Christmas Gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
വഴി New Christian Bible Study Staff
In the Christmas story, the wise men bring gifts to the Lord: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The gold is listed first, because it is the inmost - signifying good, e.g. the good that we do when we love the Lord and the neighbor.
The frankincense is next. It signifies rational truth, which is the set of true ideas that we know, not about external things like cars or cooking, but about what is really good, and what is really true.
These rational truths are built on earlier knowledges that we learn, before we have really made them our own. Those early knowledges about spiritual things - often learned in childhood - are represented by the myrrh.
In a way, these gifts are really a reciprocation. We can't actually give them to the Lord until the Lord has given them to us. We necessarily start out by learning and doing the Lord's law (myrrh). The Lord can then call up those memories to become rational truths (frankincense). Then, over time, and with effort, those truths can be transformed into good (gold). The wise men from the East had gone through this process of learning and becoming vessels that could receive truths and goods. They were able to perceive the Lord's birth, and find him, and bring gifts to him.
John 5:18-23
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For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
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Jesus therefore answered them, "Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise.
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For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel.
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For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires.
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For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son,
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that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn't honor the Son doesn't honor the Father who sent him.
