REV. Malcolm MacInnes The Bible clearly gives an account of Christs birth in the Gospels. You cannot be a Christian unless you believe in the supernatural conception and virgin birth of the Saviour. The Incarnation is a great mystery, but a matter of divine revelation and consequently of faith. Does THE FIRST CHRISTMAS refer to the birth of Christ as recorded in the Gospels? If you look at the word CHRISTMAS, you will see that it cannot. The obvious derivation of the word is CHRIST and MASS. The word mass refers to the Roman Catholic sacrament in which the sacrifice of Christ is supposedly offered again to God. Whatever your theological convictions with regard to the mass, you will appreciate that it is supposed to have its authority from the Last Supper, at which Jesus took the bread and the wine. That was before He died, NOT when He was born. How absurd to associate with his birth the sacrament which he identified with His death. To say the least, we might say The timing is wrong. The name is most inappropriate, and it ought to be distasteful to all Protestants who understand anything of what the mass is claimed to be. The name betrays the origin of CHRISTMAS. MASS is obviously Roman Catholic, and history shows that Christmas has come through the Church of Rome taking over a festival of paganism. The Toronto Star, a secular newspaper, on 24th December 1977, explained the development of Christmas in this way: Take, for example, the date itself. Nothing in the Bible indicates Christ was born December 25th. In pagan Rome, that day was given over to the worship of the sun-god. But when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the church appropriated many of the pagan festivals, and the one that honoured the sun was dedicated to Christ instead. The Biblical accounts show that the birth of Christ could not have been at that time of year - with shepherds outside at night, and a national tax collection which involved much travel being taken. Extra-biblical evidence shows that Christmas does not have its origin in the Bible at all. The Bible is silent on the date, and there is no indication that the birth of Christ was celebrated in the apostolic church. It was the Church of Rome that adopted the pagan service into her ritual. Listen what Williston Walker says in his History of the Christian Church:
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 06:43:32 +0000
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