power. Without taking the Prophets seriously, there was no one to condemn their corrupt usurpation. Furthermore, the Sadducees denied the resurrection, making them functional materialists. They also were radical in their view of human agency, denying God’s sovereignty in such matters. The Sadducee corruption, therefore, was not merely one of power and office but of deep theological presuppositions as to the purpose of Israel.

Jesus’ relationship with this political milieu, particularly with the Pharisaic movement, is a fascinating study in both alignment and divergence. In many ways, He embodies the concerns of early Pharisaism—a movement that arose in reaction to the corruption of the Temple, the critical abandonment of the Zadokite priesthood, and the displacement of the Davidic monarchy. Yet, at the same time, Jesus stands in stark opposition to the Pharisaic Oral Law and the exclusivist tendencies that had come to define the movement by His day.

The Pharisees had originally positioned themselves as defenders of Jewish identity against Hellenization and the increasing corruption of the priestly aristocracy, which had fallen under the control of the Sadducees. They opposed the sale of the high priesthood, the Hasmonean usurpation of both the kingly and priestly offices and the loss of prophetic authority in Jewish life. These concerns, deeply rooted in their reverence for the entire Tanakh, including the Prophets and Writings, placed them in direct theological opposition to the Sadducees, who recognized only the Torah as authoritative and denied doctrines such as resurrection and angelic beings.

Jesus, in many respects, stands within this Pharisaic tradition of protest against Temple corruption. His dramatic cleansing of the Temple, where He overturned the money changers’ tables and accused the priestly establishment of turning God’s house into “a den of robbers” (Mark 11:15-17), echoes the early Pharisaic critique of the Sadducees. His denunciation of their rejection of resurrection (Mark 12:18-27) and His constant appeal to the prophetic tradition similarly align Him with those who sought to restore a more faithful Jewish practice. Like the Pharisees, Jesus saw Israel’s covenant relationship with God as extending beyond Temple rituals but pointing toward a whole life of faith, which beckoned the Gentiles to draw near to the One True God.

Yet, despite these similarities, Jesus’ teachings placed Him at odds with the dominant Pharisaic traditions of His day. Chief among His critiques was the Pharisees’ reliance on the Oral Law, the halakha, which had developed as a system of legal interpretation meant to safeguard the Torah and protect the nation from sins, sins continually building without a valid High Priest to make atonement. While the Pharisees viewed these traditions as necessary extensions of divine revelation, Jesus saw them as distortions that often nullified the very commands they sought to protect. His fiery denunciation of Pharisaic legalism in Matthew 23—where He accuses them of hypocrisy, burdensome regulations, and outward religiosity devoid of inner righteousness—further illustrates His opposition to their “solution” of adding to the Law.

Perhaps the most radical departure from Pharisaism, however, was Jesus’ treatment of Gentiles. While the Pharisees were willing to accept proselytes under strict conditions, their general posture toward the non-Jewish world was one of separation. By contrast, Jesus actively engaged with Gentiles, healing them, praising their faith, and even declaring that many from outside Israel would sit at the banquet of God’s kingdom while some of Abraham’s physical descendants would be cast out (Matthew 8:11-12). His cleansing of the Temple was not merely a protest against financial corruption but a direct challenge to the exclusion of the Gentiles from drawing near to God, as He quoted Isaiah 56:7 in declaring that the Temple was to be “a house of prayer for all nations.” His Great Commission, in which He sends His disciples to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19), solidified this radical inclusivity.

Thus, while Jesus may appear as a reactionary Pharisee in His opposition to the Sadducees and His affirmation of resurrection and prophetic authority, He ultimately transcends Pharisaism. Unlike the Pharisees, who sought to protect the Law through interpretative traditions, Jesus claimed direct authority over it, declaring, “You have heard it said… but I say to you” (Matthew 5:21-48). Unlike both Pharisees and Sadducees, who saw the Temple as the focal point of Jewish life, Jesus proclaimed Himself as the new Temple (John 2:19-21). And unlike the prevailing sectarianism of His time, which viewed Israel’s election as a means of separation, Jesus redefined Israel’s vocation as one that would bring the nations into covenant with God.

In this sense, Jesus was not merely a reformer of Pharisaism but the fulfillment of its highest aspirations. He stood in the prophetic tradition of those who called Israel back to true worship, yet He did so not as another teacher of the Law but as the one who embodied its ultimate purpose. His mission was not to purify an existing sect within Judaism but to inaugurate a new covenant (Luke 22:20), one that restored Israel’s original calling to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 42:6). Rather than merely reacting to the failings of Second Temple Judaism, Jesus reoriented the entire framework of covenantal identity, making Him not simply a reformer, but the very fulfillment of what the Law and the Prophets had always pointed toward.

In this sense, Christ fulfills His mission as the Davidic King. It was King David who reformed the priesthood and appointed Zadok to his cabinet (with Solomon confirming him as High Priest). It wasn’t the High Priest, and it wasn’t a Prophet. It was the King, and from this, we have a more accurate Christian political theology. God’s highest office is King. We see this is the very geography of Jerusalem, where Mount Zion is higher than Mount Moriah, and the Mount of Olives is yet higher still.

The book of Hebrews then explains this in a way that seems complicated to the modern reader but is designed to answer the questions the 1st century Pharisee would naturally have. (I think it makes most sense, therefore, that it was written by Paul, but the identity of the author isn’t necessary to see its major thrust.) 

The Epistle to the Hebrews functions as a theological bridge between Second Temple Jewish expectations and the radical redefinition of covenantal identity in Christ. Given that its audience consisted of Jewish believers—likely with strong Pharisaic convictions—Hebrews presents Jesus not as an outsider to Judaism but as the ultimate fulfillment of its deepest hopes. In doing so, the letter directly engages key Pharisaic concerns, particularly those surrounding priesthood, sacrifice, and covenant fidelity.

The relationship between the names Zadok and Melchizedek is intriguing both linguistically and theologically. The name Zadok (צָדוֹק) comes from the Hebrew root ṣdq, meaning “righteous” or “just,” which aligns with the meaning of Melchizedek (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק)—literally “King of Righteousness.” This shared root suggests a conceptual link between the two figures, even though they belong to very different historical and theological contexts.

Hebrews seizes upon this connection, presenting Jesus not as a priest in the order of Aaron or Zadok, but as one in the order of Melchizedek, thus both bypassing the corrupt Sadducean aristocracy and presenting a typological answer for a restored Zadokite succession. This move is both theological and polemical, redirecting Jewish expectations away from hereditary priesthood and Temple-based atonement toward a priesthood rooted in divine appointment and eternal intercession. The name connection, then, underscores how righteousness (ṣedeq) is redefined—not through legal or genealogical continuity, but through Christ’s singular, perfect mediation. Christ is both the source and the object of the faithfulness God requires, and that which Zadokian priesthood was meant to point to.

So, what are our conclusions? 

At first blush, they are uncomfortable. Israel’s purpose was to be the administrators of God’s localized presence on Earth, faithfully receiving His special revelation and drawing the peoples of the world near to Him. But they abandoned those purposes in the two centuries before Christ came in His incarnation. While the destruction of the Temple specifically, and Jerusalem generally, in AD 70 put a period to the process, the sentence began with the unfaithful usurpation of the Maccabees. Hanukkah, the festival meant to celebrate the Maccabees and their resultant Hasmonean Dynasty, seems to be viewed as a corrupt innovation.

The Festival of Lights—more commonly known as Hanukkah—is mentioned once in the New Testament, in John 10:22-23:

“At that time the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.” (ESV)

The Feast of Dedication (τὰ ἐγκαίνια, ta enkainia) refers to Hanukkah, the celebration of the rededication of the Temple in 164 BC after the Maccabean Revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The festival commemorated the purification of the Temple and the supposed miracle of the oil lasting eight days, though the latter tradition arises in later Rabbinic sources (e.g., the Talmud, Shabbat 21b).

Interestingly, while Jesus is present in the Temple during this festival, there is no explicit endorsement or participation recorded in John’s Gospel. The passage instead shifts to a discussion of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah and the Good Shepherd, with tensions rising as some attempt to stone Him (John 10:31). This silence on the theological significance of Hanukkah, despite its nationalistic and militaristic overtones in Jewish history, may suggest a deliberate distancing from Maccabean themes and innovations, but written esoterically so as to avoid persecution.

Furthermore, we see that Paul’s position as “Prophet of the End of Judaism” makes perfect sense. While he encourages the Jews in Rome that, by God’s sovereign action, their brothers and sisters will be saved (if they are “of Israel”), he makes it clear that the purpose of the Jews has come to an end. Circumcision, the racial marker defining the genetically mixed multitude, is to be completely and radically done away with. The Jewish ethnicity, a covenantal structure from the beginning (see my previous article on this matter), was now surpassed with a more glorious New Covenant.

The Jews rejected Zadok, and, with this, abandoned the work and purpose of the Temple. Jesus came to put it all right, and He accomplished His task. He is God’s final answer to the continual problem of succession and legitimacy.

For a lengthy, more academic look at this complex topic, please refer to the article at my substack page, to be published concurrently.

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Image Credit: Unsplash

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