Messiah In The Old Testament Episode 3
Chinese Creation Story
Welcome to Messiah In The Old Testament. We’re continuing our series today looking at creation stories from around the world. The last time we looked at the Cherokee story of creation and today we are going to travel to the country of China.
Now China has many versions of the creation story and this is not at all surprising because, think about it, China is a nation of almost 1 1/2 billion people. They speak six language groups and they have over 300 dialects spoken in China.
It is not at all surprising that they have multiple versions of the story. Now, I have some friends that are expatriate Chinese that grew up in China. And I asked them which story they learned when they were young. And they all were familiar with the Pan Gu story. So, this is the story that I am going to tell you today. So, for all of my Chinese friends, “ Wo xiwang ni xihuan zhege hen bang de gushi.” Sorry about my broken Chinese, but it means I hope you enjoy this awesome story.
Now the Chinese story begins with the world in absolute and utter chaos. This chaos is being caused by all of the opposites that are fighting with each other. You've probably heard the term ‘ying and yang.’ These are opposites. They are opposites like hot and cold, light and dark, soft and hard, and wet and dry. All these opposites, the Chinese believe, were just fighting against each other. Now, all the opposites were confined into a giant egg. And inside that egg, they fought back and forth. Now, over a long, long eons these forces worked and interacted and finally they conceived a giant being.
That being is called Pan Gu. Now Pan Gu was a shaggy giant. He was covered with hair and he had a thick beard. He had horns and he was
very, very large. Now when Pan Gu was conceived, he slept inside this giant egg. And he slept for a long time, in fact, he slept for 18,000 years.
When his time of confinement was over, Pan Gu woke up and he then broke out of the egg. And as he broke out of this egg, all the opposites were separated. So, Pan Gu was that one who was able to bring balance to the universe by separating all the opposites and balancing those against each other. Now, all of the elements within the egg that were dark and heavy, sank down and became the earth. And all those that were light and bright, all rose up and became the heavens.
Now Pan Gu was very concerned that the heavens and the earth, all of these elements would start interacting and opposing each other once again. So, what he did, was stood with his feet on the earth and his hands reaching up to the heavens and he separated heavens and earth. And as he did so, he continued to balance the universe. Now, the universe started growing. The earth started growing. The heavens started growing. And the gap between them grew and Pan Gu grew at the same rate, so that he kept his hands and head in the heavens and his feet on the earth. In fact, it’s specifically written down that everything grew at 10 feet per day. Now, again, a long period of time transpired and about 18,000 years passed. And finally, Pan Gu was confident that he had stabilized the heavens and if he let go that everything would stay in position. So, he let go of the heavens and he collapsed to the earth in this giant tumultuous crash. And as he fell, he died.
So, he expired his final breath as he was collapsing. And the Chinese believe that as he fell, his body was then metamorphosed into many, many parts that became the earth. And they have specific delineation of what parts became what part of the earth. So, for example, his head rose and became the top of the heavens. His skull became the top of the heavens and that separated the sky from the stars above. Now his eyes were then taken and turned into the sun and the moon. And his hair and his beard became all the stars in the sky, they became the Milky Way. So, his skin became all the plants and vegetation, the trees, the shrubs,
the flowers. His bone marrow became jade and pearls. His fingernails and horns and teeth became copper and silver and gold and all the lustrous metals. Now, his arms and his body became the mountains on the earth. All the blood in his veins became the raging torrents of the rivers. His veins became roads and his muscles all became fertile farmland. Now, after all this metamorphosis had transpired, the heavens and the earth were all set in place and it came time for man to be fashioned. Now things diverge a lot in the story. Some versions say that lice and fleas on Pan Gu’s flesh became man, but most accounts agree that man was made out of the mud and the dirt of the earth. And Pa Gu’s spirit went into man as he collapsed and died. So, Pan Gu’s spirit lives on in all men. I hope you enjoyed this story. It is amazing to me, as we go through the stories, how similar they are. How there's some points that are just the same no matter where you go. And how close some of them are to the Old Testament delineation of this same story. So, as we continue going around the world, I hope that you will continue to join me for this very fun and very awesome experience. Thank you very much.
Thank you for watching our show today. We hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Now, after watching this episode you might be saying to yourself, “Who is this Messiah that Dr. Smith is talking about?
Is he talking about the Christian Messiah? Is he talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary. And then lived a blameless and holy life on the earth, And then was tortured and crucified. And after he died he then was resurrected from the dead after three days. Then after people witnessed this, he was then taken up bodily by Elohim into heaven from the Mount of Olives.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Muslim prophet Isa. Isa Ibn Maryam, the messenger, who was sent by Allah to bring a message to the people. The Quran says he that lived a holy and blameless life, was born of the virgin Mary. He fulfilled all the Jewish prophecies in exact accordance.
But one difference, instead of being crucified, he then was taken up by Allah into heaven before the Romans laid hands on him. And he awaits there now in the fourth heaven where at the end of days at the day of judgment he will be revealed to all.
Or is Dr. Smith talking about the Jewish Messiah? The Messiah who has not yet been revealed, that the entire Jewish world is waiting for his revelation. Now, the beautiful thing is that you can hold to any of these beliefs. And we can all still learn together about Messiah. We can learn about our Christian Messiah. We can learn about our Jewish Messiah. We can learn about our Muslim prophet Isa who will be revealed. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You can even be an atheist or agnostic and still learn from this program about Messiah. Now, I have to admit I am a Christian so I approach things, obviously, from a Christian point of view. And I promise you, as we reveal these prophecies, which I believe have all been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Or will be fulfilled when he comes back, returning in the clouds in the same way he was taken up. I believe that all of this is true, but I promise you I will do my very best to present these prophecies from a neutral point of view. And try to keep my Christian bias to a minimum. Obviously, it will pop up from time to time but I will try to stay only in the Tanakh and try not to get into the New Testament very often. Now, if you want more information about Messiah, we have resources for you.
We have a website which is findingmessiah.org. Now, on that website you are going to find several resources. You will find links to all the videos, all the episodes that we have created so far. You will find links to download the transcripts of any of these episodes. And then you will find a section where you can get more information about Messiah through frequently asked questions. And then there is a section for donation. If you want to come alongside our ministry at Finding Messiah.
Now, there’s going to come a time in this series where you are going to be confronted with the question: What are you going to do with
Messiah? Who do you believe Messiah is? Which of these Messiahs do you believe Dr. Smith is talking about? And Messiah will become real to you if you look at all the information presented and come to your conclusions. So, join us as we continue our journey through the Old Testament Scriptures looking for all the Messianic Prophecies. And join us next time as we reveal those to you.
