Christmas Gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
By 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.
Luke 17:22-33
22
And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.
23
And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them.
24
For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.
25
But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.
26
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
28
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31
In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
33
Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
