The Promise and the ancients

In another thread, Glen (Tyndale) wrote the following:

I promised this two day ago to you, Glen. I have not forgotten. I have been thinking about how to respond, The reason is because it deserves a book so it can be completely referenced and demonstrated and if I do more than a page or two here, no one will take the time to read it. Here are a few points that may help, however:

1. We are not only all descended from Adam, but the first generations lived so long that Adam could have handed his WRITTEN (see Genesis 5:1) memories to just one generation in between himself and Noah (Methuselah?) and Noah, being the righteous man of his generation, would have been the one God made sure had the Adamic manuscript to bring it through the Flood. That manuscript contained the original promise of a Savior in Genesis 3. And Adam lived long enough to tell a number of generations about it.

2. Man named the animals, but God named the stars (see Isaiah 40). And the names all had meaning. We know this because the meaning of the names is still in every language of man. Malcolm Bowden documented this in the essay four of us co-wrote several years ago here."]http://www.ldolphin.org/zodiac/index.html]here[/URL].[/url] This is the exact story Abraham was told by God to recount in Genesis 15:5. Paul tells us that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The only righteousness we have is in Jesus Christ, and that is the story Abraham already knew was in the stars. It has since been corrupted into the occult astrology we associate with it today, but that is not what it once was. Nor would Satan have worked to corrupt it so completely if there had not been something he wanted to hide in the first place.

3. The men in the Old Testament who were the faithful – the believers – only knew the Promise of God. The could not know about the Incarnation because they were on the other side of it. We read in 1 Peter 10 that even those who wrote the prophecies looked at them intently to find out more about the coming Messiah. What they had was the Promise. The same Promise Adam wrote about. The same Promise Noah brought through the Flood. The same Promise Abraham knew about. Those generations all knew about the Promise. And Christ Himself was and is the fulfillment of that Promise. It is Him. Believing on the Promise of God was the same as believing on Christ Himself.

4. Here is the earliest known Veda from the Rig Veda:

1 I Laud Agni, the chosen Priest, God, minister of sacrifice,
The hotar, lavishest of wealth.
2 Worthy is Agni to be praised by living as by ancient seers.
He shall bring. hitherward the Gods.
3 Through Agni man obtaineth wealth, yea, plenty waxing day by day,
Most rich in heroes, glorious.
4 Agni, the perfect sacrifice which thou encompassest about
Verily goeth to the Gods.
5 May Agni, sapient-minded Priest, truthful, most gloriously great,
The God, come hither with the Gods.
6 Whatever blessing, Agni, thou wilt grant unto thy worshipper,
That, Angiras, is indeed thy truth.
7 To thee, dispeller of the night, O Agni, day by day with prayer
Bringing thee reverence, we come
8 Ruler of sacrifices, guard of Law eternal, radiant One,
Increasing in thine own abode.
9 Be to us easy of approach, even as a father to his son:
Agni, be with us for our weal.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv01001.htm

Despite the beginning corruption in the concept of more than one God, look at some of the other references: the Priest is God, he is the minister of sacrifice, he is the perfect sacrifice himself! That’s Christ! Already the corruption is showing, but it does not cancel that earliest truth – the Promise that even the Hindus who read that script can grasp onto today if the truth is what their hearts want. Agni here is the dispeller of the night, the guard of the eternal Law, the radiant One… it was still there when the Vedas were written! It was almost immediately covered over by all sorts of idolatry and nonsense and demonism, but that first hymn of the first book is still there (and there is more in other of the Vedic hymns), after all these years, giving testimony to the original knowledge men had.

5. It is too difficult to repeat these quotes from various cultures here and now. I have so much in my notes here as I have already been offered publishing on both an article and a book based on some of this material and the truths which can be found in ancient legends when we strip away their mythologies – but the evidence is just about overpowering. God made Himself known to every tribe and every kingdom and every people on this earth, and the Promise was also known, one way or another, for people to either grasp onto as their only hope, or reject for another way or ways.

God has truly not been willing that one should perish. Unlike so many here, I am convinced that God has given every sentient adult a choice about whether to respond positively or negatively to the truth revealed by God and, then, to the Promise offered by God. In every society for which we have records, the evidence seems to be there. The story, the history, the Promise were never entirely forgotten.

 

I'm sorry, Dallas, but Buddhists are from Hindus, not the other way around. The text I quoted is thousands of years old and does indeed show that the original truth was hanging around still.

There is no heart tug about any of it. It is just there. People knew. Cultures knew. And each sentient adult person ever alive has had a chance to respond to that knowledge.

============

The wonderful thing about the Bible is that it is NOT distorted -- it's the straight, original stuff. It's the plumb line. But there is evidence in every culture we have records for that the original truth of the Promise of God and the knowledge of the fall of man from grace was never forgotten.

[ November 13, 2002, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

Save you some trouble: here you go

Hindu -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/index.shtml

Buddhist --
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/bud_history.shtml

 

Hi Dallas,

The religions are for sure tainted with sin, and often twist the truth grotesquely. But the truth that 1)man need help desperately, and 2) man wants love just as much
are the two hooks the gospel can be hung on with anyone. God has not left Himself without a witness, either externally or internally to each man.

Have you read "Eternity in their Hearts" or "Bruchko"? Fascinating books. And there are so many more. One field of research I have been involved in and am intensely interesting in has to do with ancient legends. I have found almost consistently that when I peel away the mythological elements, I am coming up again and again with verification that memories of real disasters, some of which are mentioned in the Bible, are the core of these legends. The vast majority seem to have to do with real memories, well-shrouded, yes, but real nevertheless.

I think the false religions carry some of that same quality. Each is built up by taking something of a known truth and running amok with it, adding (often demonic) bits here and there until it takes an awful lot of peeling away to see where on earth that original truth was they were trying to build on.

And thanks for the acknowledgement of Buddhism and Hinduism. Buddha himself was a rebel against Hinduism!

God bless.

Helen