Theology 2

ARE YOU WITH JESUS

The vast majority of church goers have gotten used to the rudiments of church and have no desire to study to show themselves approved (2 Timothy 2:15). They trust that the person in the pulpit or teacher in the classroom, who has seminary training, knows and understands the truth of scripture. There is no need to objectively read the Bible. Everyone who professes to be Christian will say they believe in Jesus. However, the more difficult question to answer is "Do you believe Jesus’? Most do not know and/or understand what Jesus actually said.

When the Apostle John was inspired to write his gospel, he had a specific learning goal for the readers. “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” (20:31) The fact he wrote that at the end of his book has allowed men to mis-interpret verses that come before ot. Below are just a few of Jesus’ own words that are recorded in John. They bear witness that Jesus only identified His Father as God, and Himself as the Son.

As we read, let’s follow God’s directions and listen to (hear) His Son. (Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:35)

5:19 … The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do... 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. 14:24 … the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me

The son cannot do or speak for Himself because he is not the ultimate authority. He not God. His Father, who is giving the commandments, is God.

6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

6:39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

10:27-29 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: … neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 17:2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 17:11 …Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me…

Jesus does not decide who will be saved. God, his Father, does. Jesus is doing the will of His Father. He is not God.

9: 35, 37 …Dost thou believe on the Son of God?...37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.

10:36 … I said, I am the Son of God? 11:4 “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Jesus identifies Himself as the Son of God. You will not find anywhere in scripture that Jesus identifies Himself as God. God also only calls Jesus His Son, not the second person of Himself.

10:30 I and my Father are one. 17:11 … I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

Being one with God does not mean being the same ‘being’. That is how 10:30 is always mis-interpreted. If that were true, then all believers become God (17:11), or at a minimum, the same ‘being’. Being one means being on one accord, on the same page, working together, serving the same purpose, etc.

6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. (John 1:18, 1 John 4:12) 8:42 … for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. (Galatians 4:4)

Because no man has seen the Father, Jesus and the Father cannot be the same ‘being’. Jesus is of God, the begotten Son (3:16). God sent Him into the world, not He Himself.

10:28 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; 14:28 … If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

One cannot be greater than oneself. Jesus and His Father are not the same ‘being’. The father is greater than the Son.

17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. sent. 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, … but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

Jesus said His Father is THE ONLY TRUE GOD. Therefore, He does not claim to be God. He also said His Father is His God. Unless you will say God has a God, Jesus cannot be God.

Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23 tell us Jesus said, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad”. After reading the words spoken by Jesus, there is one final question to be answered.

ARE YOU WITH JESUS?

SHOULD WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS

In our society we have a lot of celebrations. One celebration we have as individuals is the date of our birth: our Birthday. We acknowledge it every year. Then we have big celebrations in what might be considered milestone years. Some people hold their birthday as the highest day of the year. They take the day off work. Some even plan vacations around their special day. Birthdays are important to us.

Historically, birthdays have always been acknowledged for the sake of recording ages. However, they have not always been celebrated. We all know how important Jesus’ birth is to humanity. If he had not been born in the flesh (Galatians 4:4), there would have been no death and resurrection. God decided on a plan by which His people and the world would have a concrete pathway to salvation. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17). Jesus’ birth was the first step in God plan to save us from ourselves.

The magnificence of the birth was celebrated at that time by the shepherds (Luke 2:16-17). Others marveled at the news from the shepherds also. After all, this was the birth of the one they had waited for to be their Savior, Messiah. However, it was the event itself that was important, not the date. Birthdays were not celebrated in biblical Jewish culture. They still do not, as a whole, have annual celebrations. That is why none of the Gospel writers even mention the Jewish month in which the birth happened.

So, for the first three-hundred years of the existence of the Christian religion there was no annual celebration for the birth of Jesus. It just wasn’t a part of Jewish culture. Therefore, it did not become part of Judeo-Christian observances. Prior to Roman acceptance, Christianity was an extension of Judaism. The two faiths and religions were closely related. The unifying factor was Jesus. He was both a Jew and the Christ. This is where we must remember the nation of Israel, at the time of Roman acceptance of Christianity (312), was still under the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire.

Roman religious tradition was a major factor in the development of the Christmas holiday. Three specific factors come to the forefront. First: The emperor Constantine was a sun god worshipper prior to accepting Christianity. He never really let go of sun god admiration. Second: Romans depicted most gods as men and some men as gods. The Council of Nicaea decided to call Jesus God to maintain that tradition. Third: Celebrating public birthdays for certain gods was a part of Roman religious practices. These three factors influenced both why and when we celebrate Christmas.

Even though Christianity became an acceptable religion of the Roman Empire, paying homage to the sun god continued to control the development of the Roman Christian (Catholic) Church. When the empire changed to the Jewish seven-day week (321) Emperor Constantine named the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection, to show respect to the sun god, Sunday. The Jewish seventh day rest (Sabbath) was in honor to the true God. Constantine professed to be Christian, but he still felt it necessary to pay great respect and honor to the sun god. He declared Sunday, the day of the sun, would be the day of rest. That Sunday rest eventually came to be called the Christian Sabbath.

The second factor was realized in 325. There were two opinions, among Roman Christians, about who Jesus was. Some said He is the begotten Son but was not Himself God. Others said He was God in the flesh. A compromising decision was made at the Council of Nicaea that allowed Roman tradition to override scripture. Jesus was officially declared God. He was called the second person of the Christian Trinity, God the Son. Strong gods, in Roman culture, come in groups of three (trinity).

That brings us back to the discussion of Roman birthday celebrations, the third factor. In ancient Rome birthdays were related to religious observances. Rome is thought to have been the first culture to celebrate individual birthdays. The celebration of individual, or private, birthdays usually included showing respect to the religious genus that was observed during that time of year. While gods were mentioned in the individual birthday celebrations, the gods themselves were not being celebrated. That is similar to us thanking God for another year.

Some public birthdays celebrated cults dedicated to gods, or to the particular gods. For this discussion, the most relevant birthday celebration is the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. For sun god worshippers, it was one of the most important birthdays/holidays. That was the celebration of the birthday for the Unconquerable Sun (god), Sol Invictus. The significance, as related to Christmas, is that it was celebrated on December 25th.

The Christmas Holiday is the product of maintaining the tradition of having public birthday celebrations for gods. Constantine and the empire already had a birthday celebration for their primary god (Dies Natalis Solis Invicti), the Unconquerable Sun. It was declared by the council (in 325) that Jesus, the Christ, was fully the Christian God. To maintain the tradition of having a birthday to the primary god on December 25th, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti was changed to Christ-mass. The first officially recorded Christmas celebration took place in 336 in Rome. It was declared an official Roman holiday that year.

The date, December 25th, comes along with the tradition of having a birthday for a god. This shows the holiday originated from a pagan Roman tradition. Does that make it a pagan holiday? An immediate emotional response would be no. We have celebrated birthdays and Christmas all our lives. Despite the commercialism that has taken over, we have always been taught we, protestants, are celebrating the Birth of Christ, not the birth of God. God had Jesus’ birth announced to the world through the Shepards by a host of angels. As Christians, that is what we should have in our minds and hearts. Does that make it okay? Are emotions a good source of answers? Let’s take a good look.

Christianity is an extension of Judaism. The Christ we believe in and are following is Jewish. As believers in God and followers of His Son Jesus, the Christ, both our faith and religion should be tied closely to Judaism, not separated from it. Believing Jesus is the Christ is what makes us CHRISTians. Believing He is the SON of God is important in this discussion.

God anticipated the influence other cultures might have on Christian behavior. He told us in the NT, “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17). Unfortunately, from the time of Roman acceptance of Christianity, the gentiles, as the ruling power, were the ones making decisions about our Christian Walk. In making Christianity a good ‘Roman’ religion, they determined that how they already walked would become the Christian Walk. As God’s Word predicted, they did not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts they “heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they turned away their ears from the truth and turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Before we directly call Christmas ‘pagan’, let’s establish how the term is being used in the context of this article. A concept, idea, or action is considered pagan if it is based on religious beliefs that are not expressed in the Bible, shows respect to a god(s) other than the God of Judaism and Judeo-Christianity, or is contradictory to instructions given by God through His written Word, the Bible.

In the Bible God says of Jesus,” This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5). Jesus says of Himself, “I am the Son of God” (John 10:36). Jesus says of God, “Father…the only true God” (John 17:1,3). Yet, the Romans, at the Council of Nicaea, contradicted scripture by taking the pagan concept of the man-god and deciding to call Jesus God. Celebrating the birthday of the sun god (Unconquerable Sun) was a pagan practice. December 25th was the date of the pagan birthday celebration. Simply changing it from the sun god to God the Son, which is not biblical, does not erase the paganism.
When the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary he said, “ And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus…that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:31,35) If we are celebrating the birth of the Son of God at Christmas, it does not seem to be a pagan holiday. We are celebrating the same event that God announced with a host of angels to the Shepards. It would fit the description of an individual birthday.

If you call Mary the Mother of God, as the Catholics do, and/or are celebrating the birth of God, you make Christmas is a pagan holiday. That is the way of the gentiles toward other gods. In this case it was specifically the sun god. The adoption of the Trinity concept, by which Jesus is called God, is the paganism that was used to continue the Roman tradition.
Our Father in Heaven, “the only true God” (John 17:1-3), has no beginning (birth). Believing and teaching Jesus is God the Son, instead of the Son of God, makes Christmas a birthday for God, a pagan practice. To correct the error, we must first denounce the pagan concept of the Trinity. Jesus is not God. Then it must be made clear we are celebrating, within our cultural norms, the same birth God had the host of angels announce to the Shepards, the birth in the flesh of God’s Son (Galatians 4:4). The Christmas celebration will be for the birth of our Christ (Messiah, Savior) not our God. We must repent as directed in Acts 17:30. “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent”. We should then ask God for forgiveness for the past 1700 years.