Aquarius
"But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." (Amos 5: 24)
God's People are Good Fishes
"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them..." (Jer. 6: 16)
"And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh." (Eze. 47: 9)
"And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matt. 4: 19)
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind (of fish): Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. 13: 47-50)
The Southern Fish
"That this sign was really framed to be a picture of the risen and glorified Redeemer pouring out from heaven the saving influence and gifts of the Holy Ghost, is further evidenced by the first Decan of Aquarius. Those who truly profit by the gifts and powers procured and poured out by our glorious Intercessor are the people who believe in Christ, the regenerate, the saved Church. These, as we saw in our last, are the mystic fishes. And here, as the first Decan of Aquarius, we have the picture of a fish—Pisces Australis— drinking in the stream which pours from the urn of the beautiful One in heaven. It is the picture of the believing acceptance of the invitation of the text. Jesus stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink;" and here is a coming from below—a glad coming to the stream which issues from on high, a drinking in of the heavenly waters, and a vigorous life sustained and expanded by means of that drinking.
The mythic legends do not help us much with regard to the interpretation of this constellation, but they still furnish a few significant hints. Some say this fish represents Astarte, called Aphrodite by the Greeks and Venus by the Romans, and that she here appears in the form into which she metamorphosed herself to escape the advances and power of the horrible Typhon. Astarte was the moon-goddess, the great mother, the embodiment of the dependent but ever-productive feminine principle. In the symbology of the Scriptures the moon sometimes denotes the mother of the family, as in Joseph's dream (Gen. 37), and both the woman and the moon are representatives of the Church. As the woman was made out of the side of Adam while He slept, so the Church was made out of Christ by means of that deep sleep of death which came upon Him, and to which He submitted for the purpose. The whole mystery of marriage is the symbol of the union between Christ and His Church (Eph. 5 : 23-32). Everywhere the congregation of believers is pictured as the spouse of Christ, the spiritual woman, the mother of us all. And if this fish represents the Astarte of the pagan religion, we have only to strip off the heathen impurities, and understand the reference in the sense and application of the Scripture symbols, in order to find here a picture of the regenerate people of God, the Church, the bride of Christ, the mother of saints.
So understood, the metamorphosis into a fish is also applicable and significant, as in no other interpretation. All true members of the Church are transformed persons, made over again by the power of a new spiritual creation, and living a new life superadded to Nature. It is by this spiritual metamorphosis that we make our escape from the power and dominion of the Devil. And it is by means of this transformation that we have our status and relations in the heavenly economy and kingdom. The light comes feebly through the dark and murky atmosphere of the pagan world; but wherever we get sight of a distinct ray, it easily resolves back into the figures of the primeval constellations, and thence into the sacred story of redemption through the promised Seed of the woman."
The people of God are they who drink from this water pouring forth from Aquarius.
"Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4: 13, 14)
"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." (John 7: 37)
"And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." (Rev. 21: 6)
"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Rev. 22: 17)
"And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." (Rev. 22: 1)
Pegasus
"And in perfect consistence with, and as fur ther illustration of, what I have given as the meaning of this sign, is the second Decan. Here is the figure of a great horse pushing forward with full speed, with great wings springing from his shoulders. The elements of his name, as in Isaiah 64: 5, signify the swift divine messenger bringing joy to those whom he meets, otherwise the horse of the opening; or as the Greeks put it, without obliteration of the old Noetic nomenclature, the horse of the gushing fountain—a celestial horse, ever associated with glad song, the favorite of the Muses, under whose hoofs the Pierian springs started upon Mount Helicon, and on whose back rode Bellerophon as he went forth to slay the monster Chimaera.
The fables say that this wonderful horse sprang into being from the slaying of Medusa by Perseus; that he was called Pegasus, Horse of the Fountain, because he first appeared near the springs of the ocean; that he lived in the palace of the King and Father of gods, and thundered and lightened for Jupiter; and that Bellerophon obtained possession of him through sacrifice to the goddess of justice, followed by a deep sleep, during which he was divinely given the golden bridle which the wild horse obeyed, and thus he was borne forth to victory, though not without receiving a painful sting in his foot.
In the first chapter of Zechariah the appearance of such horses are the symbols of those whom "God hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth," not simply to see and report the condition of affairs, but to shake and disturb nations, so as to restore liberty, peace, and blessing to God's people. Pegasus is not precisely one of those horses, or all of them combined in one, but still a somewhat corresponding ambassador of God. Pegasus is winged; he moves with heavenly speed. The first part of his or his rider's name, Pega, Peka, or Pacha, in the Noetic dialects means the chief; and the latter part, sus, means, not only a horse, but swiftly coming or returning, with the idea of joy-bringing; hence the chief, coming forth again in great victory, and with good tidings and blessing to those to whom he comes. The ancient names of the stars which make up his constellation are—Markab, the returning; Scheat, he who goeth and returneth; Enif, the Branch; Al Genib, who carries; Hainan, the waters; Matar, who causeth the plenteous overflow. The names show to what the picture applies."
The idea of coming and returning, as in a circuit, in connection with the incarnation of Christ, is something we have already mentioned. The Hebrew letter Koph denoted a "circuit" or to "move in a circle." The Hebrew letter Mem denoted "water, waves, flood." In Eccl. 1 Solomon mentions two things that go and return, or go in circuits, and that is water and wind and both are types of the Holy Ghost.
Pegasus is a picture of the sending forth of the good news of Christ's victory through the cross.
"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." (Prov. 25: 25)
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (Rev. 14: 6, 7)
"Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter." (Eccl. 10: 20)
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isa. 40: 31)
They shall mount up with wings, not only as eagles, but as Pegasus, as Cygnus the Swan.
"...the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork..." (Zech. 5: 9)
"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." (Mal. 4: 2)
"Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." (Job 39: 19-25)
"But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift." (Isa. 30: 16)
"Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit." (Isa. 31: 3)
"Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled." (Jer. 4: 13)
"...as the horse rusheth into the battle." (Jer. 8: 6)
"If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses?" (Jer. 12: 5)
"Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?" (Hab. 3: 8)
"He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly." (Psa. 147: 15)
Gospel messengers are like Paul Revere, giving warning, and bearing good news.
"And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." (Hab. 2: 2)
"And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead...And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word." (Matt. 28: 7, 8)
"Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain." (Phill. 2: 16)
"Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." (Rev. 3: 11)
"Gathering up these remarkable items, and combining them, as they all readily combine, in one consistent narrative, we have in astonishing fulness one of the sublimest evangelic presentations; nay, the very going forth of Christ in His living Gospel, as from the scenes of that supper-hall which witnessed the coming of the Paraclete the joyous waters of cleansing and redemption, through His successful mediation, poured their glad flood into our weary world. Then the word was, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel [Good Tidings] to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Thenceforward, Parthians and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, in Lybia, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, and people to the farthest ends of the earth, were made to hear, in their tongues, the wonderful works and achievements of God for the renewal and saving of men. Thenceforward the Glad Tidings went, winged with the Spirit of God, waking poetic springs of joy upon the mountains and in the valleys, slaying the powers of darkness and superstition, overwhelming the dominion of the Devil, and bringing song and salvation to every thirsty and perishing soul which hears and obeys the call of the Lord of life to come unto Him and drink. The true Pegasus is the herald and bringer of Christ's mediatorial success and salvation to a famishing world, which the saintly patriarchs looked for from the beginning, and which they thus figured in the constellations in advance as an imperishable witness of what was to come through and by that Coming One in whom all their hopes were centred."
The Swan
"The final side-piece which accompanies the Zodiacal Aquarius accords precisely with this presentation. It is one of the most interesting and beautiful of the constellations, both in its natural peculiarities and in its evangelic references. It consists of eighty-one stars— one of the first or second magnitude, six of the third, and twelve of the fourth; and some of these never set. It embraces at least five double stars and one quadruple. The binary star (61 Cygni) is the most remarkable known in the heavens. It is one of the nearest to our system of the fixed stars. It consists of two connected stars, which, besides their revolution about each other, have a common progressive and uniform motion toward some determinate region, and moving thousands of times faster than the swiftest body known to our system. This constellation has a number of distinct systems in itself, and shows planetary nebulae which have led astronomers to regard it as the intermediate link between the planetary worlds and the nebulous stars. It has in it specimens of both, and lies in the midst of the great Galactic Stream of nebulous stars. It is therefore remarkably suited to represent that peculiar and complex economy—partly celestial and partly terrestrial, partly acting by itself and partly dependent on the heavenly powers—by which grace and salvation are carried and ministered to the children of men.
The figure in this constellation is the figure of a swan, the lordly bird-king of the waters, in all ages and in all refined countries considered the emblem of poetic dignity, purity, and grace. By the Greeks and Romans it was held sacred to the god of beauty and the Muses, and special sweetness was connected with its death. Eschylus sung,
"The swan, Expiring, dies in melody."
As the white dove is the emblem of the Holy Ghost, so the elegant, pure, and graceful swan is a fitting emblem of Him who, dying, sends forth the glad river of living waters, and presides in His majesty over the administration of them to the thirsty children of men. And this is here the underlying idea.
But this swan is on the wing, in the act of rapid flight, "circling and returning," as its name in Greek and Latin signifies. It seems to be flying down the Milky Way, in the same general direction with the river which pours from the heavenly urn. The principal stars which mark its wings and length of body form a large and beautiful cross, the most regular of all the crosses formed by the constellations. It is thus the bird of matchless beauty, purity, dignity, and grace, bearing aloft the cross, and circling with it over the blessed waters of life; whilst in the naming of its stars, the brightest is Deneb, the Lord or Judge to come; Azel, who goes and returns; Fafage, glorious, shining forth; Sadr, who returns as in a circle; Adige, flying swiftly; Arided, He shall come down; and other words of like import, we find strong identifications of this lordly bird-king of the waters with Him who, through the preaching of His cross hither and thither over all this nether world, cries and says, "If any man thirst, let hint come urto Me, and drink "
Greek and Roman mythology is greatly at a loss to account for the presence of this bird in the sky; but the stories on the subject are not destitute of thought and suggestion corresponding with the evangelic truth. The. Greeks enumerated a collection of characters of different parentages and histories, each reputed to have been the original of this swan in the heavens. One was the son of Apollo, a handsome hunter, who in some strange fit leaped into Lake Canope, and was metamorphosed into this swan. Another was the son of Poseidon, an ally of the Trojans, who could not be hurt with arms of iron, but was strangled by Achilles—whose body, when the victor meant to rifle it, suddenly took its departure to heaven in the form of a swan. A third was the son of Ares, killed by Herakles in a duel, who at his death was changed by his father into a swan. A fourth was the son of Sthenelus and a dear friend and relative of Phaeton, who so lamented the fate of, him whom Jupiter destroyed for his bad driving of the chariot of the sun that Apollo metamorphosed him into a swan and placed him among the stars. Some dim embodiments of the true prophetic delineations of this swan, and of that history of the Redeemer through which He came to the position and relations in which this picture received fulfilment, appear in the several myths. Christ was of divine birth and nature. He was in himself invincible. He did submit to death in heroic conflict with the powers of darkness and the just penalties due the sins of the world. It was His great love for those to whom He became a Brother that brought him down to the dark river. His body did take life again after death, and disappear into a new form of brightness and glory to assume position in the heavens. In these several particulars the myths touching this constellation are in remarkable accord with the Gospel history, and help to reflect how minute and clear and vivid were the believing anticipations of the makers of these signs already in the very first ages of our race."
The swan is an "emblem of dignity, purity, and grace." It is a symbol too of beauty. Think of the story of the "ugly duckling" who transforms into a beautiful swan. The story connects then with transformation. Christ was transformed, after his resurrection. So too are they who are saved.
Those who are saved are "new creatures," people who have been transformed or metamorphed, changed. They were once ugly because of sin, but now beautiful because of the righteousness of Christ.
"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King." (Psa. 48: 2)
"Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined." (Psa. 50: 2)
"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners." (Song 6: 4)
"In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel." (Isa. 4: 2)
"Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean." (Isa. 52: 1)
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" (Isa. 52: 7)
"One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple." (Psa. 27: 4)
"...let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us..." (Psa. 90: 17)
"And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock." (Zech. 11: 6)
"Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever." (Psa. 45: 2)
"For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck." (Prov. 1: 9 & 4: 9)
"So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck." (Prov. 3: 22)
Not only is the Swan connected with beauty and grace, but with lordship and kingship. The lion is the king of land animals, the eagle is the king of the sky, but the swan is king of water and air.
"And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." (Rev. 1: 6)
A Beautiful Picture
"Thus, then, in the Zodiacal Aquarius we have the picture in the stars of the heavenly waters of life and salvation; of their source in the beautiful Seed of the woman, slain indeed, but risen again and lifted up in everlasting glory; of the voluminous plenteous ness in which they flow down into all oui dry and thirsty world; of the new creation and joyous life they bring to those who drink them; of the swift heralding and bearing of the glad provision to all people; and of the graceful holding forth of the cross to the nations over which, on outspread wings, the Lord of these waters circles, in His meek loveliness ever calling, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
Beautiful picture of most precious Gospel truths!—a picture which I can interpret no otherwise than as intended by men fully informed beforehand of these glorious facts. And if, perchance, these constellations were not meant in token, testimony, and prophecy of what was foreknown, believed, and expected by the primeval patriarchs who arranged them, the picture is still true to what has since come to pass, and which it is part of our holy religion to accept and rejoice in as the great mercy of God to a fallen world. Christ Jesus is the beautiful Saviour of mankind, Son of God and Son of man. He did come in the flesh and live a human life in which humanity came to its loveliest and highest bloom. He did suffer and die a violent death from offended justice on account of sin which He assumed, but in no degree chargeable to Him. He did rise again from death by the power of the eternal Spirit, changed, transfigured, and glorified, and soar away beyond all reach of enemies, even to the calm heavens, where no revolutions of time can any more obscure His brightness or eclipse the outshining of His glory. He is there as the Lord of life and grace, obtaining by His meritorious intercession an exhaustless fulness of spiritual treasures, like very rivers of renewing and sanctifying mercies, which He has poured, and is ever pouring, down into our world for the comfort, cheer, and salvation of those who believe in Him. He has arranged, and himself conducts and energizes, a great system of means for carrying and proclaiming the same all over the world amid songs of halleluia and rejoicing which can never die. Deep in it all He has embedded the great doctrine of His Cross and Passion as the central thought and brightest substance of the sublime and wonderful economy. And in and amid it all faith beholds Him in His lordly beauty stationed by the true Pierian spring, ever crying and ever calling, "If Any Man Thirst, Let Him Come Unto Me, And Drink."
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price;" "And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Blessed tidings! blessed provision! blessed opportunity! O man! awake to the glory and drink; drink deep, drink earnestly, drink with all the capacity of thy soul; for thy Lord and Redeemer saith, "WhosoeVer drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
Oct 3, 2011
Sep 28, 2011
Gospel in the Stars XI
The Pierced Eagle
"The second Decan adds still further to the clearness and certainty of the meaning. This is the constellation of Aquila, the pierced, wounded, and falling eagle. It is but another picture of the grain of wheat falling and dying. The principal star in this constellation is of the first magnitude, and is the star by which the position of the moon—also a symbol of the Church—is noted for the computation of longitude at sea. Its name is Al Tair, which in Arabic means the wounded. The name of the second star in the same language means the scarlet-colored—covered with blood. The name of the third means the torn, whilst that of another means the wounded in the heel. It is simply impossible to explain how all these names got into this sign and its Decans, except by intention to denote the great fact of the promised Saviour's death.
The myths explain this eagle in different ways. Some say it is Merops, king of Cos, the husband of Ethemea, who lamented for his condemned wife, and was transformed into an eagle and placed among the stars. Some say it is the form assumed by Jupiter in carrying off Ganymedes, whilst others describe it as the eagle which brought nectar to Jupiter while he lay concealed in the Cretan cave by reason of the fury and wrath of Saturn. In short, pagan wisdom did not know what it meant, though holding it in marked regard. And yet, as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, and reigns in glory for its good—as He humbled himself in obedience to death that He might take to himself a glorious Church to serve the eternal Father in immortal blessedness—as He was really brought down into the cave of death, whence He was revived by heavenly virtues after the exhaustion of the fierce wrath of insulted sovereignty,—we can still see some dim reflections of the original truth and meaning even in these confused and contradictory fables.
The eagle is one of the biblical symbols of Christ. "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings and brought you unto myself" (Ex. 19:4), "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttered! over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him" (Deut. 32 : 11, 12). The eagle is a royal bird, and the natural enemy of the serpent. It is elevated in its habits, strong, and swift. It is very careful and tender toward its young, and is said to tear itself to nourish them with its own blood when all other means fail. And here is the noble Eagle, the promised Seed of the woman, pierced, torn, and bleeding, that those begotten in His image may be saved from death, sheltered, protected, and made to live for ever.
But, as in the case of the Arrow, so also in this case, the figure will admit the further idea which takes in the proud sinner, pierced by the arrow of the Word and brought down into the humiliation of penitence, even to death and despair as to all his former hopes in himself. And until the high-soaring children of pride are thus brought down by the arrow of God's Word, and fall completely out of the heaven of their dreams, conformably to Christ's death for them, there can come to them no right life. Paul was alive without the law once, and a very high-soaring and bloodthirsty eagle; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and he died—died the death that could alone bring him to right life."
The Dolphin
"The third Decan of this sign is the beautiful cluster of little stars named Delphinus. It is the figure of a vigorous fish leaping upward. Taken in connection with the dying goat, it conveys the idea of springing up again out of death. Our great Sin-bearer not only died for our sins, but He also rose again, thereby becoming "the first-fruits of them that slept." As the Head and Representative of His Church, He is the principal Fish in the congregation of the fishes. Their quickening, life, and spiritual resurrection rest on His coming forth again after having gone down into the waves of death for their sakes. Put to death in the flesh, He was quickened by the Spirit, and in His quickening and resurrection all His people share. Their sins having been buried in His death, their life is by virtue of His resurrection, that "like as He was raised from the dead, so we should walk in newness of life," ever advancing toward a still more complete resurrection to come. The corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, but from that death there is a springing up again to the intended fruitfulness. Christ dies and rises again, and His people, slain in their old carnal confidence, absolved by His suffering of the penalty due to them, and planting themselves solely upon Him as their Lord and Redeemer, rise with him into the new, spiritual, and eternal life. The picture of the dying goat, with its after-part a living fish, implied this, but the nature of the transition could not be so well expressed in that figure by itself. Hence the additional explanatory figure of an upspringing fish, to show more vividly that the transition is by means of resurrection to a new life of another style. We thus have the vivid symbol of both the resurrection of the slain Saviour as the Head of the Church, and the included new creation of His people, who rise to their new life through His death and resurrection. In ancient mythology the dolphin was the most sacred and honored of fishes, doubtless because of its place among the ancient constellations, though the myths representing it are very different. It was specially sacred to Apollo, and its name was added to his—some say, because he slew the dragon; others say, because in the form of a dolphin he showed the Cretan colonists the way to Delphi, the most celebrated place in the Grecian world and the seat of the most famous of all the oracles. According to some accounts, it was a dolphin which brought about the marriage of the unwilling Amphitrite with the god of the sea, and for this it received place among the stars. The muddy waters reflect something of the original idea. Christ was the true Son of Deity. It was He who broke the Dragon's power by submitting to become the atoning Mediator. "In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." By His death and resurrection He has opened and shown the way by which His people come to the blessed city of which Jehovah is the light. By His mediation He has brought about a marriage between men in flight from their Lord and Him who loved them with a love that passeth knowledge. And in believing foretoken of all this His sign, as the Head of His people, was thus placed in the heavens, where it stands as another form of the parable of the buried corn of wheat rising in new life, of which all who are His are partakers."
Salvation Through Atonement
"Capricornus is thus the illustrious bearer and witness of the most vital evangelical truths. There is no more central or important doctrine of our holy faith than this, that the pure and sinless Son of God, having assumed our nature for the purpose, did really and truly take the sins of the world upon Him, and bore the agonies of an accursed death as the sacrifice and propitiation for our guilt. Whatever difficulty human reason may have in receiving it, it is the very heart and substance of the Gospel tidings, on which all the hopes of fallen man repose. "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name" (Luke 24:46, 47) This "first of all" Paul preached, and Christians received and held, "how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (i Cor. 15 : 3, 4). "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2 : 14, 15). Hence the highest apostolic song on earth is that led off by the holy seer of Patmos: "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever;" whilst the saints in heaven, in devoutest adoration, fall down before the Lamb, and cry, "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood" (Rev. i : 5, 6; 5:9).
And how cheering and confirmatory to our faith to see and know that what Prophets and Apostles have been testifying on earth the heavens themselves have been proclaiming for all these ages! How assuring to know that what we build our hope on now is the same that the holy patriarchs from Adam's time built on as their hope and joy! They believed and expected, and hung their faith and testimony on the stars, that in the fulness of time the Seed of the woman should come, and bow himself in death as the Sin-offering for a guilty world, and rise again in life and frnitfulness of saving virtues, whereby His Church should rise with Him, sharing at once the merit of His atonement and the power of His resurrection, and thus live and reign in inseparable union with himself in life and glory everlasting. Every September (December - SG) midnight of every year for all these centuries has accordingly displayed the sign of it in the middle of the sky, and held it forth to the eyes of mortals as the blessed hope and only refuge of a condemned world, at the same time that it marks the point of change in year and climate, and when the darkness is the greatest opens the southern gateway of the Sun.
Yes, this strange goat-fish, dying in its head, but living in its after-part—falling as an eagle pierced and wounded by the arrow of death, but springing up from the dark waves with the matchless vigor and beauty of the dolphin—sinking under sin's condemnation, but rising again as sin's conqueror—developing new life out of death, and heralding a new spring-time out of December's long drear nights—was framed by no blind chance of man. The story which it tells is the old, old story on which hangs the only availing hope that ever came, or ever can come, to Adam's race. To what it signifies we are for ever shut up as the only saving faith. In that dying Seed of the woman we must see our Sin-bearer and the atonement for our guilt, or die ourselves unpardoned and unsanctified. Through His death and blood-shedding we must find our life, or the true life, which alone is life, we never can have."
The Living Waters of Aquarius
John 7:37: "If any man thirst, let him come untj Me, and drink."
"One of the gladdest things in our world is water. In whatever shape it presents itself, it is full of interest and beauty. Whether trickling down in pearly mist from the fragrant distilleries of Nature, or rippling in merry windings through the grassy dell or shady grove; whether jetting from the rocky precipices of the mountain, or gathered into the rolling plains of ocean; whether sparkling in the ice-gem, or pouring in the cataract; whether coming in silver drops from the bow-spanned heavens, or forcing itself out in glassy purity from the dark veins of the earth; whether in the feathery crystals of the snow-flakes, or grandly moving in the volume of the ample river,—it is everywhere and always beautiful. Next to light, it is God's brightest element; and light itself is as much at home in it as in its own native sky. Sometimes, in some connections, it is the symbol of evil, but even there it is the expression of life and energy. Nor is it much to be wondered that in the hot Orient men were moved to deify fountains and erect votive temples over them, as though they were gracious divinities. The preciousness of bright, fresh waters to parched and needy man is beyond all compare. Where such waters come they bring gladness and rejuvenation, luxuriousness and plenty. Where they pour forth, sinking strength recovers, dying life rekindles, perishing Nature revives, a thousand delights are awakened, and everything rejoices and sings with new-begotten life.
Such an object in Nature could not fail to be seized by the sacred writers to represent the life-giving purity and regenerating power of divine grace and salvation. Accordingly, we find it one of the common and most lively images under which the Scriptures set forth the cleansing, renewing, and saving virtues that come to man in God's redemptive administrations. Thus the Spirit in Baalam's unwilling lips described the goodliness of Israel's tents " as the valleys spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters." Thus when the inspired Moses began his song of God's grace to Israel's tribes, he said, " My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." The good man is " like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, whose leaf also shall not wither." The joy of Messiah's day is the opening of "a fountain to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." Ezekiel beholds the blessed influences of the sanctuary as issuing waters—waters to the ankles, waters to the knees, waters to the loins, waters to swim in—a river of waters. Jesus himself discoursed to the woman of Samaria of the saving benefits of His grace as "living water"—water which slakes all thirst for ever. The people of God are likened to fishes, whose life-element is water. And so in the text the Saviour compares His redeeming virtue and grace to water, and says, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
In those signs, then, which the primeval patriarchs hung upon the stars as everlasting witnesses of God's gracious purposes to be achieved through the Seed of the woman, we would certainly expect to find some great prominence given to this same significant symbol. And as we would anticipate, so do we really find, especially in the sixth sign of Zodiac, which we now come to consider."
The Sign Of Aquarius
"Here is the figure of a man with a great urn upon his arm, from which he is pouring out from the heavens a stream of water which flows with all the volume of a swollen river. Mythology calls him Ganymedes, the bright, glorified, and happy One — the Phrygian youth so beautiful on earth that the great King and Father of gods carried him away to heaven on eagles' wings to live in glory with immortals. Some say that he came to an untimely death in this world; and the stories in general combine in representing him as the beloved and favorite of the divine Father, exalted to glory and made the chosen cup-bearer of the Deity. Classic art portrays him as a most beautiful young man, sometimes carried by an eagle, jometimes ministering drink to an eagle from a bowl which he bears, and again as the particular companion of the eternal Father. Amid all these earthly varnishes which paganism has daubed over the picture we still may see the sacred image shining through. The true Ganymedes is the beautiful Lord Jesus, "the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." Cut off was He in His early manhood, but divinely lifted up again, borne away to heaven on unfailing wings, seated in brightness and glory beside the everlasting Father, loved and approved as God's only-begotten Son, made the sovereign Lord and Dispenser of grace and salvation, and by His merit procuring and pouring out the very "river of water of life." The urn He holds is the exhaustless reservoir of all the fulness of renewing, comforting, and sanctifying power. And the turning of that holy urn for its contents to flow down into the world below is the precise picture of the fulfilment of those old prophetic promises: "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour out my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring;" "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions " (Isa. 44 : 3 ; Joel 2 : 28) .
The name of the principal star in this sign —Sa'ad al Melik—means Record of the outpouring. The Coptic, Greek, and Latin names of the sign itself signify The Pourerforth of water, The exalted Waterman, as though specially to designate Him who says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
Promise Of The Holy Spirit
"When Christ was about to leave the world He said to His followers, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. . . He will guide you into all truth. . . He will show you things to come. . . He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (John 16). That promise included all the divine life-power issuing from the mediation of Christ for the illumination, regeneration, and salvation of men —all the renewing, cleansing, comforting, and energizing grace for the gathering of the elect and the bringing of believers to eternal life and glory. The Holy Ghost was in the world from the beginning, but here was the promise of a new and enlarged grant and endowment, to lift, nourish, and distinguish Christian believers. The same was gloriously fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and filled all the house where they were sitting; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." And when the Jews mocked and derided, the sacred explanation was that Jesus, being raised up again from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God, and having so received of the Father, was now the Giver and Shedder-forth of this marvellous power. He is thus presented to our contemplation as the glorified Pourer-forth from heaven of the blessed waters of life and salvation; in other words, the true Aquarius, of whom the picture in the sign was the prophecy and foreshowing. Wherever the Scriptures represent the Spirit and grace of God under the imagery of waters, the idea of unfailing supply and plenteous abundance is also invariably connected with it. Sometimes it is a plentiful rain; sometimes it is a voluminous fountain; sometimes it is a great river flowing with fulness that supplies a thousand life-freighted rivulets. Inspiration tells us that the rock smitten by Moses was the type of the smiting of Christ and the blessings proceeding from Him; but in that case the waters "gushed; they ran in dry places like a river." Isaiah sings: "The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams." Ezekiel's river was deep and broad, healing even the Dead Sea with the abundance of its flow. Zechariah says these heavenly waters flow out to both seas, and continue without cessation summer and winter alike. God's promise is, "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water;" which, as John Brentius says, "denotes the great plenteousness of the Word and eternal blessedness flowing from Christ the Fountain." And the same is characteristic of the picture in this sign. From the urn of Aquarius flows a vast, constant, and voluminous river. It flows in a bending stream both to eastward and westward, and enlarges as it flows. The imagery of the Scriptures and the imagery of this sign are exactly of a piece, and the true reason of the coincidence is, that both were meant to record and set forth the same glorious evangelic truths."
"The second Decan adds still further to the clearness and certainty of the meaning. This is the constellation of Aquila, the pierced, wounded, and falling eagle. It is but another picture of the grain of wheat falling and dying. The principal star in this constellation is of the first magnitude, and is the star by which the position of the moon—also a symbol of the Church—is noted for the computation of longitude at sea. Its name is Al Tair, which in Arabic means the wounded. The name of the second star in the same language means the scarlet-colored—covered with blood. The name of the third means the torn, whilst that of another means the wounded in the heel. It is simply impossible to explain how all these names got into this sign and its Decans, except by intention to denote the great fact of the promised Saviour's death.
The myths explain this eagle in different ways. Some say it is Merops, king of Cos, the husband of Ethemea, who lamented for his condemned wife, and was transformed into an eagle and placed among the stars. Some say it is the form assumed by Jupiter in carrying off Ganymedes, whilst others describe it as the eagle which brought nectar to Jupiter while he lay concealed in the Cretan cave by reason of the fury and wrath of Saturn. In short, pagan wisdom did not know what it meant, though holding it in marked regard. And yet, as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, and reigns in glory for its good—as He humbled himself in obedience to death that He might take to himself a glorious Church to serve the eternal Father in immortal blessedness—as He was really brought down into the cave of death, whence He was revived by heavenly virtues after the exhaustion of the fierce wrath of insulted sovereignty,—we can still see some dim reflections of the original truth and meaning even in these confused and contradictory fables.
The eagle is one of the biblical symbols of Christ. "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles wings and brought you unto myself" (Ex. 19:4), "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttered! over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him" (Deut. 32 : 11, 12). The eagle is a royal bird, and the natural enemy of the serpent. It is elevated in its habits, strong, and swift. It is very careful and tender toward its young, and is said to tear itself to nourish them with its own blood when all other means fail. And here is the noble Eagle, the promised Seed of the woman, pierced, torn, and bleeding, that those begotten in His image may be saved from death, sheltered, protected, and made to live for ever.
But, as in the case of the Arrow, so also in this case, the figure will admit the further idea which takes in the proud sinner, pierced by the arrow of the Word and brought down into the humiliation of penitence, even to death and despair as to all his former hopes in himself. And until the high-soaring children of pride are thus brought down by the arrow of God's Word, and fall completely out of the heaven of their dreams, conformably to Christ's death for them, there can come to them no right life. Paul was alive without the law once, and a very high-soaring and bloodthirsty eagle; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and he died—died the death that could alone bring him to right life."
The Dolphin
"The third Decan of this sign is the beautiful cluster of little stars named Delphinus. It is the figure of a vigorous fish leaping upward. Taken in connection with the dying goat, it conveys the idea of springing up again out of death. Our great Sin-bearer not only died for our sins, but He also rose again, thereby becoming "the first-fruits of them that slept." As the Head and Representative of His Church, He is the principal Fish in the congregation of the fishes. Their quickening, life, and spiritual resurrection rest on His coming forth again after having gone down into the waves of death for their sakes. Put to death in the flesh, He was quickened by the Spirit, and in His quickening and resurrection all His people share. Their sins having been buried in His death, their life is by virtue of His resurrection, that "like as He was raised from the dead, so we should walk in newness of life," ever advancing toward a still more complete resurrection to come. The corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, but from that death there is a springing up again to the intended fruitfulness. Christ dies and rises again, and His people, slain in their old carnal confidence, absolved by His suffering of the penalty due to them, and planting themselves solely upon Him as their Lord and Redeemer, rise with him into the new, spiritual, and eternal life. The picture of the dying goat, with its after-part a living fish, implied this, but the nature of the transition could not be so well expressed in that figure by itself. Hence the additional explanatory figure of an upspringing fish, to show more vividly that the transition is by means of resurrection to a new life of another style. We thus have the vivid symbol of both the resurrection of the slain Saviour as the Head of the Church, and the included new creation of His people, who rise to their new life through His death and resurrection. In ancient mythology the dolphin was the most sacred and honored of fishes, doubtless because of its place among the ancient constellations, though the myths representing it are very different. It was specially sacred to Apollo, and its name was added to his—some say, because he slew the dragon; others say, because in the form of a dolphin he showed the Cretan colonists the way to Delphi, the most celebrated place in the Grecian world and the seat of the most famous of all the oracles. According to some accounts, it was a dolphin which brought about the marriage of the unwilling Amphitrite with the god of the sea, and for this it received place among the stars. The muddy waters reflect something of the original idea. Christ was the true Son of Deity. It was He who broke the Dragon's power by submitting to become the atoning Mediator. "In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." By His death and resurrection He has opened and shown the way by which His people come to the blessed city of which Jehovah is the light. By His mediation He has brought about a marriage between men in flight from their Lord and Him who loved them with a love that passeth knowledge. And in believing foretoken of all this His sign, as the Head of His people, was thus placed in the heavens, where it stands as another form of the parable of the buried corn of wheat rising in new life, of which all who are His are partakers."
Salvation Through Atonement
"Capricornus is thus the illustrious bearer and witness of the most vital evangelical truths. There is no more central or important doctrine of our holy faith than this, that the pure and sinless Son of God, having assumed our nature for the purpose, did really and truly take the sins of the world upon Him, and bore the agonies of an accursed death as the sacrifice and propitiation for our guilt. Whatever difficulty human reason may have in receiving it, it is the very heart and substance of the Gospel tidings, on which all the hopes of fallen man repose. "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, that repentance and remission of sins might be preached in His name" (Luke 24:46, 47) This "first of all" Paul preached, and Christians received and held, "how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (i Cor. 15 : 3, 4). "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2 : 14, 15). Hence the highest apostolic song on earth is that led off by the holy seer of Patmos: "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever;" whilst the saints in heaven, in devoutest adoration, fall down before the Lamb, and cry, "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood" (Rev. i : 5, 6; 5:9).
And how cheering and confirmatory to our faith to see and know that what Prophets and Apostles have been testifying on earth the heavens themselves have been proclaiming for all these ages! How assuring to know that what we build our hope on now is the same that the holy patriarchs from Adam's time built on as their hope and joy! They believed and expected, and hung their faith and testimony on the stars, that in the fulness of time the Seed of the woman should come, and bow himself in death as the Sin-offering for a guilty world, and rise again in life and frnitfulness of saving virtues, whereby His Church should rise with Him, sharing at once the merit of His atonement and the power of His resurrection, and thus live and reign in inseparable union with himself in life and glory everlasting. Every September (December - SG) midnight of every year for all these centuries has accordingly displayed the sign of it in the middle of the sky, and held it forth to the eyes of mortals as the blessed hope and only refuge of a condemned world, at the same time that it marks the point of change in year and climate, and when the darkness is the greatest opens the southern gateway of the Sun.
Yes, this strange goat-fish, dying in its head, but living in its after-part—falling as an eagle pierced and wounded by the arrow of death, but springing up from the dark waves with the matchless vigor and beauty of the dolphin—sinking under sin's condemnation, but rising again as sin's conqueror—developing new life out of death, and heralding a new spring-time out of December's long drear nights—was framed by no blind chance of man. The story which it tells is the old, old story on which hangs the only availing hope that ever came, or ever can come, to Adam's race. To what it signifies we are for ever shut up as the only saving faith. In that dying Seed of the woman we must see our Sin-bearer and the atonement for our guilt, or die ourselves unpardoned and unsanctified. Through His death and blood-shedding we must find our life, or the true life, which alone is life, we never can have."
The Living Waters of Aquarius
John 7:37: "If any man thirst, let him come untj Me, and drink."
"One of the gladdest things in our world is water. In whatever shape it presents itself, it is full of interest and beauty. Whether trickling down in pearly mist from the fragrant distilleries of Nature, or rippling in merry windings through the grassy dell or shady grove; whether jetting from the rocky precipices of the mountain, or gathered into the rolling plains of ocean; whether sparkling in the ice-gem, or pouring in the cataract; whether coming in silver drops from the bow-spanned heavens, or forcing itself out in glassy purity from the dark veins of the earth; whether in the feathery crystals of the snow-flakes, or grandly moving in the volume of the ample river,—it is everywhere and always beautiful. Next to light, it is God's brightest element; and light itself is as much at home in it as in its own native sky. Sometimes, in some connections, it is the symbol of evil, but even there it is the expression of life and energy. Nor is it much to be wondered that in the hot Orient men were moved to deify fountains and erect votive temples over them, as though they were gracious divinities. The preciousness of bright, fresh waters to parched and needy man is beyond all compare. Where such waters come they bring gladness and rejuvenation, luxuriousness and plenty. Where they pour forth, sinking strength recovers, dying life rekindles, perishing Nature revives, a thousand delights are awakened, and everything rejoices and sings with new-begotten life.
Such an object in Nature could not fail to be seized by the sacred writers to represent the life-giving purity and regenerating power of divine grace and salvation. Accordingly, we find it one of the common and most lively images under which the Scriptures set forth the cleansing, renewing, and saving virtues that come to man in God's redemptive administrations. Thus the Spirit in Baalam's unwilling lips described the goodliness of Israel's tents " as the valleys spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, as cedar trees beside the waters." Thus when the inspired Moses began his song of God's grace to Israel's tribes, he said, " My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." The good man is " like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, whose leaf also shall not wither." The joy of Messiah's day is the opening of "a fountain to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." Ezekiel beholds the blessed influences of the sanctuary as issuing waters—waters to the ankles, waters to the knees, waters to the loins, waters to swim in—a river of waters. Jesus himself discoursed to the woman of Samaria of the saving benefits of His grace as "living water"—water which slakes all thirst for ever. The people of God are likened to fishes, whose life-element is water. And so in the text the Saviour compares His redeeming virtue and grace to water, and says, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
In those signs, then, which the primeval patriarchs hung upon the stars as everlasting witnesses of God's gracious purposes to be achieved through the Seed of the woman, we would certainly expect to find some great prominence given to this same significant symbol. And as we would anticipate, so do we really find, especially in the sixth sign of Zodiac, which we now come to consider."
The Sign Of Aquarius
"Here is the figure of a man with a great urn upon his arm, from which he is pouring out from the heavens a stream of water which flows with all the volume of a swollen river. Mythology calls him Ganymedes, the bright, glorified, and happy One — the Phrygian youth so beautiful on earth that the great King and Father of gods carried him away to heaven on eagles' wings to live in glory with immortals. Some say that he came to an untimely death in this world; and the stories in general combine in representing him as the beloved and favorite of the divine Father, exalted to glory and made the chosen cup-bearer of the Deity. Classic art portrays him as a most beautiful young man, sometimes carried by an eagle, jometimes ministering drink to an eagle from a bowl which he bears, and again as the particular companion of the eternal Father. Amid all these earthly varnishes which paganism has daubed over the picture we still may see the sacred image shining through. The true Ganymedes is the beautiful Lord Jesus, "the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." Cut off was He in His early manhood, but divinely lifted up again, borne away to heaven on unfailing wings, seated in brightness and glory beside the everlasting Father, loved and approved as God's only-begotten Son, made the sovereign Lord and Dispenser of grace and salvation, and by His merit procuring and pouring out the very "river of water of life." The urn He holds is the exhaustless reservoir of all the fulness of renewing, comforting, and sanctifying power. And the turning of that holy urn for its contents to flow down into the world below is the precise picture of the fulfilment of those old prophetic promises: "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour out my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring;" "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions " (Isa. 44 : 3 ; Joel 2 : 28) .
The name of the principal star in this sign —Sa'ad al Melik—means Record of the outpouring. The Coptic, Greek, and Latin names of the sign itself signify The Pourerforth of water, The exalted Waterman, as though specially to designate Him who says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
Promise Of The Holy Spirit
"When Christ was about to leave the world He said to His followers, "It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. . . He will guide you into all truth. . . He will show you things to come. . . He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you" (John 16). That promise included all the divine life-power issuing from the mediation of Christ for the illumination, regeneration, and salvation of men —all the renewing, cleansing, comforting, and energizing grace for the gathering of the elect and the bringing of believers to eternal life and glory. The Holy Ghost was in the world from the beginning, but here was the promise of a new and enlarged grant and endowment, to lift, nourish, and distinguish Christian believers. The same was gloriously fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and filled all the house where they were sitting; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." And when the Jews mocked and derided, the sacred explanation was that Jesus, being raised up again from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God, and having so received of the Father, was now the Giver and Shedder-forth of this marvellous power. He is thus presented to our contemplation as the glorified Pourer-forth from heaven of the blessed waters of life and salvation; in other words, the true Aquarius, of whom the picture in the sign was the prophecy and foreshowing. Wherever the Scriptures represent the Spirit and grace of God under the imagery of waters, the idea of unfailing supply and plenteous abundance is also invariably connected with it. Sometimes it is a plentiful rain; sometimes it is a voluminous fountain; sometimes it is a great river flowing with fulness that supplies a thousand life-freighted rivulets. Inspiration tells us that the rock smitten by Moses was the type of the smiting of Christ and the blessings proceeding from Him; but in that case the waters "gushed; they ran in dry places like a river." Isaiah sings: "The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams." Ezekiel's river was deep and broad, healing even the Dead Sea with the abundance of its flow. Zechariah says these heavenly waters flow out to both seas, and continue without cessation summer and winter alike. God's promise is, "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water;" which, as John Brentius says, "denotes the great plenteousness of the Word and eternal blessedness flowing from Christ the Fountain." And the same is characteristic of the picture in this sign. From the urn of Aquarius flows a vast, constant, and voluminous river. It flows in a bending stream both to eastward and westward, and enlarges as it flows. The imagery of the Scriptures and the imagery of this sign are exactly of a piece, and the true reason of the coincidence is, that both were meant to record and set forth the same glorious evangelic truths."
Sep 25, 2011
Gospel in the Stars X
Capricornus - Death and New Life
John 12 : 24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
"In connection with these words I continue the study of that evangelic record which we find written on the stars in the ancient astronomy.
As far as we have gone in these investigations, four signs of the Zodiac, with their accompanying Decans, have been discussed— Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius. Eight more of these signs accordingly remain to be considered; and to these, in their order, I propose that we now direct our attention."
Order Of The Signs
"...these twelve signs of the Solar Zodiac divide themselves into three distinct groups, each group having its own distinct subject. The first group, consisting of the four signs which have already been before us, relates to the Person, Work, and Triumph of the illustrious Redeemer, with special reference to himself. The next succeeding group, consisting of Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries, with their several Decans, relates to the Fruits of His Work and Mediatorship—the formation, condition, and destiny of the Church, or that body of people spiritually born to Him through faith, and made partakers of the benefits of His redemptive administrations; whilst the third and last group relates to the final Consummation of the whole in the united glory of the Redeemer and the redeemed, and the exalted condition of things which the Consummation is to realize. All this will be more clearly brought out as we proceed. At present we make our entrance upon the second or middle group."
The Sign Of Cappicornus
"Here we have the picture of a fallen goat with the vigorous tail of a fish—half goat and half fish.
It may seem singular and far-fetched to connect the text I have read with such a figure. A little consideration, however, will show that the subject-matter in both is in fact identical, though the particular imagery is entirely different. That of the text is the image which we had in Virgo, where the illustrious Son of the virgin is likened to a grain of corn or seed, denoted by Spica, the ear of wheat. It was necessary for this seed or grain of wheat to fall into the ground and die in order to reach its intended fruitfulness, which fruitfulness arises directly out of such falling and dying. The meaning of the passage is, that Christ was to die as a sacrifice, and that by virtue of His sacrificial death salvation was to come to man and the congregation of saved ones formed...As the phoenix was said to arise out of the ashes of its consumed predecessor, so the Church, or congregation of saints, rises out of the death of Christ, sacrificed for the sins of the world. This is everywhere the teaching of the Scriptures, and nowhere more pointedly and graphically than in this text. And when we translate this idea into the imagery of the fifth sign of the Zodiac, we find another very graphic and much older picture of precisely the same thing."
Type And Antitype
"First of all, we have here the figure of a goat. This is a sacrificial animal. God commanded the children of Israel, saying, "Take ye a kid of the goats for a sin-offering" (Lev. 9:31). So Aaron "took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin" (Lev. 9: 15). And of the goat of the sin-offering Moses said, "It is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord" (Lev. 10: 16, 17).
In the next place, this goat is fallen down in the attitude of dying. His one leg is doubled under his body, and the other is powerless to lift him up. His head is drooping and sinking in death. This is the identical falling and dying of Christ as the sin-offering to which He refers in the text. It is the same Seed of the woman, in the attitude and condition of a sacrifice for sin. Christ surely was "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities." "He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken." As the Head of the flock He suffered in their stead, and laid down His life in sacrifice that they might live. And here, it is written on the stars from the earliest ages, and with a vividness of pictorial representation which no one can contemplate without realizing that the picture is intensely striking."
The names in this sign also point to the same thought and significance. Gedi and Dabih are the most prominent stars in this constellation; and in Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac these names mean, the cut-off, the hewndown, the sacrifice slain. Other stars in the same constellation have names of similar import, signifying the slaying, the record of the cutting off. Even the elements of the name of the sign as we still have it from the Latins, Capricornus, mean not only the goat, but atonement, sinking or bowed in death. And if there is any significance whatever in these celestial pictures, we have in this sign the symbol of sacrificial death, which is the exact idea of the text."
The Church
"But it is at the same time a picture of another kind of life, developed out of this sacrificial death, and vitally conjoined with it. The body of the fallen and dying goat terminates in the body and tail of a vigorous fish. The living fish thus takes its being out of the dying goat, and has all its life and vigor from thence. Accordingly, the Coptic name of this sign signifies the station or mansion of bearing. In addition to the falling and dying, it is the sign of a mystic procreation and bringing forth. That which is brought forth is a fish, which is again a familiar and well-understood sacred symbol.
When Jesus called and appointed His first ministers He said, "I will make you fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19). So when God said He will bring the children of Israel again into their own land, His word was, " I will send for many fishers, and they shall fish them" (Jer. 16: 15, 16). So in Ezekiel's vision of the holy waters the word was, "And there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither" (Ez. 47 : 1—9), Christ speaks of His saved ones as "born of water" (John 3:5). In the parable of the drag-net and in the miraculous draughts of fishes God's people are contemplated as fishes. Hence, in both Testaments fishes stand as the symbol of believers. "Fishes signify regenerate persons," says Dr. Gill. "Fish are those that are wrought upon and brought in by the Gospel, and are so called for six reasons," says Greenhill. "Fish are the men who have attained to life by the Messianic salvation," says Dr. Hengstenberg. The early Christians were accustomed to call believers Ichthues and Pisces—that is, fishes. In the name and titles of our Lord—"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour"—the initials in Greek form a word or name which signifies a fish, and hence the Fathers technically designated Christ as the mystic divine Fish, who in the waters of baptism begets the multitude of fishes—the congregation of His people. Christ is therefore at once the sacrificial goat of the sin-offering and the begetter of a body of reborn men, the Church, the congregation of the quickened and saved. The diction of the Scriptures thus answers exactly to the figure in this sign, which is the dying goat developed into a fish body."
The Mystical Union
"Even the great New-Testament doctrine of the Mystical Union of believers with their Saviour is here most strikingly signified. As men naturally are but reproductions and perpetuations of Adam, and live his life, so Christ's people are the reproduction and perpetuation of Christ, living His life. They are in Him as the branch is in the vine. They are repeatedly called His body, one with Him, "members of His body and of His flesh and of His bones." And so close and real is their life-connection and incorporation with Him that they are in a sense sometimes called "Christ." What, then, could better symbolize this than the sign before us? This goat and fish are one—one being, the life of the dying reproduced and continued in a spiritual product which is part of one and the same body. The goat of sacrifice sinks into a new creation, which is yet an organic part of itself. The image is grotesque, and has no prototype in Nature, but it is true, exact and graphic. The forgiveness and regeneration of men, and their incorporation with Christ, is something wholly above Nature—something altogether miraculous—which could not be adequately signified by any natural symbols; and so, as the double nature of the Redeemer himself was denoted by an arbitrary figure, half horse and half man, so the relation between Him as the Sin-bearer and His saved people, who live by virtue of His death, is denoted by another arbitrary figure, made up of a dying goat and a living fish. Nor is it in the power of human genius or imagination to devise another figure capable of setting forth mere simply and truly the great and glorious mystery."
The Myths
"The pagan myths concerning this sign correspond with these interpretations. This goat is everywhere regarded as Pan, Bacchus, or some divine personage. How he came to have the form of a goat is explained after this fashion: The gods were feasting near a great river, when suddenly the terrible Typhon came upon them, compelling them to assume other shapes in order to escape his fury. Bacchus took the form of a goat and plunged into the river, and that part of his body which was under the water took the form of a fish. To commemorate the occurrence Jupiter placed him in the heavens in his metamorphosed shape. The story is absurd, but through it shines something of the great original idea. It was to secure deliverance from the fury of God's wrath upon sin, and from the ruinous power of the Devil, that the Son of God took upon Him the form of a Sinbearer and Sacrifice, and in this character was plunged into the deep waters of death. It was by His taking of this form, and His sinking in death as our substitute and propitiation, that life came to those who were under the power of death, whereby they became a living part of Him, never more to be separated from Him. The myth is only a paganized and corrupted paraphrase of the original reference which the Spirit of sacred prophecy had written in the primeval astronomy, whence the whole conception originated.
Dagon, the half-fish god of the Philistines, and Oannes, the half-fish god of the Babylonians, also connect with this Zodiacal Capricornus, and have embodied in them the same original thought as well as figure. Philo tells us that Dagon means fruitfulness, the seed-producing; and so Christ is the Seed, the Corn of wheat, fallen and dying in the goat, but producing the living fish, the Church, which is the travail of His soul, the true fruit of His atonement. Eusebius says that Dagon was the god of husbandry, the god of seeds and harvests. Pluche says that Dagon among the Philistines was the same as Horus among the Egyptians; and Horus takes the character of the meek and silent Sufferer from whom comes the horn of blessing and plenty. Dagon had the human form in place of the goat, but that was only a further interpretation of the meaning; for the goat part of Capricornus stands for the Seed of the woman, and so is in reality the man Christ Jesus.
Berosus speaks of Oannes as likewise half man and half fish. Some of the ancient pictures of him still remain, in which he is figured as a great fish outside, but under and within the fish, and joined with it as its more vital interior, was a tall and vigorous man, standing upright in great dignity, with one hand lifted up as if calling for attention, and in the other carrying a basket or satchel as if filled with treasure. He is fabled as having risen out of the sea to teach the primitive Babylonians the secrets of wisdom, particularly the elements of culture, civilization, and law, organizing them into a prosperous commonwealth. An ancient fragment says of him: "He grew not old in wisdom, and the wise people with his wisdom he filled." The representation is throughout in full accord with what I have been saying of Capricornus. There is a coming up out of the deep in glorious life, and a blessed fruitfulness brought forth thereby, and that fruitfulness in the form of instructed, wise, and disciplined people. It is the fallen Seed of the woman risen up from death after having gone down into the invisible and unknown world, begetting and creating a new order among men—the dying Seed issuing in the believing body, the Church, in which He still lives and walks and teaches and blesses. The myth embodies the exact story of the sign."
Spiritual Conceptions
"Moreover, the very complexity of the figure of Capricornus, at first so confusing and hard to construe, conducts us into still further particularities of evangelic truth. As far as we have been looking at it, we see the literal death of one being issuing in the spiritual life of other beings, of whose new life He is the life. It is Christ in the one case corporeally sacrificed, and His people mystically resurrected to newness of life in the other. But along with this goes a reflex which it is important for us to observe, as it brings out some of the deep practical spiritualities of true religion. Of course, the rising of the fishes out of the dying goat implies the literal and potent resurrection of Christ himself as the Begetter and Giver of this spiritual resurrection to His people; for if He did not rise, then no preaching or believing would avail to bring us to life or salvation. But as we rise to spiritual life through the power of His resurrection, so there is also implied a dying with Him in order to rise with Him; for there is no resurrection where there has been no dying. We look for a resurrection of the body, because there is first a death of the body. And as God's people are partakers of a mystic or spiritual resurrection, there goes before it a corresponding death. That death out of which their new life comes through and in Christ is twofold. It is first a deadness in sin—existence indeed, but morally and spiritually a mere carcass, with no life-standing to the law or any practical spiritual life toward God and heaven—a life that is nothing but spiritual death and corruption under sentence of eternal death. In the next place, it is death to sin, both as to its penalty and power, a cessation of the mere carnal life and of further existence under condemnation. Now, the great office of religion, through the Seed of the woman and His sacrificial offering of himself to expiate our sins, is to bring death to this old life in sin and death, and by this wounding, slaying and putting off of the old man of corruption, to generate, evolve, sustain, teach and train the new man, which is renewed after the image of Christ's own resurrection, and which beams with better knowledge and true holiness. Christ corporeally dies for us, and we mystically die to the old death-life with, in, and by virtue of Him. We die to the death-penalty which holds us whilst in the mere carnal life, and put it clean off from us for ever, in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, by accepting Him and believing in Him as our Surety and Propitiation..."
Christ's Body
Refers to 1) The physical corporeal body of Christ, and 2) The mystical or spiritual body of Christ, composed of each believer (members)
"he is the head of the body, the church" (Col. 1: 18 and verse 24)
"For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body." (Eph. 5: 23)
"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." (Romans 12: 5)
The Arrow
"The first is Sagitta, the shot and killing arrow. It appears naked and alone. It has left the bow, and is speeding to its aim. It is a heavenly arrow, and He who shoots it is invisible. There is a majesty and a mystery it which startles and awes. It is the death-arrow of almighty justice, which goes forth from the throne against all unrighteousness and sin. It is that death-inflicting instrument which comes with resistless force and sharpness against a world that lieth in sin, and which pierces the spotless Son of God as found in the place of guilty and condemned man. The execution it does is shown in the fallen and dying goat. It is the arrow of divine justice and condemnation upon sin piercing through the body and soul of the meek Lamb of God, who agreed to bear our sins and answer for them.
In the thirty-eighth Psalm we have this very arrow of God sticking fast in the body of the mysterious Sufferer, wounding His flesh and His bones, and completely overwhelming Him. He is troubled and bowed down, as under a crushing burden. His heart panteth, his strength faileth, the light of his eyes fades out. Not only is he the persecuted object of man's hatred, but shut up within the strong bars of divine judgment. It was divine grace that prepared and shot that arrow against the person of the blameless One; but, being found in the room and stead of sinners, God's holy vengeance could not hold back for the sparing even of the only-begotten of the Father, so full of grace and truth. Christ came into the world to die for it; and toward this lowest deep His steps daily led Him as He looked onward to the harvest that was being sown amid these tears. It would seem almost as if the song of the Psalmist had been copied direct from what is thus pictured in these signs.
But this Arrow doubtless covers a further idea. There is a spiritual piercing and slaying in the case of those who come to new life in Christ, akin to the piercing and slaying of Christ himself. Sharp and hurtful words are compared to arrows. And of this character are the words of God as pronounced upon the wicked, judging and condemning them for their sins, bringing them down from their lofty self-security, and killing out of them the vain imaginings in which they live. Isaiah speaks of this sort of shaft or arrow in the Lord's quiver—the arrow of the Word—the arrow of conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment—a wounding and killing arrow which enters into men's souls, and makes humble penitents of them, that they may come to life in Christ. The death of Christ for our sins also takes the form of a word, preaching, testimony, and argument, even the preaching of the Cross, to kill the life of sin and to cause men to die unto it; so that the very arrow of sovereign justice which drank up the life of Christ as our Substitute and Propitiation passes through Him to pierce also those whose life in sin cost Him all this humiliation and pain; also killing them to that ill and condemned life that they may live the Christ-life as His renewed, justified, and redeemed children.
Thus the Arrow fills out precisely the same ideas which we find symbolized in the sign of Capricornus."
Union with Christ
1. Its nature
a) Legally and representativly
b) Vitally and actually connected
2. Its origin
a) By appointment (election/predestination)
b) By rebirth (joined to him by faith)
Eternal Vital Union Doctrine or "Two Seed" doctrine of Daniel Parker and the birth of the "two seeders" sect.
Ordo Salutis Connection
Union with Christ must come first, before there can be pardon, justification, cleansing, sanctification, etc.
Union with Christ is typified in various kinds of union among men. Union with Christ is like the union of husband and wife.
The relationship of conviction of sin to regeneration. Does conviction of sin, logically and chronologically, precede regeneration or new birth, or does it follow it?
If we say it follows it, as do the Hardshells, then we would be forced to say that anyone who feels convicted of his sin is a born again character. The problem with this view is that it makes unbelievers to be regenerated souls. For it is a plain truth that 1) many who come under conviction of sin never come to faith in Christ and 2) that there is often a large period of time between the experience of conviction and coming to trust Christ for salvation. In the bible, there is no such character as a regenerated unbeliever!
Conviction of sin is a preparation work for regeneration. The cleansing of the conscience from the guilt that is felt in conviction is what occurs in the new birth experience.
Men are killed in conviction of sin by the divine arrow of the word of God. In the case of the elect, he guarentees that this conviction will produce repentance, or complete change of heart (thinking). This conviction produces regeneration when he causes his gospel to be heard in a saving, transforming, and powerful manner, when it is believed. Christ is received as the Lord, Savior, and King, by the one coming to place his trust in Jesus. The ego is dethroned in conviction of sin. Christ sits enthroned in the heart, soul, and mind in regeneration and new birth.
Union with Christ must come first and this, according to scripture, occurs when one believes in Christ, when he gives his all to Jesus, and ascribes all his hopes to him, when he places his trust in him. Faith is joined with repentance in scripture, and a man who has savingly believed is one who has repented. Part of his repentance preceded his new birth, for contrition or conviction of sin, is the first step in the process of repentance.
Union with Christ does not occur in water baptism. Union with Christ must precede all good works.
John 12 : 24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
"In connection with these words I continue the study of that evangelic record which we find written on the stars in the ancient astronomy.
As far as we have gone in these investigations, four signs of the Zodiac, with their accompanying Decans, have been discussed— Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius. Eight more of these signs accordingly remain to be considered; and to these, in their order, I propose that we now direct our attention."
Order Of The Signs
"...these twelve signs of the Solar Zodiac divide themselves into three distinct groups, each group having its own distinct subject. The first group, consisting of the four signs which have already been before us, relates to the Person, Work, and Triumph of the illustrious Redeemer, with special reference to himself. The next succeeding group, consisting of Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries, with their several Decans, relates to the Fruits of His Work and Mediatorship—the formation, condition, and destiny of the Church, or that body of people spiritually born to Him through faith, and made partakers of the benefits of His redemptive administrations; whilst the third and last group relates to the final Consummation of the whole in the united glory of the Redeemer and the redeemed, and the exalted condition of things which the Consummation is to realize. All this will be more clearly brought out as we proceed. At present we make our entrance upon the second or middle group."
The Sign Of Cappicornus
"Here we have the picture of a fallen goat with the vigorous tail of a fish—half goat and half fish.
It may seem singular and far-fetched to connect the text I have read with such a figure. A little consideration, however, will show that the subject-matter in both is in fact identical, though the particular imagery is entirely different. That of the text is the image which we had in Virgo, where the illustrious Son of the virgin is likened to a grain of corn or seed, denoted by Spica, the ear of wheat. It was necessary for this seed or grain of wheat to fall into the ground and die in order to reach its intended fruitfulness, which fruitfulness arises directly out of such falling and dying. The meaning of the passage is, that Christ was to die as a sacrifice, and that by virtue of His sacrificial death salvation was to come to man and the congregation of saved ones formed...As the phoenix was said to arise out of the ashes of its consumed predecessor, so the Church, or congregation of saints, rises out of the death of Christ, sacrificed for the sins of the world. This is everywhere the teaching of the Scriptures, and nowhere more pointedly and graphically than in this text. And when we translate this idea into the imagery of the fifth sign of the Zodiac, we find another very graphic and much older picture of precisely the same thing."
Type And Antitype
"First of all, we have here the figure of a goat. This is a sacrificial animal. God commanded the children of Israel, saying, "Take ye a kid of the goats for a sin-offering" (Lev. 9:31). So Aaron "took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin" (Lev. 9: 15). And of the goat of the sin-offering Moses said, "It is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord" (Lev. 10: 16, 17).
In the next place, this goat is fallen down in the attitude of dying. His one leg is doubled under his body, and the other is powerless to lift him up. His head is drooping and sinking in death. This is the identical falling and dying of Christ as the sin-offering to which He refers in the text. It is the same Seed of the woman, in the attitude and condition of a sacrifice for sin. Christ surely was "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities." "He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken." As the Head of the flock He suffered in their stead, and laid down His life in sacrifice that they might live. And here, it is written on the stars from the earliest ages, and with a vividness of pictorial representation which no one can contemplate without realizing that the picture is intensely striking."
The names in this sign also point to the same thought and significance. Gedi and Dabih are the most prominent stars in this constellation; and in Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac these names mean, the cut-off, the hewndown, the sacrifice slain. Other stars in the same constellation have names of similar import, signifying the slaying, the record of the cutting off. Even the elements of the name of the sign as we still have it from the Latins, Capricornus, mean not only the goat, but atonement, sinking or bowed in death. And if there is any significance whatever in these celestial pictures, we have in this sign the symbol of sacrificial death, which is the exact idea of the text."
The Church
"But it is at the same time a picture of another kind of life, developed out of this sacrificial death, and vitally conjoined with it. The body of the fallen and dying goat terminates in the body and tail of a vigorous fish. The living fish thus takes its being out of the dying goat, and has all its life and vigor from thence. Accordingly, the Coptic name of this sign signifies the station or mansion of bearing. In addition to the falling and dying, it is the sign of a mystic procreation and bringing forth. That which is brought forth is a fish, which is again a familiar and well-understood sacred symbol.
When Jesus called and appointed His first ministers He said, "I will make you fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19). So when God said He will bring the children of Israel again into their own land, His word was, " I will send for many fishers, and they shall fish them" (Jer. 16: 15, 16). So in Ezekiel's vision of the holy waters the word was, "And there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither" (Ez. 47 : 1—9), Christ speaks of His saved ones as "born of water" (John 3:5). In the parable of the drag-net and in the miraculous draughts of fishes God's people are contemplated as fishes. Hence, in both Testaments fishes stand as the symbol of believers. "Fishes signify regenerate persons," says Dr. Gill. "Fish are those that are wrought upon and brought in by the Gospel, and are so called for six reasons," says Greenhill. "Fish are the men who have attained to life by the Messianic salvation," says Dr. Hengstenberg. The early Christians were accustomed to call believers Ichthues and Pisces—that is, fishes. In the name and titles of our Lord—"Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour"—the initials in Greek form a word or name which signifies a fish, and hence the Fathers technically designated Christ as the mystic divine Fish, who in the waters of baptism begets the multitude of fishes—the congregation of His people. Christ is therefore at once the sacrificial goat of the sin-offering and the begetter of a body of reborn men, the Church, the congregation of the quickened and saved. The diction of the Scriptures thus answers exactly to the figure in this sign, which is the dying goat developed into a fish body."
The Mystical Union
"Even the great New-Testament doctrine of the Mystical Union of believers with their Saviour is here most strikingly signified. As men naturally are but reproductions and perpetuations of Adam, and live his life, so Christ's people are the reproduction and perpetuation of Christ, living His life. They are in Him as the branch is in the vine. They are repeatedly called His body, one with Him, "members of His body and of His flesh and of His bones." And so close and real is their life-connection and incorporation with Him that they are in a sense sometimes called "Christ." What, then, could better symbolize this than the sign before us? This goat and fish are one—one being, the life of the dying reproduced and continued in a spiritual product which is part of one and the same body. The goat of sacrifice sinks into a new creation, which is yet an organic part of itself. The image is grotesque, and has no prototype in Nature, but it is true, exact and graphic. The forgiveness and regeneration of men, and their incorporation with Christ, is something wholly above Nature—something altogether miraculous—which could not be adequately signified by any natural symbols; and so, as the double nature of the Redeemer himself was denoted by an arbitrary figure, half horse and half man, so the relation between Him as the Sin-bearer and His saved people, who live by virtue of His death, is denoted by another arbitrary figure, made up of a dying goat and a living fish. Nor is it in the power of human genius or imagination to devise another figure capable of setting forth mere simply and truly the great and glorious mystery."
The Myths
"The pagan myths concerning this sign correspond with these interpretations. This goat is everywhere regarded as Pan, Bacchus, or some divine personage. How he came to have the form of a goat is explained after this fashion: The gods were feasting near a great river, when suddenly the terrible Typhon came upon them, compelling them to assume other shapes in order to escape his fury. Bacchus took the form of a goat and plunged into the river, and that part of his body which was under the water took the form of a fish. To commemorate the occurrence Jupiter placed him in the heavens in his metamorphosed shape. The story is absurd, but through it shines something of the great original idea. It was to secure deliverance from the fury of God's wrath upon sin, and from the ruinous power of the Devil, that the Son of God took upon Him the form of a Sinbearer and Sacrifice, and in this character was plunged into the deep waters of death. It was by His taking of this form, and His sinking in death as our substitute and propitiation, that life came to those who were under the power of death, whereby they became a living part of Him, never more to be separated from Him. The myth is only a paganized and corrupted paraphrase of the original reference which the Spirit of sacred prophecy had written in the primeval astronomy, whence the whole conception originated.
Dagon, the half-fish god of the Philistines, and Oannes, the half-fish god of the Babylonians, also connect with this Zodiacal Capricornus, and have embodied in them the same original thought as well as figure. Philo tells us that Dagon means fruitfulness, the seed-producing; and so Christ is the Seed, the Corn of wheat, fallen and dying in the goat, but producing the living fish, the Church, which is the travail of His soul, the true fruit of His atonement. Eusebius says that Dagon was the god of husbandry, the god of seeds and harvests. Pluche says that Dagon among the Philistines was the same as Horus among the Egyptians; and Horus takes the character of the meek and silent Sufferer from whom comes the horn of blessing and plenty. Dagon had the human form in place of the goat, but that was only a further interpretation of the meaning; for the goat part of Capricornus stands for the Seed of the woman, and so is in reality the man Christ Jesus.
Berosus speaks of Oannes as likewise half man and half fish. Some of the ancient pictures of him still remain, in which he is figured as a great fish outside, but under and within the fish, and joined with it as its more vital interior, was a tall and vigorous man, standing upright in great dignity, with one hand lifted up as if calling for attention, and in the other carrying a basket or satchel as if filled with treasure. He is fabled as having risen out of the sea to teach the primitive Babylonians the secrets of wisdom, particularly the elements of culture, civilization, and law, organizing them into a prosperous commonwealth. An ancient fragment says of him: "He grew not old in wisdom, and the wise people with his wisdom he filled." The representation is throughout in full accord with what I have been saying of Capricornus. There is a coming up out of the deep in glorious life, and a blessed fruitfulness brought forth thereby, and that fruitfulness in the form of instructed, wise, and disciplined people. It is the fallen Seed of the woman risen up from death after having gone down into the invisible and unknown world, begetting and creating a new order among men—the dying Seed issuing in the believing body, the Church, in which He still lives and walks and teaches and blesses. The myth embodies the exact story of the sign."
Spiritual Conceptions
"Moreover, the very complexity of the figure of Capricornus, at first so confusing and hard to construe, conducts us into still further particularities of evangelic truth. As far as we have been looking at it, we see the literal death of one being issuing in the spiritual life of other beings, of whose new life He is the life. It is Christ in the one case corporeally sacrificed, and His people mystically resurrected to newness of life in the other. But along with this goes a reflex which it is important for us to observe, as it brings out some of the deep practical spiritualities of true religion. Of course, the rising of the fishes out of the dying goat implies the literal and potent resurrection of Christ himself as the Begetter and Giver of this spiritual resurrection to His people; for if He did not rise, then no preaching or believing would avail to bring us to life or salvation. But as we rise to spiritual life through the power of His resurrection, so there is also implied a dying with Him in order to rise with Him; for there is no resurrection where there has been no dying. We look for a resurrection of the body, because there is first a death of the body. And as God's people are partakers of a mystic or spiritual resurrection, there goes before it a corresponding death. That death out of which their new life comes through and in Christ is twofold. It is first a deadness in sin—existence indeed, but morally and spiritually a mere carcass, with no life-standing to the law or any practical spiritual life toward God and heaven—a life that is nothing but spiritual death and corruption under sentence of eternal death. In the next place, it is death to sin, both as to its penalty and power, a cessation of the mere carnal life and of further existence under condemnation. Now, the great office of religion, through the Seed of the woman and His sacrificial offering of himself to expiate our sins, is to bring death to this old life in sin and death, and by this wounding, slaying and putting off of the old man of corruption, to generate, evolve, sustain, teach and train the new man, which is renewed after the image of Christ's own resurrection, and which beams with better knowledge and true holiness. Christ corporeally dies for us, and we mystically die to the old death-life with, in, and by virtue of Him. We die to the death-penalty which holds us whilst in the mere carnal life, and put it clean off from us for ever, in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, by accepting Him and believing in Him as our Surety and Propitiation..."
Christ's Body
Refers to 1) The physical corporeal body of Christ, and 2) The mystical or spiritual body of Christ, composed of each believer (members)
"he is the head of the body, the church" (Col. 1: 18 and verse 24)
"For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body." (Eph. 5: 23)
"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." (Romans 12: 5)
The Arrow
"The first is Sagitta, the shot and killing arrow. It appears naked and alone. It has left the bow, and is speeding to its aim. It is a heavenly arrow, and He who shoots it is invisible. There is a majesty and a mystery it which startles and awes. It is the death-arrow of almighty justice, which goes forth from the throne against all unrighteousness and sin. It is that death-inflicting instrument which comes with resistless force and sharpness against a world that lieth in sin, and which pierces the spotless Son of God as found in the place of guilty and condemned man. The execution it does is shown in the fallen and dying goat. It is the arrow of divine justice and condemnation upon sin piercing through the body and soul of the meek Lamb of God, who agreed to bear our sins and answer for them.
In the thirty-eighth Psalm we have this very arrow of God sticking fast in the body of the mysterious Sufferer, wounding His flesh and His bones, and completely overwhelming Him. He is troubled and bowed down, as under a crushing burden. His heart panteth, his strength faileth, the light of his eyes fades out. Not only is he the persecuted object of man's hatred, but shut up within the strong bars of divine judgment. It was divine grace that prepared and shot that arrow against the person of the blameless One; but, being found in the room and stead of sinners, God's holy vengeance could not hold back for the sparing even of the only-begotten of the Father, so full of grace and truth. Christ came into the world to die for it; and toward this lowest deep His steps daily led Him as He looked onward to the harvest that was being sown amid these tears. It would seem almost as if the song of the Psalmist had been copied direct from what is thus pictured in these signs.
But this Arrow doubtless covers a further idea. There is a spiritual piercing and slaying in the case of those who come to new life in Christ, akin to the piercing and slaying of Christ himself. Sharp and hurtful words are compared to arrows. And of this character are the words of God as pronounced upon the wicked, judging and condemning them for their sins, bringing them down from their lofty self-security, and killing out of them the vain imaginings in which they live. Isaiah speaks of this sort of shaft or arrow in the Lord's quiver—the arrow of the Word—the arrow of conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment—a wounding and killing arrow which enters into men's souls, and makes humble penitents of them, that they may come to life in Christ. The death of Christ for our sins also takes the form of a word, preaching, testimony, and argument, even the preaching of the Cross, to kill the life of sin and to cause men to die unto it; so that the very arrow of sovereign justice which drank up the life of Christ as our Substitute and Propitiation passes through Him to pierce also those whose life in sin cost Him all this humiliation and pain; also killing them to that ill and condemned life that they may live the Christ-life as His renewed, justified, and redeemed children.
Thus the Arrow fills out precisely the same ideas which we find symbolized in the sign of Capricornus."
Union with Christ
1. Its nature
a) Legally and representativly
b) Vitally and actually connected
2. Its origin
a) By appointment (election/predestination)
b) By rebirth (joined to him by faith)
Eternal Vital Union Doctrine or "Two Seed" doctrine of Daniel Parker and the birth of the "two seeders" sect.
Ordo Salutis Connection
Union with Christ must come first, before there can be pardon, justification, cleansing, sanctification, etc.
Union with Christ is typified in various kinds of union among men. Union with Christ is like the union of husband and wife.
The relationship of conviction of sin to regeneration. Does conviction of sin, logically and chronologically, precede regeneration or new birth, or does it follow it?
If we say it follows it, as do the Hardshells, then we would be forced to say that anyone who feels convicted of his sin is a born again character. The problem with this view is that it makes unbelievers to be regenerated souls. For it is a plain truth that 1) many who come under conviction of sin never come to faith in Christ and 2) that there is often a large period of time between the experience of conviction and coming to trust Christ for salvation. In the bible, there is no such character as a regenerated unbeliever!
Conviction of sin is a preparation work for regeneration. The cleansing of the conscience from the guilt that is felt in conviction is what occurs in the new birth experience.
Men are killed in conviction of sin by the divine arrow of the word of God. In the case of the elect, he guarentees that this conviction will produce repentance, or complete change of heart (thinking). This conviction produces regeneration when he causes his gospel to be heard in a saving, transforming, and powerful manner, when it is believed. Christ is received as the Lord, Savior, and King, by the one coming to place his trust in Jesus. The ego is dethroned in conviction of sin. Christ sits enthroned in the heart, soul, and mind in regeneration and new birth.
Union with Christ must come first and this, according to scripture, occurs when one believes in Christ, when he gives his all to Jesus, and ascribes all his hopes to him, when he places his trust in him. Faith is joined with repentance in scripture, and a man who has savingly believed is one who has repented. Part of his repentance preceded his new birth, for contrition or conviction of sin, is the first step in the process of repentance.
Union with Christ does not occur in water baptism. Union with Christ must precede all good works.
Sep 21, 2011
Gospel in the Stars IX
Lyra the Harp
"In connection with this shooting of the Almighty's arrows against His enemies, when His right hand shall find them out and His wrath swallow them up, so that their fruit shall be destroyed from the earth and their seed from among the children of men, the twenty-first Psalm introduces a special celebration of God's exalted strength in the matter, and represents all His holy ones as singing and praising His power. So also in the Apocalyptic visions of the destruction of the destroyers of the earth, the four-and-twenty elders in heaven fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, "We give Thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who art and who wast, because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned"— i. e. entered on Thy dominion. Accordingly, also, the first Decan of Sagittarius is the constellation of Lyra, the Lyre, the Harp, marked by one of the brightest stars in the northern heavens."
The Lyre Of Orpheus
"The harp is the oldest of stringed instruments of music. The ancients ascribed its invention to the gods. We find it named along with the organ, or shepherd's pipe, three hundred years before Adam died (Gen. 4: 21), and find a specimen of song to be sung to it dating back to the same period (Gen. 4: 23, 24). The most renowned performer on the harp or lyre in the classic myths is Orpheus, often identified with Apollo. He is called the father of songs and the particular helper of the Argonauts, the noble ones seeking for the Golden Fleece. He is not mentioned by this name by Hesiod or Homer, and subsequent writers place him far anterior to Hesiod and Homer, and mention all poets and singers as his children or the children of Apollo, to whom he stands in close relation. His art is everywhere associated with religion, prayer, prophecy, and all sacred services, teachings, and anticipations, especially with the joyous element in holy things. At the instance of Apollo and the Muses, it is said, God himself placed the Harp of Orpheus among the stars, where it has ever since been gladdening the celestial sphere with brightness and with song."
"The placing of that harp as the first Decan of Sagittarius connects pre-eminent gladness, joy, delight, and praise with the action of this great Archer with his bow and arrows. There is but one such sign in all the ancient constellations, and that is associated with the going forth of this double-natured Bowman aiming his arrows at the Scorpion's heart. It marks him in this particular attitude and act as the achiever of what is the sublimest glory of God and the sublimest joy of heaven.
People often smile and jest at the fabled power of the lyre of Orpheus, at which the rivers for the time forgot to flow, the wild beasts lost their savageness, the trees and rocks on Olympus moved from their places to listen, the ship of the Argonauts glided smoothly into the sea, the mountains became entranced, the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece sank into sleep, the sufferers in the under-world for the moment lost their pains, and all the potencies of hell yielded homage. But when we connect that lyre with the action of this glorious Archer, and take that action in its true prophetic significance, as the inventors of these signs intended them, these smiles and jests subside, and a scene of glorious achievement opens to our view, which has been the burden of all the songs and prayers and hopes and joyful anticipations of an enthralled and suffering world from the time that Adam was driven out of Eden up till then. That glorious Archer, as he appears in this sign, answers to the Lamb as John beheld Him, standing, having seven horns and seven eyes—all the fulness of regal, intellectual, and spiritual power and almightiness—and in the act of lifting the titledeed of the alienated inheritance to take possession again of all that sin has disponed away. Heaven contemplated that act with awe, and grew breathless as it gazed, and a thrill went through the universal heart of living things. A new song broke forth from the living ones and elders around the throne of Deity, and rolled sublime through all the heavenly spheres, till afar in the depths of space the voices of angelic myriads took it up, and every creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and upon the sea, and all things in these realms, were heard singing, and saying, "To Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the dominion for the ages of the ages !" And this is the true lyre of Orpheus—the joy and gladness and jubilation of the universe at the fulfilment of the burden of all sacred hope and prayer embodied in the words, " Thy kingdom come—Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We thus observe a depth, a splendor, a volume, a pathos, a universality of sacred ardor and poetic outpouring, as just as it is tremendous, and to which all the extravagances of the mythic records do not reach halfway.
With a wonderful appropriateness, then, which could hardly have come from the unaided powers of man, did the framers of these constellations select the brightest star in the northern heavens to represent this harp, and give to it the name of Vega, which signifies He shall be exalted, The warrior triumphant— the very name from which our own word victory has come—a name which the Apostle uses in its primeval and true connection where he challenges Death and Hades, triumphs over them, and cries his glad thanks "to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
In some of the old uranographies this constellation is marked by the figure of an eagle or hawk, the enemy of the serpent, who darts forth upon his prey from the heavenly heights with great suddenness and power; and this eagle is in the attitude of triumph, much as the Mexican eagle is presented victoriously grasping the serpent in its claws. It is the same idea, the triumphant overwhelming of the enemy. From this many of the modern atlases represent the figure of this constellation by an eagle holding the harp, or a harp placed over an eagle, expressing triumphant song springing from the eagle—that is, from the vanquisher and destroyer of the serpent. Whatever the variations of the figure, the same idea is retained, showing the true intention in the marking of this constellation, and the tenacity with which the original thought has clung to it in all ages and in all nations. It is the sign of the Serpent ruled, the Enemy destroyed, the triumphant fulfilment of the sublimest of hopes and sacred promises."
The Eagle - A Picture of God and Christ (and his people)
"Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself." (Exodus 19: 4)
"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." (Deut. 32: 11, 12)
"They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey." (Job 9: 26)
"Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?" (Job 39: 27)
"swift as the eagle flieth"
"Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psa. 103: 5)
"...riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven." (Prov. 23: 5)
The Ascension of the Eagle ---> The Ascension of Christ ---> The Rapture of Believers
"...things which are too wonderful for me...The way of an eagle in the air..." (Prov. 30: 18, 19)
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isa. 40: 31)
"As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle." (Eze. 1: 10; Rev. 4: 7)
"For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." (Matt. 24: 28)
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." (Rev. 12: 14)
Harp of Praise, Thanksgiving, and Song
"Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings." (Psa. 33: 2)
"Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God." (Psa. 43: 4)
"Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God." (Psa. 147: 7)
"Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp." (Psa. 149: 3)
"Of Jeduthun: the sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the LORD." (I Chron. 25: 3)
"Thine, O LORD is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all." (I Chron. 29: 11)
Joy of Salvation
"O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory." (Psa. 98: 1)
"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." (Rev. 15: 2)
"And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them." (I Kings 1: 39, 40)
"Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off." (Neh. 12: 43)
Jubilee Joy
-Called, in scripture, "THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD" (Isa 61:2), and "THE YEAR OF LIBERTY" (Eze. 46:17). Laws concerning it are in Le 25:8-55; 27:17-24; Nu 36:4.
Spurgeon on Psalm 89: 15
"'Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound'-- viz., of the trumpets sounded in token of joy at the great festivals, and chiefly on the first day of the seventh month, the feast of trumpets ( Leviticus 23:24 ), and on extraordinary occasions, especially after the yearly atonement, on the day of jubilee, the tenth day of the seventh month of the fiftieth year, proclaiming liberty to bondmen, and restoration of their inheritance to them that had forfeited it ( Leviticus 25:8-10 ). As the jubilee joy did not come till after the atonement, so no Gospel joy and liberty are ours till first we know Christ as our atonement. "In the day of the people's gladness" they blew the trumpets over their sacrifices, "that they might be to them for a memorial before God" ( Numbers 10:10 ). David and Israel brought up the ark of the Lord to Zion "with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet" ( 2 Samuel 6:15 ). In Numbers 23:21, Balaam makes it the distinguishing glory of Israel, "The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them", (Compare Psalms 98:6 27:6 margin) --A.R. Fausset." (Treasury of David)
The word "jubilee" is derived from the Hebrew word jobel, which means "ram's horn"; since it was precisely that horn which was used as a trumpet, whose sound indicated to everybody the beginning of the jubilee year. The book of Leviticus (Lev. 25: 8-10) is the source which tells us of the significance of the jubilee year, a year of liberation which is at the end of seven weeks of years, the fiftieth year.
The word Jubilee also means to be jubilant or to exult.
"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession." (Lev. 25: 8-13)
The experience of liberation is extremely joyous, as are times of child birth, victory, restoration, salvation, abundant harvest, youthful health and vigor, marriage, etc., and all these come together at once when Christ comes. It will be a time of liberation from death and every evil and enemy to our eternal well being. It will be a time of victory and restitution, of complete redemption. It will be when all the promised blessings are actually received. It will be the time of the "marriage supper of the Lamb," when the church becomes fully wedded to Christ.
"Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3: 21)
Present Joy of Saints
"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." (I Peter 1: 8)
"When righteous men do rejoice, there is great glory..." (Psa. 28: 12)
Eternal Sorrow or eternal Rejoicing?
The Harp of Praise or the Fires of Perdition?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." (John 16: 20-22)
The world rejoices now. It is evil rejoicing.
"Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it." (Isa. 5: 14)
"And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it." (Deut. 28: 63)
"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth..." (I Cor. 13: 6)
"But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." (James 4: 16)
The Joy of Saints in Coming Glory
"Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come." (Prov. 31: 25)
"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." (Psa. 29: 2)
"Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" (Psa. 85: 6)
"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psa. 30: 5)
"But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying." (Isa. 65: 18, 19)
"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD." (Zech. 2: 10)
"...that I may rejoice in the day of Christ..." (Phill. 2: 16)
All Nature Rejoices
"Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice" (Psa. 96: 11, 12)
"The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof." (Psa. 97: 1)
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God." (Isa. 35: 1, 2)
Ara - The Burning Pyre
"Still further is this signified in the second Decan, which the Arabs call Al Mugamra, the completing, the finishing, the making of an end of what was undertaken. The Hebrew uses the elements of the same word where it is said, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me " (Ps. 138 : 8). The Greeks called it Ara, a word which the Latins used to denote a small elevation of wood, stone, or earth made for sacred purposes, particularly for sacrifices; hence an altar, and also a funeral-pile, whence we have in our charts the figure of an altar covered with burning fire to denote this constellation. The Greeks used the word ara sometimes in the sense of prayer, but more frequently in the sense of an imprecation, a curse, or the effect of a curse— bane, ruin, destruction. Personified, it was the name of the goddess of revenge and destruction. In Eschylus it is the name of the actual curse of O'Edipus personified. It connects directly with the Hebrew mara and aram, which mean a curse, utter destruction."
The Under-world
"In the latitudes in which these constellations were originally formed Ara was on the lowest horizon of the south. The regions beyond this were contemplated as the lower regions, the under-world, the regions of darkness, "outer darkness;" just as the regions toward the north pole are contemplated as the upper regions, the regions of light and heaven. And, singularly enough, these ara-fires burn downward, toward the dark and hidden abyss, toward the covered and invisible south pole. The whole significance of the name and figure thus connects with ultimate perdition, the completed curse, the sending into "the lake of fire."
In the Zodiac of Dendera the figure is different, but the idea is the same. There we have a throned human figure wielding the flail, the implement of threshing and bruising, and that figure at the same time set over a jackal, often identified with the dragon. Here is the unclean and cunning animal of darkness brought under dominion and judgment, threshed, bruised, punished. This throned and threshing figure has a name which signifies the Coming One, the same as in Scorpio. The meaning of the sign is therefore plain. The idea is, victory over the enemy, the thrusting of him into the regions of darkness, the threshing and bruising of him beneath the feet of the conqueror, the beating of him down into final punishment.
According to the Scriptures, the spoiling of Satan and his kingdom by the Virgin-born Son of God is to go on, step after step, to complete overthrow and final perdition. A curse was pronounced upon him at the beginning, fore-announcing that his head should be bruised under the heel of the promised Seed of the woman. Though a strong man aimed, a stronger than he was to come upon him, take from him his armor, and subdue all things unto himself, spoiling principalities and powers, triumphing over them. Christ tells us of "everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." John, in his vision of what must shortly come to pass, heard the heavens resounding with the song, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren"—"the great Dragon, that old Serpent"—"is cast down." He also saw a messenger from heaven laying hold on the same, binding him and casting him into the abyss, whence he was finally "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone," where he "shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Such is the curse upon the great Enemy, and the finishing of him as set forth in the Holy Scriptures. And what we find thus written in the book is identical with what is pictured on the heavens in connection with Sagittarius. To some the idea may seem farfetched, and so different from ordinary thinking as to be almost absurd; but let them look at the facts as they are, and tell us what other conclusion is possible. What could be more complete than the correspondence of the two records?
The third constellation belonging to the sign of the Bowman is also very significant, and further determines the meaning to be as just expressed."
Fire and Perdition
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." (II Peter 3: 7)
"But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." (Psalm 37: 20)
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe..." (II Thess. 1: 8-10)
"For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates." (Jer. 46: 10)
"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." (Isa. 66: 13-15)
"Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people." (Deut. 32: 33)
"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psa. 58: 10)
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?" (Amos 5: 18-20)
"The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. 24: 50, 51)
The Dragon
"One of the most famous mythological creations in the history of human thought is the horrid serpentine monster called the dragon. Together with the serpent, and other things of the same repulsive and dangerous class, this is the universal symbol of evil—of some living power inimical to God and all good, and the just terror of all men. The Serpent stands for that form of the Evil One in which cunning, artifice, deceit, and malignant subtlety are the characteristics. The Dragon represents the same power armed, defiant, and putting forth in imperial forms, and devastating by force. The Serpent is the sly and creeping deceiver, smoothly gliding in to betray, insinuating his poison and destroying by stealth. The Dragon is the terrific oppressor, assailing with teeth and claws, armed all over with spikes, lifting speary wings and tail, spouting fire and fury, and rushing upon its prey with every vehemence of malignant energy. The Serpent and the Dragon are one and the same, only in different modes of manifestation. Hence the Devil is called "the Dragon, that old Serpent." Whenever the power of evil is clothed in political sovereignty, persecuting, tyrannizing, and oppressing, it is always the Dragon, or some rampant figure of destruction answering to it.
Among all nations we find this terrible image. Chinese and Japanese legend and art superabound with it. The pages of the classic poets of Greece and Rome teem with it. We find it in the religious books, traditions, and ideas of men of all classes, in all sections of the world, in all the ages. It is in the Old Testament, in the Apocrypha, and in the New Testament. Jews and Gentiles, Christians and heathen, civilized and savage, the Teutons, Scandinavians, and Celts of Europe, as well as the myriads of Asia and the remotest isles of the sea, alike have it, and connect with it the same family of ideas. And everywhere the vanquishing of this monster is the work of gods, heroes, and saints.
"Here is the Serpent in all forms of manifestation, and particularly the Dragon, wound about at least onehalf of the northern sky, his tail alone extending over the territory of "the third part of the stars." Here is the divine Hero, armed with bow and arrows, riding like St. George, and aiming his weapons at the heart of that Dragon's representative. Here is this precise symbol of the evil power in all his various shapes and attributes, and the great Son of the virgin revealed for his destruction, and going forth in His benevolent majesty to make an utter end of the terrible beast. In all the ages has this image been before the eyes of men in the primeval astronomy, pictorially portraying in the stars the very ideas that figure so conspicuously in their myths and traditions. And this, and this only, is the true original of all these ethnic conceptions—the true original by inspiration given.
And as Sagittarius goes forth in war against the enemy to complete upon him the curse, to make all clear and unmistakable the great constellation of the Dragon is added as a third explanatory side-piece, denoting exactly who it is that this mighty administration strikes, thus waking all the triumphant songs of heaven. It is the final fall of the Dragon-power before the arrows of the invincible warrior Seed of the woman. It is the ultimate victory fore-announced.
In the Apocalyptic visions of the consummation John beheld a great red Dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, upon his head seven diadems, whose tail was drawing along the third of the stars of the heaven. He stood before the woman eager to devour her child as soon as born; but in spite of him that child was caught away to God and to His throne. And then came war in heaven: Michael and his angels warring with the Dragon, who was cast down, and all his angels with him. And then it was that the great voice of song was heard in heaven, because the Accuser, the great Adversary, was conquered and cast down. For a while his persecutions continued upon the earth, till the crowned Warrior on the white horse came, destroying his armies, chaining him in the abyss for a thousand years, and then consigning him and all his to the lake of fire, whence the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever (Rev. 12 : 19, 20).
Thus also the Psalmist sings: "God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth, breaking the heads of the dragons in the waters, breaking the heads of Leviathan in pieces" (Ps. 74).
Isaiah refers exultingly to the time when the Lord cometh forth out of His place to punish the workers of iniquity, and says : "In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the crossing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and He shall slay the Dragon," and calls upon all the people of God to sing when that day arrives (Isa. 26 : 27).
And when we lay these foreshowings of the holy prophets alongside of these pictures in the stars, who can question that we have one and the same story in both? In both we behold the same Dragon, the same worming of himself into the domain of God, the same spoliation of peace and good by his malignant power, and the same vastness and stretch of his evil influences and dominion. In both we have the same divine Hero, arrayed as an invincible warrior, going forth in conquering majesty against the Dragon, wounding him with His arrows, cleaving him with His sword, bruising and crushing him for his wickedness, annihilating his power, and consigning him to his deserved and everlasting perdition. The names, the actions, the implements, the results, and the common joy of the holy universe over the achievement, are one and the same in the constellations, in the Scriptures, and in the myths. Nor could all this possibly have been except from one original source, even the sacred promise and foreshowing of God, variously certified, and ever again repeated through His prophets, even from the foundations of the world.
The name of this great constellation is Draco, the Dragon, the trodden-on. The chief star has several ancient names, such as Al Waid, who is to be destroyed ; Thuban, the subtle ; Al Dib, the reptile. This was the pole-star from four to six thousand years ago, singularly answering to the scriptural designation of Satan as the god and prince of this world. To this day this star is still observed as a very important star to nautical men and the direction of commerce upon the seas, just as the Dragon power still largely prevails. The second star in this constellation is Rastadan, head of the subtle; the third, Etanin, the long serpent, the Dragon; another, Grumian, the deceiver; another, El Athik, the fraudful; another, El Asieh, the humbled, brought down; another, Gianser, the punished enemy. Roots corresponding to all these words are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures, where they are used in the senses here given.
What shall we say, then, to these things? Mythology says the Dragon is the power that guarded the golden apples in the famous Garden of the Hesperides, hindering men from getting them. Is not this the Devil, the old Serpent, the Dragon, who has thrust himself in to keep mortal men from the fruits of the Tree of Life? Mythology says this Dragon was slain by Hercules. And is not Hercules the astronomic sign of the promised Seed of the woman, the One to come as the Serpent-bruiser, and who stands pictured in his constellation with His foot on the head of the Dragon? Other myths represent the Dragon as guarding the sacred well, and slaying those who came to draw from it, but was slain by the arrows of Cadmus, who had to suffer for it, indeed, but by Minerva's aid freed the way to the well, and built there a noble city. But is not Cadmus the hero sent to seek his sister who was lost, and the same who was offered as the giver of victory to the people who should accept him as their commander; just as Christ is come to seek and to save that which was lost, through suffering and divinity vanquishing Satan, opening access to the sacred well of the waters of life, building about it the Zion of His Church, and conducting those who take Him as their Lord and King to the blessedness of triumph and everlasting peace? Ay, verily, these signs in the constellations are but another version of what was written by the prophets and set forth in the Scriptures as the true and only hope of man."
Misc. Scriptures
"Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps." (Deut. 32: 33)
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet." (Psa. 91: 13)
"Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" (Isa. 51: 9)
"snuffed up the wind like dragons"
"swallowed me up like a dragon"
"make a wailing like the dragons"
"...behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." (Rev. 12: 3, 4)
"...the dragon fought and his angels..." (12: 7)
"In connection with this shooting of the Almighty's arrows against His enemies, when His right hand shall find them out and His wrath swallow them up, so that their fruit shall be destroyed from the earth and their seed from among the children of men, the twenty-first Psalm introduces a special celebration of God's exalted strength in the matter, and represents all His holy ones as singing and praising His power. So also in the Apocalyptic visions of the destruction of the destroyers of the earth, the four-and-twenty elders in heaven fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, "We give Thee thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who art and who wast, because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned"— i. e. entered on Thy dominion. Accordingly, also, the first Decan of Sagittarius is the constellation of Lyra, the Lyre, the Harp, marked by one of the brightest stars in the northern heavens."
The Lyre Of Orpheus
"The harp is the oldest of stringed instruments of music. The ancients ascribed its invention to the gods. We find it named along with the organ, or shepherd's pipe, three hundred years before Adam died (Gen. 4: 21), and find a specimen of song to be sung to it dating back to the same period (Gen. 4: 23, 24). The most renowned performer on the harp or lyre in the classic myths is Orpheus, often identified with Apollo. He is called the father of songs and the particular helper of the Argonauts, the noble ones seeking for the Golden Fleece. He is not mentioned by this name by Hesiod or Homer, and subsequent writers place him far anterior to Hesiod and Homer, and mention all poets and singers as his children or the children of Apollo, to whom he stands in close relation. His art is everywhere associated with religion, prayer, prophecy, and all sacred services, teachings, and anticipations, especially with the joyous element in holy things. At the instance of Apollo and the Muses, it is said, God himself placed the Harp of Orpheus among the stars, where it has ever since been gladdening the celestial sphere with brightness and with song."
"The placing of that harp as the first Decan of Sagittarius connects pre-eminent gladness, joy, delight, and praise with the action of this great Archer with his bow and arrows. There is but one such sign in all the ancient constellations, and that is associated with the going forth of this double-natured Bowman aiming his arrows at the Scorpion's heart. It marks him in this particular attitude and act as the achiever of what is the sublimest glory of God and the sublimest joy of heaven.
People often smile and jest at the fabled power of the lyre of Orpheus, at which the rivers for the time forgot to flow, the wild beasts lost their savageness, the trees and rocks on Olympus moved from their places to listen, the ship of the Argonauts glided smoothly into the sea, the mountains became entranced, the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece sank into sleep, the sufferers in the under-world for the moment lost their pains, and all the potencies of hell yielded homage. But when we connect that lyre with the action of this glorious Archer, and take that action in its true prophetic significance, as the inventors of these signs intended them, these smiles and jests subside, and a scene of glorious achievement opens to our view, which has been the burden of all the songs and prayers and hopes and joyful anticipations of an enthralled and suffering world from the time that Adam was driven out of Eden up till then. That glorious Archer, as he appears in this sign, answers to the Lamb as John beheld Him, standing, having seven horns and seven eyes—all the fulness of regal, intellectual, and spiritual power and almightiness—and in the act of lifting the titledeed of the alienated inheritance to take possession again of all that sin has disponed away. Heaven contemplated that act with awe, and grew breathless as it gazed, and a thrill went through the universal heart of living things. A new song broke forth from the living ones and elders around the throne of Deity, and rolled sublime through all the heavenly spheres, till afar in the depths of space the voices of angelic myriads took it up, and every creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and upon the sea, and all things in these realms, were heard singing, and saying, "To Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the dominion for the ages of the ages !" And this is the true lyre of Orpheus—the joy and gladness and jubilation of the universe at the fulfilment of the burden of all sacred hope and prayer embodied in the words, " Thy kingdom come—Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We thus observe a depth, a splendor, a volume, a pathos, a universality of sacred ardor and poetic outpouring, as just as it is tremendous, and to which all the extravagances of the mythic records do not reach halfway.
With a wonderful appropriateness, then, which could hardly have come from the unaided powers of man, did the framers of these constellations select the brightest star in the northern heavens to represent this harp, and give to it the name of Vega, which signifies He shall be exalted, The warrior triumphant— the very name from which our own word victory has come—a name which the Apostle uses in its primeval and true connection where he challenges Death and Hades, triumphs over them, and cries his glad thanks "to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
In some of the old uranographies this constellation is marked by the figure of an eagle or hawk, the enemy of the serpent, who darts forth upon his prey from the heavenly heights with great suddenness and power; and this eagle is in the attitude of triumph, much as the Mexican eagle is presented victoriously grasping the serpent in its claws. It is the same idea, the triumphant overwhelming of the enemy. From this many of the modern atlases represent the figure of this constellation by an eagle holding the harp, or a harp placed over an eagle, expressing triumphant song springing from the eagle—that is, from the vanquisher and destroyer of the serpent. Whatever the variations of the figure, the same idea is retained, showing the true intention in the marking of this constellation, and the tenacity with which the original thought has clung to it in all ages and in all nations. It is the sign of the Serpent ruled, the Enemy destroyed, the triumphant fulfilment of the sublimest of hopes and sacred promises."
The Eagle - A Picture of God and Christ (and his people)
"Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself." (Exodus 19: 4)
"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." (Deut. 32: 11, 12)
"They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey." (Job 9: 26)
"Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?" (Job 39: 27)
"swift as the eagle flieth"
"Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psa. 103: 5)
"...riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven." (Prov. 23: 5)
The Ascension of the Eagle ---> The Ascension of Christ ---> The Rapture of Believers
"...things which are too wonderful for me...The way of an eagle in the air..." (Prov. 30: 18, 19)
"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isa. 40: 31)
"As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle." (Eze. 1: 10; Rev. 4: 7)
"For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." (Matt. 24: 28)
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." (Rev. 12: 14)
Harp of Praise, Thanksgiving, and Song
"Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings." (Psa. 33: 2)
"Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God." (Psa. 43: 4)
"Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God." (Psa. 147: 7)
"Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp." (Psa. 149: 3)
"Of Jeduthun: the sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the LORD." (I Chron. 25: 3)
"Thine, O LORD is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all." (I Chron. 29: 11)
Joy of Salvation
"O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory." (Psa. 98: 1)
"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." (Rev. 15: 2)
"And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them." (I Kings 1: 39, 40)
"Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off." (Neh. 12: 43)
Jubilee Joy
-Called, in scripture, "THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD" (Isa 61:2), and "THE YEAR OF LIBERTY" (Eze. 46:17). Laws concerning it are in Le 25:8-55; 27:17-24; Nu 36:4.
Spurgeon on Psalm 89: 15
"'Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound'-- viz., of the trumpets sounded in token of joy at the great festivals, and chiefly on the first day of the seventh month, the feast of trumpets ( Leviticus 23:24 ), and on extraordinary occasions, especially after the yearly atonement, on the day of jubilee, the tenth day of the seventh month of the fiftieth year, proclaiming liberty to bondmen, and restoration of their inheritance to them that had forfeited it ( Leviticus 25:8-10 ). As the jubilee joy did not come till after the atonement, so no Gospel joy and liberty are ours till first we know Christ as our atonement. "In the day of the people's gladness" they blew the trumpets over their sacrifices, "that they might be to them for a memorial before God" ( Numbers 10:10 ). David and Israel brought up the ark of the Lord to Zion "with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet" ( 2 Samuel 6:15 ). In Numbers 23:21, Balaam makes it the distinguishing glory of Israel, "The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them", (Compare Psalms 98:6 27:6 margin) --A.R. Fausset." (Treasury of David)
The word "jubilee" is derived from the Hebrew word jobel, which means "ram's horn"; since it was precisely that horn which was used as a trumpet, whose sound indicated to everybody the beginning of the jubilee year. The book of Leviticus (Lev. 25: 8-10) is the source which tells us of the significance of the jubilee year, a year of liberation which is at the end of seven weeks of years, the fiftieth year.
The word Jubilee also means to be jubilant or to exult.
"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession." (Lev. 25: 8-13)
The experience of liberation is extremely joyous, as are times of child birth, victory, restoration, salvation, abundant harvest, youthful health and vigor, marriage, etc., and all these come together at once when Christ comes. It will be a time of liberation from death and every evil and enemy to our eternal well being. It will be a time of victory and restitution, of complete redemption. It will be when all the promised blessings are actually received. It will be the time of the "marriage supper of the Lamb," when the church becomes fully wedded to Christ.
"Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3: 21)
Present Joy of Saints
"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." (I Peter 1: 8)
"When righteous men do rejoice, there is great glory..." (Psa. 28: 12)
Eternal Sorrow or eternal Rejoicing?
The Harp of Praise or the Fires of Perdition?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." (John 16: 20-22)
The world rejoices now. It is evil rejoicing.
"Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it." (Isa. 5: 14)
"And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it." (Deut. 28: 63)
"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth..." (I Cor. 13: 6)
"But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." (James 4: 16)
The Joy of Saints in Coming Glory
"Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come." (Prov. 31: 25)
"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." (Psa. 29: 2)
"Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" (Psa. 85: 6)
"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psa. 30: 5)
"But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying." (Isa. 65: 18, 19)
"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD." (Zech. 2: 10)
"...that I may rejoice in the day of Christ..." (Phill. 2: 16)
All Nature Rejoices
"Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice" (Psa. 96: 11, 12)
"The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof." (Psa. 97: 1)
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God." (Isa. 35: 1, 2)
Ara - The Burning Pyre
"Still further is this signified in the second Decan, which the Arabs call Al Mugamra, the completing, the finishing, the making of an end of what was undertaken. The Hebrew uses the elements of the same word where it is said, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me " (Ps. 138 : 8). The Greeks called it Ara, a word which the Latins used to denote a small elevation of wood, stone, or earth made for sacred purposes, particularly for sacrifices; hence an altar, and also a funeral-pile, whence we have in our charts the figure of an altar covered with burning fire to denote this constellation. The Greeks used the word ara sometimes in the sense of prayer, but more frequently in the sense of an imprecation, a curse, or the effect of a curse— bane, ruin, destruction. Personified, it was the name of the goddess of revenge and destruction. In Eschylus it is the name of the actual curse of O'Edipus personified. It connects directly with the Hebrew mara and aram, which mean a curse, utter destruction."
The Under-world
"In the latitudes in which these constellations were originally formed Ara was on the lowest horizon of the south. The regions beyond this were contemplated as the lower regions, the under-world, the regions of darkness, "outer darkness;" just as the regions toward the north pole are contemplated as the upper regions, the regions of light and heaven. And, singularly enough, these ara-fires burn downward, toward the dark and hidden abyss, toward the covered and invisible south pole. The whole significance of the name and figure thus connects with ultimate perdition, the completed curse, the sending into "the lake of fire."
In the Zodiac of Dendera the figure is different, but the idea is the same. There we have a throned human figure wielding the flail, the implement of threshing and bruising, and that figure at the same time set over a jackal, often identified with the dragon. Here is the unclean and cunning animal of darkness brought under dominion and judgment, threshed, bruised, punished. This throned and threshing figure has a name which signifies the Coming One, the same as in Scorpio. The meaning of the sign is therefore plain. The idea is, victory over the enemy, the thrusting of him into the regions of darkness, the threshing and bruising of him beneath the feet of the conqueror, the beating of him down into final punishment.
According to the Scriptures, the spoiling of Satan and his kingdom by the Virgin-born Son of God is to go on, step after step, to complete overthrow and final perdition. A curse was pronounced upon him at the beginning, fore-announcing that his head should be bruised under the heel of the promised Seed of the woman. Though a strong man aimed, a stronger than he was to come upon him, take from him his armor, and subdue all things unto himself, spoiling principalities and powers, triumphing over them. Christ tells us of "everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." John, in his vision of what must shortly come to pass, heard the heavens resounding with the song, "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren"—"the great Dragon, that old Serpent"—"is cast down." He also saw a messenger from heaven laying hold on the same, binding him and casting him into the abyss, whence he was finally "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone," where he "shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Such is the curse upon the great Enemy, and the finishing of him as set forth in the Holy Scriptures. And what we find thus written in the book is identical with what is pictured on the heavens in connection with Sagittarius. To some the idea may seem farfetched, and so different from ordinary thinking as to be almost absurd; but let them look at the facts as they are, and tell us what other conclusion is possible. What could be more complete than the correspondence of the two records?
The third constellation belonging to the sign of the Bowman is also very significant, and further determines the meaning to be as just expressed."
Fire and Perdition
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." (II Peter 3: 7)
"But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." (Psalm 37: 20)
"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe..." (II Thess. 1: 8-10)
"For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates." (Jer. 46: 10)
"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." (Isa. 66: 13-15)
"Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people." (Deut. 32: 33)
"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psa. 58: 10)
"Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?" (Amos 5: 18-20)
"The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. 24: 50, 51)
The Dragon
"One of the most famous mythological creations in the history of human thought is the horrid serpentine monster called the dragon. Together with the serpent, and other things of the same repulsive and dangerous class, this is the universal symbol of evil—of some living power inimical to God and all good, and the just terror of all men. The Serpent stands for that form of the Evil One in which cunning, artifice, deceit, and malignant subtlety are the characteristics. The Dragon represents the same power armed, defiant, and putting forth in imperial forms, and devastating by force. The Serpent is the sly and creeping deceiver, smoothly gliding in to betray, insinuating his poison and destroying by stealth. The Dragon is the terrific oppressor, assailing with teeth and claws, armed all over with spikes, lifting speary wings and tail, spouting fire and fury, and rushing upon its prey with every vehemence of malignant energy. The Serpent and the Dragon are one and the same, only in different modes of manifestation. Hence the Devil is called "the Dragon, that old Serpent." Whenever the power of evil is clothed in political sovereignty, persecuting, tyrannizing, and oppressing, it is always the Dragon, or some rampant figure of destruction answering to it.
Among all nations we find this terrible image. Chinese and Japanese legend and art superabound with it. The pages of the classic poets of Greece and Rome teem with it. We find it in the religious books, traditions, and ideas of men of all classes, in all sections of the world, in all the ages. It is in the Old Testament, in the Apocrypha, and in the New Testament. Jews and Gentiles, Christians and heathen, civilized and savage, the Teutons, Scandinavians, and Celts of Europe, as well as the myriads of Asia and the remotest isles of the sea, alike have it, and connect with it the same family of ideas. And everywhere the vanquishing of this monster is the work of gods, heroes, and saints.
"Here is the Serpent in all forms of manifestation, and particularly the Dragon, wound about at least onehalf of the northern sky, his tail alone extending over the territory of "the third part of the stars." Here is the divine Hero, armed with bow and arrows, riding like St. George, and aiming his weapons at the heart of that Dragon's representative. Here is this precise symbol of the evil power in all his various shapes and attributes, and the great Son of the virgin revealed for his destruction, and going forth in His benevolent majesty to make an utter end of the terrible beast. In all the ages has this image been before the eyes of men in the primeval astronomy, pictorially portraying in the stars the very ideas that figure so conspicuously in their myths and traditions. And this, and this only, is the true original of all these ethnic conceptions—the true original by inspiration given.
And as Sagittarius goes forth in war against the enemy to complete upon him the curse, to make all clear and unmistakable the great constellation of the Dragon is added as a third explanatory side-piece, denoting exactly who it is that this mighty administration strikes, thus waking all the triumphant songs of heaven. It is the final fall of the Dragon-power before the arrows of the invincible warrior Seed of the woman. It is the ultimate victory fore-announced.
In the Apocalyptic visions of the consummation John beheld a great red Dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, upon his head seven diadems, whose tail was drawing along the third of the stars of the heaven. He stood before the woman eager to devour her child as soon as born; but in spite of him that child was caught away to God and to His throne. And then came war in heaven: Michael and his angels warring with the Dragon, who was cast down, and all his angels with him. And then it was that the great voice of song was heard in heaven, because the Accuser, the great Adversary, was conquered and cast down. For a while his persecutions continued upon the earth, till the crowned Warrior on the white horse came, destroying his armies, chaining him in the abyss for a thousand years, and then consigning him and all his to the lake of fire, whence the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever (Rev. 12 : 19, 20).
Thus also the Psalmist sings: "God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth, breaking the heads of the dragons in the waters, breaking the heads of Leviathan in pieces" (Ps. 74).
Isaiah refers exultingly to the time when the Lord cometh forth out of His place to punish the workers of iniquity, and says : "In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the crossing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and He shall slay the Dragon," and calls upon all the people of God to sing when that day arrives (Isa. 26 : 27).
And when we lay these foreshowings of the holy prophets alongside of these pictures in the stars, who can question that we have one and the same story in both? In both we behold the same Dragon, the same worming of himself into the domain of God, the same spoliation of peace and good by his malignant power, and the same vastness and stretch of his evil influences and dominion. In both we have the same divine Hero, arrayed as an invincible warrior, going forth in conquering majesty against the Dragon, wounding him with His arrows, cleaving him with His sword, bruising and crushing him for his wickedness, annihilating his power, and consigning him to his deserved and everlasting perdition. The names, the actions, the implements, the results, and the common joy of the holy universe over the achievement, are one and the same in the constellations, in the Scriptures, and in the myths. Nor could all this possibly have been except from one original source, even the sacred promise and foreshowing of God, variously certified, and ever again repeated through His prophets, even from the foundations of the world.
The name of this great constellation is Draco, the Dragon, the trodden-on. The chief star has several ancient names, such as Al Waid, who is to be destroyed ; Thuban, the subtle ; Al Dib, the reptile. This was the pole-star from four to six thousand years ago, singularly answering to the scriptural designation of Satan as the god and prince of this world. To this day this star is still observed as a very important star to nautical men and the direction of commerce upon the seas, just as the Dragon power still largely prevails. The second star in this constellation is Rastadan, head of the subtle; the third, Etanin, the long serpent, the Dragon; another, Grumian, the deceiver; another, El Athik, the fraudful; another, El Asieh, the humbled, brought down; another, Gianser, the punished enemy. Roots corresponding to all these words are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures, where they are used in the senses here given.
What shall we say, then, to these things? Mythology says the Dragon is the power that guarded the golden apples in the famous Garden of the Hesperides, hindering men from getting them. Is not this the Devil, the old Serpent, the Dragon, who has thrust himself in to keep mortal men from the fruits of the Tree of Life? Mythology says this Dragon was slain by Hercules. And is not Hercules the astronomic sign of the promised Seed of the woman, the One to come as the Serpent-bruiser, and who stands pictured in his constellation with His foot on the head of the Dragon? Other myths represent the Dragon as guarding the sacred well, and slaying those who came to draw from it, but was slain by the arrows of Cadmus, who had to suffer for it, indeed, but by Minerva's aid freed the way to the well, and built there a noble city. But is not Cadmus the hero sent to seek his sister who was lost, and the same who was offered as the giver of victory to the people who should accept him as their commander; just as Christ is come to seek and to save that which was lost, through suffering and divinity vanquishing Satan, opening access to the sacred well of the waters of life, building about it the Zion of His Church, and conducting those who take Him as their Lord and King to the blessedness of triumph and everlasting peace? Ay, verily, these signs in the constellations are but another version of what was written by the prophets and set forth in the Scriptures as the true and only hope of man."
Misc. Scriptures
"Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps." (Deut. 32: 33)
"Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet." (Psa. 91: 13)
"Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?" (Isa. 51: 9)
"snuffed up the wind like dragons"
"swallowed me up like a dragon"
"make a wailing like the dragons"
"...behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." (Rev. 12: 3, 4)
"...the dragon fought and his angels..." (12: 7)
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