Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

My family always has a Christmas tree every year because it was the popular thing to do. We have ornaments, holly wreaths, presents and everything else that goes along with the Christmas celebration. I know it was borderline but in that everyone liked it so much and it's supposed to be in honor of our Lord's birthday I went along with it all these years. This year I have looked at the weight of Scriptural evidence that has caused me to reconsider how harmless and good this holiday is. Just where in The Bible does it tell us not to celebrate Christmas?

Christmas Not a Bible Doctrine

In the first place, Christmas is not a Bible Doctrine. If our blessed Lord had wanted us to celebrate His birthday, He would have told us when to celebrate it and how to celebrate it. But Christ never told anyone to celebrate His birthday. Furthermore, we know from the Bible and from church history that the apostles and the early church never celebrated Christ's birthday.

The Bible is God's complete and final revelation to man, and it tells us everything we need to know for our spiritual lives (II Timothy 3:16). We don't have to go outside the Bible for anything. God's Word tells us how we're to worship, how we're to give money for the support of the Lord's work, how to evangelize the lost, how to observe the Lord's Supper and everything else pertaining to the Christian life. But not once in the Bible does God tell us to celebrate Christmas! We're told to remember the Lord's death, but nowhere are we told to celebrate His birth.

God's people are supposed to be Bible people. We are supposed to live by the teaching of the God's Holy Word. So the very fact that Christmas is never mentioned in the Bible is sufficient reason for us not to have anything to do with it. But that's not all.

Christ Not born on December 25

The second reason I not to celebrate Christmas is that Christ was not born on December 25th. Notice:

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." Luke 2:8

Don't miss the point: the shepherds WERE IN THE FIELDS taking care of their flocks on the night Jesus Christ was born. As the shepherds were watching their sheep, the message came to them of the birth of Jesus Christ.

It's a well known fact that December falls in the middle of the rainy season in Palestine, and the sheep were kept in the fold at that time of the year. The shepherds always corralled their flocks from October to April. They brought their sheep from the mountainsides and the fields no later than October 15th to protect them from the cold, rainy seasons that followed that date. So the birth of Christ could not have taken place at the end of December.

Secondly, Luke 2:1,3 tells us that at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ it was decreed that, "all the world would be taxed...And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city." This couldn't have taken place in the winter. Caesar Augustus, the ruler of Rome, would certainly not call for such a taxing in the depth of winter. Travel at this time of the year is extremely difficult; hence, it would be virtually impossible for everyone to comply with the decree if it had been given then. The Lord Himself testified to the rigors of traveling in winter, for He told the people to pray that their flight at the end of this age would not be in winter (Matthew 24:20).

No one knows the exact day when Jesus Christ was born, but in all the probability He was born sometime during September. We can be reasonably sure of this because His earthly ministry lasted approximately 3 1/2 years, and He was crucified on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, which corresponds to our April (John 19:31, Leviticus 23:5). If we go back about 3 1/2 years to the time when Jesus Christ was 30 years old - when He began His public ministry - we come to the month of September. This was probably the month when our Lord was born into the world.

Origin of Christmas

Thousands of years before Jesus Christ was born, heathens in every country observed December 25th as the birthday of a god who was called the sun-god. Semiramis, the widow of Nimrod, was his mother. She claimed to be the queen of heaven. And she had a son who was supposed to have been born on December 25th; his name was Tammuz.

According to all the heathen religions of that time, Tammuz had a miraculous birth; and for centuries his birthday was celebrated with feasts, revelry and drunken orgies. The heathen celebrated Tammuz birthday according to the very example he set for them. He was the world's greatest lover of women, strong drink, dirty jokes and other sensual fun. It is said that he loved everybody and that everybody loved him. And it was on December 25th that all the pagan religions celebrated the birthday of Tammuz, the son-god.

This is all clearly brought out in Alexander Hislop's great book, "The Two Babylon's". Any reputable encyclopedia will also verify these facts.

It's plain to see, isn't it, that Christmas is a pagan holiday that came out of old pagan Babylon.