I believe Christians may celebrate Christmas by thanking God for the birth of Jesus, and I also believe a Christian may choose not to observe the day. Scripture does not command an annual celebration of His birth, so I cannot make someone else’s participation a measure of how much he loves the Lord.
That does not mean everything done in the name of Christmas is acceptable. A family tradition can involve dishonesty or become something we value more than obedience to God. To explain why I regard the day as optional, we need to consider both who Jesus is and what Scripture says about choices that believers make before Him.
The Promised Son Came to Save
Christ’s birth answers a need that reaches all the way back to the first man and woman. In Genesis 3, the serpent persuaded Eve to eat fruit from the tree God had forbidden. She gave some to her husband Adam, and he ate it too. When they heard God in the garden of Eden, they hid among the trees. They had disobeyed Him, and hiding could not remove their guilt.
God called Adam and confronted what they had done. As He pronounced judgment, He also spoke to the serpent about a coming conflict with the woman’s offspring. The promise came in the very place where sin had brought fear and shame.
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.
Enmity means hostility, and the word seed here concerns offspring. The Hebrew word zera can refer to offspring or descendants, and it can also refer to a particular descendant. I understand the ultimate fulfillment of this promise to be in Jesus, the Deliverer whom the rest of Scripture reveals. The serpent would wound Him, but He would deal the decisive blow to the serpent.
When we consider Christ’s death and resurrection, we can see why that promise involves suffering as well as victory. Jesus shed His blood and died, and He rose bodily from the grave. His birth was part of His coming to rescue sinners. If I speak warmly about the baby in the manger but leave out sin and the cross, I have left out the reason He came.
I also find it significant that God announced His provision while Adam and Eve could do nothing to rescue themselves. They had not developed a religious observance that earned this promise from Him. His mercy gives us a reason to be grateful, but a celebration of that mercy cannot become a way of purchasing His favor.
As Scripture continues, God gives further promises about the One who would come. In Genesis 12:1–3, He tells Abraham, who was then called Abram, that all the families of the earth will be blessed through him. Abraham became the ancestor of the people Israel. Later, in 2 Samuel 7, God promises David, Israel’s king, that his royal line and throne will be established forever. The coming Savior would fulfill God’s promises to this people, and His blessing would reach beyond them.
The prophets also spoke about His birth. Isaiah addressed David’s royal house when he announced this sign from the Lord.
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Matthew 1 applies this promise to Jesus and explains that Immanuel means God with us. Mary, His mother, conceived by the Holy Spirit while she was still a virgin. The child born to her was the eternal Son taking on true humanity.
Micah 5:2 names Bethlehem, a town in Judah, as the birthplace of the coming ruler. Yet the same verse describes His goings forth as being from of old, from everlasting. Jesus did not begin to exist in Mary’s womb. He became fully man without ceasing to be eternally God. That is who Christians are remembering when they speak about His birth.
Jesus Is More Than a Seasonal Symbol
Mary was pledged in marriage to Joseph when he learned that she was pregnant. Matthew tells us that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and explained that the child had been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph was to take Mary as his wife, and the angel told him what to name the child and why.
And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.
The announcement tells us what the name Jesus means for the people He came to save. Our problem is sin, and He came to deal with it. Born of a virgin, He lived without sin and willingly gave Himself to be slain as the innocent substitute and perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, and He shed His blood and died to redeem us.
Father and Son acted in unity in that work. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. His saving sacrifice was complete before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Deliverer promised in Genesis came to destroy the devil’s work, and He will bring that victory to its completion.
Christ died for the whole world, so the offer of salvation is genuine for every person. His grace can be resisted, and people can reject Him. But everyone who turns to Jesus in repentance and faith receives forgiveness and is justified, which means that God declares that person righteous through faith.
God gives the believer new birth and makes him a new creation. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell within him and seals him as belonging to God. Those who are truly born again are eternally secure in Christ. Their obedience is evidence of the life He has given them; it does not earn salvation or keep them saved. That security does not make lawlessness acceptable, and calling oneself a Christian is not the same as having received new life from God.
A message about becoming a little kinder during the holidays cannot take the place of that gospel. Kindness is good, but Jesus came because we need to be saved from sin. Luke makes His identity clear when he recounts what happened on the night He was born.
The Roman emperor had ordered a census, requiring people to register in their own cities. Joseph and Mary traveled to Bethlehem because Joseph belonged to David’s family. While they were there, Mary gave birth and laid Jesus in a manger, a feeding place for animals, because there was no room for them in the inn. Shepherds were watching their flocks nearby when an angel appeared and told them what had happened.
For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The city of David in this announcement is Bethlehem. Christ means Messiah, God’s promised Anointed One. The angel identified the child as the Savior and the Lord, the One who has rightful authority over us. I cannot honor Him fully while treating Him as a baby who places no claim on the way I live.
The shepherds went to Bethlehem and found Mary, Joseph, and the baby as the angel had told them. After seeing Him, they told others what they had heard about the child. Luke then gives us Mary’s response to what was happening around her.
But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Mary kept these things in her heart and considered them. That gives me something to think about when plans for a celebration become so full that I have little time to consider Christ Himself. I may need to decline an event or leave something out of my plans so that remembering His coming involves more than getting through a busy calendar.
Luke continues beyond the night of Jesus’ birth. Joseph and Mary later brought Him to the temple in Jerusalem, Israel’s place of worship, to present Him to the Lord and offer the sacrifice required by the Law. A devout man named Simeon came into the temple by the Holy Spirit. God had promised him that he would not die before seeing the Lord’s Christ.
Simeon took Jesus in his arms and thanked God. He understood that the child before him was the salvation God had prepared, and he spoke about whom that salvation would reach.
For my eyes have seen Your salvation Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.
Gentiles are people of the nations outside Israel. Through Israel’s Messiah, God would make His salvation known to them while fulfilling His promises to Israel. Simeon also told Mary that Jesus would be opposed and that people’s hearts would be revealed through their response to Him. There would be joy, but there would also be rejection and grief. The account does not let me turn Him into a harmless seasonal symbol that means whatever I want it to mean.
John’s Gospel helps us understand why Jesus’ birth carries such significance. John begins by calling Him the Word and telling us that the Word was with God and was God. Everything that was made came into being through Him. The One who entered our world was therefore neither a created savior nor merely a human teacher.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Greek verb skenoo, translated dwelt, carries the language of dwelling in a tent or tabernacle. The tabernacle was the portable sanctuary where God made His presence known among Israel. John uses this language as he describes the Word becoming flesh and His glory being seen among us.
The incarnation means that the eternal Son of God became man. He truly lived among us and made the Father known in grace and truth, without ceasing to be God Himself. I have reason to thank Him for that every day, whether or not I set aside a particular date to remember His birth.
Christian Liberty and the Observing of Days
That brings us to the question of whether a particular day must be observed. In Romans 14, the apostle Paul addresses Christians who disagreed about what they could eat and whether certain days should be treated differently from others. Some ate foods that others would not eat, and those differences had become an occasion for contempt and judgment.
Paul reminded them that they belonged to the Lord. Each person would answer to Him, so they were not to treat another believer as though he belonged to them and had to follow their preferences. With that relationship in view, we can understand his instruction about observing days.
One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it.
Paul was not discussing Christmas. I apply his instruction to Christmas because I understand remembering Christ’s birth on a chosen day to be an optional observance, rather than something Scripture commands or forbids in itself. A believer may keep the day before the Lord, and another may regard it as an ordinary day before the same Lord.
One family might read the accounts of Christ’s birth and pray together. Their celebration may include singing, giving to someone in need, or sharing a meal with someone who would otherwise be alone. Another family may decide not to celebrate because the customs trouble their conscience. I do not have to question either family’s love for Jesus merely because their choice differs from mine.
If I observe the day, that does not make me more grateful for Christ than someone who leaves it unobserved. If I abstain, that does not establish that I am more faithful than someone who celebrates. Both decisions must remain under the Lord’s authority, including His command that we love one another.
Christian liberty does not turn clear sins into personal preferences. Idolatry, drunkenness, greed, and deception remain wrong during a holiday. Nor can a family or church give its own customs the authority of God’s commands. A tradition may be familiar and enjoyable without becoming something every Christian owes to God.
In Matthew 15, religious teachers challenged Jesus because His disciples did not follow their handwashing tradition. Jesus answered by showing how their own tradition allowed people to withhold help from their parents by calling it a gift dedicated to God. They were using religious language to avoid the command to honor father and mother. He applied Isaiah’s words to them.
These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
The problem was not that they lacked religious activity. Their words honored God while their conduct disregarded what He had commanded. I need to examine my own conduct in the same way. A decorated house or a busy church calendar cannot make pride and impatience acceptable.
If I become angry with my family because they are not making the celebration look the way I imagined, the problem is something I need to repent of. Attaching Christ’s name to my plans does not excuse how I treat people. Giving presents can express generosity, but it can also become an attempt to display wealth or impress someone.
A family is free to simplify its plans or not observe the day at all. Someone who does not decorate, buy presents, or attend a gathering has not disobeyed God merely because another person considers those things essential to Christmas. I should be willing to hear the person’s concern before treating the refusal as an offense against me.
Origins, Idolatry, and Jeremiah 10
Some objections concern the history of the holiday rather than the way a particular family observes it. Those claims deserve care, because an unsupported account of the past can mislead people just as an unsupported interpretation of a verse can. Scripture does not identify December 25 as the date of Jesus’ birth.
A Roman church calendar preserved in the Chronography of 354, a fourth-century compilation, places Christ’s birth at Bethlehem on December 25. That is evidence that Christians in Rome were commemorating His birth on that date by the fourth century. It does not establish that the apostles supplied the date or instructed churches to observe it.
The reason for choosing December 25 is less certain. Explanations connecting it with Roman winter festivals point, among other things, to the same compilation’s civil calendar, which marks a festival of Invictus on that day. Invictus means unconquered. The calendar entry shows an overlapping date, but the entry alone does not tell us how Christians first chose their date.
Another explanation concerns Christian calculations linking Jesus’ conception with the date of His death. Augustine records a tradition that associates His conception and suffering with March 25 and His birth with December 25. Augustine was an early Christian writer, and this is a record of a tradition he knew. It does not turn that calculation into a statement made by Scripture.
I would not use these records to claim that every question about the date has been settled. They do not by themselves establish that Christmas was simply taken from one pagan holiday, nor do they establish December 25 as Jesus’ actual birthday. A believer may find the associations troubling enough to abstain. Another may see the present occasion as an opportunity to remember Christ without participating in false worship.
To judge a practice biblically, we also have to ask what the person is actually doing. Deuteronomy 12 addressed Israel as the people prepared to enter the land God was giving them. The nations there worshiped other gods at their own shrines and altars. God commanded Israel to destroy those places and worship Him where He chose.
He specifically warned them not to learn how the nations served their gods and then serve Him in the same way. I cannot take a false religious rite, change the name attached to it, and assume that God accepts it. At the same time, that command does not identify every ordinary activity shared with a surrounding culture as worship of another god.
We can see why the distinction matters in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10. Christians in Corinth faced questions about food that had been offered to idols. Paul explained that an idol was not a real god, and eating food did not in itself bring someone nearer to God or drive him farther away. He allowed believers to buy meat in the marketplace without investigating its history.
Participation in a sacrificial meal at an idol’s temple was different. That involved sharing in the worship being offered, and Paul described it as fellowship with demons. He contrasted that meal with the Lord’s table, where believers share bread and the cup in Communion. A person could not participate in that meal of fellowship with Christ and also participate in worship offered to demons. Knowing that the idol was not a true god did not make the religious act harmless.
Paul also considered the person whose conscience still associated the food with false worship. In 1 Corinthians 8, someone who saw another believer eating in an idol’s temple might be encouraged to eat despite believing it was wrong. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul told a believer not to eat if someone pointed out that the food had been offered to idols, for the sake of that person’s conscience. Freedom had to be exercised with concern for what it encouraged others to do.
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
I understand those instructions to require more than asking whether I like a custom. If the act itself involves false worship, I must refuse it. If it is an ordinary activity that I can receive with gratitude, I still need to consider whether my conduct is encouraging someone else to disregard God.
The same care with context is needed when we read Jeremiah 10. This passage is often used to condemn Christmas trees because it speaks about wood cut from a forest and decorated with precious metals. Jeremiah, a prophet speaking God’s word to Israel, is describing what craftsmen make for people to treat as gods.
For the customs of the peoples are futile; For one cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not topple.
If we continue into the next verse, Jeremiah says that these objects cannot speak or move themselves. Someone has to carry them, and they can do neither good nor harm. Later in the passage, he calls the object a wooden idol and contrasts it with the living God who made the earth.
The point is the helplessness of a manufactured god. Jeremiah is not accusing every person who decorates a tree of worshiping it. His warning does apply when someone gives an object religious reverence, trusts it for protection, or regards a seasonal ritual as necessary to obtain God’s favor.
If I keep a tree in my home, it must remain a decoration. It cannot make my household more acceptable to God, and I cannot give it the place that belongs to Him. A custom that has become an idol needs to be abandoned. Someone who cannot use the decoration with a clear conscience should leave it alone, even if I believe I can use it without worshiping it.
Faith, Conscience, and Truthful Practice
Romans 14 brings the question of conscience directly into our treatment of other people. Paul describes a person who eats while doubting whether eating is right. The person has gone ahead with an act he cannot offer to God in faith.
But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.
If I pressure someone to celebrate while he believes that doing so is wrong, I am encouraging him to disregard his conscience. A family expectation or a church event does not justify that pressure. Even when I am persuaded that a particular choice is permissible, love should keep me from urging another believer to do what he believes would disobey the Lord.
Conscience still needs instruction from Scripture. My discomfort does not automatically establish a command that everyone else must keep, and another person’s confidence does not answer a biblical concern I have raised. We can read the passages together and explain why we understand them as we do. That gives room for understanding to grow without shaming someone into participating or abstaining.
The same willingness to be corrected should shape practical decisions. If gifts become a way to impress people and lead to unnecessary debt, I need to change the practice instead of calling it generosity. A holiday cannot excuse drunkenness or bitterness. If a familiar habit repeatedly brings conflict into the family, its place in past celebrations is not a sufficient reason to keep it.
We can spend less, simplify our plans, or stop a practice that has become harmful. None of those changes takes away something Christ commanded us to preserve. The people involved should matter more to me than maintaining the exact celebration I remember or expect.
Parents also need to be truthful about Santa Claus. Make-believe can be understood as make-believe, but deliberately teaching a child that a fictional person is real is a different matter. When a child asks a direct question, I believe the parent should answer honestly instead of adding another explanation to keep the deception going.
Parents are also the people teaching that child about Jesus. I would not want a cherished custom to give a child reason to doubt whether those parents are telling the truth about Him. Honesty does not prevent enjoyment; it keeps enjoyment from depending on a falsehood.
We should apply that same care when retelling the biblical account. Luke describes shepherds finding Jesus in a manger. Matthew describes wise men from the East entering a house, where they saw the young Child with Mary and worshiped Him. Matthew does not place them beside the shepherds at the manger.
He also does not tell us that there were three wise men. He names three kinds of gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The number of gifts does not tell us how many men brought them. We can explain what the passages actually say and where a familiar picture has combined events or supplied details. The birth of the eternal Son does not become less remarkable when we are careful with the account.
Truthfulness reaches beyond what we tell children. It includes keeping promises and acknowledging when a historical claim is uncertain. If I say that I want to honor the One who came full of grace and truth, I need to let His truth govern the way I speak and His grace shape the way I treat another believer.
My Final Thoughts
I can thank God with a family that remembers Christ’s birth at Christmas, and I can respect a family that chooses not to observe the day. Romans 14 gives me no basis for making either choice a test of another believer’s devotion. It also leaves me responsible for acting in faith and refusing to lead someone else into what he believes is sin.
The passages about worship and conscience have shown why the details of our conduct matter. I cannot excuse idolatry or dishonesty by calling it a tradition, and I cannot turn my preferred celebration into a command God has not given. If a custom needs to change, I want to be willing to change it without treating that as a loss of faithfulness to Christ.
Jesus is the eternal Son who became man and gave Himself to save sinners. His coming deserves more than a few weeks of warm feelings. Whether I observe a particular date or leave it unobserved, I want my gratitude for Him to be seen in truthful words, obedience to His Word, and love for the people who belong to Him.