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The idea of redemption from sin through the sufferings and death of a Divine Incarnate Savior, is simply the crowing point of the idea entertained by primitive man that gods demanded a sacrifice of some kind, to atone for some sin, or avert some calamity.
In primitive ages, when men lived mostly on vegetables, they offered only grain, water, salt, fruit, and flowers to the gods, to propitiate them and thereby obtain temporal blessings. But when they began to eat meat and spices, and drink wine, they offered the same; naturally supposing the deities would be pleased with whatever was useful or agreeable to themselves. They imagined that some gods were partial to animals, others to fruits, flowers, etc. To the celestial gods they offered white victims at sunrise, or at open day. To the infernal gods they sacrificed black animals in the night. Each god has some creature peculiarly devoted to his worship. They sacrificed a bull to Mars, a dove to Venus, and to Minerva, a heifer without blemish, which had never been put to the yoke. If a man was too poor to sacrifice a living animal, he offered an image of one made of bread.
In the course of time, it began to be imagined that the gods demanded something more sacred as offerings or atonements for sin. This led to the sacrifice of human beings, principally slaves and those taken in war, then, their own children, even their most beloved "first born." It came to be an idea that every sin must have it prescribed amount of punishment, and that the gods would accept the life of one person as atonement for the sins of others. This idea prevailed in Greece and Rome; areas where much of the New Testament would be written later [THINK].
In the beginning such sacrifices by one for the sins of others were found only among heroic self-sacrifice for the public good but that would change over time. Cicero says: "The force of religion was so great among our ancestors, that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the strongest expressions of sincerity, sacrificed themselves to be immortal gods to save their country" (Prog. Relig. Ideas, Vol. I, p. 303).
In Egypt, offerings of human sacrifices, for the atonement of sin, became an almost daily occurrence. When the Egyptian priests offered up a sacrifice to the gods, they pronounced the following imprecations on the head of the victim:
"If any evil is about to befall either those who now sacrifice, or Egypt in general, may it be averted on his head" (Herodotus: bk. ii, ch. 39).
The idea of atonement finally resulted in the belief that the incarnate "Christ", the Anointed one, the representative man, the God among us, was to save mankind from a curse imposed by God. Man had sinned, and God would not and did not forgive without a propitiatory sacrifice. The curse of God must be removed from the sinful society, and the sinless must bear the load of that curse. It was asserted that divine justice required blood . Now notice this is the religious belief system of Pagans and not Moses or Joshua or David. This religious belief system occurred long, long before Moses, Sinai, or Torah. These are the beliefs of pagans as found from nation to nation as archeology and anthropology have proven. The facts of this religious system are found around the globe and the evidence confront us with the reality of what I said!
You should be curious as to how nations on the other side of the globe, deprived of cell phones in their day, was able to have almost identical copies of the same religion long before there was ever an Abraham or a Moses. The key, as you will find, as I did, was that sun worship was the tie that bonded their religious beliefs together. More on that later.
The belief of redemption from sin by the suffering of a Divine Incarnation, whether by death on a stake, pole, tree, or cross or otherwise, was general and popular among the heathen, centuries before the time of Jesus of Nazareth, and this dogma, no matter how sacred it may have become, or how consoling it may be, must fall along with the rest of the material of which the Gentile Church is built.
Julius Firmicius, referring to this popular belief among the Pagans, says: "The devil has his Christs". This will amaze you but this was the general off-hand manner in which the Christian Fathers disposed of such matters when pagans accused them of copying their pagan religious doctrines. The only resource at hand when cornered was to blame it on the Devil. The Devil was for the Gentile Church, when cornered and exposed by the facts by Pagans who confronted them about their plagiarized religious doctrines, a religious counterfeiter. The Devil, for the church, served as a prophet for things to come. Surely you see the incredibility of such a statement. But what else is new? Most Protestants resort to the same techniques today when such facts come across their path. Some, a little more original, will say that the whole this is nothing but types and figures played over and over again from nation to nation and finally culminating in Jesus of Nazareth. This sounds plausible if it were not for one thing….the existing evidence of sun worship and its inherent doctrines. When one comes to the full understanding of such Pagan worship, along with its manifested evolutionary and variegated religious doctrines, and if one happens to be a traditional Christian, then there is no nightmare worse that this in this life. The absolute horror of the reality will strike home….you are a sun-worshipper for YHVH….and the last time I looked He called people to repent of this and continually spoke very negatively about such religion and people in the Tanakh!
As I have done in prior articles, I will now present a parade of information of staggering proportion. I will first turn to India, where we shall find, in the words of M. l'Abbe Huc, that "the idea of redemption by a divine representative," who came into the world for the express purpose of redeeming mankind, was "general and popular" (Huc's Travels, Vol. I, pp. 326-327).
"A sense of original corruption," says Prof. M. Williams, seems to be felt by all Hindus, as indicated by the following prayer used after the Gayatri by some Vaishnavas:
"I am sinful, I commit sin, my nature is sinful, I am conceived in sin, Save me, O thou lotus-eyed Heri (Savior), the remover of sin" (M. Williams, Hinduism, p. 214).
Chrishna, the virgin-born, "the Divine Vishnu himself," (Vishnu Purana, p. 440), "he who is without beginning, middle or end," (Ibid.), being moved "to relieve the earth of her load," (Ibid.), came upon earth and redeemed man by his suffering…to save him. You need to understand right now we are dealing with a religious belief system of Pagans that preceded Jesus of Nazareth by some 800 years!
The accounts of the deaths of most all virgin-born Saviors of whom I shall speak, are conflicting in some areas. It is stated in one place that such an one died in such a manner, and in another place we may find it stated altogether differently. One might be so inclined to dismiss the matter because of the lack of uniformity surrounding the deaths of the various virgin-born Saviors. But let me assure you that once you come to the knowledge of the vast storehouse of religious doctrines that evolved from Sun Worship, then you will completely understand that each different variety of virgin-born Savior's deaths are nothing more different manifestations of the sun; it setting, the sun being occluded by storms, the change of seasons, eclipse, etc. This will simply amaze you when we come to it!
As the Rev. Geo. W Cox remarks, in his Aryan Mythology, Chrishna is described, in one of his aspects, as a self-sacrificing and unselfish hero, a being who is filled with divine wisdom and love, who offers up a sacrifice which he alone can make (Aryan Mythology, Vol. ii, p. 132). I hope you noticed but not all Pastors are ignorant of this deception. Some have studied to the level to see these things and have been so moved to alert and warn the flock of the terrible conspiracy which has overtaken the brethren. Such a one I believe I am as well.
The Vishnu Purana speaks of Chrishna being shot in the foot with an arrow [think], and states this was the cause of his death. Other accounts, however, state that he was suspended on a tree [think], or in other words "crucified" [think] (Vishnu Purana, pp. 274, 612). Remember this was 800 years prior to Jesus of Nazareth.
Confirmation of the above can be found from Mons. Guigniaut, in his Religion de Antiquite, where he says: "The death of Chrishna is very differently related. One remarkable and convincing tradition makes him perish on a tree, to which he was nailed by the stroke of an arrow".
Rev. J. P. Lundy alludes to this passage of Guigniaut's in his Monumental Christianity, and translates the passage as a "cross" instead of a "tree." One can often find Chrishna as represented as hanging on a cross, and we know that a cross was frequently called the "accursed tree." It was an ancient custom to use trees as gibbets for crucifixion, or, if artificial, to call the cross a tree (Higgins, Anacalypsis, Vol. I, p. 499 and Mrs. Jameson's History of Our Lord in Art, ii, 317, where the cross is called the "accursed tree").
Even later in the Old Testament the writer of Deuteronomy is so influenced as he speaks of hanging criminals upon a tree, as though it was a general custom, and says in Deut. 21:22-23:
22 And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree:
23 His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
The subject of the verses is that if one breaks the Law of God and it just so happens to demand the death penalty, then it shall be carried out. Such a criminal must pay the price for his sin for the wages of sin is death, and in particular sometime death in this life! His body was to be hung publicly as a deterrent for others to learn not to follow such disastrous ways. Yet the body, tattered and bruised as it became, was yet made in the image of God and to allow the public display of such a body beyond a day was an affront to God and God would bring judgment on the community if such a body was not removed.
Later Paul recasts Jesus in the tradition of Chrishna when he says in Galatians 3:13: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.'"
It is evident, then, that to be hung on a cross was anciently called hanging on a tree, and to be hung on a tree was called crucifixion. We may therefore conclude from this, and from what we will now see, that Chrishna was said to have been crucified.
It the earlier copies of Moor's Hindu Pantheon, is to be seen representations of Chrishna, with marks of holes in both feet, and in others, of holes in the hands. Some representations show holes in both feet and some even have a round hole in his side like Jesus. Some have hanging from his collar or shirt the emblem of a heart which we often see in pictures of Jesus in the Catholic Church. Instead of the crown of thorns usually put on the head of the Christian Savior, Chrishna has the turreted coronet of the Ephesian Diana.
Rev. J.P. Lundy, speaking of the Christian crucifix, says: "I object to the crucifix because it is an image, and liable to grown in abuse, just as the old Hindu crucifix was an idol" (Lundy, Monumental Christianity, p. 128).
And Dr. Inman says: "Chrishna, whose history so closely resembles our Lord's, was also like him in his being crucified" (Ancient Paths, vol. I, p. 411).
The writers of the New Testament relates that when Jesus was crucified two others were crucified with him, one of whom, through his favor, went to heaven. One of the crucified others reviled him, but the other said to Jesus: "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.: And Jesus said to him: "Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." According to the Vishnu Purana, the hunter who shot the arrow at Chrishna afterwards said unto him: "Have pity upon me, who am consumed by my crime, for thou art able to consume me!" Chrishna replied: "Fear not thou in the least. Go, hunter, through my favor, to heaven, the abode of the gods." Then it is reported that Chrishna, having united himself with his own pure, spiritual, unborn, undecaying, imperishable and universal spirit, which is one with Vasudeva (God) [the same concept of John 1:1 in describing the Word with God], abandoned his mortal body, and the condition of the threefold equalities [a term used for the same concept of the Christian Trinity] (Vishnu Purana, p. 612). As it the plagiarism has not been proven satisfactorily, one of the titles of Chrishna is "Pardoner of sins," another is "Liberator from the Serpent of death" (Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. I, p. 72).
The monk Georgius, in his Tibetinum Alphabetum (p. 203) drew the caricature of a crucified god who was worshiped in Nepal. These crucifixes were to be seen at the corners of roads like the burma shave signs long ago that said "Jesus saves". The monk Georgius called this god Indra.
P. Andrada la Crozius, one of the first Europeans who went to Nepal and Thibet, in speaking of the god whom they worshipped there…Indra…tells us that they said "he spilt his blood for the salvation of the human race, and that he was pierced through the body with nails" [remember this is long before Jesus ever existed]. He further says that, although they do not say he suffered the penalty of the cross, yet they find, nevertheless, figures of it in their books (Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. ii. P. 118).
What you need to know is that although the nations of Europe have changed their religions during the past eighteen centuries, the Hindoo has not done so, except very partially. The religious creeds, rites, customs, and habits of though of the Hindus generally, have altered little since the day of Manu, 500 years B. C. (Prof. Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. iv). This means that the concepts we are reading predated Jesus and by over 500-800 years at least and served as a pattern for the crucified representative man of the orient that we find recorded thought the Eastern nations. We find the same story in the New Testament. This should not surprise you. What is of major importance is the absence of such a story from a group of literature…the Jewish Scriptures. The reason is very plain…God sent His revelation to Israel as they were to be a light to these Gentile nations which all have in one way or the other an adaptation of Sun Worship with its hanged/crucified representative man. That is why the Jews have not and will never accept the Jesus' myth for that is what it is.
Answer for yourself: Can anyone wonder why the Jews will not believe the "stores" about Jesus in the New Testament?
In India, in the South at Tanjore, and in the North, at Oude or Ayiondia, was found the worship of the crucified god Bal-li. This god, who was believed to have been an incarnation of Vishnu, was represented with holes in his hands and side (Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i. pp. 147).
The incarnate god Buddha, although said to have expired not on a tree but at the foot of a tree, is nevertheless described as a suffering Savior, who, "when his mind was moved by pity (for the human race) gave his life like grass for the sake of others" (Max Muller, Science of Religion, p. 224).
Matt 20:28
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
John 10:11
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
A hymn, addressed to Buddha could just as easily be sung to Jesus:
"Persecutions without end, revellings and many prisons, death and murder, these has thou suffered with love and patience, to secure the happiness of mankind, forgiving thine executioners" (Lilly, Buddhism, p. 93).
Buddha was called the "Great Physician" (Bunson, Angel-Messiah, p. 20), the "Savior of the World" (Ibid., p. 20, 25, 35; Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. i. p. 247; Huc's Travels, vol. i. pp. 326, 327, and almost any work on Buddhism), the "Blessed One" (Bunson, Angel-Messiah, p. 20), the "God among Gods" (Johnson, Oriental Religions, p. 604), the "Anointed," or the "Christ" (Ibid.), the "Messiah" (Ibid.), the "Only Begotten" (Ibid.), etc. Remember again this was long, long before Jesus.
Buddha is likewise described as sacrificing his life to wash away the offenses of mankind and thereby to make them partakers of the kingdom of heaven (Cambridge Key, vol. i. p. 118). Referencing New Testament passages to show the similarity would take to much space but you are most likely well aware that this topic occupies a lot of space in the New Testament.
As a spirit in the fourth heaven, he resolves to give up "all the glory, in order to be born into the world," "to rescue all men from their misery and every future consequence of it." He vows "to deliver all men, who are left as it were without a Savior" (Bunson, Angel-Messiah, p. 20).
Most are familiar with Paul's account in Phillipians where he speaks of Jesus emptying himself of his godliness as he takes upon himself frail humanity. In Seminary we called this the "Great Kenosis" passage…kenosis is Greek of empty.
Phil 2:6-8
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
While in the realms of heaven, and when about to descend upon the earth to be incarnated as a man, Buddha said: "I am now about to assume a body; not for the sake of gaining wealth, or enjoying the pleasures of sense, but I am about to descend and be born, among men, simply to give peace and rest to all flesh; to remove all sorrows and grief from the world" (Beal, Hist. Buddah, p. 33).
M. l'Abbe Huc says: "In the eyes of the Buddhists, this personage (Buddah) is sometimes a man and sometimes a god, or rather both one and the other…a divine incarnation, a man-god, who came into the world to enlighten men, to redeem them, and to indicate to them the way of safety. This idea of redemption by a divine incarnation is so general and popular among the Buddhists, that during our travels in Upper Asia we everywhere found it expressed in a neat formula. If we addressed to a Mongol or a Thibetan the question "Who is Buddah?" he would immediately reply: "The Savior of Men!" (Huc's Travels, vol. i. pp. 326,327).
According to Prof. Max Muller, Buddha is reported as saying: "Let all the sins that were committed in this world fall on me, that the world may be delivered" (Muller, Hist. Sanscrit Literature, p. 80).
Answer for yourself: Can a Christian doubt that these Gentile sun gods, or Buddah, or even Chrishna for that matter, was the "TYPE" of the Savior of the World to which Jesus was made to fit by the writers of the New Testament?
The people of India are no strangers to the doctrine of original sin. It is their invariable belief that man is a fallen being. This is admitted by them from time immemorial (Maurice, Indian Antiquities, vol. v. p. 95, and Williams, Hinduism, p. 214). And what we have seen concerning their beliefs in Chrishna and Buddha unmistakenly shows a belief in a divine Savior, who redeems man, and takes upon himself the sins of the world; so that "Buddha paid it all, all to him is due" (Prog. Relig. Ideas, vol. ii. P. 86). It is said of Buddha: "He in mercy left paradise, and come down to earth, because he was filled with compassion for the sins and miseries of mankind. He sought to lead them into better paths, and took their sufferings upon himself, that he might expiate their crimes and mitigate their punishment that they must otherwise inevitably undergo. The object of his mission on earth was to instruct those who were straying from the right path, expiate the sins of mortals by his own sufferings, and produce for them a happy entrance into another existence by obedience to his precepts and prayers in his name. They always speak of him as one with God from all eternity. His most common title is "The Savior of the World" (Ibid., vol. i. p. 247).
Shalom.