JESUS CHRIST IS GOD (part 3)
“Tritheism has more in common with Mormonism than the Triune God. Mormonism teaches that the Father, Son, and Spirit do not comprise one God. According to Mormonism, Jesus is a created being, the first spirit to be born of the Father (Mormon Doctrine, p.129) and a celestial mother (Mormon Doctrine, p.516). Therefore, Jesus could not be the eternal God or part of an eternal Trinity. Mormons also teach that both the Father and the Son are men with bodies of flesh and bone (Doctrine & Covenants 132:20; Articles of Faith, p 38); as two separate people, the Father and the Son cannot be considered ‘one’. Mormons also teach that Jesus is just one of many sons of God. Jesus is referred to specifically as ‘a son of God’ in the Book of Mormon (Alma 36:17). Lucifer, or the Devil, is another son of God in Mormon theology (Mormon Doctrine, p.163). Further, Mormonism teaches that the number of gods is increasing. According to Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, any man on Earth can one day become the god of another planet and populate it with children born to him from his eternal wife (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-354). Any one of those children can later become a god in his own right (Doctrine & Covenants 132:20). Thus, there is not just One God, Triune or not; there are many, many gods according to Mormonism (see Book of Abraham 4:3). Anti Trinitarians make usage of the pagan statues with three heads and say that is the Christians’ pagan God. If one is going to discount the Trinity because of some similarities in name only and not in substance, then maybe they should be looking at the pagan similarities in their teachings.”
No pagan triad is identical to the Christian Trinity. Those eager to pounce on anything that might even remotely diminish Christianity’s claims, discount Christianity altogether, or any of its fundamental teachings, have made the basic error of judging something by something else’s assumed similarity to it, whilst overlooking the enormous and diametrically opposing differences which exist between the two. Since the two concepts of pagan triads and the Christian Trinity stand poles apart, it is vital to a proper discussion of the Trinity that such a monumental difference be emphasized and proven from the outset. Pagan triads are a Satanic perversion of the Holy Trinity of God, nourished by the ignorance of lost men. They are a smoke screen set up by Satan in order to deceive and confuse. Pagan triads all find a symmetry, or uniformity, among themselves, but no symmetry whatsoever with the true, genuine Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This clearly shows the single source and the particular bond which all of paganism shares through man’s spiritual deadness to the truth, and the God of truth, and which is distinct from the uniqueness of what true Christianity holds to. Therefore the source from which pagan triads find their origin is not the same source from which the truth about the Trinity comes. The teachings of pagan triads come from man and Satan, the true doctrine of the Holy Trinity comes from Almighty God. This may sound a trifle simplistic to some, but it is as simple as pagan teachings coming from the spirit of error, while the true teachings of God come from His Spirit of Truth (see 1 Jn. 4:6). Paganism holds to the perverted teaching of three gods not one, while Christianity uniquely holds to Three Persons as One God. This congenital difference is the compelling factor, which reveals the completely disparate origins of the two teachings: one is from the spirit of error—Satan—while the other is from the Spirit of Truth—God. “The two teachings are essentially different in kind, not able to be compared. They are things so unlike that there is no basis for comparison.” Again, it is the number 3 which is central to both teachings which causes all the confusion. Two items may have similar packaging, but the contents show that they are far from the same object. Triads and Trinity are as far apart as east is from the west. The Trinity is utterly incomparable. As with the over four thousand religions of the world which all teach that salvation is in some way dependent upon a man’s obedience—as distinct from true Christianity which bases a man’s salvation solely upon the Obedience of Jesus Christ alone (see Rom. 5:19)—so too, the dismissal of the Christian Trinity as a mere copy of a pagan concept has no legitimacy, no validity, no justifiability, and, as we shall see, no historical evidence to support it due to the fact that no pagan ‘trinity' is identical to the Christian Trinity. It would be like saying the concept of apples came from eggs. Apple is vegetable, and egg is animal. The two are totally and completely different. This is not a mere matter of semantics, but one of definition and identification.
Christianity stands out from the religions of the world because it is not a religion of the world at all, but a Holy Faith come down from the only true God. Paul the apostle did not learn the Gospel from men, but received it by revelation from God Himself. “But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:11,12 cf. Eph. 3:1-3). Young’s Literal Translation has it, "And I make known to you, brethren, the good news that were proclaimed by me, that is not according to man". Look at all the ‘ways to salvation’ that are taught by man in his wide ranging collection of religions, and you will soon notice a common thread running through each and every one of them: the lie that man must do—exposing the even bigger lie that man can do—or he will die. In other words, that man can do something to get saved, and/or at least assist or cooperate in his salvation. True Christianity is the only faith which shares no commonality with man-made religion in that it teaches that there is nothing a man can do to appease God, but must rely totally upon the Righteousness, the obedience, of Another: Jesus Christ. This reliance, or complete trust, is only possible if it is given to a person by God. Jesus said: “…no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father” (Jn. 6:65); also, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth (makes alive); the flesh profiteth nothing…” (Jn. 6:63). Man is spiritually dead (see Eph. 2:1,5) before God makes him alive—receptive to Him—man without God can do nothing to come to God, he does not know Him, therefore, does not believe Him or want Him, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one…There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:10-12,18). Religion says a man must do or he will die. The Word of God says that man is already spiritually dead, for he has sinned: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16,17). A man without God is a man without hope (see Eph. 2:12). Salvation is not by an act of man, but entirely the work of God. “(God) Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, NOT according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was GIVEN US in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim.1:9 cf. Rom. 5:19). This teaching is not according to man, nor any of his religions, because it comes only from God, and is revealed by God to His people. Even after a brief study of the teachings of every religion concocted by man, it becomes patently obvious that salvation by grace alone through God-given faith alone is a teaching which is not at all natural to man, therefore, it cannot possibly come from man. Its only source is God. The Lord Jesus says: “All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27 cf. Lk. 10:22). Just as one cannot rightly say that because Christianity bases salvation on works of Righteousness—the works of the Righteousness of Jesus Christ—that this concept has been taken from the religions of the world who all base salvation upon the works of righteousness of men, one cannot take the perverted, misshapen, concept of triads, and say that the concept of the Trinity is derived from paganism. Among all the false accusations thrown at true Christianity, there simply is no case for Christianity to answer whether it be in the matter of the Trinity, or in the fact that Righteousness is required for salvation.
What those who claim that the concept of a Trinity cannot be a Biblical reality, because non-Christian cultures and religions which preceded Christianity also taught of ‘triune’ gods, fail to realise, is the fact that God is eternal, He has always been, and He has always been Father, Son and Holy Spirit long before He created the world, let alone mankind. God is before all things, and, therefore, the Holy Trinity is an eternal truth, being in existence long before man’s distorted concepts of a trinity ever entered his mind. Man’s religious teachings which are perversions of the truth of God have never preceded God’s eternal truth. A perversion can only occur after a truth. Time reveals all. Simply because a perversion is seen here on earth prior to the manifestation of an eternal truth, or a man’s awareness of truth, should not be looked upon as a valid denial of the truth’s eternal existence. In all the din of ‘the Trinity is of pagan origin’ argument, that which is totally overlooked is the fact that man, led by the spirit of Satan—that great deceiver—has perverted the Holy Triune monotheistic God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and filled the world with his polytheistic versions in order to cause confusion and pour scorn and derision upon the truth. Perversion can never precede truth. The eternality of God, and consequently everything which concerns God, precedes both Satan and man, as well as all their anti-God ideas, concepts and precepts. The truth is always different. All error shares one common trait: it is not truth! The genuine article is the only one which stands out in the crowd of counterfeits, but only to those who know it is the genuine article. All counterfeits have some similarities with the genuine article, but it is the dissimilarities inherent in all counterfeits which expose them as counterfeits, and groups them into one category: fake. The fact that a counterfeit has the appearance of the genuine, does not make the genuine just another counterfeit. One can never justly group truth with error. The differences between the two show that one is fake, and the other is true. They do not belong in the same group, or category, but two very different categories. The only way for a counterfeit to not be a counterfeit is to be the genuine article, which it can, of course, never be. Though all counterfeits differ in some way, the thing which they all have in common, that which binds them all together and reveals their familial connection, is that they all differ with the genuine, whereas, the truth only differs with error. Everything that is outside of truth, that is not truth, is, and can only be, error. ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ Truth always agrees with other truth, for the truth has only one source. Truth never contradicts other truths, for all truths share a common symmetry. Error, on the other hand, not only disagrees with truth, but also with other errors. The contradictions of lies and errors is endless. The singularity of truth shares nothing in common with the plurality of error. “Truth is singular. Its ‘versions’ are mistruths.”
The various counterfeits, or versions of truth, also differ among themselves, but they all share a common theme: they all differ with the genuine because they are not the genuine. None of them have only what the genuine has because none of them is what the genuine is: pure unadulterated truth! The genuine is always the truth. Truth is and can only be truth. A counterfeit always has more, or less than the genuine. Having more, or less, is the fundamental, identifying principle behind all counterfeits. Having more, or less, are the principle ingredients which make a thing essentially different. Counterfeits are identified by their dissimilarity in content to the genuine. Counterfeits are always distinct from the genuine article, just as error is distinct from truth. Counterfeits are always judged by the truth, however, the truth can be judged by nothing, for everything outside truth is either against truth, or ignorant of truth. No perversion of truth looks exactly like truth to the trained eye. If one does not know what to look for, one will never find it. One cannot correctly discern a thing if one does not know what it looks like, AND, what it does not look like. Error, deception and ignorance can only ever result in perversion. Perversion is only ever a version of truth, it is not a reflection of truth, but a distorted image of truth, and never the truth itself. As with a reflection cast by a funhouse mirror, a fake is not something which is self-existent for it is an imitation of something else, a warped image of the genuine, and, therefore, something which is not what it purports to be. A perversion presents a distorted image of truth, but never the reality of truth. A perversion is a corruption and malformation of truth, a misrepresentation of truth, which always leads to a misbelief, or unbelief, of truth. A perversion is anti-truth, something which is not only against truth, but that which seeks to usurp the rightful place of truth. Moreover, a perversion is the strongest indication that there is a genuine. “To exist, a falsehood must possess a grain of truth, in order to be persuasive… It is a shadow that cannot exist without the light that surrounds it.” Perversion cannot exist without truth. Therefore, if there is a perversion, a counterfeit, there must of necessity be a truth for it to pervert. A shadow cannot exist without light. Light must always precede a shadow in order for the shadow to exist. A shadow cannot come before light or without light. A lie is a perversion of truth. Lies are always, and only, distinguishable as long as one knows what the truth is. Without truth, lies are only seen as truth, or potential truth, and are often accepted as truth. So-called ‘pagan trinities’ are no less than what Satan has taught man because of his twisting the knowledge he had of the Trinity before man was created. ‘Pagan trinities’ are nothing but lies, perversions of the true and only Trinity found in the Word of God.
Satan does not come up with an original thought. “No matter how badly he wants to, Satan cannot create anything because he is not the Creator. Satan can only take what has already been created and twist it for his own evil, selfish purposes. His servants are no different.” Anything which is not true can only ever postdate truth, for it can never precede truth. Lies need the truth. Lies cannot exist without the existence of truth. Lies do not emanate from truth. The truth can in no way be held responsible for a lie. What Satan, or man, does with the truth is totally their own responsibility, as is the case for those who believe in lies. Satan is not the opposite, but a self-transformed perversion of the Living God. Satan merely distorts and misrepresents God to man, and that which is God’s, including God’s truth. “…Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14), but in reality he is the god of darkness (see Col. 1:13; Acts 26:18; Eph. 6:12), “…the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), “…the prince of this world…” (Jn. 14:30), “…the god of this world (who) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not…” (2 Cor. 4:4). The Lord Jesus says of Satan: “…the devil…was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (Jn. 8:44). Satan is outwardly transformed into an angel of light/truth, but inwardly his nature is darkness, it does not/cannot change. “Satan often imposes on mankind; pretends the greatest friendship, when he designs nothing but ruin; and under a notion of good, either honest, or pleasant, or profitable, draws on into the commission of the greatest evils; and, under a show of truth, introduces the most notorious falsehoods and errors; and, under a pretence of religion, all sorts of idolatry, superstition, and impiety; it is in this way he has succeeded in his enterprises and temptations; these are his wiles, stratagems, and cunning devices.” Satan’s ‘successes’, however, are only limited to those who are not the elect of God (see Matt. 24:24).
Simply because Satan, the father of lies, is transformed into an angel of light in no way suggests that he is an angel of light, a bearer, or illuminator, of truth. So too, simply because lies sometimes appear as truth, even to the majority, does not mean they are truth. “Though he would like people to think so, Satan is not the opposite of God. God is all-powerful, everywhere present, and all-knowing. Satan is none of these. He does not have unlimited power, he cannot be everywhere at once, and he does not know everything. He is a created, limited being who depends upon God for his existence.” Satan is an obsessive reactionary, who sees what God does, even Who He is, and then proceeds to fill the minds of men with his own versions of God, and his own versions of truth. This is done not so that men will merely accept Satan’s lies, but so that they will reject the truth of God. From time immemorial Satan’s illusory, insane, beliefs have been injected into the minds of lost men, and those who see the Trinity as a pagan concept and who deny the Deity of Jesus the Messiah are among his prime victims. Such people are spiritually blind to begin with so how, pray tell, is one to reliably seek the truth from such empty wells as these. The questions which such people need to face are: “Where did the pagans get a concept of three in the first place? Why not two or four? And where did they get the idea of a God in Heaven anyway?” Lies are not intrinsically original statements, they are perversions of the truth. A lie cannot exist without truth. “A lie is a twisting of the truth and so it can only exist by the truth, and in the denial of it.” Lies are illusions. They are fabricated nonsense to those who know what the truth is. No lie is of the truth, nor can a lie lead you to truth, therefore, no lie can come from the same destination as, truth. Lies deny truth and are put in place to replace truth with only an illusion of truth. Lies are the only ‘reality’ for those who cannot see the truth. Lies are a lost man’s truth. Error is the truth you have when you have no truth. Errors and lies are the only ‘truths’ that can be seen by those who hold to a warped idea of truth, who cannot see, and, therefore, recognize the reality of what IS truth.
“All over the world we find cultural legends and myths that closely resemble certain accounts in Scripture, such as the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel accounts. Oftentimes, these accounts are used as an external confirmation of the credibility of Scripture. If one accepts the account of Scripture that we are all of ‘one blood’ (see Acts 17:26), he should also accept the biblical account that all human heritage goes back to the city of Babel where all human population once lived after the global Flood of Noah’s day. We would expect to find common accounts of history (such as Creation and the Flood) within the stories and traditions of today’s people groups that once lived together in one place after the great Flood. Given years of cultural diversity as mankind spread throughout the world, it is also not surprising that these stories have taken on their own cultural influences in the retelling. In the mid-1800s within the buried cities of the Ancient Near East (including Nineveh and Nippur in present day Iraq), several excavations uncovered a whole library of tablets from earlier Mesopotamian times. Within these finds and upon the tablets were lists of kings, business archives, administrative documents, and a number of versions of the flood epic. Each version varied in language form and completion (most were only partially intact) with the most complete being the Babylonian collation of The Gilgamesh Epic. On its eleventh tablet was a narrative about the great Flood, and much of its detail shows similarities with the biblical account of the Flood. Rather than being used as a confirmation of biblical credibility, however, many have attempted to use these tablets as a reason to doubt the authority of God’s Word because some of them supposedly predate the earliest times of biblical authorship (predating Moses). Some have concluded that with this supposed predating, along with storyline and some language similarity, the biblical accounts are a derivation from earlier Sumerian legends. Some have suggested the history in Genesis is also a form of earlier Jewish mythology in the same manner as the Middle Eastern texts. Many have used these documents as reason to doubt the authority and inspiration of the Word of God. Some have used these documents to reject Moses as the writer of Genesis, and some have used these documents to suggest that Genesis itself is either myth, poetry, or even simply an argument (a theological polemic) used as a rebuttal of these supposedly older myths.”
Pagan nations and heathen cultures the world over all have their stories of a great flood. Does this automatically mean that the Biblical account of the worldwide Flood is just a mere copy of those pagan accounts? Does it mean that this true narrative, variations of which appear in most if not every nation and culture, comes from the same source as those perversions? Do lies and truth, somehow, share the same common breeding ground? Are we expected to believe that lies and truth have the same parentage? The world has a favourite saying, ‘Every legend has its basis in fact’. This is true in many instances, in that legends and myths stem from some truth which then became perverted. “Some have proposed that the characters peopling the Greek myths were drawn from the collective memories of historical biblical characters—Hera for instance representing Eve, Triton being a perversion of Noah, Herakles a memory of Nimrod, and so forth. Given that the entire earth’s post-Flood population spread from the people descended from the eight who got off the Ark—people who had plenty of reason to remember the reality of the God who sent the global Flood—this would be no surprise. This is the reason that ancient flood legends abound. Likewise, it may well be that the Greek myths began as accounts of man’s post-Flood, post-Tower of Babel history. But like flood legends from around the ancient world, the mythological versions explaining origins of present realities are fantastical. For instance, in the Greek flood account, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha landed on Mount Parnassus. The world was repopulated when they then obeyed an oracle and tossed muddy stones—the metaphorical bones of Gaia the mother of earth and all living—over their shoulders. Those stones turned into men and women. We know from God’s eyewitness account of history recorded in the Bible that ‘…the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground…” (Gen. 2:7), and Adam’s wife Eve was ‘the mother of all living’ (Gen. 3:20). All other people descended from them, and after the global Flood the world was repopulated from the Flood’s eight survivors (see 1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5). The immediate descendants of Noah’s family would have had this knowledge available to them as recent history. After all, Adam and his son Seth, Scripture tells us, lived into the generation preceding Noah’s.” So we see that critics of the Bible’s teachings such as the Creation of the world, the Great Flood, and the Trinity of God, have it all in reverse. Rather than Christian truths being ‘formulated’ from pagan lies, it is the pagans’ twisting of Godly truths and historical/Biblical facts which many have embraced. Though the truths were not there in written form, the truth itself concerning these events nevertheless existed in oral form, which over time, became perverted and twisted by man adding to, or taking from the original stories. Truth does not evolve from lies, but over time lies evolve from undeniable truth. Truth never loses its truthfulness. Truth always stays true to itself. Deceivers use lies at opportune moments in time for optimum results. Lies develop, they evolve, and some eventually overshadow the truth, and in many instances replace the truth in the minds of ignorant men who only have a nebulous view of reality. Thus truth is, so often, inevitably either inaccurately presented, or purposely twisted, embellished and relegated to just another story, or mere opinions of men. This does not somehow make truth our enemy, but it clearly shows how the inaccurate and erroneous re-telling of truth by those with personal agendas, or otherwise, can become so twisted that over time, it barely resembles the truth. It only takes one generation for the truth to be forgotten. The truth has always and will always remain the same no matter what is done to it, or because of man’s subjective opinions, or complete ignorance, of it, but the ignorant always fail to recognize it. The truth is always there even though many cannot see it. Man can and has altered the truth to suit his purposes, but truth and its far-reaching consequences remain the same, for they are eternal. Many myths and lies have evolved from misunderstood, or misrepresented truth, but the truth itself is eternal, it has always been eternal and always will be eternal, for its Source is Almighty God.
“It is not difficult to rule out the Ancient Near Eastern mythological texts from being the source of influence for the account of Genesis. While Genesis is reliable, they are not. While Genesis shows consistency of God’s Righteous and Sovereign character, the mythological texts show the gods as little more than squabbling people, deceiving each other and humanity and lacking sovereign control. While the Genesis Flood account gives enough credible information to allow for historical and geological confirmation, the mythological texts provide little that can be confirmed, and what is provided does not make sense logically or scientifically. The similarities among Ancient Near Eastern mythologies and between The Gilgamesh Epic and the Bible make sense from a biblical worldview. Christians should not be surprised to see people groups all over the world with their own accounts of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, men of great ages, and even the Tower of Babel. The accounts can tell us people once had the same record or eyewitness of a common event handed down from a generation that was once congregated in the same place at the same time.” Overtime, these eyewitness accounts were unnecessarily embellished, gradually becoming further and further removed from what actually took place. It is important to note that God has ensured that His truth, including all the accounts of history, creation, etc., will never disappear from the earth. “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever” (Psa. 12:7).
“One of the most amazing testimonies to Scripture’s truth is its preservation over thousands of years despite sometimes intense efforts to destroy it. The Lord Jesus Christ made an amazing prophecy about this preservation of His Word: ‘HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY: BUT MY WORDS SHALL NOT PASS AWAY’ (Mark 13:31; see also Matt. 24:35). He believed that God’s Word is indestructible: ‘And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle [small mark in Hebrew lettering] of the law to fail’ (Lk. 16:17). Moreover, Jesus believed His words would spread around the world: ‘And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come’ (Matt. 24:14); ‘And the Gospel must first be published among all nations’ (Mk. 13:10). And that is what we find today. God’s Word has been preserved. The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 confirmed that we still have the same Old Testament as they did at Jesus’ day. The survival of thousands of New Testament manuscripts confirms that the New Testament writings were also providentially preserved.” Countless archaeological finds, including the more recent discovery of the city of king David, whom many archaeologists previously believed did not even exist, support the Word of God. “In his book, What Mean These Stones?, Millar Burrows wrote, ‘Archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened confidence in the reliability of the Scriptural record. More than one archaeologist has found his respect for the Bible increased by the experience of excavation in Palestine’.”‘ The question among textual scholars is not whether some words are missing, but which variant readings, in a few minor cases, are the correct ones. In contrast, few copies have survived from nearly every other classic book, such as Caesar’s Gallic Wars or Herodotus’ Histories. While copies of major portions of the New Testament survive from documents dated around AD 300, most other classic books survive in copies no older than around AD 900. God’s Word survived despite intense efforts to destroy it. For instance, in 175 BC the king of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, ordered the Jews, on pain of death, to destroy their Scriptures and worship the Greek gods. But Judas Maccabaeus saved the books and led a revolt that won independence for the Jewish nation. (today, Jews celebrate this event at Hanukkah.) Another example is the Roman emperor Diocletian’s order to have Christianity outlawed, its leaders killed, and their Bibles burned. As a sign of God’s providence, the next emperor, Constantine, legalized ‘Christianity’ and paid for fifty new hand-written copies of the Bible. The Bible has not only been preserved, but translated into over two thousand languages (both ancient and modern). Many of the earliest surviving manuscripts include translations, such as Syriac versions, showing that God’s Word was spreading from the very beginning, and the words of its Message have been preserved in many languages.”
Among the many stories of paganism is one which tells of a virgin born child. So “What about the pagans’ belief in a virgin and a son, where did that originate from?” Are all the stories of alleged pagan virgin born sons the truth, and the Christian virgin birth of Jesus a lie? Are they all lies, pagan and Christian alike, or is there a telling difference in the truth of the virgin born Christ, and paganism’s many perversions? Let us briefly examine the claims of paganism, and compare them with the truth that is God’s Word. “Some examples of religions the world over having stories of a virgin birth are as follows: India has a number of messengers who were said to be divinely conceived and two of them bore the name ‘Chrishna’ or ‘Chrishna the Saviour’. Now Chrishna was said to be born of a chaste virgin called Devaki, who on account of her purity was selected to become the mother of God.” Incidentally, the phrase ‘mother of God’ is nowhere to be found in the Word of God. It is of pagan origin. Mary was never called ‘mother of God’. Despite the title being pagan in its origin it was nevertheless adopted by Roman Catholicism. “Buddha was considered and believed by his followers to have been begotten of God and born of a virgin whose name was Maya. Long before the Christian era, we read of how the divine power called the ‘Holy Ghost’ descended upon virgin Maya. In the ancient Chinese version of the story, the holy ghost is called Shing-Shin. The Siamese (Taiwan), had a God and saviour who was Virgin Born whom they called Codom. In this very ancient story, the beautiful Virgin had been informed in advance that she was to become the mother of a great messenger of God, and one day while in her usual period of meditation and prayer, she was impregnated by divine sun beams. When the boy was born, he grew up in a remarkable manner, became a protégé of wisdom and performed miracles. When the first Jesuit priests visited China, they wrote in their reports at finding a heathen religion of that country, with a story of a redeeming saviour who was born of a Virgin and divinely conceived. The God was said to have been born in 3468 B.C. (before Christ), his name was Lao-Tsze and was said to have been born of a virgin black in complexion and as beautiful as a Jasper.
“In Egypt, long before the Christian era, the Egyptian people had several ‘messengers of God’, who were alleged to have been conceived through Immaculate Conception. Horus was known to all of ancient Egypt as having been born of the virgin Isis and his conception and birth was considered one of the three great mysteries or mystical doctrines of the Egyptian religion. Another Egyptian god, called Ra, was also said to have been conceived by a Virgin. Even, the philosopher Plato who was born in Athens in 429 B.C. was believed by the populace to be a divine son of a pure virgin called Perictione. It is recorded in the ancient record that the father of Plato who was known as Aris had been admonished in a spiritual dream to hold pure and sacred the person of his wife, until after the divine conception and birth of the child that is to come and that this child would be conceived by divine means.” In light of all this evidence, the doctrine of a virgin born son is deemed by many to be a pagan doctrine, and not at all something which originated with the only true God. Simply because a similar concept is taught in many religions which existed long before Christ ever came to earth, is by no means submissible as evidence that the Christian teaching of a virgin born Son came from the same source. On the contrary, it is in truth most submissible as evidence of the many perversions of the prophesied eternal reality that a true Virgin was to conceive and bring forth a Son (see Isa. 7:14). The Enemy of man, Satan, was cognizant of many of the truths of God and what was to come long before these great truths were ever revealed to man (see Rev. 12:12). Just because Satan ‘got in first’ and caused man to write many things concerning the truths he knew about, shows just how easily these perversions were adopted by man, and how men today have wrongly concluded the Bible’s accounts to be perversions of pagan script, when, in reality, it is the other way round. Simply because something has been taught here on earth concerning virgin born sons, and a ‘triune’ God, etc., prior to the Bible, does not mean that true Christianity has borrowed these doctrines from the pagan world and formulated its own versions. Pagan teachings may well be ancient, but the truth of God is ETERNAL. CHRISTIAN TEACHING, JUST LIKE THE TRUTH, IS NOTHING LIKE THE PAGAN PERVERSIONS OF IT!
Errors are lies clothed with a veneer of, and consequently misconstrued as, truth. The erroneous answer, 4¼, to the question 2 +2 certainly includes the truth, but it would be totally irresponsible to say that from this error truth evolved, or found its origin. The origin of truth is not a correction of error. Just as man’s history is one of devolution, and not evolution, so too, truth in the mind of man has devolved rather than evolved. The order is not error then truth, for truth always precedes error. All truth finds its origin in God. God is the God of truth (see Deut. 32:4; Psa. 31:5; Isa. 65:16 cf. Jn. 1:14; Jn. 15:26). Satan is the father of lies (see Jn. 8:44). Error is nothing but the perversion of truth which is the domain of man and Satan. Truth is not something which emerges, or eventually frees itself from the shackles of error, but rather that which is completely independent of, and free from, error. Truth does not follow error. Error simply cannot be if there is no truth to begin with. Error does not beget truth, and perversions of Biblical teachings are not the breeding ground for God’s truth. The truth does not need to borrow anything from anything else, for the truth is free and independent of everything else. The Lord Jesus teaches: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free…If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (Jn. 8:32,36). Notice here the fact that the truth, the Son of God, shall make you free. Jesus says of Himself “I am…the truth…” (Jn. 14:6). The Lord Jesus is the Truth that makes a man free. If the truth shall make a man free, it stands to reason that the truth itself must be free. “‘The truth will set you free’ is a common saying in academic circles that want to promote academic freedom and the power of learning. Many universities have this statement emblazoned on a sign near the entrance of a building. But ‘the truth will set you free’ did not originate in academia; Jesus said it in John 8:32. In context, Jesus’ statement has nothing to do with classroom learning. In fact, John 8:32 speaks of a higher form of knowledge than is capable of being learned in a classroom.” God is eternal and so is His truth. The truth needs nothing outside of itself. God is the originator of truth. Man is a perverter of truth. “Romans 1 tells us that man from the beginning knew God, '...when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God…and their foolish heart was darkened…Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator…' (Rom. 1:21,25). When mankind fell into darkness of sin, they still retained some elements of the truth but distorted its meaning and it became lost.” Thus variations of the great Flood for instance, come from the darkness of sin in which man stumbles about thinking he has the truth. In his spiritually dead state, man suffers from an extreme case of “truth decay”. He does not know and cannot see the things of God (see 1 Cor. 2:14), except for the distorted images which he has formed, or has been presented with by other men, of the true God, which are nothing but false gods. Pertinent to this are the perverted versions of true biblical accounts. In man’s spiritually dead state he has distorted truth and formed his own versions which are nothing but lies, which in time, he has ridiculously concluded is where the Bible stories of the Flood, and virgin birth, etc., found their origin. Man has also invented for himself millions of gods, many of which, have several characteristics of the true God, but even more perversions of what the true God is like. Satan is the author of confusion, not God (see 1 Cor. 14:33).
Let us return now to our examination of the various pagan accounts of alleged virgin births. “According to academia, there are at least 32 stories of alleged virgin births in ancient cultures of bygone eras. The ‘pagan myth’ charge, relative to the birth of Christ, is made frequently by the uninformed. Here is a classic example: ‘The idea of a supernatural or virgin birth is pagan, and it must have found its way into the story of Jesus through Gentile-Christian channels’ (W. Bundy. Jesus and the First Three Gospels, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1955, p. 11). The truth is, however, that there is a vast difference between the record of Christ’s conception and birth, as recorded in Matthew and Luke’s Gospel narratives, and those alleged ‘supernatural’ births of primitive paganism. Here are some very important points worthy of reflection. (1) Mary was a virgin girl of Nazareth. She was betrothed to Joseph but had never been intimate with any man (see Matt. 1:25; Lk. 1:34). Her conception was a miracle (see Matt. 1:18ff; Lk. 1:35ff). (2) It must be stressed, however, that, unlike the stories of paganism which had maidens consorting with the gods, there is no indication whatever in the biblical accounts that Mary had any sort of sexual union — either with God the Father, or with the Holy Spirit. It was simply by the ‘power’ of God that the conception occurred: ‘And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing (Original Greek: ‘the one being generated out of you’) which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’ (Lk. 1:35 cf. Matt. 1:18-25). ‘Power through God’s ability’ is what the word ‘power’ means and is needed in every scene of life to really grow in sanctification…The word ‘come’ is used of ‘coming events’, suggesting their certainty. ‘To come upon’ or, of time, means ‘to come on or after’. (3) The Scriptural narratives are not cumbered with the absurdities that are uniformly characteristic of the so-called ‘miracle’ births of antiquity. (4) The New Testament records of the virgin birth were penned by writers who stood in close historical proximity with the actual birth event. Matthew was one of the Lord’s apostles. And Luke, a physician (see Col. 4:14) and first-rate historian, was a companion of the apostle Paul. He researched carefully the data regarding Jesus (see Lk. 1:3). Sir William Ramsay, once skeptical of Luke’s reliability, after much on-site research, was forced to conclude that ‘Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness’ ( Ramsay, W. M., St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1962 (originally published in 1895), p. 81). Both Matthew and Luke, of course, wrote under the oversight of the Spirit of God. Moreover, these men were willing to lay their lives on the line to authenticate the credibility of their messages.
“What about the pagan accounts? By way of startling contrast, consider the data relative to the alleged ‘miraculous’ birth of ‘the Buddha’ — one of the supposed parallels to Christ’s birth, to which appeal is commonly made. (1) The earliest records available are agreed that ‘the Buddha’ (whose actual name was Siddhartha Gautama) was the son of a king of the Sakyas, a people of the warrior cast near the Himalayas in what is now Nepal. One ancient document speaks of his being wellborn on his mother’s and father’s side for seven generations (Digha Nikaya i.113). There is absolutely no early indication of a ‘virgin’ birth. (2) There are no authentic accounts of Buddha’s early life from historians contemporary with him. The oldest information relating to the life of Gautama is found in the Pali canon, which is believed to have originated about two hundred years after his death. And the even later stories, of a supposed ‘miracle’ birth, enter the historical scene some five to ten centuries after the philosopher’s sojourn on earth (see J.G. Machen. The Virgin Birth of Christ. (Harper & Brothers: New York, 1930), p. 342). Such is hardly credible history. (3) And so, centuries after his death (cir. 483 B.C.), legends regarding Buddha evolved, some of which suggested an ‘unusual’ birth—to express the matter as diplomatically as possible. For example it is said that at the time of his conception his mother dreamed that a ‘white elephant’ with ‘six tusks entered her belly. Supposedly, Gautama left his mother’s womb (from her side) like a man descending ‘from a ladder’. The new-born child was described as having ‘legs like an antelope’, and having ‘webbed’ feet and hands—hands that reached down to his knees even when standing erect. His skin was the color of gold and his head was shaped like a turban (see Boslooper, pp. 139ff, for full documentation). Another legend, this one from Tibet, suggests that the Buddha was born from the ‘right arm pit’ of his mother (McClintock, Vol. I, p. 907). Further comment regarding such absurdities are scarcely necessary.