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Transcript 001A — Questions Concerning the Wise Men
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Hello, Mr. Camping. I have some questions about the Wise Men. First, why didn't the Jews know that Jesus was going to be born if the Wise men knew?
HC: How is it possible that the Magi or the Wise Men knew that Jesus was going to be born and not the leaders in Israel? After all, Jesus was born as someone of the nation of Israel. He was a Jew, and He was actually to be the most important individual who ever would come to any nation, and certainly to the nation of Israel.
God had His own mysterious plan. The Magi were in another nation altogether, probably in the nation of Persia. Actually, they knew about His birth, the few shepherds knew about His birth, and two or three individuals, like Simeon and Anna, knew about His birth. And that's about all, It was just not God's plan that anyone else would know about His birth. He was to be born very humbly; He was to be born without any publicity of any kind. God had His own purpose for showing each one that He was born.
Now actually, the Magi represented the world. They represented the whole world, as they brought their gifts to Him. And Christ came as the Savior of the world. Remember when He was introduced by John the Baptist, He was introduced, "Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." The Magi were not Jews and were actually representatives of the world. The shepherds were a representative of something else, and we can talk about that at another time. But the Magi were actually a representation of the world, all the believes from the world who would come to bring their gifts of love to Him.
CALLER: Do you think they might have been saved? Does the Bible tell us if the Wise Men were saved? And how did they know about the star?
HC: The question is, how did the Magi know this whole thing? We wonder. They saw a star in the East. From the historical record, from a secular record, we know that there were three conjunctions of the planets in the year 7 BC. These are fairly rare in the heavens. The ancients watched the heavens very very closely because what was happening in the heavens, they believed, was a portender of things that might come to pass. And certainly the astronomers of that day became very skilled in predicting eclipses, and so forth. And so the fact that there were three conjunctions during that one year at least would have been very interesting to them.
Now the Bible doesn't talk about this. This is simply from the secular record. However, they also saw a mysterious star, a special star. And from the sacred record, from all the information we can gather, in all likelihood Christ was born in the year 7 BC. And that was the time they saw the star. Now on what basis would they have come to the nation of Israel? First of all, the three conjunctions of the planets, we know from the secular record, were part of the heavens that were associated with the nation of Israel. That's speculation. But that is from the secular record.
However, we also know that there was a time several hundred years later, when very important Jewish people had been citizens of Persia, from which these Magi came. Daniel, for example, was a ruler in Persia under Cyrus, who was the king of the Medes and the Persians. Remember that the nation of Judah had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC. Then in 539 BC, a few decades later, the Medes and the Persians had destroyed Babylon, or conquered Babylon. And so all of the sacred books and the sacred writings that were in the possession of the Jews would have fallen into the hands of the Persians, that is, all those that had found their way into the land of Persia.
Now we can speculate this, that these Magi, well, it's not a speculation that they saw the star. Definitely they saw the star. The first thing they would have done (and now we're speculating) is that they would have gone to all their sacred writings, whatever they had around, to discover, is there anything here in any of them about a star? And finally they would have run across the sacred writings of the Jewish people that had been deposited in Persia about the time of Daniel, undoubtedly. And there they would have read, in Genesis 49, that a sceptre would rise in Judah; that is, a king would be born in Judah.
In Genesis 49 we read in verse 10, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet". Now the sceptre has to do with the coming of the King. In Numbers 24, and this would have been particularly attractive to heathen Magi, heathen astronomers, because the man who gave this prophecy was a heathen just like the Persians were, we read in Numbers 24:17, "I shall see him, but not now: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth."
Now here we have a star rising out of Jacob; and a sceptre, that is, a king, is to be born in Israel. And so based on that verse, I am absolutely certain that these Magi came to the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. And lo and behold, as they started to move toward Jerusalem, the star guided them to Jerusalem, even apart from any knowledge they may have had of what the Bible may have said. The star would have guided them to Jerusalem.
Now they came to Jerusalem and inquired of the Jewish leaders there, "Where is the King that is born? A sceptre shall rise out of Israel." A sceptre is what a king holds to indicate that he has authority. "Where is the King that has been born?" And no one there knew anything about it. But their theologians realized that in Micah 5:2 God had declared that out of Bethlehem a King would come. And so they said, "Try Bethlehem; maybe there's a king that is born there."
And the Magi found, to their utter delight, that the star they were following led them right to Bethlehem and stood over the house where Jesus was. Now obviously this star was not way up in the heavens. Otherwise it could not have singled out a single house. There is no star that would stand and mark out a single house. It was a very special miraculous star that was just high enough in the heavens so that it could stand directly over one house and not over the neighbors' house. And that is the star that they followed. And it was all a miracle, of course. But they could have gotten their information out of Numbers 24, particularly.
CALLER: Okay, I have two more questions and then I'll hang up and take my answer over the air. How do we know how many Wise Men there were? And do you think they might have been saved? Does the Bible tell us that?
HC: The question is, how many Wise Men were there? Anyone knows that there were three. You pick up any Christmas card, and there are always three and they're riding on camels. The fact is, there were not three. That is strictly someone's imagination, that there were three Wise Men. Undoubtedly there was a whole company of people that came from, I say, Persia. The Bible doesn't say Persia, but the secular record shows that there was a second ruling class in Persia at this time in history called the Magi or Magen. That word identifies with the word that we find in the Bible.
Because Persia was hundreds and hundreds of miles from Israel, three men would never have traveled there. They would have been beset upon by bandits. It would have been the most foolhardy thing in the world to do. Undoubtedly there could have been a company of a hundred or more soldiers and officials from Persia that came along.
Now the reason that we get the idea of three Wise Men is that they brought three kinds of gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But this is simply a company of Magi who came, and they brought three kinds of gifts. But under no circumstance must we think that there were only three of them. The fact is, the Bible declares that all Jerusalem was troubled. They were really troubled. Why were they troubled? In the first instance, they were troubled, "Is Persia trying to create a war with Israel?" And certainly if only three men had come that would not have been a very scary thing. But undoubtedly there was a fairly large company of people who came, of soldiers and officials who came. And this was quite unnerving to the officials in Jerusalem.
Now were they saved? The Bible doesn't say. It's possible that some of these Magi were saved. That is, they may not have been saved when they came there, but by the time they left they may have been saved. That is not at issue. The Bible doesn't get into that. What is at issue is that through this God is teaching us that the world is going to bring its gifts to the Lord Jesus Christ, the gifts being that the saved of the world are going to come to the Lord Jesus. And Christ came as the Savior of the world, so that whosoever believes on Him could become saved.