The Twelve Nays
of Christmas

I humbly submit this to you for your serious consideration. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or a deep study of the subject but one that can be readily understood, even by our young people. I hope to reason with you, using scriptures and applications that we may not have thought pertinent in the past.

It was with a lot of consideration and some hesitation before I decided to release this article, because there are several of you out there whom I dearly love in the faith, that are involved to one extent or another with Christmas celebration.

1. Consider that to even say the word "Christmas" is very probably using the Lord’s name in vain. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain" (Exo. 20:7). Look at it this way; "Christ-mass": a rite originated by Roman Catholicism. Their doctrine of transubstantiation is not Biblical at all. Thus to incorporate the word for this counterfeit ritual with the holy name of Christ should be unthinkable.

2. Most of the traditions practiced surrounding this December celebration are Pagan in origin. Things are used that are from a time long, long before Christ. To look at two of them; the date of December 25th and the decorating of a tree. Both have absolutely no connection whatsoever with Jesus. God did not reveal to us the date of His only Son’s birth.

Ancient heathen and pagan civilizations held festivals and worshiped the sun. One date for such was the winter solstice, after which days begin to get longer. Babylon noted December 25th and so did Rome. Hundreds of years after Christ, the Catholic Church adopted this date for the celebration of their X-mas.

As for the tree, consider Jer.10:2, "Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen." People did this more than six hundred years before Jesus. How different is a decorated tree in your home than an idol in a church building or on the dashboard of your car? Some people really adore, almost worship the X-mas tree; as with the song "Oh, Christmas Tree."

3. The greatest single enemy of the kingdom (church) of God, other than Satan himself, is the great apostate church, Roman Catholicism. Rome’s "holy" day is most assuredly an abomination to God. Look at the scriptures telling of God’s feelings about holy days in times of old. "Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them" (Isa. 1:13-14). "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols" (Amos 5:21-23). These passages sound like X-mas would fit right in, along with Lent, Easter, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, etc., etc.

4. We know we are to raise our children in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph 6:4). We want them to embrace only the truth. Why then would you tell them the lie, or even allow them to believe the stories, about Santa Claus? (St. Nicholas; Catholic "saint"). Satan is a liar, the father of all lies. "Ye are of your father the devil, when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44).

5. You may say "I don’t celebrate X-mas because it’s Catholic or Pagan; it’s become just another holiday, except it’s about Christ’s birth." There may be a minute shred of truth in this statement; however, you cannot separate the two. At best, today’s X-mas is the child of it’s mother and bears all her earmarks.

Whatever is wrong with Rome’s "holy" day, though it has been absorbed by most other religions and is creeping into the church, is still wrong with America’s X-mas! "For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not" (Jer. 10:3-4).

6. The Bible is entirely silent about X-mas and the celebrating of it. The holy Scriptures, which is God’s Will, do not command, show example, or infer any such commemoration. X-mas is not a part of God’s Will.

7. People the world over actually revere the day of December 25th as high, holy or sacred. This is absolutely false worship. "But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months and times and years" (Gal. 4:9-10). The only day that God has ordained above any other, for Christians, is the first day of the week; the Lord’s day. "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them" (Acts 20:7). It and it alone has any significance to us at all.

8. X-mas and it’s commemoration is a man-made mode of worship to Christ. God has set forth how and when to worship. Man is incapable of devising an acceptable way to worship Christ or God. X-mas is false worship, it is strange fire. "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censor, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not" (Lev. 10:1). Also, "God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).

9. Satan has a lot of wiles or tricks; "a wolf in sheep’s clothing." He has "borrowed" from God’s Spirit the feelings of love and good works and relabeled them the "spirit of Christmas." Millions of people adopt it and, so to speak, give X-mas the credit for it instead of God. Love and good works are your obligation 365 days of the year.

10. Paul says in Col 3:17, "Whatsoever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord." Can you exchange gifts on December 25th (a misconstruing of the wise men giving gifts to baby Jesus), put up a tree, or sing Deck the Halls, Rudolph, etc. in the name of the Lord?

11. If you have a "reasonable doubt" that your participation in X-mas, to whatever extent, displeases God, then leave it alone. "Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin" (Rom. 14:23).

12. In closing, think about the subject from this standpoint. The Romish apostate church ("Mother of...") and many, many other religions ("...all harlots") drink from her cup of all kinds of abominations. "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a gold cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name written, mystery, babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth" (Revelations 17:4-5).

Does a Christian dare to take even one little sip from this same cup?

by Adrian Carlo

The Light, March 2006

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