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December, 2020
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SPECIAL
EDITION
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"Thy word is a lamp unto
my feet, and a light unto my path."
Psalm 119:105
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Feature One: Religious Holidays
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Robert T. Oliver
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As we enter the holiday
season, I would ask that you read the following special edition of
"Light". These two articles are intended to encourage all
of us to follow God's word in every respect.
Bob Oliver
Christmas, Easter, and Special Days
One
needed study in my mind was what God desired for us in regard to
special days such as Christmas and Easter. On the one hand, we have
Paul the apostle in Romans 14:5 indicating that some might esteem, or
honor, one day as better than another. But when reading what Paul
wrote to the Galatian brethren in Galatians 4:10-11, he was afraid of
those that observed special days.
For
many years members of the church refrained from honoring Christmas or
Easter religiously in that they have not been given to us to observe
either as a command or by example in the New Testament. In our
current day, however, many of our brethren have special services on
these days and do honor them in a religious context.
I
believe all students of God's word would agree that Paul didn't
contradict himself in matters of faith. He spoke by inspiration. What
he taught was given by God. So why the seeming contradiction?
As
in all studies of God's word, context is always extremely
important. Look first at the passage in Romans.
Romans 14:1-5 (ESV) As
for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel
over opinions. One
person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only
vegetables. Let not the one
who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who
abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of
another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he
will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than
another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be
fully convinced in his own mind.
In this passage those that are weak in the faith are
under consideration. We understand in discussing the passage concerning
food, that all of the food under consideration is acceptable with
God. We understand this when Peter saw the vision of the sheet
containing animals in Acts 10. It is certainly acceptable
with God to eat meat or to refrain from eating meat. Neither is
wrong. God has clearly established that fact. Then Paul moves to the
subject of "esteeming one day above another". Adam Clarke,
the noted Bible commentator wrote concerning this, "Reference
is made here to the Jewish institutions, and especially their
festivals; such as the Passover, Pentecost, feast of tabernacles, new
moons, jubilee, etc. The converted Jew still thought these of moral
obligation; the Gentile Christian not having been brought up in this
way had no such prejudices. And as those who were the instruments of
bringing him to the knowledge of God gave him no such injunctions,
consequently he paid to these no religious regard." Barnes'
Commentary on this verse agrees with Adam Clarke, for he writes,
"The discussion had reference only to the special customs of the
"Jews," to the rites and practices which 'they' would
attempt to impose on the Gentiles, and not to any questions which
might arise among Christians as 'Christians.'"
These
"days" under consideration were days ordained by God for
the Jewish nation under the Law of Moses. Evidently, at least for a
time, God allowed the Jewish Christians to observe, at least to some
degree, the national holy days of the Jewish people. However, Paul is
not here giving them permission to observe them as did the Jews under
Moses. Animal sacrifices certainly were no longer acceptable. Paul
writes clearly that to go back to the Old Law in the Christian age
was sinful. In Galatians 5:4 Paul writes "Christ is become of
no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are
fallen from grace."
It
was to these same brethren that Paul wrote the following: Galatians 4:8-11 Formerly,
when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature
are not gods. But now
that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can
you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles
of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and
years! I am afraid I may have
labored over you in vain. In
this passage Paul is speaking of these brethren involved in Judaism
beyond remembering the day as special. Albert Barnes writes in his
commentary, "To the rites
and ceremonies of the Jewish law, imposing a servitude really not
less severe than the customs of paganism."
It
is the pagan customs that are involved in the "holy days"
under consideration here. If a sermon is preached or a class taught
that brings to memory the birth of Christ, that is Biblical. But that
is not what happens in the religious world today. If the day of
December 25th is chosen, the authority for that day
goes back to paganism, or Romanism. If the day is chosen based on the
position of the moon and the spring solstice, remember that date was
determined by the Roman Catholic Church. "In 325 CE, the Council of Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first
Sunday after the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal
equinox". https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/determining-easter-date.html.
Remembering
a day that God gave the Jewish nation is one thing. Following the Old
Law regulations and laws regarding these days was another. Evidently
the brethren in Galatia were deserting the ways of Christ and reverting
back to Judaism.
Our
challenge is whether or not God will allow us to follow after
paganism to honor our Lord? The date chosen was based on the feast to
Saturnalia. This pagan feast was also known for "work and business came to
a halt. ... Instead of working, Romans spent Saturnalia gambling, singing, playing music,
feasting, socializing and giving each other gifts." The Christmas tree is pagan. Mistletoe has pagan
origins. As for Easter, the name itself is pagan. The word
"pascha" correctly translated Passover is in the King James
Version incorrectly translated as "Easter". This name was
in honor of the goddessin England, "Eostre", who
was celebrated at beginning of spring. Paganism also gave us the
Easter egg and the Easter bunny.
Would
it ever be scriptural to bring those things that originated in the
worship to pagan gods into the worship of Christ? That is the
position we must take if we have Christmas trees, or other trimmings
of Christmas in our buildings at the time the world observes
Christmas. Easter is in direct opposition to what the Lord commanded
when he gave us His supper to be observed each first day of the week.
Its purpose was to remember His body and His blood at His death.
Easter is actually dishonoring our Lord. What he gave to us for a
weekly observance, the world has chosen only one day yearly, and also
brought in many pagan concepts.
Therefore,
in resolving this apparent conflict and its application to religious
holidays today, the Roman text allowed the Jewish brethren to
remember their national holidays; but the Galatian letter
emphatically condemned bringing them into the worship of Christ. For
us to believe the religious holidays of our day that originated in
paganism is acceptable to our Lord is to say he accepts paganism in
some of its forms.
One
further comment is necessary. Can a Christian make Christmas and
Easter family holidays? I believe based on 1 Corinthians 8 that would
be permissible. In this chapter Paul was addressing the subject of
eating meat sacrificed to idols. Was it permissible for a Christian
to go to the market and buy meat that had been sacrificed to one idol
or another. This was Paul's response. 1 Corinthians 8:4-9 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols,
we know that "an idol has no real existence," and that
"there is no God but one." For
although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth-as indeed
there are many "gods" and many "lords"- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from
whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. But
some, through former association with idols, eat food as really
offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse
off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not
somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
Paul
said they knew that these pagan gods and goddesses are not real, and
do not worship them. However, he was concerned that some weaker
brethren, perhaps new converts from paganism, might eat meat
sacrificed to idols religiously. That would be sinful. If by the
stronger Christian's example eating this meat would cause the weaker
brother to stumble and sin, then they should not eat the meat.
However, it was permissible provided it was not consumed religiously.
I
believe the same is true of the Christmas tree, presents, etc. If we
do not bring these into our religious relationship with Christ, it is
permissible, just as the 4th of July is permissible
as a national holiday. If we live in an area where Christians believe
it to be sinful to observe these days in any way, we should not
observe them either so we do not cause a brother to stumble.
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Feature Two: an article by R. C. Oliver
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R C Oliver
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The Concept of Christmas
A radio sermon by R C Oliver
December 24, 1972
It
is with very deep and mixed emotions that I address myself to this
task today, for I believe it is a subject that should be studied with
all the honesty and sincerity that we have. This honesty and
sincerity stir the emotions within us, for while in some respects I
believe that the honest heart must confess that this is indeed one of
the happier and sweeter seasons of the year, that same honest heart
must be equally moved when it considers the other side of the coin.
Among
those things that make this the happy season that it is to many of us
are the happy associations of the season, as well as the precious
memories of the happy associations that we experienced during this
same season of past years. Such memories make us look forward to this
season from year to year. Because of the memories that it stirs
within me, and because of the association that each new year promises
to bring, I enjoy the celebration of the day the world calls
Christmas, and the season the world calls the Christmas season. However,
in my celebration of this day and this season, I place no religious
significance upon it at all. I do not think of this as the birthday
of my Savior, for the simple reason that no one knows when our Lord
and Savior was born. Furthermore, the Bible nowhere tells us that we
should celebrate the birth of our Lord. It is not so much the babe of
Bethlehem as it is the Christ of Calvary that God wants us to see,
for this reason nothing is said about our celebrating the birthday of
our Savior, For this reason, churches of Christ do not give any
special emphasis to the celebration of this day in their calendar of
events. And for years I have been persuaded to believe that the more
pagan a church ism the more it will have to say and do about
Christmas, and the less pagan a church is, the less it will have to
say and do about Christmas.
In
studying this subject with you, I wish first to point out that
"Christmas" is a misnomer. The word "Christmas"
is a combination of two words: one is Greek (Christos), and means the
anointed or Christ, and the other is Latin (missum) and means to
send; hence, the combination "Christ-mass" or
"Christmas literally means "Christ-sent". But was
Christ really sent into the world on December 25th? If so,
we have no evidence whatsoever with which to confirm it. In fact, all
the evidence that we do have tends to deny it. We must, therefore,
conclude that Christmas is simply a misnomer-it is a mis-naming of
the day.
A
second reason why churches of Christ do not observe this day is the
fact that in no place in your Bible can you find a command that
requires one to celebrate this annual festival. In fact, nor
can we find an example of the early church celebrating the birth of
Christ. This is highly significant. Indeed, it is a
challenge to every honest heart. You ask, why? Simply because the
world of the Holy Spirit, when giving to us the Bible, was to guide
the Bible writer into "all truth" (John 16:13). Therefore,
the absence of a command to observe Christmas, nor is there
an example of the early church observing this day, makes
inevitable one of two conclusions. Either Christmas is not part of
the "all truth" that the Holy Spirit was to reveal or else
the Holy Spirit forgot to tell us something that Christ wanted us to
know. Every person who gives some Christian significance to Christmas
is faced with this dilemma. Take either "horn" you
will-they are both against you! On the one hand, if the Holy Spirit
left out a command intentionally, it is apparent that God does not
wish for us to celebrate the birth of His Son, and whenever we do we
show a lack of respect for the very one we claim to love. On the
other hand, if the Holy Spirit forgot to reveal something that God
willed for Him to reveal, such would reflect upon his competence,
thus rendering His work, the Bible, wholly unworthy of our
consideration, adoration, or imitation! Believing, therefore, that
the Holy Spirit has revealed to us "all truth", but
recognizing that nowhere has he commanded us to celebrate the birth
of the Son of God, churches of Christ refrain from placing any
special significance upon this day that we are now studying-the day
the world calls Christmas.
Another
reason why churches of Christ do not celebrate the birthday of Christ
is found in the fact that the early Christians did not celebrate it.
The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge,
Volume 3, page 47, says: "There is no historical evidence that
our Lord's birthday was celebrated during the apostolic or early
post-apostolic times."
And
a fourth reason why churches of Christ do not celebrate Christmas is:
The observance of SPECIAL days is specifically forbidden in your
Bible! Few people seem to realize this, and for this reason the
masses are led astray. Nevertheless, your Bible reads in Galatians
4:9-11 as follows, "But now that you
have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn
back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the
world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and
years! I am afraid I
may have labored over you in vain." Notice how
Paul here condemns these people for observing special days, months,
times, and years. He says to them that when they do such things it is
an indication that his apostolic labor with them was all in vain.
Imagine, therefore, the sharp rebuke the world would receive today
were it possible for the apostle Paul to return to the earth in our
time! For in addition to observing Sunday, the only day the Lord
commanded Christian people to observe in an special manner, he would
find professing Christians observing such unauthorized days as Ash
Wednesday, Good Friday, Lent, Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, Christmas,
and a host of other days which from the most part have come to us
directly from a paganist ancestry, and which have no divine authority
supporting them at all! Truly, if Paul found it necessary to warn
against the keeping of special days, seasons, and years during his
time, how much more ought we, who are surrounded with all kinds of
special days, seasons, and years, to cry out against them in our
time! This therefore is another reason why churches of Christ do not
observe this annual festival.
A
fifth reason why churches of Christ do not observe Christmas as a
religious day, or as the birthday of our Lord and Savior, is because
of the origin of Christmas. Christmas did not originate with God.
Christmas did not originate in heaven as the majority of people are
inclined to believe. Because of this, there is not place in your
Bible to which you can turn and read about this day. Because of its
absence in the Holy Scriptures, we are forced to look with askance
upon the whole affair as a Christian festival; however, to stop our
investigation here would not be to make a thorough study of the
subject. Nevertheless, the fact that it is nowhere mentioned in your
Bible forces us to look elsewhere for its origin. What, then, is the
testimony of history as to the origin of Christmas? Here are the
facts. George Fisher, when giving us the history of AD 100-313 in his
book, History of The Christian Church, page 65, says:
"About the end of this period, two festivals came in. One was
Epiphany, originating in the East, not improbably with Jewish
Christians and commemorating the baptism of Christ. The other was
Christmas, a festival of Roman origin, taking the place of the
heathen festival in honor of the sun, or of the deity bearing that
name, which was celebrated at the winter solstice, or on the 25th of
December, the time erroneously assigned for the solstice in the
Julian calendar." The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge, Vol. 3, page 48, corroborates the testimony of Fisher when
it says: "The pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too deeply
entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian influence.
The recognition of Sunday...by the emperor Constantine as a legal
holiday, along with the influence of Manicheism, which identified the
Son of God with the physical sun, may have led Christians of the
fourth century to feel the appropriateness of making the birthday of
the Son of God coincide with that day of the physical sun. The pagan
festival with its riots and merrymaking was so popular that
Christians were glad of an excuse to continue its celebration with
little change in spirit or in manner. Christian preachers of West and
the Nearer East protested against the unseemly frivolity with which
Christ's birthday was celebrated, while Christians of Mesopotamia accused
their Western brethren of idolatry and sun-worship for adopting as
Christian this pagan festival, yet the festival rapidly gained
acceptance and became at least so firmly established that even the
Protestant revolution of the sixteenth century was not able to
dislodge it and Evangelical Christians even of the more radical types
who reject or ignore nearly all of the ecclesiastical festivals, have
never been able wholly to ignore it."
Please
notice, friends, why it is that neither the Protestant revolution nor
the evangelical Christians of the more radical type could not
wholly ignore Christmas. Was it because it originated with God? Was
it because Christmas originated in heaven? Indeed it was not; rather,
it was because "the pagan Saturnalia and Brumalia were too
deeply entrenched in popular custom to be set aside by Christian
influence, and because "Christians were glad of an excuse to
continue its celebration." In other words, this is just another
instance where the old tradition, "If you can't lick them, join
them," has been accepted.
Like
circumcision, the celebration of Christmas, in my judgment, is not
wrong within itself, provided that we celebrate it simply as a time
when friend greets friend with a cheery greeting; however, both
circumcision and Christmas, if made into a Christian rite or festival
would be wrong and sinful.
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