Gospel in the stars

I have never heard of this and would be interested to hear what it is all about as well.

 

There is a book on the subject and I think it is written By Clarence Larkin.

 

I may be wrong. This may be it.

Gospel in the stars click here

 

Before Helen tells you what she believes, I would highly reccomend reading the following links:

http://www.equip.org/free/DG205.htm

http://www.equip.org/free/DG240.pdf

http://www.letusreason.org/current4%20.htm

Now, here is a link to an article written by Helen, her husband and some other guy:

http://www.ldolphin.org/zodiac/

I personally think this is all a bunch of bunk, it is unscriptural, and it is borderline dabbling in the New Age movement.

Joseph Botwinick

 

There's also one, I believe, written by E.W. Bullinger, called "The Witness of the Stars."

Basic premise: The constellations tell the biblical story. I don't know about Seiss or Larkin, but Bullinger bases this on some research that another person did that concludes that thousands of years ago, people co-opted the original scriptural meanings of the constellations and twisted them into the Zodiac as we now know it.

For instance, Bullinger states that the constellation of Virgo (the Virgin) is written about or comes from Isaiah 7:14.

Because the basic premise cannot be proven (Bullinger never identifies the individual who did the research, and thus leaves us in doubt as to the validity of the research), the book is only an interesting read.

 

Don,
Thats the book I was trying to think of. My father has the book and he is also a lover of Clarence Larkin so I got them mixed up.

 

Dr. D. James Kennedy wrote an interesting book on this called "The Real Meaning of the Zodiac". You can see it here:

http://www.coralridge.org/CRMResCtrdetail.asp?cat=Other&pc=6Y7

The description from the link:

"With the rise of the New Age movement, there has been increased interest in the Zodiac. But in The Real Meaning of the Zodiac, you will learn that the modern Zodiac is nothing more than a satanic perversion of the original revelation of God. Discover God’s original plan for the Zodiac – “the Gospel in the Stars” – and how to protect yourself and your family.
Softcover Book, 155 pp."

Interesting reading, I'm not sure how much to make of it. IMO there are good points from both sides in this thread.

 

Like Joseph, I thought it was a bunch of bunk, too, until I started studying ancient history, which is a hobby of mine. Astrology and science used to be the same thing. I thought that was terribly strange, so I started looking into it. Until you get pretty far back, what you do find is often some pretty weird stuff, but the further back you go, the less weird it gets.

What is interesting is that although God allowed Adam to name the animals, it is God who named the stars. An interesting bit of outside evidence supporting that is that the meanings of the star names are the same in every language. Why? If the reason is that these names simply came down with time, why not the animal names, too? But animal names are different in different languages, both by meaning and pronunciation. But not star names. A lot of times the pronunciation is clearly related and the meanings are the same.

In Genesis 15:4-6, Abraham is told by God to look up at the stars and 'recount' or 'tell' them (the meaning of the Hebrew word used). And God tells Abraham, "So shall your offspring be."

And in verse 6 we read, "Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness."

All righteousness is in Christ. That is foundational. Paul takes this one step further for us in the explanation of something that is absent in the English: "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say 'and to seeds,' meaning many people, but 'and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ."

What God had asked Abraham to do was tell the story in the stars, or recount it. When Abraham believed in the coming Messiah as written in the stars themselves, it was credited to him as righteousness.

And this makes me wonder, personally, about Noah -- the "only righteous" man in his generation. After the death of Methuselah that same year of the Flood, was Noah the last person to believe what the stars and Adam had said: a Messiah would come? Where else would Noah's righteousness have come from?

When David wrote "The heavens declare the glory of God" he was not simply referring to pretty twinkly stars. They are not the glory of God.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being...

The heavens declared the story of the Messiah in the original, true meaning of what we know as the Zodiac. The names of the stars bear witness to this. The Bible bears witness to this.

And even the magoi who came to find the baby king of the Jews are a witness to this, "For we have seen His star..."

The link was given to the zodiac article I was asked to help with. Before Barry and I were married, four of us contributed research and writing to this article: Lambert Dolphin -- a retired physicist, Malcolm Bowden -- a retired engineer who has studied many aspects of creation and written a number of books regarding his work, Barry Setterfield -- geologist, astronomer, physicist, and me -- because of my research into ancient history and legends and such. We were not an ill-informed group and all of us are born again Christians who totally reject New Age nonsense and are also reasonably well-educated and studied. If anyone wants to refer to what we wrote as bunk or whatever, may I suggest they read it first?

http://www.ldolphin.org/zodiac/

for those who are interested in the wise men of the Bible, you may have some surprises coming, and some information that makes a lot more sense out of what we are reading than the concept of three old men on camels... I mean, why would all of Jerusalem have been upset by them? Here is an article, in rough form with the extra notes on the end, which Barry wrote when they were doing the video on the Christmas star:

http://www.ldolphin.org/birth.html

Enjoy. And best not to pass judgment until you check out what is being said, on either subject. You will find both articles entirely Christian and conservatively so, for, as Malcom Bowden wrote in the title of one of his books, "True Science Agrees with the Bible." Please not that the title is NOT "True Bible Agrees with Science"!!!

 

Pete, Revelation 13:8 states that Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Would you rather God had NOT known? Instead, God did not only knew from the first, but made provision of it before, or at the time of creation itself. We read in Isaiah and other books that God says He stretched out the heavens -- He is the one who has put each star in place, and His actions are never arbitrary or meaningless. The Promise was written in the heavens themselves -- the Glory of God was revealed there as well as in the Promise that came down from Adam. And all of it was fulfilled in Christ. We read in the opening passage of Hebrew that in the past God spoke in many ways to His prophets, but that now he has spoken to us by his Son. This, then, far outweighs any other testimony, and so the distortion of the Zodiac is great. But also remember it cannot be called a lie unless there was a truth for it to be the lie of. It cannot be called a distortion unless there was something there in the beginning to distort.

[ December 05, 2002, 11:34 PM: Message edited by: Helen ]

 

"Gospel in the Stars" is Christianized astrology.

It denies plain Scripture:

Romans 10:17 and 1 Cor. 1:18-21.

Paul said, "The Jews request a sign... but I preach Christ crucified."

 

I don't believe that astrology is real, but wasn't it Jewish astrologers who saw the birth f Jesus?

 

Some responses. Barry is here with me so this post is from both of us -- mostly from him and I'll do the typing.

Pete, you asked if the Gospel was still in the stars. Basically, yes. All languages had the same meaning for the same star and the same constellation up until about 1850-1880 A.D. At that time an international council on astronomy fixed which star names would be used for each star. Sometimes they chose the Greek, sometimes they chose the Hebrew, sometimes they chose the Chaldean name. But in those names we still see the Gospel.

Originally, the teaching of the message of the stars would not have been completely necessary, for a lot of the basics are actually in the names of the stars themselves, and those names were in the languages of the individual peoples. The other thing to remember is that the knowledge itself came down from Adam via Noah, and so was available to every culture, and so yes, there would have to have been SOME teaching involved. When the languages diverged at Babel, the meaning of the name of each star was carried into every culture and place from that time on.

But no, just any of us looking up at a twinkling sky would not recognize that it told a story. The names of the stars of course would have to be taught and the groups as they have been universally recognized in the constellations. Once those had been taught, it would not have been difficult to put the story together.

The Gospel in the Stars, however, does not mention the types or numbers of people on earth but only the story of Christ, so that the inclusion of the Gentiles was indeed a bit of a shock to the Jews -- although, if they had paid attention to the Scriptures they already had, it shouldn't have been.

Preach, I still assume you have not taken the time to read the article or you would not be making the judgment you are making. But let's look at the verses you say are in denial of this Gospel in the Stars.

First you referenced Romans 10:17, which says that faith comes from hearing the message and the message through the word of Christ. Before we get to what Paul quotes two verses later, let's consider something. Hearing WHAT message? The message of salvation, right? That was given to Eve in Genesis 3. In fact, in the verse ahead of 17 -- verse 16 -- Paul quotes Isaiah as saying "Lord, who has believed our message?" What message was Isaiah referring to? Since this comes in the middle of discussing the Gospel, or good news (verse 15-16) itself, then Isaiah HAD to be referring to the Gospel he already knew!

Consider also that the word of Christ is the word of the Creator, and that was known from Genesis. For Christ mentions in John that Abraham knew His day and was glad.

BUT, let's now take a look at your verse in context, which makes it different from what you claim:

How then can they call on the one they have not believed in ? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did:

"Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world."

The quote Paul was using is, as you probably know from Psalm 19. Here is Psalm 19:

The heavens decleare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

Therefore, Preach, Paul was declaring exactly the opposite of what you were trying to indicate he was saying. He is saying that yes, the people have all heard due to the message in the heavens themselves. This is not astrology. This is God's way of making sure there was no change in the message until Christ arrived.

One other thing -- don't forget that God Himself personally gave the stars their names. And, again, nothing He does is random or without purpose.

Your next reference was to 1 Corinthians 1:18-21. This is in reference to God choosing the "foolishness" of the cross to confound the wise and the philosopher. This, however, has nothing to do with the fact that God's telling of the Gospel to all men, and its simplicity of the necessity of just trusting God, was there in the heavens themselves, as declared by both David and Paul.

Consider also, that Paul wrote to the Galatians, "Understand then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture FORESAW that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and ANNOUNCED THE GOSPEL IN ADVANCE TO ABRAHAM: 'All nations will be blessed through you.' So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith." [Paul is referring to Genesis 15]

Please note that part of the Gospel as Paul defines it is that all nations are included. We tend to concentrate on just the story of Jesus, but evidently, part of the Gospel message is the inclusion of every nation and tribe and language, as again reiterated in the praises of Revelation.

Preach, you also used the partial quote that the Jews request a sign -- as though that were something to do with the stars! That quote has NOTHING to do with the stars! The signs the Jews were looking for were miraculous signs -- they wanted Christ to do as they commanded in terms of healing or raising from the dead or whatever. These are the signs Paul is referring to, clearly. Please do not take these quotes out of context and distort their meaning.

Johnv -- astrology is real alright -- real distortion, demonism, etc.!!

But it cannot be a distortion if there was not something to distort. The Gospel in the Stars presents the life story of Christ. The astrological distortion is that you can tell YOUR life story via the stars, which is nonsense. The demons cannot make up new things, they can only try to twist the originals. That is what has happened here. But, as Hebrews 1 says, that although in the past God spoke to the prophets through various means, NOW it is through Christ, the Savior, and that we have no need for the other means now. That relegates the Gospel in the Stars to secondary, along with so much else, but that does not negate the original meaning or purpose of the heavens declaring the glory of God.

 

This was also an argument in Hank Hanegraaff's magazine.

There is no way for us to understand what Adam's "feelings" might have been before he was a sinner. Remember that Christ came to earth knowing he would take our sins upon him and suffer the fiery indignation and righteous judgment of God for them in our place, but the only thing in his mind was to do His Father's will.

Now before sin, Adam may have simply said, "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done."

 

Or, like Peter, he might have said "Not me, Lord, no way."

 

Helen, I am quite familiar with the "gospel in the stars" theory. It is wrong. I do not have to read every new article to know that it is built on the same faulty premise.

The reason I had posted those two Scriptures were to point out God's means of salvation.

Romans 10:17 - Faith come by hearing and hearing by the (spoken) word of God.

You referenced Psalm 19 as Paul did. Your interpretation is what is wrong. Just as the stars proclaim the message of God's glory throughout the whole world, God's preacher's will proclaim the message of salvation throughout the whole world. That is the interpretation in context. It does not need to be twisted.

The same is true for 1 Cor. 1:18-21. God has chosen the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. This is not so according to you. You (and Barry) embrace this idea that rejects two plain passages for this hidden theory that contradicts the revealed will of God in the matter of means of salvation.

 

...well, that would have been sin then, wouldn't it?