tElje &tmbap ikijool tEtmes ( published, every week) gives you ten unusual helps on the International Uniform Sunday 'School Lessons Have questions like these troubled you? • Is Civil Defense Right? • Am I My Brother’s Keeper? • Is Crime in the U. S. Increasing? • Can Our Churches Have Revival? • Is the Lord’s Return Near? • Can I Expect God T o Satisfy? These questions and hundreds of others like them have been answered in our columns. Subscription rates: Single subscription, $3.00 a year. In clubs of five or more, $2.50 each per year (inU. S. dollars). In Canada: add 25c for postage. Special Introductory Offer: 18 weeks for $1.00. (In Canada, $1.10.) THE SUNDAY SCHOOLTIMES CO. Box 177H - . Philadelphia 5, Pa. ttjp Mnrö Enclose a beautiful S C R IP T U R E T E X T pastel in all your correspond ence and gift parcels. You will be highly rewarded. Send ten cents for samples and full particulars TODAY. STANDARD SPECIALTIES COMPANY P. O. Box 4382-E San Francisco mind of Christ” in all humility, love, self-denial, and obedience. This is taught in Philippians 2:1-4 and the great Kenosis passage which follows in verses five through eight. Second ly, we are constrained to serve Christ faithfully and to witness for Him earnestly. It is most evident that since it was the will of the Father for Christ to come in order to die for the sins of the world, it is now the will of both the Father and the Son that the whole world should hear of that death and avail themselves of its mer it. Thirdly, we should observe the birth of Christ with rejoicing, for the coming of the Saviour does in deed bring “ good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10). Fourthly, Christ mas should be observed as a day of gratitude and thanksgiving. It must never be forgotten that gifts are given to the ones whose birthdays we cele brate. While remembering others this coming Christmas day, let us bring our best gifts to thé Christ of Bethlehem! No gold have I, my Lord and King, j For gold Thou bidd’st me not to seek: But from a heart surrendered, meek, The treasure of my love I bring. END. 25 Your editors have a Christmas gift for you. See page 7.
Doctrinal Pointers by Gerald B. Stanton, Th. D. Prof, of Systematic Theology, Talbot Theological Seminary
THE THEOLOGY OF CHRISTMAS
C hristmas has been commercialized and paganized to the point where it has all but lost its true signifi cance as the day set apart to honor the birth of Christ. The commercial ized Christmas gets under way by late summer, steps up its tempo at Thanksgiving, and ends in a frantic scramble through an avalanche of gaudy merchandise, leaving many of its participants cross and exhausted and in poor condition to celebrate the incarnation of the Son of God. The paganized Christmas sponsors a cheerful week of revelry and self- indulgence built around such features as Santa Claus and turkeys, Christ-" mas trees and Yule logs, glittering tinsel and tinted tapers, but offers little conducive to rededication, or worship. Just as the true significance of Easter has been hidden by such items as eggs and bunnies and ladies’ fashions, even so have the trappings of Christmas—largely carried over from paganism and Romanism—ef fectively obscured the true signifi cance of the birth of Christ our Sav iour. Lest we, as Christians, slip into the ways of the world in this matter, let us pause to re-evaluate Christmas by briefly con sidering three ques tions: Whose Birth is Celebrated at Christmas? No ordinary babe is this, and no ordinary event His birth—bom of a virgin, the scene lit by supernatural star and hallowed by angel chorus! No ordinary birth, to divide history, to break time into two pieces, B. C. and A. D. “ All history before Him was converged toward Him. All his tory since Him diverged from Him. It is Christ who is the Center around which all events revolve” (Elmer E. Helms). Christ, then, is preeminent in history, for all history is His story. The Christ who came is the pre existent One. In eternity past He was rich (2 Cor. 8:9), yet, leaving the “ ivory palaces” (Psa. 45:8) He “be came poor” when He “ emptied him self’ and was “made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). As eternal God, truthfully He could say, “Before Ab-
raham was, I am” (John 8:58) and with equal veracity He could speak to the Father of “the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). Therefore the Christ who came was God in the flesh, the “God with us” predicted in Isaiah 7:14; the “God manifest in the flesh” of 1 Timothy 3:16; the “ great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” of Ti tus 2:13. How false and empty the claims of those who say the Bible never ascribes deity to Jesus Christ (see also Heb. 1:8 and 1 John 5:20). The Christ who came was Israel’s Messiah (Luke 2:25,26), the long- awaited King (Luke 1:32,33), the le gal heir to the throne of David (Matt. 2:2), and the Saviour of the world (Matt. 1:21). Little wonder that the small baubles of a commer c ia liz ed Christmas cannot compete with the splendid Person of the Son of God in the thinking and celebra tion of any who pause to contemplate the real meaning of Christmas day. What Happened at the Birth of Christ? The answer to so vast a question as this can be indicated here but briefly. For Christ, not only was the incarna tion a change of position from heaven to earth and a temporary veiling of His heavenly splendor, but in a sense it was also a change of substance. God had now clothed Himself with flesh; deity was now entered into the stream of humanity. Nò idle gesture of brotherhood was this. Rather, it was a necessary step toward the cross on which the sin question was to be forever settled; it was a fulfillment of Old Testament prediction concern ing Israel’s coming Prince; it was an identification with His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. Although His birth was of great value in preparing the way for human redemption, it is most sig nificant, however, that Christ never asked us to celebrate His birth, but His death! How Should We Observe the Birth of Our Saviour? First of all, the incarnation of thè Son of God teaches us to have “ the
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