“What is the exact date of the Savior’s Birth?”

QUESTION: Why doesn’t the Bible give us the exact date of the Savior’s birth? Can we find out the season of His birth from the Bible?

ANSWER: We must always be careful in asking why God does not do something. Since He is God, He is not answerable to us for His doings. He is the sovereign Potter; we are but clay. Yet as we study His Word He teaches us His wonderful ways.

The details of Christ’s humble birth are told us in Luke 2. Matthew 2 adds to this how the wise men came later from the East to worship this child born King of the Jews and bring Him gifts worthy of His royal dignity. Mark, who presents Jesus as God’s perfect Servant, does not mention His birth, as such details are not important to a servant! John, who presents Him as God’s Son come into this world gives us no details as to when He came. He is content to tell us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). John also points out that He was rejected from the start.

Christ’s birth, while absolutely essential to His coming into the world as true Man, by itself could never have saved a single person. So God does not give us dates or details. This is not what He wants us to celebrate.

In each of the Gospels, however, God gives us a detailed account of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus and of the events leading up to it as well as of the Resurrection that followed. Here He gives us dates: the crucifixion took place in the spring at the season of the Passover (the exact date determined by the moon’s phases), and the Resurrection early in the morning of the first day of the next week.

In addition, the Lord Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, asking us to remember Him in the breaking of bread. The early disciples did this daily, and by Acts 20 Christians were doing it the first day of the week, the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Sad to say, today many Christians pay little heed to this memorial feast which is so dear to the Lord’s heart.

History shows us that Christmas became important after the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and favored it above the pagan religions. Masses of people converted, but with some their conversion was not truly to Christ. To satisfy them, the professing church soon proceeded to “Christianize” many pagan holidays, renaming them in honor of Christ and “the saints.” Among these feasts was the Saturnalia, a feast celebrated after the winter solstice when the days were beginning to grow longer again, thus demonstrating that light had once more triumphed over darkness. This feast was renamed Christmas in honor of Christ, the true Light of the world, who has conquered death and the powers of darkness. Nothing in the Bible indicates that Christ was born at the time of the winter solstice. Rather, He was born when Mary, in the last stages of pregnancy, was still able to travel, and when shepherds were tending their flocks in the fields around Bethlehem.

There is no indication from Scripture that December 25 was the day of Christ’s birth. When Christians campaign to “put Christ back into Christmas,” we should remember that man put Christ into Christmas to begin with, and did so primarily for human reasons.

By Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.