The Unpopular Truth as to Christmas and Easter
Unknown Author
Table of Contents
The Truth As to Christmas and Easter
“Shall I, to soothe the unholy throng,
Soften Thy truth, or smooth my tongue?”
John Wesley
Nearly everyone in Christendom celebrates Christmas, sends gifts and wishes the usual “Merry Christmas,” gladly taking it for granted that it must be right. In fact, it has become such a favorite tradition that inquiry as to its origin, which may be found in encyclopedias and unbiased church histories, is shunned. The Word of God does not justify its annual celebration either, but sternly condemns it in Galatians 4:1011: “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Thus the observance itself, whether pious or riotous, is condemned.
The blessed Saviour did not come to make His birthday and His name to be popularized by the world. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6).
The Date of Christ’s Birth
“No one knows the day Christ was born” (J.N.D. Collected Writings, Vol. 18, page 191).
Clement, in the second century, called the speculations as to the date “superstitious.”
Origen, A.D. 245, ridiculed the idea and said it was “sinful.”
The Church of Rome, in the fifth century records, “No certain knowledge . . . existed.”
The New International Encyclopedia states: “It is unknown just when it originated . . . almost certain that December 25 cannot be the . . . [date].”
Christmas was first celebrated by the church at Jerusalem in A.D. 440. Later, “in the fifth century the Western Church [Rome] ordered it to be celebrated” (Americana Encyclopedia).
The Origin of Christmas
December 25 was “a heathen, if not a solar origin. . . . The Saturnalia of the Romans preceded it” (Nelson’s Encyclopedia).
“On the old Roman feast of Sol [celebrating the birth of the Sun-god]” (Americana Encyclopedia).
“The Saturnalia (a feast of unbridled joy). . . . The Nativity was fixed at the same epoch” (M. de Beugnot’s History, Vol. 2, page 265).
“The church . . . going back to heathenism . . . would have festivals, and they tacked on Christian names to heathen ones. . . . Christmas having been the worst of heathen festivals . . . they put Christ’s birth there. . . . [That day] was the expression of one of the worst principles of heathenism —the reproductive power of nature. . . . The church has Christian festivals, so-called, to replace the heathen ones . . . paganizing Christianity . . . to keep their fleshly minds contented” (J.N.D. Collected Writings, Vol. 29).
Augustine recounts that so determined were the people to have feasts that the clergy winked as it!
A Tradition of the Elders
(Matthew 15:2)
Thus the tradition emanated from “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), sprang out of heathenism, was transplanted to Christianity by unfaithful forefathers, and developed by the Church of Rome, “Babylon the Great, the mother of . . . abominations” (Rev. 17:5). Like little children led to believe in Santa Claus, Christendom has been deceived by its “blind leaders of the blind” (Matt. 15:14).
Should not all this bow the heart with shame and cause us to “sigh and . . . cry for all the abominations” practiced in Laodicean Christendom dishonoring the name of our blessed Saviour (Psa. 119:158; Jer. 15:1517; Ezek. 9:4; Phil. 3:1819)? How can we have any part in such a farce? How will it appear at the judgment seat of Christ?
It is “another Jesus” — a popular Jesus (2 Cor. 11:4) suited to the world! The “Christmas spirit” is not of the Holy Spirit but “another spirit” (2 Cor. 11:4). “The spirit of the world” (1 Cor. 2:12) “is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).
A Heartless World
When Christ, God manifest in flesh, was born, this world had “no room” for Him (Luke 2:7). “He is despised and rejected of men” (Isa. 53:3). They said, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him” (John 19:15). “And they crucified Him” (Matt. 27:35).
This world is guilty of the murder of the Son of God.
Having gotten rid of Him they now rejoice “and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another” (Rev. 11:10). It is the same principle as garnishing the sepulchers of the righteous whom their fathers had killed (Matt. 23:29,31), or as though Cain, after murdering his brother, had made Abel’s birthday a day of special festivities! Thus the Christ-rejecting world makes a great annual to-do over the imaginary birthday of the holy Son of God! They borrow and profane His blessed name to indulge their fleshly pleasures: “The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7).
Beware, vain world. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7). He will shortly make inquisition for the blood of His Son.
It vexes us to see the ungodly hilariously entering into the celebration of Christmas without any conscience as to their sins nor any heart for the Saviour. The same can be said about the mass of baptized profession that have never passed from death unto life (John 5:24; 1 John 3:14). But it hurts to see those who are “children of light” (Eph. 5:8,1417; Phil. 2:15; 1 Thess. 5:510; 1 Peter 2:9) in ignorance or indifference as to the evil origin of this tradition, carried along with the current, trying to make the best of it — perhaps by using some verse of Scripture, or by ministering to the needy, or by singing Christmas carols. (See Deut. 12:8; Rom. 12:2).
Easter, Another Unscriptural Tradition
This word “Easter” is found in the Authorized Version only in Acts 12:4: “Intending after Easter to bring him [Peter] forth to the people.” But the correct rendering of the Greek Pashcha is literally “Passover.”
Whence did that word Easter come? It is a corruption of Astarte, and that of Ashtoreth, the Phoenician name of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, of whose worship the least said the better — it was corruption deified!
Only One Feast on the Christian Calendar
The Lord never asked us to annually celebrate His birth nor to annually celebrate His resurrection, but He expressed His desire that we celebrate the memorial of His death. Every first day of the week (Acts 20:7), the day of His resurrection, the new creation day, suitably affords opportunity for those who are new creatures in Christ to gather to His precious name alone (Matt. 18:20), outside the camp (the religious system adapted to man’s pleasing; Heb. 13:13), to “show the Lord’s death till He come” (1 Cor. 11:26). “This do . . . in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:25).
Then amid the gloom and darkness,
Shines one feeble ray of light —
Some, who feel and own the ruin,
Seek by faith to walk aright.