A careful reading of the previous posting reveals an interesting piece of information: virtually all gentile societies have viewed time as cyclical in nature. Regardless of their geographic location or despite their lack of contact with each other, pagan cultures all possessed a circular view of life linked to the seasonality observable in nature. In fact, it was only Judaism, followed by Christianity, that embraced any semblance of linear thinking. Pagan holidays and festivals coincided with seasonal occurrences such as the winter and summer solstices as well as the spring and autumnal equinoxes’. After the so-called conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 A.D., the Roman Catholic Church slowly began the process of trying to Christianize pagan holidays. As a result, the Church positioned Christmas, Easter, and All Saints Day or All Hollows Eve to coincide with pagan festivals that celebrated the seasonal changes of nature. Where did the gentiles obtain this seasonal celestial view of the universe?
What Did Humanity Know and When Did We Know It?
The notion that early men were primitive (e.g., cave men) is an evolutionary supposition that Bible believers should reject. Adam, the first man, was not a half man/half animal creature as evolutionary pseudoscience teaches. Rather, Adam was created in the image of God as a fully functioning adult male possessing superior physical, mental, spiritual, and emotion faculties as you or I.(1) Moreover, Adam was placed into a mature, fully functioning, and perfectly created environment. Adam was given a charge to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over . . . every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”(2) Adam was given the job of dressing and keeping the Garden of Eden in which he enjoyed unbroken fellowship and communion with God.(3)
Before God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, He created the planetary bodies of the universe. Genesis 1:14-19 records this event:
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the
day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and years: 15) And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth: and it was so. 16) And God made two great lights;
the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he
made the stars also. 17) And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth, 18) And to rule over the day and over the night, and to
divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19) And the
evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Note a few significant details. First, the alignment and position of the planetary bodies serve the purpose of providing light upon the earth. Second, the relationship between the earth and the celestial bodies of the firmament would not only account for the differences between day and night but would also serve as a mechanism for rendering seasons as well as for counting days, weeks, and years. Third, the dividing of day and night, seasonal differences, and the counting of days and years were designed in verse 14 to serve as signs to the inhabitants of the earth. According to Strong’s Concordance, the Hebrew word translated “signs” in the King James Bible means “a signal, a distinguishing mark, banner, remembrance, miraculous sign, omen, or warning.” Therefore, Adam was placed in an environment in which the planetary bodies served as signs of God’s existence and handiwork.
The daily rotation of the earth on its axis would bring day and night. Likewise, the combination of the earth’s yearly revolution around the sun along with the tilting of the earth’s axis at 23 1/2 degrees would produce the yearly seasonal differences. All of these natural phenomena were designed by God to serve as a sign and testimony to his existence and creative genius. Consequently, God placed Adam in an environment that had been intentionally designed to bear witness to the glory and splendor of God. Genesis further reports of humanity’s fall into sin, which not only wreaked havoc on God’s pristine creation but also clouded and distorted man’s willingness to see God’s handwork in the natural world.
In Romans chapter one, the Apostle Paul reports how mankind’s fall into sin distorted his willingness to see the witness God placed within creation. Paul wrote:
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed
it unto them. 20) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21) Because that, when they
knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain
in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22) Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23) And changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Romans 1:19-23
The following points about post-fall man are clearly observable from this passage. First, mankind clearly knew who God was through his creation. Second, based on the testimony of creation alone, mankind is without excuse for not desiring to retain God in his knowledge.(4) Third, the ultimate result of not glorifying God as God, lack of thankfulness, and vain imaginations is the changing of the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. In short, mankind took the witness of God through creation and perverted it in an attempt to escape accountability. The end result was that humanity changed the truth of God into a lie (5) for which “God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” (6)
Therefore, from the very beginning mankind was aware of the seasonal nature of God’s creation. After the fall, the sons of Adam, in an attempt to remove God from their knowledge, took the signs and seasonal markers God established when he created the planetary bodies and hijacked them as part of their religious systems. Herein lays the explanation for why virtually all pagan societies in the ancient world viewed time as cyclical. They were simply following the course of this world, a perverdion of the knowledge of God authored by Satan and his lie program. This is precisely what E. W. Bullinger argues in his landmark book The Witness of the Stars, namely, that the Zodiac is a satanic distortion of the witness God placed in the heavens when he garnished them with the various celestial bodies.
Pagan Calendar: Note the cyclical structure and polar positioning of the winter and summer solstice as well as the spring and autumnal equinox. See the examples of Pagan Cyclicality at the top of the right hand margin.
This author believes that the giving up of the gentiles to a reprobate mind that Paul speaks of in Romans 1 took place in Genesis 11. It was at Babel that God “suffered the gentiles to walk in their own way,” because in Genesis 12 God calls out Abram and made a covenant with him to bring from him a great nation that would be formed from Abram’s seed. When God allowed the gentile nations to follow after their own foolishness, he did not reorganize or restructure the physical mechanisms of his creation. Rather, God still uses the seasonality of his creation as a testimony to the nations of his existence. Consider what Paul says to the inhabitants of Lystra in Acts 14:16-17, “Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” Notice that God left the signs of seasonality in place to serve as a witness to the gentiles of his existence despite their perversion of it.
Rather than God setting up the nations to follow a cyclical seasonal progression, the nations chart their own course that follows Satan’s distortion of God’s created order. In other words, seasons continue not because pagan religious rituals bring about their passage but because God ordained his universe at creation to function in this fashion. Sin has not disrupted the seasonal patters of creation but has instead distorted mankind’s understanding of them. In Genesis 8:22, Moses says the following regarding the cyclical functioning of the seasons: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” The famous passage from Ecclesiastes 3 concurs with Moses’ statement:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2) A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up
that which is planted; 3) A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break
down, and a time to build up; 4) A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to
mourn, and a time to dance; 5) A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather
stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6) A
time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7) A
time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8)
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Initially, the passing from day to night, winter to spring, and year to year were designed as sings to manifest the genius of almighty God, but Satan’s lie program utilizes this cyclicality to promote worship of the creature rather than the Creator.
While linearism remains the predominant model for understanding history, we must also recognize that God is also the author of cyclical seasonality. Consequently, to arrive at a complete paradigm of history, we must embrace the reality that as time moves forward linearly towards its prophesied end, cycles are also occurring. A proper understanding of cyclicality is necessary to arrive at a complete Biblical paradigm of history. Stay tuned for more on this in our next posting.
End Notes:
1) Genesis 1:26-27.
2) Genesis 1:28.
3) Genesis 2:15.
4) Romans 1:28.
5) Romans 1:25.
6) Romans 1:28.
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