How
many of us remember fairy tales, where a strong, upright hero rescues one in
need and in distress who just happens to be the heir of a kingdom. That example is not far from our spiritual
life story. Somehow an enemy came in kidnapping humanity into a world of evil,
but a Supernatural King came disguised in regular human form, rescuing all who
would ask, bringing a free gift so that anyone and everyone can live eternally
in the kingdom of the King. We have such
a hero and he was told of in the stars. Many legends and myths were written
about him but the truth lies in the original names of the stars. We have an enemy who has distorted the words
of humans but who cannot change the stars.
It
is such a blessing to receive a gift.
There are many types of gifts and when God gives a gift it is a gift
that we have no way of obtaining ourselves.
Sometimes people give homemade or store bought gifts, while sometimes
people give physical gifts such as blood or organ donations. But the gifts that God gives us come from
Him, and we have no way of obtaining His gifts ourselves. We can’t buy them, or work for them, nor can
we earn them. All we can do is ask for them. And by simply shedding the hardness of our
hearts we can have the greatest gifts of all.
Here
are a few words translated gift/s, there are a few more which would make for a
great in-depth study, but for our purposes we will only search a few.
Gifts:
NT:1431
dorea (do-reh-ah'); from NT:1435; a gratuity: KJV - gift.
NT:1432
dorean (do-reh-an'); accusative case of NT:1431 as adverb; gratuitously
(literally or figuratively): KJV - without a cause, freely, for naught, in
vain.
NT:1433
doreomai (do-reh'-om-ahee); middle voice from NT:1435; to bestow gratuitously:
KJV - give.
NT:1434
dorema (do'-ray-mah); from NT:1433; a bestowment: KJV - gift.
NT:1435
doron (do'-ron); a present; specially, a sacrifice: KJV - gift, offering.
NT:5483
charizomai (khar-id'-zom-ahee); middle voice from NT:5485; to grant as a favor,
i.e. gratuitously, in kindness, pardon or rescue: KJV - deliver, (frankly)
forgive, (freely) give, grant.
NT:5486
charisma (khar'-is-mah); from NT:5483; a (divine) gratuity, i.e. deliverance
(from danger or passion); (specifically) a (spiritual) endowment, i.e.
(subjectively) religious qualification, or (objectively) miraculous faculty:
KJV - (free) gift.(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance
with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft,
Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
Let’s
look at some verses on gifts. One aspect of the gift is that it is free,
another is the clothing of the Holy Spirit, and another is a pardon or
deliverance.
John
4:8 Jesus answered and said unto her, If
thou knewest the gift [1431]of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me
to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living
water.KJV
Here
Jesus tells the woman at the well if she knew the gift of God and who is
speaking to her, she would instead ask Him for living water, not physical
water. This woman could have asked for
water that is alive from Jesus rather than listening to Jesus ask her for
physical water, that would be if she
knew the gift of God. What is the gift
of God?
Acts
2:38-39 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
gift [1431] of the Holy Ghost.39 For the promise is unto you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall
call.KJV
Peter
says to:
1.
Repent;
2.
Be
baptized
a.
in
the name of Jesus Christ
b.
for
the remission of sins
Then
you will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Spirit is given as a gift if we so desire, and Jesus said we
need to repent.
Luke
5:32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.KJV
Luke
24:46-49 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to
suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:47 And that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem.48 And ye are witnesses of these things.49 And, behold,
I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of
Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. KJV
Jesus
says he came to call sinners to repent and that we are to preach repentance and
remission of sins. Then they were to
wait to be clothed with power from on high, the gift of the Holy Spirit. The
other aspect we need to look at is the role of baptism. Looking at Romans, Paul
tells us that baptism is the association of dying to sin and then living into a
new life. I’ve posted both the KJV and
The Message as The Message is clearer and more descriptive. This section of scripture blesses me as God
made a way, by public display, to show that we are no longer slaves to sin.
Rom
6:1-4 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3 Know
ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death?4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
we also should walk in newness of life.KJV
Rom
6:1-14 So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? 2 I
should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we
still live in our old house there? 3 Or didn't you realize we packed up and
left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the
water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water,
we entered into the new country of grace — a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus
means. 4 When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus;
when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. 5
Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see
where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. 6-7 Could it be any clearer? Our old way of
life was nailed to the Cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable
life — no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: 8 If we
get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his
life-saving resurrection. 9 We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it
was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the
last word. 10 When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings
God down to us. 11 From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead
language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang
on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus
did. 12 That means you must not give sin
a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. 13
Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life.
Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time — remember, you've been raised
from the dead! — into God's way of doing things. 14 Sin can't tell you how to
live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're
living in the freedom of God.
(from
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.
All rights reserved.)
Baptize NT:907 baptizo
(bap-tid'-zo); from a derivative of NT:911; to immerse, submerge; to make
overwhelmed (i.e. fully wet); used only (in the N. T.) of ceremonial ablution,
especially (technically) of the ordinance of Christian baptism: KJV - Baptist,
baptize, wash.(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with
Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc.
and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
I
know there are some groups who do not believe in baptizing with water, and yet
the bible clearly does not do away with water baptism, but also includes the
baptism of the Holy Ghost as in Acts 11:16. Immersion in water can either precede
or proceed the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Both baptisms are included in the word
of God and each has a specific purpose.
Yet Peter first says the gift is given to us when we repent and are
water baptized but then Peter at the house of Cornelius saw the gift of the
Holy Ghost given first, after they believed, then they were water baptized.
Acts
10:44-48 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them
which heard the word.45 And they of the circumcision which believed were
astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was
poured out the gift [1431] of the Holy Ghost.46 For they heard them speak with
tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter,47 Can any man forbid water, that
these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as
we?48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed
they him to tarry certain days.KJV
What
we see Paul dealing with next are the people who did not have the gift of the
Holy Ghost and only knew of John’s baptism of repentance. After the day of
Pentecost, people were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s
experience was to tell people of the baptism of the Holy Ghost, he said he
wasn’t called to do baptisms but to teach. Here he taught about the baptism of the
Holy Spirit.
Acts
19:2-7 He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?
And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy
Ghost.3 And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said,
Unto John's baptism.4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of
repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which
should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.5 When they heard this, they
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.6 And when Paul had laid his hands
upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and
prophesied.7 And all the men were about twelve.KJV
These
people were baptized in John’s baptism, a baptism for repentance. Then they were baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and then they received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. All they did was believe and they received
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but first they publicly demonstrated their
renouncing of sin in the name of Jesus Christ.
That shows humility and meekness to receive forgiveness from God. That is
a free gift in and of itself but then they received the baptism of the Holy
Spirit. Coming back to the gift we
receive, Paul explains that this is a free gift.
Rom
5:15-21 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift [5483]. For if through
the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift[1431]
by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.16 And not
as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift[1434]: for the judgment was by one
to condemnation, but the free gift[5486] is of many offences unto
justification.17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift [1431]of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)18 Therefore as by the offence of one
judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one
{the free gift [9999]} came upon all men unto justification of life.19 For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one
shall many be made righteous.20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence
might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:21 That as sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.KJV
This
free gift is a pardon, or a rescue, given freely to all who ask. This free deliverance is given because of
what Jesus did for us, dying on a cross.
The law came so that sin would increase or super abound, so that grace
could exceedingly or super abound, and that is freely given. (In verse 18 the
words the free gift are not in the
text, it was probably added by translators to refer back to the context.)
Eph
2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it
is the gift [1435] of God:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. KJV
Paul
tells us we are saved by having faith, and this is a gift that God gives us, we
cannot earn or work for this, otherwise we could boast about how much we know,
or how good we’ve been. We could even
make up more religious rules and laws deciding with our own human intellect
that we have to do certain things and thereby obtain a better place in
heaven. This is a gift, so we cannot
have pride in ourselves being able to do it. Everyone can have salvation; we
all have grace to have faith which saves us.
1
Peter 4:10 As every man hath received the gift[5486], even so minister the same
one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.KJV
Everyone
who has received this deliverance should then minister to others telling others
how easy it is to receive. That is our
charge. But how did we get this free gift? We got it by our super hero coming
to save us. We’ve looked at Ophiuchus,
Orion, and Bootes (Arcturus) as representing aspects of Jesus as our Hero. And
now we need to read The Witness of the Stars, by E. W. Bullinger where we have
the hero Hercules.
HERCULES (The Mighty Man). The Mighty
Vanquisher.
Here the mighty one, who occupies a large
portion of the heavens, is seen bending on one knee, with his right heel lifted
up as if it had been wounded, while his left foot is set directly over the head
of the great dragon. In his right hand he wields a great club, and in his left
hand he grasps a triple-headed monster (Cerberus}. And he has the skin of a
lion, which he has slain, thrown around him.*
In the Zodiac of Denderah we have a human
figure, likewise with a club. His name is Bau, which means who cometh, and is
evidently intended for Him who cometh to crush the serpents head, and "
destroy the works of the devil."
In Arabic he is called Al Giscale, the strong
one.
There are 113 stars in this constellation. Seven
are of the 3rd magnitude, seventeen of the 4th, etc.
The brightest star, a (in his head), is named
Ras al Gethi, and means the head of him who bruises.
The next, /3 (in the right arm-pit), is named
Kornephoms, and means the branch, kneeling.
The star K (in the right elbow) is called
Marsic, the wounding.
The star x (in the upper part of the left arm)
is named Ma asyn, the sin-offering.
While 01 (in the lower part of the right arm) is
Caiam, or Guiam, punishing; and in Arabic, treading under foot.
Thus does everything in the picture combine to
set forth the mighty works of this stronger than the strong man armed!
We can easily see how the perversion of the
truth by the Greeks came about, and how, when the true foreshadowings of this
Mighty One had been lost, the many fables were invented to supply their place.
The wiser sort of Greeks knew this perfectly well. ARISTOTLE (in his
Metaphysics, x. 8) admits, with regard to Greek mythology, that religion and
philosophy had been lost, and that much had been " added after the
mythical style," while much had come down, and " may have been
preserved to our times as the remains of ancient wisdom." Religion, such
as it was (POLYBIUS confesses), was recognised as a "necessary means to
political ends." NEANDER says that it was "the fragments of a
tradition, which transmitted the knowledge of divine things possessed in the
earliest times."
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder;
The young- lion and the dragon shalt Thou trample under foot." (Ps. xci.
13.)
Here
we see one of the star names as the sin
offering. We also see the head of Him
who bruises, which is what Jesus did to satan. How wonderful is it that at Denderah the
picture of the future Messiah was created, and then Jesus came and fulfilled those
very things. And from The Gospel in the Stars by Joseph Seiss:
HERCULES
Phoenicians worshipped this man five generations before the times of the Greeks, and honored him as representing a saviour. Smith and Sayce trace the legend of him in Chaldea four thousand vears ago. On the atlases he is called Hercules. So the Romans called him, but the Greeks called him Herakles, whom they worshipped and honored as the greatest of all their hero-gods, principally on account of his twelve great labors.
A Picture of Christ. Stripped of its foul heathenisms and admixtures, we can easily trace throughout the myth all the outlines of the astronomic picture, and that picture anticipating the sublime work of the Virgin's Son, as depicted by the prophets and recorded in the Gospel, even the battering and vanquishing of Satan and all the powers of darkness. Christ is the God-begotten man. He it is that comes against the roaring satanic "lion" who "goeth about seeking whom he may devour." He it is that came into the world to strike off the heads of the great Serpent, lurking in the bogs to ravage and destroy. He it is who comes forth to free the world of all its monsters and hellish pests, and purge it of its vast uncleanness. He it is who had it laid upon Him to fight and slay the Dragon, and thus recover access to the fruits of the Tree of Life, though having to bear the whole weight of a guilty world in making the grand achievement. And He it is who "descended into hell," before whom the spirits of the under-world cowered; to whose power the king of perdition yielded ; and who grasped the struggling triple-headed dragon-dog in charge of the infernal gates, and bore him off, " leading captivity captive." Wounded He was in the dreadful encounter — wounded in His heel, wounded unto death, yet living still; suffering also from the poisoned garment of others' sins, mounting the funeral-pyre to die of His own accord amid fires undue to Him, and thence ascending amid the clouds to immortal honor in heaven, with his foot for ever on the head of the foe.
There is no character in mythology around which great and wondrous incidents crowd so thickly as around Herakles, and there is no character in the history of the world upon whom so much of interest and sublime achievement centres as upon Jesus Christ, the true Deliverer. With Him was the wielding of power unknown to any other man. To kill Him and to be rid of Him has ever been the intensest wish of all the Dragon brood, from the time Herod sought the young child's life even unto this present. With all sorts of ill and wrong was He smitten while He lived, and plotted against in all the ages by the jealous, obstinate, and quarrelsome goddess of false wisdom and serpentine intrigue against the will and word of Heaven. Even the sensual and disgusting loves of Herakles were but heathen and carnal perversions of the devotion to the interest and redemption of man which ever glows in the Saviour's breast and shines in all His varied works. And as Herakles and all his tremendous labors were totally inexplicable on any motives perceptible to ordinary reason, so is Christ the everlasting mystery, incomprehensible and unconstruable, in His life, deeds, or institutes, to all who fail to accept and believe in Him as verily the God- man, come, and still coming, to work the works given Him to do, through suffering, toil, and sacrifice to deliver an afflicted world — come, and still coming, to beat down Satan and spoil all the principalities and powers of evil.
The
Chaldeans worshipped the coming savior four thousand years ago. That is astonishing. They watched the stars and saw that a savior
was going to come. I find it interesting
that a “heathen” people were eager for the messiah. Today we think that no one in the ancient
world cared about being rescued but yet we see that they very much did. If we remember our history, Noah, Shem, and
Abraham all came out of Chaldea and taught the Chaldeans. These people looked
ahead to a savior, which means they are just as saved by their faith as anyone
else believing the Messiah would come in the pre-Christ times. These people who
believed were not necessarily Sethites, they could have been Japethites and
Hamites as well. If we remember our study on Pisces Jesus brought both the
people looking forward to His coming together with those who look back to His
time on earth, and made one body. What
we see from history is that before there was an Israelite nation there were
believers anticipating the Messiah. After the Israelite nation rejected the Messiah,
the door was open to all peoples again.
During the time of the Israelites, not all Israelites believed the
Messiah would come; some even thought the word of God was broken so that when
he did come they did not believe on Him.
If
we look at the devil’s pattern of distortion we see first that the nations had
the knowledge of a coming Messiah, so the devil simply expounded on the
stories, telling people they were about other gods and their lives from other
planets. Once people thought these
stories in the heavens were about gods and their wars, the devil distorted
things further by turning them into religious figures to be worshipped. Then things were further distorted by the
devil influencing people to add alcohol, drugs, and sexual immorality to their
gatherings. Therefore today we see these
mythological stories as simply made up religions that are defiled. But if we
weed out the garbage, digging back to the original truths, we can see our hero
Messiah, and His story.
The
Magi, who were taught by Daniel, were looking at the sky anticipating his
coming and they saw the birth announcement in the heavens, what did they see?
To see our hero in a broader perspective we next need to look at what the
heavens say about His birth.
End notes:
Mazzaroth,
the Constellations, by Frances Rolleston
Column 1 Prophecies
corresponding in word or type with the figures and the names.
Column 2 Names of the
Figure.
Column 3 Texts where
the word or its root is used in this sense in the Hebrew Bible.
Column 4 Related
scripture
Column 5 Hebrew Roots.
Third Decan
HERCULES, A human figure kneeling on one knee, holding a branch, the other foot over the head of Draco Names of the Figure |
||||
Arab., El Giscale, the strong
|
wounded
|
Psa 24:8
|
z(
|
|
Isa 53:5
|
hlx
|
|||
Heb., Marsic, the wounding. (Sept.
and Vulg.)
|
sword
|
Psa 42:10
|
hcr
|
|
Gen 3:15
|
— Caiam, punishing (Arab., treading
under foot)
|
chastening
|
Job 5:17
|
hky
|
Isa 53
|
— Ma'asym, the sin-offering
|
Isa 53:10
|
M#)
|
|
— b Kornephorus, the branch,
kneeling
|
kneeling
|
Judg 7:5
|
(rk
|
|
boughs
|
Lev 23:40
|
xrp
|
||
Arab., a Ras al Gethi, head
of him who bruises
|
press
|
Lam 1:15
|
tg
|
|
Hagg 2:7
|
— Ras al Awa, head of the
desired
|
Isa 26:8
|
hw)
|
|
— Al Rai, who bruises, breaks
|
Psa 2:9
|
(r
|
||
Gr., Engonasin, who kneels. Sept.
Judges 7:5
|
goeth
|
Job 34:8
|
xr)
|
|
Lat., Hercules, who cometh to labour,
to suffer
|
Isa 53:3,4
|
hlh
|
||
Lat., Hercules, the strong
|
strength
|
2 Sam 22:40
|
lhy
|
|
