Scripture and the Church

Where Does Scripture Command Observance of Christmas?

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott
Some readers have asked us to point out a specific passage in which Scripture commands observance of Christmas.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Some readers ask us to point out a specific passage in which Scripture commands observance of Christmas.

In response to other articles we have written concerning the obervance of Christmas (especially here and here), we have received several sincere questions from readers who disagree. They are all along these lines:

"Please point out a specific passage in which Scripture commands observance of Christmas."

"Did the New Testament church celebrate Christ's birth? Where do we see this?"

"Many of the Protestant Reformers, and later men like Charles Spurgeon, have spoken out against the observance of Christmas. How can we disagree with them?"

"Doesn't the observance of Christmas violate the regulative principle of worship - that Christian worship can only include that which God specifically warrants?"

These are excellent questions demanding Biblical answers. Let me address the first two at the same time, and then move on to the third and fourth.

No Specific Scripture, But Ample Warrant

There is no direct command in Scripture to set aside a special day to commemorate Christ's incarnation. Nor is there a direct command to have a church building, or to preach from a pulpit, or as to how often God's people should observe the Lord's Supper. Nor was there a direct command for the institution of the Jewish synagogue, yet Jesus and Paul both preached the Gospel in them. Nor do we have a great deal of evidence, beyond Scripture, of the detailed practices of the early church prior to the closing of the New Testament canon.

But as for Biblical principle, there is ample warrant for a Christ-honoring remembrance of His incarnation. Old Testament believers looked forward to the birth of the Redeemer for 4,000 years. As Hebrews chapter eleven tells us, "all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect [i.e., complete] apart from us. (Hebrews 11:39-40)

We read in the Gospel accounts that the legions of heaven appeared and sang "glory to God" when prophecy culminated in fulfillment. And when Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Jerusalem to be circumcised when He was eight days old,

behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. So he came by the Spirit into the temple.

And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: "Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your Word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel." (Luke 2:25-32)

Immediately after this came "Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.... And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38).

Should not God's people today, in a proper manner, commemorate in retrospect this momentous event for which the ancient people of God so long waited, and over which both they and the angels of Heaven rejoiced when it happened?

Furthermore, the New Testament is filled with the deep teachings of the incarnation from beginning to end. One of the most vivid is found in the Spirit-inspired words of Paul in Philippians chapter two:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Abuses Do Not Necessitate Prohibition

Over the centuries, and never more so than in our own time, money-mad fallen man, and false religions such as Mormonism, have paganized the incarnation. (For more on Mormonism's perversion of the incarnation, see this broadcast). Religious liberalism has aided and abetted such travesties by turning remembrance of the incarnation into a syrupy celebration of works-religion and humanism.

They are all getting away with it, more so in our generation than any other, because of ignorance of the truth that is unprecedented in the West since the time of the Reformation. The nominally evangelical church is largely responsible for that ignorance because large segments of the church have also bathed Christmas with a whitewash of trite sentimentalism that has far more to do with Charlie Brown or the fictional "little drummer boy" than the authentic Christ.

Much of the church has lost hold of this central fact, and no longer proclaims it: Christ's coming was the Divine invasion of Satan's realm to secure his defeat at the cross, and to free a people from his bondage (Colossians 2:13-15). The angels who sang "Glory to God in the highest" at His birth were not the feminized beings of many a church Christmas pageant, but the heavenly army of God, and Christ was their Commander. A church that no longer grasps such truth has no Gospel message.

Let me move on to our readers' final questions, which also relate to the matter of abuse: Why have so many notable Christians over time, especially from the Reformation onward, spoken and written against Christmas observance? The strong common thread through all of them is a reaction against abuses - historically, mainly those of Roman Catholicism. As we noted in another article, many mistakenly believe that the actual origin of the word "Christmas" is "mass of Christ" - that is, the Roman Catholic mass. But as we demonstrated in that article, this is not the case. These believers also often point to the New Testament's command to Christians not to be in bondage "regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths" (e.g., Colossians 2:16).

I have many dear friends in Christ, including brothers in the ministry, who are firmly set against Christmas observance in their homes and churches for these reasons. I respect their right to do that as a matter of conscience, but I do not agree with them, nor does Scripture truly support them.

And lastly, does the regulative principle of worship prohibit Christmas observances? No. The New Testament passages concerning observances of special days speak of two specific things. First, they were commands against bondage to the ceremonial observances associated with the Old Covenant. The Judaizers were attempting to impose these things - Jewish feasts and convocations that were "a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ" (Colossians 2:17) - on the early Christians. The second thing these passages speak against is the pagan observances that the forerunners of the Gnostics (who did not believe Christ had come in the flesh) were trying to introduce into the early church (e.g., Colossians 2:18). The point of these passages is that these observances have nothing to do with Christ now incarnate, and therefore Christians should have nothing to do with these observances. But there is nothing here that prohibits commemoration of the true incarnation of Christ.

Granted, there are abuses of Christmas within the church. Most of these result from the world's perversion of Christmas. All perversions of worship and preaching involve the introduction of the world into the church, and perversions regarding the incarnation are no exception. But do abuses of music in the church prohibit the singing of "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16)? Do abuses of preaching give us a reason to ban all preaching of "Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh" (2 John 7)? Not at all.

There is nothing wrong, and everything right, with God's people taking a day in the year to especially proclaim the entry into this world of the greatest Personage of all history, "all the fullness of the Godhead in a body" (Colossians 2:9), "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:9), the One who came into this world "not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38) - and in that observance to emphasize the saving significance of Christ's first coming.

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