Christmas, And Signs In The Sky PART 1

Biblegems #289

Graphic from: Astrology King1280 × 720

Question: Does Revelation 12:1-2 refer to a literal astronomical “sign” in the heavens and, if so, what does the sign mean and how would people recognize it? 

(The reader would do well to read Bible Gems #116, “Christmas in the Stars” as background for this present article.)

The passage in Revelation reads:

         Rev. 12:1-2  A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

This question has several components: (1) Does Revelation 12:1-2 refer to a literal astronomical event? (2) Is such an astronomical event a “sign”? (3) If it is a sign, what does it mean? (4) How would people know to recognize such an obscure astronomical event as a sign? This post, therefore, will be Part 1 on this topic.

Does Revelation 12:1-2 refer to a literal astronomical event?

John’s vision portrays a specific astronomical alignment of the sun, moon stars set in relation to “a woman” (v.1) in the night sky. If this “woman” is a constellation, the only candidate would be Virgo. In the ancient mythology of many cultures Virgo went by different names but was always associated with fertility, and often as a goddess of fertility.

The apostle John, who certainly did not accept the popular mythology, still knew the constellations by their sometimes mythological names, even as we do today. Not only so, but the astrological  / mythological interpretations themselves were distortions of God’s intended purpose of the heavenly bodies serving humanity as “signs.” It is God, not man, who gave the stars and their groupings in constellations their names and meanings for “signs and seasons” (Ps. 147:4).

In the Book of Numbers God revealed the birth of the Messiah to Balaam by indicating a “sign” that would appear in the night sky:

Num. 24:17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

        

Hundreds of years later, the Magi in Persia saw the appearance of the star predicted by Balaam and understood its meaning.

Matt. 2:1-2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

Likewise, John’s vision seems to depict a specific astronomical event: the constellation Virgo, with “the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head,” plus another celestial body traveling through this constellation, soon to exit. This extremely specific alignment is in fact scheduled to occur throughout the nine-month period from November 20, 2016 to September 23, 2017 (see graphic above). According to the interactive astronomy site,  “theskylive.com”, the planet Jupiter, among the brightest objects in the sky, enters the constellation Virgo on November 20^th and exits 9 ½ months later in September with the sun rising behind it. The heavens, indeed, declare the glory of God!

(Look for the next installment on this topic, where we will consider if this astronomical event is a “sign” and, if it is, what it means and how people would recognize its significance.)

Terrified By Angels

Biblegems #208

Question: I always imagined an angel encounter would be beautiful and reassuring. What was so terrifying to the shepherds about the appearance of just one angel announcing Jesus’ birth?

The “terrifying” angelic encounter is found in Luke 2:

         Luke 2:9-10 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Angel encounters in Scripture often (though not always) describe people being “frightened” (Gk. phobos— from which we get our word phobia). Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, unexpectedly encountered an angel while alone in the Temple:

         Luke 1:12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, had a similar experience:

         Luke 1:30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

The shepherds outside Bethlehem, however, were far more than simply startled or “troubled” by an unexpected angelic visitor. Their experience was probably more like that of the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, for he witnessed more than just the sudden appearance of one angel:

         Ezek. 3:23 So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, like the glory that I had seen jby the Chebar canal, and I fell on my face.

When Ezekiel sys, “the glory of the Lord stood there…” he is describing a heavenly being surrounded by indescribable light that flooded his senses, radiating from a non-earthly origin. This is a glimpse of the light of heaven, a slight parting of the veil separating the dimension of God’s kingdom on the spiritual plane from the dimension of the material universe.

This would be much like what the shepherds witnessed when the dark night sky gave way to the glory of “…God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see (1Tim. 6:15-16). Artistic portrayals of that scene usually depict a soft beam of light emanating from an angel hovering in midair, casting a spotlight upon the shepherds as if they were actors on a stage. But according to Luke 2, heaven’s light was so intense that “the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Lk. 2:9).

The word “glory” always refers to someone or something other than itself. The corona of the sun is a radiant, beautiful powerful display of an unapproachable ball of nuclear fission. The corona is what we are able to see of the sun, without actually seeing the sun itself. It is the “glory” of the sun. The glory that flooded the shepherd’s field and dissolved the night sky into day did not radiate from the angel, rather it was “the glory of the Lord” Himself!

The shepherds got a glimpse that night of what every follower of Jesus will see one day in heaven itself:

         Rev. 21:22-23  I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

Christmas In The Stars

Biblegems #116

Question: Who were the Magi, and how did they know to follow a specific star to Bethlehem?

When God created the heavens and the earth He set the stars in specific orientation to the earth for three specific purposes: 1) separating day and night, 2) for “sign and seasons,” and 3) for assisting man in keeping track of days and years (Gen. 1:14-15).

It is God, not man (Ps. 147:4), who gave the stars and their groupings in constellations their names and meanings for “signs and seasons.” Biblically, these “signs and seasons” are predictive, prophetic, pointing humanity to Jesus as the Savior of mankind. The word “sign” in the Bible refers to prophetic events, such as the birth of Christ. The word “season” indicates the time related to those events:

Luke 21:25 There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.

God revealed this knowledge in the stars to Adam and Eve, no doubt, and they were to pass this knowledge—His timeline for major events in salvation history—on to their children and following generations:

         Ps. 19:1-3 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.

This knowledge did get passed on, but it also became twisted and deformed from God’s original intent as different cultures used the names and God-given meanings of the stars to develop mythologies and religions and horoscopes. As it says in Amos:

         Amos 5:26 You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god—which you made for yourselves.

In the Book of Numbers God gave the pagan soothsayer Balaam a prophecy of the coming Messiah:

Num. 24:17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

Balaam saw in his vision the appearance of a star in the distant future—a “sign” of the birth of a great Jewish king who would defeat all His enemies. Much later, when the Jews were held captive in Persia, their writings (including the book of Numbers) were added to the libraries of the Persian scholars. Among those scholars were the Magi: astrologers who studied the stars in order to understand their prophetic message concerning “signs and seasons” of history—especially future history.

Hundreds of years later, the Magi in Persia saw the appearance of the star predicted long ago by Balaam and understood its meaning.

Matt. 2:1-2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

From the very beginning of creation God has ordered the heavens to declare His glory by putting the plan of salvation, beginning with the Virgin birth of Jesus (constellation Virgo), in a glorious tapestry in the night sky. It was His intent that the Magi should see the star at the appointed “season” and recognize the savior of the world had been born, according to God’s revealed Word (Rom. 1:18-20).

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Explaining The Trinity

Biblegems #65

Question: How can the concept of the Trinity be explained in a way that is both clear and biblically sound?

What a great Christmas season question!

Explaining the Trinity has vexed the Church from the beginning, not because it is unbiblical but because it is too easy to misrepresent the Trinity by using poor examples and analogies.

The Bible clearly states that there is one God (Dt. 6:4) who exists eternally in three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). The Father, Son and Holy Spirit all share the same divine nature, yet they are three distinct persons who communicate with each other:

         Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…

Jesus is one with the Father, yet a distinct person:

         John 10:30 I and the Father are one.

The Spirit is a person and one with God in His holy nature:

         John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Examples of misrepresenting the Trinity incude:

• God the Father created Jesus; the Holy Spirit is not a person but a force or power.

• The Trinity is actually three separate Gods.

• God took on the role of the Father, Son or Holy Spirit. An example sometimes used is that of water taking on the alternate forms of ice or steam.

• God and Jesus are the same person, just perceived sometimes as the Son and other times as the Father.

Perhaps the best analogy for the Trinity has been supplied by God Himself in the creation of man as a triune being. It is still not a perfect analogy, but then again, there is nothing else in all existence that perfectly compares to God. According to the Bible, man was created in the image of God as a three-fold being: body, soul and spirit. The soul is conscious life that animates the body (Gen. 2:7); the spirit gives him understanding and a connection to God beyond that of other living beings:

Job 32:8 But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.

I can point to my face and say, “This is me; my name is Paul.” I am carrying out the action of a living soul, pointing to the body inhabited by that soul and expressing a basic spiritual understanding of my existence in the world. My body, soul and spirit all belong to my one nature (human being), yet are also three distinct entities in that one nature.

God in His essential nature has no body. He is, by definition, spirit (Jn. 4:24). The miracle of Christmas is that —

Jesus, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with

God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking

the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”
(Phil 2:6-7).

Jesus' Real Birthdate

Biblegems #44

Question: Does the Bible say what year Jesus was born? Also, who decided that we were going to recognize Jesus' Birthday on the 25th of December, and in what year did they decide this was going to take place? Just wondering. Merianne.

Jesus was likely born somewhere between 4 B.C and 6 B.C. The discrepancy is based upon an error made by a Christian in the 6^th century named Dionysius Exiguus, who intended to create a calendar based on the birth of Jesus. However, he miscalculated the year of Herod’s death, which was not recognized until many centuries later.

It is commonly held that December 25^th on our current calendar was not the actual birth date of Jesus. Here is what we do know for sure:

We know Jesus was conceived in the six month of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy (Lk. 1:24-27); and we know (based on when her husband Zacharias served in the temple) that Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist around the last week of the Hebrew month of Sivan (Lk. 1: 5, 8, 23-24). This would place the conception of Jesus in the month of Kislev (November – December). Nine months later would be the month of Tishri (September – October, according to our current calendar).

This means that the likely month of Jesus’ conception is the month when Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is celebrated by the Jews. Interestingly, Jesus is described in the NT as “the light of the world” (John 8:12, 9:5, 12:46). And the month of Jesus’ birth marks the last feast of the year on the Jewish calendar, the Feast of Tabernacles. As it says in John, 1:14, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling (lit., “tabernacled”) among us.

The first century church, apparently, did not celebrate Jesus’ birth. This started to become more popular in the 2^nd – 3^rd century. Because the exact date of His birth was unknown, the church tended to mark His birth at the time of the Winter Solstice, taking advantage of the symbolism involved in the increased light of the lengthening days to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the “light of the world” (Jn. 8:12). While some have often tried to condemn the tradition as yielding to pagan practices of sun worship, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, Christianity took pagan practices and replaced them with a celebration of the birth of the Savior of the world!

Joseph & Mary's Genealogies

Biblegems #19

What is the significance that in Jesus' genealogy Joseph and Mary were both descendants of David, but Joseph was from Solomon and Mary from Nathan? (Matthew 1; Luke 3)

This question touches on an important issue that skeptics frequently point to when discussing Jesus’ claim as Messiah. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Solomon and Nathan were brothers, each sons of king David. However, God revealed to king David that the Messiah who would sit on the throne of David forever would also descend from his son Solomon:

But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever (1 Chr. 22:9-10).

Matthew’s gospel clearly indicates Joseph’s legal lineage from David through Solomon. Jesus’ biological lineage to David is established through Mary, as shown in Luke’s gospel, who was a descendant of David through his son Nathan. While this does not connect her to God’s promise that the Messiah would be born through David’s son Solomon, it does link her and Jesus biologically to the seed of David.

Related to all of this is a prophecy in Jeremiah that skeptics of Jesus’ claim as Messiah often raise. The prophecy is found in Jeremiah 22:3 which reads:

This is what the LORD says: “Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.”

According to this prophecy, not one of the offspring of the wicked king Jeconiah, a descendant of Solomon in the Matthew genealogy, would ever sit on David’s throne. This would seem to disqualify Jesus. However, as Jesus was not Joseph’s biological son, he was also not biologically descended from Jeconiah. The virgin birth bypassed God’s curse on Jeconiah yet still permitted Jesus to be counted a legal heir of David's and Solomon’s throne—and biologically of the seed of David though Mary.

Once again, God is seen to fulfill all His promises, even when His own interactions with humanity would appear to put up walls impossible to scale. But, as Gabriel said to Mary, and as Jesus Himself would often remind His disciples, “nothing is impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37; cf. Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27).

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