Shamash The Sun God

Part One: The Thief on the Cross Saved without Baptism! No: Christ had not yet preached to the pre- Cross faithful nor ascended into heaven.

Part Two: Baptism is just a pledge that you have been saved? No: Baptism is our REQUEST TO God; not OUR guaranteeing OUR faith!

Part Three: Salvation by Trust Only or Prayer Only? 12/5/02 See how the GA, Shelly, Lucado Trithism as A Family of Gods leads naturally to despising the counsel of the human Jesus and how Baptists Baptism denies that Christ came FULLY in the flesh.

Part Four: Romans 6: Baptism DOES NOT save?

"Max Lucado is Vice President of the Promise Keepers and a popular Evangelical author. In 1997, Lucado wrote Cosmic Christmas, a short novel which reimagines the events that occurred prior to and including the nativity of Jesus Christ. There is a disclaimer in the Afterward of Cosmic Christmas to the effect that many elements of Lucado's narrative are imaginary and not found in Scripture. As points of fundamental doctrine, however, at least a few are seriously heretical and have no place in a Christian book.

 

"The spotlight in Cosmic Christmas is on the Archangel Gabriel, who is sent by God on a mission to announce to Mary her election to receive the Seed of God. Lucado's novel portrays God as "the Light" who sends the "treasure" of his "essence" to earth. This "essence" or "Seed" -- designated "it" -- "will become" the Son of God. Carefully note in the following excerpt from Cosmic Christmas Gabriel's words that "the fruit of the Seed," rather than the Seed, is the Son of God.

 

Max Lucado: "I entered the circle of unceasing Light... I lifted my eyes to see a necklace - a clear vial on a golden chain - dangling from (God's) extended hand... Handing me the necklace, He explained, 'This vial will contain the essence of Myself; a Seed to be placed in the womb of a young girl...

 

The fruit of the Seed is the Son of God. Take it to her... He draped the chain around my neck. Amazingly, the vial was no longer empty. It glowed with Light. Jesus. Tell her to call my son Jesus..." 98. Note H: The Virgin Mother of Paganism

 

Tertullian Chapter XXI.-The Word of God Did Not Become Flesh Except in the Virgin's Womb and of Her Substance. Through His Mother He is Descended from Her Great Ancestor David. He is Described Both in the Old and in the New Testament as "The Fruit of David's Loins."

 

For in that case a virgin did not conceive, and did not bring forth; since whatever she brought forth from the conception of the Word, is not her own flesh.

 

But is this the only statement of prophecy which will be frustrated?

 

Will not the angel's announcement also be subverted, that the virgin should "conceive in her womb and bring forth a son? "

 

Rather than a YOUNG GIRL, Scripture says:

 

"Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son." We discover, then, what the sign is which is to be spoken against-the conception and the parturition of the Virgin Mary,

 

"Almost all the Tartar princes," says SALVERTE (Des Sciences Occultes), "trace their genealogy to a celestial virgin, impregnated by a sun-beam, or some equally miraculous means." In India, the mother of Surya, the sun-god, who was born to destroy the enemies of the gods,

 

is said to have become pregnant in this way, a beam of the sun having entered her womb, in consequence of which she brought forth the sun-god.

 

Now the knowledge of this widely diffused myth casts light on the secret meaning of the name Aurora, given to the wife of Orion, to whose marriage with that "mighty hunter" Homer refers (Odyssey). While the name Aur-ora, in the physical sense, signifies also "pregnant with light"; and from "ohra," "to conceive" or be "pregnant," we have in Greek, the word for a wife.

As Orion, according to Persian accounts, was Nimrod; and Nimrod, under the name of Ninus, was worshipped as the son of his wife, when he came to be deified as the sun-god, that name Aurora, as applied to his wife, is evidently intended to convey the very same idea as prevails in Tartary and India. These myths of the Tartars and Hindoos clearly prove that the Pagan idea of the miraculous conception had not come from any intermixture of Christianity with that superstition,

 

but directly from the promise of "the seed of the woman." But how, it may be asked, could the idea of being pregnant with a sunbeam arise? There is reason to believe that it came from one of the natural names of the sun.

 

From the Chaldean zhr, "to shine," comes, in the participle active, zuhro or zuhre, "the Shiner"; and hence, no doubt, from zuhro, "the Shiner," under the prompting of a designing priesthood, men would slide into the idea of zuro, "the seed,"--"the Shiner" and "the seed," according to the genius of Paganism, being thus identified. This was manifestly the case in Persia, where the sun as the great divinity; for the "Persians," says Maurice, "called God Sure" (Antiquities).

 

That Ala-Par-os was really intended to designate the sovereign referred to, as "God the Son," or "the Son of God," is confirmed by another reading of the same name as given in Greek. There the name is Alasparos. Now Pyrsiporus, as applied to Bacchus, means Ignigena, or the "Seed of Fire"; and Ala-sporos, the "Seed of God," is just a similar expression formed in the same way, the name being Grecised. Hislop

 

Hislop fills in some more of the LIGHT BEARING of the pagan "gods." He also explains the idea of a SEED as a "cosmic egg" where SEED in Scripture speaks of God's power.

This fits with seing the Holy Spirit visioned as a dove as both a PERSON and of course FEMALE.

Scripture says:   Your attitude should be the kind that was shown us by Jesus Christ, Phil 2:5LIV who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, Phil 2:6 but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. Phil 2:7 And he humbled himself even further, going so far as actually to die a criminal's death on a cross. Phil 2:8   Paul also wrote:   For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Col 2:9   John Mark Hicks notes of Shelly and Lucado and Lanier:   "An emergent Trinitarianism is evident among us, not only among Churches of Christ, but also in other branches of the Stone-Campbell Movement.[36] Even though our biblical scholars are somewhat hesitant, this shift comes from several quarters. First, the previous generation's defense of the deity of Christ forced some reflection along this line.   "Fourth, we have shifted from an emphasis rooted on a common factual confession that Jesus is the Christ to a Trinitarian emphasis on his deity. Trinitarianism has been (re)born among us. An incarnational theology, represented by Max Lucado in particular, dominates the current climate in our churches. Interestingly, this renewal has primarily developed along ethical and devotional/spiritual lines.   "While, as Doug reminds us, Lucado brilliantly brings Jesus to life for us and reminds us of his humanity, I fear that his incarnational theology undermines the very thing he wants to press--Christ's empathetic humanity.   "His theology seems to lack any significant kenosis. Instead, Mary "knows she is holding God." He is the "infant-God" to whom Mary prays. His Jesus counts the stars as he lies in his crib and remembers his creative work. Mary is tempted to call him "Father."   "This type of incarnational theology tends to undermine the humanity of Jesus because it assumes that Jesus did not really identify with the human psyche. The divine mind informs and empowers the human life of Jesus in such a way that he is no longer a genuine model for struggling Christians. I think his Christology needs a good dose of the incarnation as a participation in fallenness where Jesus assumes fallen human nature, struggles with sin and shares our weaknesses. In other words, Lucado's Johannine Christology needs to be tempered with the Christology of the synoptics and Hebrews. Contrary to Doug's reading, I believe Lucado ultimately subsumes the human under the divine.   Of course, there can only be one conclusion to this mysticism:   Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 1Jn.4:2 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 1Jn.4:3 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 2 Jn.1:7

Privy to this conversation is Satan, to whom God offers forgiveness if he will only repent. Max Lucado presents the following outrageous scene as the Archangel Gabriel watches on:

 

Max Lucado: "From the circle of Light came His extended hand. From His throne came an honest invitation. 'Will you surrender? Will you return to me?' I do not know the thoughts of Satan. But I believe that for a fleeting second the evil heart softened..." 99.

 

"An important Gnostic doctrine is the ultimate salvation of Lucifer. In the Afterward, Lucado does not decisively state that Lucifer can never be saved, but rather equivocates, leaving room for the remote possibility:

 

Max Lucado: "Finally, the Bible tells no story of a throne room encounter where Lucifer is offered a second chance. But the Bible does contain page after page showing God giving grace to the scalawags and turncoats of the world. He seems more willing to give grace than we are to seek it. Such divine love leaves me to wonder one thing more: if the old snake himself sought mercy, wouldn't he too, find it where millions have - at the foot of the cross of Christ?" 100.

 

"As previously noted in this report, the removal of Lucifer's judgment in Isaiah 14 leaves room for innumerable heresies, including his ultimate salvation. This aberrant doctrine was proposed, c. 250 A.D., by Clement and Origen of the Gnostic cult of Alexandria, Egypt. Although they are promoted in our day as "Church Fathers," these heretics produced copies of the Scriptures which were corrupted with Gnostic doctrine. Clement of Alexandria's false gospel is also found in his Homilies:

 

Max Lucado: "After a preliminary examination of all possible different attempts at a solution of the problem of evil, the attempt is here made to represent the devil as an instrument of God. Christ and the devil are the two hands of God, Christ the right hand, and the devil the left, the devil having power over this world-epoch and Christ over the next. The devil here assumes very much the characteristics of the punishing and just God of the Old Testament, and the prospect is even held out of his ultimate pardon." 101.

 

In Cosmic Christmas, Max Lucado continues his subtle departure from Scripture with an allusion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: (Note also a New Age analogy comparing angels to "stars.")

 

Max Lucado: "One final time I faced the Light. We turned and plunged into the heavenlies. On a wave of His Light we flew... We flew as a torrent of stars through the universe... On a wave of worship I flew, this time alone. I circled through the clouds and over the ground... I knew her in an instant. Her heart had no shadow. Her soul was as pure as any I've seen... Her heart is so flawless, so willing..." 102.

 

The angels and archangels occupy center stage of Cosmic Christmas, overshadowing and preempting the second and third Persons of the Godhead. In fact, Jesus Christ is nowhere seen in the heavenly courts of this pseudo-Christian book, although Scripture declares His eternal pre-existence:

 

Max Lucado: For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all thing were created by him, and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Col. 1:16, 17

 

In Max Lucado's imaginary tale, the "the Light" disappears from the vial that has been entrusted to Gabriel, and presently impregnates Mary with "the essence" which will be called the Son of God. In the final analysis, Cosmic Christmas has reduced the Lord Jesus Christ to a "divine spark" which is implanted in a worthy human being:

 

Max Lucado: "Mary...You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call His name Jesus. He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; He will rule Jacob's house forever - no end, ever, to His kingdom...

"I continued, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the highest hover over you; therefore the child you bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God...

 

'I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say.' As she spoke, a Light appeared in her womb. I glanced at the vial. It was empty." 103.

 

Evangelical leader, Max Lucado has portrayed in story form the Gnostic principle that human beings are, through their own merits, incipient vessels of the divine essence. Jay Gary would agree. From his Bimillennial Report we read:

 

Max Lucado: "We must recover the simple idea that the spark of eternity has been placed within each human being. We must fan this flame, this tiny spark within each person - and insure that no government, not group, or no authority is allowed to smother or snuff out this sacred flame." 104.

 

Ditto Gnosticism: Human nature mirrors the duality found in the world: in part it was made by the false creator God and in part it consists of the light of the True God. Humankind contains a perishable physical and psychic component, as well as a spiritual component which is a fragment of the divine essence. This latter part is often symbolically referred to as the "divine spark". The recognition of this dual nature of the world and of the human being has earned the Gnostic tradition the epithet of "dualist".

 

The Gnostic concept of salvation, like other Gnostic concepts, is a subtle one. On the one hand, Gnostic salvation may easily be mistaken for an unmediated individual experience, a sort of spiritual do-it-yourself project.

 

Gnostics hold that the potential for Gnosis, and thus, of salvation is present in every man and woman, and that salvation is not vicarious but individual. At the same time, they also acknowledge that Gnosis and salvation can be, indeed must be, stimulated and facilitated in order to effectively arise within consciousness. This stimulation is supplied by Messengers of Light who, in addition to their teachings, establish salvific mysteries (sacraments) which can be administered by apostles of the Messengers and their successors.

 

If the words "ethics" or "morality" are taken to mean a system of rules, then Gnosticism is opposed to them both. Such systems usually originate with the Demiurge and are covertly designed to serve his purposes. If, on the other hand, morality is said to consist of an inner integrity arising from the illumination of the indwelling spark, then the Gnostic will embrace this spiritually informed existential ethic as ideal.

 

To the Gnostic, commandments and rules are not salvific; they are not substantially conducive to salvation. Rules of conduct may serve numerous ends, including the structuring of an ordered and peaceful society, and the maintenance of harmonious relations within social groups. Rules, however, are not relevant to salvation; that is brought about only by Gnosis. Morality therefore needs to be viewed primarily in temporal and secular terms; it is ever subject to changes and modifications in accordance with the spiritual development of the individual.

 

The Annunciation scene from Max Lucado's Cosmic Christmas bears an eerie resemblance to a similar portion of New Age book titled Messiah & The Second Coming. However, as members of the Coptic Order belonging to the Spiritual United Nations (S.U.N.), John Davis and Naomi Rice are at liberty to present a more blatantly heretical account:

 

David and Naomi Rice.... The Christ is within each and everyone of God's creatures. É. . .the Christ is the spark of pure energy of God that has always existed within the individual manifestation of God in in many forms, but has been forgotten. (Messiah and the 2nd coming John David and Naomi Rice 1982 Coptic press Wyoming MI)

 

"(Mary) was considered by the elders and priests to have the most flawless character of all women in the temple.

 

At the age of fourteen, Gabriel was sent to Mary's bed chamber.
He stood outside her chamber door and poured his radiant light into her chamber.

When she saw this great light she became afraid and he backed away. The procedure was repeated three times. On the third time, Gabriel spoke to her and assured her that she need not be afraid. He told Mary who he was and that he had been sent to inform her that she had been chosen among all women to bear the body of the new Messiah and to protect and raise the child with great care.

 

"The Holy Spirit then entered into Mary through her air pipe in her throat, and there the seed thought of the baby Messiah initially took shape.

 

As she held this immaculate concept within her mind and heart,

the fetus of Jesus began to take shape in her womb." 105.

 

Matthew Fox- The Cosmic Christ is the divine pattern that connects in the person of Jesus Christ (but creatures. The divine name from Exod. 3:14, "1 Am who I Am, "is appropriated by Jesus who shows us how to embrace our own divinity. The Cosmic Christ is the "I am" in every creature. (P154)

 

Notice that in Cosmic Christmas and the New Age book, the archangel is the agent who brings "the Light" to Mary.

 

In Holy Scripture, Gabriel's mission is to simply announce to Mary that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God, the incarnation being the work of the Holy Spirit alone and that moment is never recorded in Scripture. The authors of Messiah & The Second Coming have developed the concept of the fruit of the Seed to its Gnostic conclusion:

 

Max Lucado: "...the seed thought of the baby Messiah initially took shape... As she held this immaculate concept within her mind and heart, the fetus of Jesus began to take shape in her womb."

 

What the Bible says He will be

	King	Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. Isaiah 44:6
	Wonderful Counselor	Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? Isaiah 40:13 ---For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 1 Timothy 2:5
The Son is	Mighty God	I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Revelation 1:8
	Ever- lasting Father	Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. Isaiah 63:16 ---Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Revelation 1:12
	Prince of Peace	Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. Acts 5:31

What did Jesus say of himself-John 8:23 And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I AM from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world." "Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM" ( John 8:58). Jn.5:18, "He said God was his Father, making himself equal with God. "And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20:28. John 10:14-16: "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep", David said in Ps.23 The Lord (God/ Yahweh) is my shepherd. Later in jn.10 Jesus states of His sheep "they follow Me and I give them eternal life."

 

What did the disciples teach that he said- "and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us. John 1:2-3 He was in the beginning with God 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made."

 

1 Pt.1:1 " our God and savior Jesus Christ." Titus 2:13 Jesus is called "our great God and Savior." Col 1:16-17: "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him."1 Tim.3:16 "God was manifested in the flesh."

 

The Council of Nicea was held in 325 A.D. to counter various systems of Gnosticism, a 2nd-century dualistic religion

 

which denied that Christ had had a completely human life;

He was said by some Gnostics to have passed through the body of Mary as light passes through a window.

 

See how John Mark Hicks, a friend of Max Lucado, warns that his INCARNATIONAL VIEWS may deny that Christ came fully in the flesh. That, of course, would identify anti-Christ.

 

As noted earlier, Gnostics believe that the world of matter in which the human soul is imprisoned is evil and that man's spirit is meant to partake in the divine nature of the Universal Spirit.

 

"Gnosis" is the perception by man that he contains a spark of God and the realization of his need to awaken from his inferior mode of physical existence to a full consciousness of his divinity, which has become ensnared in matter.

 

The blazing star graces the cover and title page of The Star Of 2000.

Cosmic Christmas also opens and closes with illustrations of the planet Saturn and a blazing star.

 

Hislop notes:

To those who were initiated the god was revealed; to all else he was hidden. Now, the name Saturn in Chaldee is pronounced Satur; but, as every Chaldee scholar knows, consists only of four letters, thus--Stur. This name contains exactly the Apocalyptic number 666:--

 

S = 060

T = 400

U = 006

R = 200

-------------

666

 

If the Pope is, as we have seen, the legitimate representative of Saturn, the number of the Pope, as head of the Mystery of Iniquity, is just 666. But still further it turns out, as shown above, that the original name of Rome itself was Saturnia, "the city of Saturn." This is vouched alike by Ovid, by Pliny, and by Aurelius Victor.

And:

 

The customs were found in Tyre and among the Phoenicians, and continued for a long time there and among the Canaanites. Those who did not have children purchased them from the poor so that they would not be short of a suitable sacrifice.

 

The children who were burnt were either cast into a furnace or placed in a statue of Saturn, which was set on fire.

 

Because of the musical worship of Satan under the Egyptian Triad as the bull calf, God TURNED ISRAEL OVER to worship the starry host. Chiun and others were SATURN who is the same 666 beast now aroused. Rubel Shelly and John York see this as a "pattern for Christian worship and community." And they teach that we should see the S.O.N. God as the S.U.N. God.

 

In The Star Of 2000, Jay Gary has set the stage for a reenactment of another journey of modern Magi, guided by the blazing star, to present the gift of a new civilization to "Christ." Max Lucado has described in Cosmic Christmas an initiation whereby a willing human vessel receives the divine essence.

 

The Masonic axiom, "as above, so below," is particularly relevant to the Christmas season, the celestial event being the birth of the Sun-god or Gnostic Christ and the terrestrial event the "birthing" of the baby "Christ" within willing human vessels. In Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception: Mystic Christianity, no less than Rosicrucian Grand Master, Max Heindels, identifies December 24 and 25 as the most potent time of the astrological year and the ideal time for initiationrites:

"The night between the 24th and 25th of December is the holy night, par excellence, of the entire year. The zodiacal sign of the Immaculate Celestial Virgin stands upon the eastern horizon near midnight. The sun of the new year is then born and starts upon his journey from the southernmost point toward the northern hemisphere, to save that part of humanity (physically) from the darkness and famine which would inevitably result if he were to remain permanently south of the equator... The spiritual influences are strongest, in the north, at midnight of the 24th of December... It would then be easiest for those who wish to take a definite step toward initiation to get in conscious touch with the spiritual time... The blazing star is ever there to guide him." 111.

 

The hidden message of Cosmic Christmas is closely related to that of New Age Messiah & The Second Coming:

 

According to Gnostic theurgy, the angels are stars or the planetary spirits which will guide a willing humanity to receive the Luciferic initiation.

 

David Spangler teaches that "Christ is the same force as Lucifer... Lucifer prepares man for the experience of Christhood. (He is) the great initiator.... Lucifer works within each of us to bring us to wholeness, and as we move into a New Age ... each of us in some way is brought to that point which I term the Luciferic Initiation ... for it is an invitation into the New Age. (David Spangler Reflections on the Christ p.44-45)

 

De Angeles

My interest in Hildegard is not just musical or literary. There are aspects of her theology that resonate very strongly with the present and with me personally. Two of these in particular have inspired the music of De Angelis: (1) the feminine elements invested in Hildegard's vision of the divine and of the centerpiece of the Christian Faith, the Holy Trinity, and (2) the concept of the ultimate redemption of Lucifer which is alluded to towards the end of 'O gloriosissimi'.

 

Even though clearly discernible in retrospect,

the musical treatment of these two elements was not planned in advance.

 

Like everything else about this composition, these elements formed into recognizable entities by themselves,

 

and it was only after I had written a significant portion of De Angelis that I 'saw' them 'staring' at me through the pages of my own work. From that moment of understanding, the composition of De Angelis turned into a kind of a theological discourse through sound.

 

"This type of discourse is of particular interest to me. I am adverse to textual creeds, because I feel that text by nature limits its subject matter and creates a dangerous substitution in the minds of the readers. For example, I wonder how many Christians today do not actually worship a 'textual' God, a god who comes to them through textual definitions provided by the Creed, the gospels, and the other sacred texts of each denomination.