December, 1945
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Paul warns the Colossian Christians against losing sight of the person of Christ in a mass of human tradi tions and superstitions. As we look about us and ob serve the preparations being made by the world, and even the Church, to celebrate Christmas instead of Christ, we need to sound forth Paul’s warning anew. Christ will have but a little part in most of the holiday cele brations, and w ill be lost and forgotten under a pile of Christmas trees, wax candles, electric lights, religious ceremonies and senseless pageantry. Christmas carols will be sung in beer halls and taverns, and in churches where the Lord Jesus Christ is denied throughout the remainder of the year. Unbelievers and infidels w ill hang wreaths in their windows and make much of the Christmas holiday while rejecting Christ’s offer of salvation. Christmas for Christians Christ is only for Christians, and, therefore, the birthday of the Christ should be only f o r ' Christians. We do not celebrate the birthday of the King of Sweden in the United States; neither is Washington’s birthday made much of in England. Why, then, should those who are not subjects of the Christ, and not citizens of Heaven, celebrate the birthday of One who means noth ing to them? But when we note how the birthday of Christ is observed, our wonder increases. It is a far cry from that still night when Heaven stood breathless and won dering, and angels folded their wings in reverential adoration, as God the Father, wiping a tear from His eye, sent His Son from Heaven’s glories into this world of sin and woe and death. It is a far cry from that night when two Galilean peasants, at the end of a one-hundred-mile journey, friendless and homeless because there was no room for them in any inn, begged leave to rest their weary bodies on a pile of straw in a reeking stable among, the sheep and asses. What resemblance to that original Judean picture of the birth of the Son of God to a pure young virgin in a stable with the beasts of the field as w it nesses, is there in the present idolatrous revelry of our modern holiday crowds? Amid the clinking of the goblets of hell, .the shuffle of uncertain, dancing feet, and the inane sin-bent men and women, bleary-eyed and foul-mouthed people will celebrate the birthday of the Stainless One who came to deliver a world from sin. Among this shameless mob will be many who call themselves Christians. Instead of falling upon their faces before the Christ of Calvary, they will bow. before the shrine of Bacchus, and hiccough their sottish adoration upon an altar of debauchery. The Origin of Christmas There is no record that the early Christians ever celebrated Christ’s birthday. They remembered His death, but not a verse in the Bible gives the faintest hint that they kept Christmas. Its origin is purely pagan, so that it is no wonder that the entire Christmas season is cluttered up with medieval superstitions. The more pagan a church is, the more it makes of Christmas, and the less it makes of Calvary. Where, I pray you, do you find any evidence in the Bible, or elsewhere, that Jesus was born in December, much less on the twenty-fifth of December? The Holy Spirit, when He inspired the recorders of the birth of Jesus, intentionally omitted any reference to the date lest we should fall into the evil of worshiping the day Instead of the Person. But perverted man has rejected the Christ and deified His birthday. Surely, Paul had this very thing in mind when he wrote: "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known
ADVANCE NOTICE! • Annual Torrey Memorial Conference of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Church of the Open Door Auditorium, 558 South Hope Street JANUARY 20-27, 1946 SPEAKERS DR. C. L FEINBERG, Dallas, Texas; DR. JOHN LINTON, Wheaton, III.; DR. GEO. McNEELY, Newark, N. J .; DR. GEO. A. PALMER, Philadelphia, Pa.; DR. W. L. W IL SON, Kansas City. Mo.; DR. J. R. McCULLOUGH, Ta*. coma, Wash, Watch for Full Details in January Number of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain” (Gal. 4:8-11). Paul had tried to get these Christians occupied with Christ and they, too, had lost Him in the maze of cere monial observances. Can we not see a parallel of this today in the modern Christmas celebrations? We have substituted a Santa Claus for the Son of God, putting an old man in the place of the Babe. Surely Jesus has become “The Forgotten Man of Christmas.” Let us consider this in the unbiased light of history. I quote from The Science Digest, January, 1939, Page 96: “Christmas comes on December 25 because ancient pagans had a mid-winter feast to celebrate the begin ning of the sun’s return northward, after the short days and discouraging' cold. Christianity, supplanting pagan ism, made the transition easier by setting the date of the mid-winter (pagan) feast as the traditional date of Christ’s birth. The connection between Christmas and the mid-winter solstice, is rather generally accepted. Even the most orthodox churchmen now state that there is no dependable record or tradition, exactly dating the great event in Bethlehem and that the Christmas cele bration did not begin until about three centuries after Christ.” Here is a quotation from Compton’s Encyclopedia, Volume II, Page 758: ' “ One of the causes that worked to establish the new festivity (Christmas)' on December 25 was the fact that the day was the beginning of the winter solstice festival of the pagan Gauls, Germans and Britons. As in other instances where pagan festivals were substi tuted for Christian, many of the old pre-Christian cus toms were taken over. The Yule log, the holly, the mistletoe and the flowing bowl are all relics of pagan observances.” We Would See Jesus But this was not the first time that Jesus was lost in the midst of celebrations. It h#d happened before, on the day of the Passover Feast; Jesus was lost in the crowd of celebrators. He, the true1Passover Lamb, was unrecognized and unwelcomed by the Jews, but there were present a few Gentile Greeks, who came not to celebrate, but to see Jesus. These Greeks came to Philip and Andrew with the petition, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Notice the answer of Jesus to this petition: “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24). In order to see Him, Jesus does not direct these seeking Greeks to His birthday, but to His deathday. The ( Continued on Page 464)
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