In Arles, France in 1888, Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear with a razor, leaving just a bit of the lobe. Here’s the doctor’s sketch:
Van Gogh took his severed ear and gave it to “Rachel”, a cleaning girl in a brothel. He said to her, “Take this in memory of me.” With that said, let’s read this scripture:
And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19)
Vincent van Gogh gave a piece of his literal body, his ear, to Rachel. Many working girls in the brothel used the name Rachel. Her real name was Gabrielle, and because the name Rachel was used, it’s likely she was an underage prostitute. She was 19 at the time, and prostitutes had to be 21. Because of her age, she was probably posing as a cleaning girl to avoid arrest. Gabrielle died in 1952, and she never spoke in public about this traumatic event.
Before Vincent ban Gogh moved to Arles, he was living in Paris. He first met Gabrielle, age 18, in January 1888 at the Institute of Pasteur in Paris. She had been bitten by a rabid dog in Arles and was being treated with a series of injections. With this information, we can say that van Gogh cut his ear off and gave it to Gabrielle because her ear had been bitten off by a dog. Some believe van Gogh cut off his ear for “religious self-sacrifice and compassion.” This is probably true, but he wouldn’t have cut his ear off if Gabrielle hadn’t of lost her ear in the rabid dog attack.
Vincent van Gogh had a sense of doing good in wanting to help the less fortunate. He was the son of a protestant minister, read the Bible, and even gave sermons—”notoriously long sermons”. It was said that he “nurtured Christlike fantasies of martyring himself for the poor”. Later in life, van Gogh might have developed a twisted view of Jesus Christ. He definitely had a warped obsession with Gabrielle. It seems he had an overwhelming sense of pity for her mixed with erotic love, and after we investigate the whole story, we get a sense that Gabrielle didn’t feel the same way.
Obsessions are demonic, and Gabrielle had a stalker, but so did van Gogh. A few weeks after Gabrielle left the Institute of Pasteur and returned to Arles, van Gogh followed. Fortunately for Gabrielle, she was never physically harmed, but she was most likely emotionally scarred. Vincent van Gogh had a Messiah Complex:
The term can also refer to a state of mind in which an individual believes that they are responsible for saving or assisting others. Messiah complex – Wikipedia
When van Gogh arrived in Arles, he had a renewed sense of life. He did some of his greatest paintings there. But it’s in Arles that everything went south. Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s brother, recorded some of Vincent’s bizarre conversations. One of these was about being “stalked by madness”. Another conversation was about the apostle Peter cutting off the ear of Malchus in the Garden of Gethsemane during the arrest of Jesus Christ.
And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. (Luke 22:50)
Did van Gogh feel he was a betrayer of Jesus Christ, deserving his ear to be cut off?
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And He touched the man’s ear and healed him. (Luke 22:51)
Unfortunately, van Gogh’s ear wasn’t healed. He knew who Jesus Christ was, but sadly, he listened to the demon that was stalking him. He committed suicide in 1890, a year and a half after he cut off his ear, and we know from Scripture that there’s no forgiveness for suicides:
21 Again He said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for Me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews began to ask, “Will He kill Himself, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” (John 8:21-22)
People who kill themselves can’t go with Jesus.
Historians say that Vincent van Gogh descended into mental illness. This is true. But what they don’t understand is that demonic forces were at work in van Gogh. These beings are going to eternal hell in a lake of fire, they know it, and they’re trying to take as many people with them as they can. These fallen angels, or demons, don’t necessarily speak to the person they’re stalking, inasmuch as they speak as the person. But the person believes it’s just their own mind thinking negative thoughts. When we try to explain these truths, unbelievers think we have a mental illness. What can be done until their eyes are opened?
It’s difficult to think that someone who had such a sad life is now in eternal punishment. But it’s the choices we make that we’ll be judged on, and we don’t have to listen to demons. The sad ending of Vincent van Gogh’s life is just one of millions of sad endings that we don’t hear about.
No matter what we’re tested with, we can receive God’s promise of eternal life through the saving grace of Jesus Christ, who shed his blood on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Everything we’ve done wrong in our life is forgiven through the blood of Christ. Once we accept Jesus as Lord and savior, we turn from evil and do good. We walk in newness of life with God our savior, carrying our cross, never forgetting that Jesus led the way for us in hunger, pain, suffering, and death.
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Futile World 