Paleontologists speak of Neanderthal Man, Australopithecus, and many other pre-human forms that were supposedly forbearers to we modern-day Homo sapiens. All of this allegedly happened many millions of years ago.
Of course, removed from literal Biblical interpretation, we know that this whole field of study remains highly imaginative and speculative. There is now already a long legacy of the Bible having trumped scientific skepticism on many issues, whether historical, scientific, or otherwise.
All of the Bible has proven to be true, except what remains unfulfilled … or remains to be scientifically discovered or proven. As all that has already been fulfilled or discovered has proven to be 100% accurate, it takes only a small leap of faith to acknowledge that the rest of the Bible that science still argues with will also prove to be correct. That truism applies to science, thus also to the theory of evolution.
With respect to physical evolution, the Bible doesn’t mention any different species of humans, sub-humans, or any developmental, biological stages of mankind. As it happens, there simply isn’t any proof for the theory of evolution. It remains a religion. Nor is there any difference between ancient humanity and that of today. Man’s basic characteristics, both physical and temperamental, have not changed one iota.
With respect to humans, the Bible only makes one major racial distinction—that between Jew and Gentile. Even more importantly, the Bible makes one other distinction between humans—between the pagan and the righteous. It’s here that we see the real evidence for evolution, although a spiritual version—paganism.
That’s the launch point for our study. Virtually all anthropologists agree that today, the earth’s sphere is populated by the so-called modern man and woman. In contrast, Bible prophecy speaks of the Modern Pagan Man of the Endtimes. Today, he is the fittest creature found inhabiting and dominating the earth’s new economic sphere.
Finding Ancient Pagan Man
To discover the Modern Pagan Man, let’s first examine the character and behaviors of the ancient pagan. The Bible offers a detailed description. However, to get a balanced and accurate picture, we need to do a brief word study.
There is no specific word in the Bible for pagan. In fact, you will not even be able to find the word “pagan” in some Bible translations (for example, the KJV, ISV, ASV, and others). Why? Because it is a word meaning understood today that originated only later in New Testament times.
Today, we commonly take the word “pagan” to mean a heathen person who worships other gods or idols and is outside the Christian or Jewish faith. In Biblical times, a heathen was also a Gentile (though there were believers in God who were not Hebrew). Before Christ died for the sins of all and extended salvation to the Gentile, the Gentile and heathen were essentially one and the same. At the beginning of the New Testament era, most Jews still considered their newfound salvation through the Messiah as a progressive fulfillment of the existing Jewish faith (the religious world had not yet definably split into Jews and so-called Christians).
It took a little while before it was broadly recognized that there were Christian Gentiles who were neither heathen nor Jewish. Therefore, at the start of the Church Age, only one Greek word was still used to describe both Gentile and heathen: “ethnos.”
This Greek word “ethnos” appears 167 times in the New Testament. The point of this is that in our study of the “evolutionary” pagan, we will look only to those verses of the New Testament where the word “ethnos” is clearly in the context of the newer sense of the word—a heathen.
A study of the Bible reveals many common characteristics of the “pagan.” We will only review five of these. All of them are directly linked to the evolution of our materialistic Modern Pagan Man.
- Self-Interest
“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46-47). In these verses, Jesus makes the point that the “pagan” person operates purely out of self-interest. Their actions are motivated by their own wants and pleasures: the personal pursuit of happiness and comfort. They only love those that love them, and revile those that likewise repudiate them.
Today, some 2,000 years later, this pagan characteristic of self-interest has greatly evolved and is now held up as the very force that is leading the world to betterment, continued progress and prosperity.
In fact, supposedly advanced economic theories hold this impulse of “self-interest” in high esteem, representing a rapid transition having taken place in basically less than a few hundred years. It is a foundational tenant of market-based capitalism, the term used for today’s type of commerce (which, by the way, actually has little to do with capitalism in its original sense).
The main result is that the entire world has become deeply commercialized. Increasingly today, the prime reason for existence is commerce itself.
What does the Bible say about the “self-interests” of the Modern Pagan Man? It provides a clear message for societies that choose to define their existence in purely pagan terms … in other words, societies that have given themselves over to the rule of economics and Mammon.
The examples of Tyre and Babylon are fitting ones. Neo-Babylon (in the era of Nebuchadnezzar) was all about business. According to studies, Babylonia was essentially a commercial civilization. Virtually all of the documents that have survived from this culture are business documents. Another prime example is the history of Tyre, the extreme commercialization of which the Bible itself provides clear documentation of.
The city of Jericho may be another and even earlier example. Probably the most ancient habitation in the world and one of the most prosperous, it was the city selected by God to be the first to be conquered by the Hebrews as they entered Canaan. In fact, this city was the only one that was miraculously destroyed and the only Canaan conquest that was completely annihilated—women, children, livestock and all. God wanted it completely expunged. Why?
Could it have reeked of generations of idolatrous commercialism? God didn’t want any of Jericho’s culture to rub off on Israel. Joshua even prophesied that whoever would attempt to resurrect this city of Jericho would suffer the loss of his first and second born (Joshua 6:26). Exactly as prophesied, this occurred six hundred years later during the reign of Omri, when Hiel of Bethel did so (1 Kings 16:34).
- Worry About Material Things
Pagans are totally consumed with material things, according to Scripture. “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them” (Matthew 6:31-32; cf. Luke 12:29-30). By this definition, then, it would be pagan to only preoccupy oneself with the pursuit of possessions and lifestyle.
Scripture refers here to only two items—food and clothing. In the society of that day, both things defined lifestyle as well as the necessities of life. This verse is therefore not just referring to mere subsistence. Clothing and food both have a necessary function. To attribute any other value to them is idolatrous and pagan.
Of course, in the modern age, lifestyle is defined by many more things than just food and clothes. To be sure, there are premium brands in clothing, top designer names, the latest accoutrements. The same is still true for some foods. The finest wines are sought; the food brands that are the most effectively advertised are the ones that people may strive to buy.
Mostly today, lifestyles are defined by other baubles such as expensive Swiss watches, luxury cars, the latest gadgets, spacious, palatial homes, and much else. To have them all is the epitome of the successful life, the trappings of elite existence. That’s the implicit goal and value of a society of pagans. “Running after these things” is today part of a highly sophisticated culture of branding, consumer surveys, advertising, and psychological research.
In this sense, there has been much change over the centuries and millennia. Here again, we see the evolution of the Modern Pagan Man. Viewing the massively endemic commercialization of America and other nations, it is hard to imagine how much more materialism could yet lie ahead.
In the next part, we review the remaining three characteristics of the Endtime Pagan Man.
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Wilfred J. Hahn is a global economist/strategist. Formerly a top-ranked global analyst, research director for a major Wall Street investment bank, and head of Canada’s largest global investment operation, his writings focus on the endtime roles of money, economics and globalization. He has been quoted around the world and his writings reproduced in numerous other publications and languages. His 2002 book The Endtime Money Snare: How to live free accurately anticipated and prepared its readers for the Global Financial Crisis. A following book, Global Financial Apocalypse Prophesied: Preserving true riches in an age of deception and trouble, looks further into the prophetic future.
Do you have questions or other perspectives? You can contact Wilfred at: staff@eternalvalue.com.