Truth or Tradition
Dearly beloved of God, the birth of Jesus the Christ miraculously fulfilled prophecies given by God over four thousand years concerning the promised seed of the woman, the Coming One, Jesus Christ our Savior.
God precisely documented the birth of His only begotten Son in His Word, and by the movement of the heavens, also. He further provided us with historical documentation of events surrounding His Son’s birth. These elements came together in one extraordinary moment of history.
In spite of everything God did to authenticate the birth of His Son, corruptions of the truth of God’s Word leave us with a holiday that does not remotely resemble the reality of what occurred.
In the place of truth we are left with traditions.
Instead of the revelation concerning events that took place over two years, we are given a holy night.
Instead of the precision and glory of astronomical events in the heavens that signaled Jesus Christ’s birth, we are left with a single hovering, bright star that stood still.
Instead of the witness of the stars beginning with the constellation Virgo with the promised seed of the woman, tradition begins with the Ram, and gives us the signs of astrology.
Instead of the promised seed of the woman, many celebrate the WOMAN instead of her seed, who was Jesus Christ.
Instead of her seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, crushing the head of the serpent under his foot, we are given Mary as a co-redeemer and the refuge of sinners.
Instead of the birth of God’s only begotten Son, the second Adam, the son of man, we are told that God (Who is Spirit) became flesh, and God the Father became His Son and was born [Another 4th century doctrine of the Roman Catholic church.]
In the place of Mary conceiving by divine conception when God created the seed in her necessary for conception, we are given immaculate conception [the doctrine that the virgin Mary, though conceived naturally, was from the moment of conception free from any original sin], and Mary the perpetual virgin, even though Joseph had intercourse with Mary, and she had at least seven other children after Jesus was born.
Instead of the first of Tishri, the Day of Trumpets, which began the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall after their final harvest as the date of his birth, we are given the perversion of Saturnalia (Saturn being another name for Nimrod) the day that pagans celebrated the birth of the sun-god on December 25.
This winter festival was called the Nativity, for the nativity of the sun. It was the winter solstice celebrated with the adorning of the pine tree of Adonis (the green tree associated with idolatry in the scriptures,) the holly of Saturn, and the mistletoe representing the kindling of the newborn pagan sun-god’s fire.
In the fifth century, the Roman Catholic church declared that December 25 would be the date of Christ’s-mass, the day of the old Roman feast of the birth of Sol, one of the names of the sun-god.
The Word of God teaches us that Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, served in the temple as a priest in the course of Abia, which was from Iyyar 27 to Sivan 5, our May 19-25.
Elizabeth, his barren wife who was well stricken in years, conceived shortly after he completed his course of service, and he returned home in early June.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, which would have been our December, God sent Gabriel to Mary, and she conceived by divine conception. Nine months later she gave birth to Jesus in September of 3 B.C.
Instead of the shepherds abiding in their fields with their sheep, which only occurred in early fall after the harvest, when they were hired by farmers to manure their fields with their flocks, we are told that it occurred on December 25, on a mid-night clear.
We know from the Word of God that only Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds attended the swaddling ceremony of God’s only begotten Son shortly after his birth, but tradition gives us three wise men, also.
The Word of God reveals that the wise men, the Magi, did not arrive for at least a year and three months later, and nowhere does it say there were only three. They visited the young child, not the newly born baby, and he was in the house, not in the stable lying in a manger.
The corruptions of the truth of God’s Word are more than we can cover here. It began with the old serpent in the record of Genesis three with his first recorded words, “Yea, hath God said….?” He has been the liar and the deceiver since he slandered God before the angels.
Corruptions of the truth may abound, but keep your head in the Word of God. Believe the truth of God's Word, not religious traditions, dearly beloved.
Do not be conformed to the ideas of this present evil age. The things of earth will only vex you, and wear you down as they did righteous Lot. There is only disappointment and misery in the things of this evil age.
Keep your eyes on the goodness of God toward you in Christ.
Be transfigured by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what is the good and well-pleasing and mature will of God. Dearly beloved, believe the measure God has given us to be believed; believe who you are in Christ.
Look to God our Father, and the accomplishments of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Do not look at your flesh, or at anyone else’s. Do not measure yourself by anyone other than who God says you are in Christ, and you will be radiant.
Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know when the Lord Jesus Christ appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
As we behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are all transfigured into the same image, from the glory of the new birth reality to the future glory we will receive at his coming, even as by the spirit of the Lord.
Be transfigured, be radiant, and keep yourself pure as he is pure as God instructs us in His Word, dearly beloved of God.
God will fulfill every word that comes out of His mouth, in spite of corruptions of the truth.
God sent His Son as He promised, and He will send him to gather us together unto Him according to His Word. It shall be as He has spoken. Rejoice, and live with thanksgiving for His goodness to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.