BIBLICAL TRUTH SIMPLY EXPLAINED

E PLAINING
The truth about Christmas

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This booklet is based on a talk. Originating as it does from the spoken
word, its style will be found by many readers to be somewhat different
from my usual written style. It is hoped that this will not detract from
the substance of the biblical teaching found here.
As always, I ask the reader to compare everything I say or write with
what is written in the Bible and, if at any point a conflict is found,
always to rely upon the clear teaching of scripture.
David Pawson

The truth
about
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The truth about Christmas
DAVID PAWSON

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 Copyright © 2019 David Pawson

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Caravansary in Karaj, Iran of safavid era.
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The truth about Christmas Part 1

I was asked to record some thoughts about Christmas and

this first chapter is historical – where it all started and where
it all came from. Then in the second chapter we will look at
the Bible and the actual story of the birth of Christ and how
all this fits together, or even whether it does fit together. As
most people probably know, Christmas is not a Christian
festival; it began long before Jesus Christ was born. It was
originally a pagan fertility cult and it was a celebration of
the winter solstice – the fact that the sun was just beginning
to get stronger again. They waited until the solstice was over
on December 21st and then celebrated the sun being born
again, and that spring is on its way again.
Because of course people used to live much closer to
nature than we do, and were much more dependent on the
seasons. Their food didn’t come and stay in the refrigerator or
freezer all the year round, they had to depend on the seasons
for their food. So this was a matter of celebration – especially
during the cold, dark winter it was good to have a carnival,
which is what it really was. Now it was mainly in Europe
that this began, and in northern Europe it was the festival
of Yule. That was the origin of the Yule log and Yuletide,
for one of the central features of the celebration was a huge
bonfire around which they kept warm. For that they used
to chop down a big tree and burn the trunk as the Yule log.

5
 In southern Europe it was called The Saturnalia after the
god Saturn. The Romans celebrated Saturnalia and made a
great deal of the sun god Mithras. So it was a celebration
of nature. It was part of a fertility cult. Fertility then was
a very important feature—fertility in the fields, fertility of
the animals, and of the people. So there was this annual
carnival or festival, which I am afraid developed into quite
an indulgent festival because the normal rules of life were
cancelled for the festival. It wasn’t just one day; it was twelve
days and lasted until January 6th.
Even today I remember in our home decorations had to
be taken down on that date – the twelfth day. I had no idea
why. I didn’t then know about the twelve days of Christmas,
when “my true love said to me....” Of course, that is a clue
to what went on. Normal restraints were removed and all
kinds of things happened as a result. For example, the normal
rules of social relationships were cancelled. Therefore, one
part of it was that there were no longer upper and lower
classes over Christmas. They often changed places. Indeed,
masters would serve servants their meals on that day. There
is a survival of that in the British army. It is still the custom
at Sandhurst for the officers to serve the privates Christmas
lunch. It is a reversal of the social order just for a time.
But it was mainly in the realm of sexual relationships that
the release came and restrictions were removed. That is still
seen in office parties. Kissing under the mistletoe goes right
back to these festivals when they decorated their homes
with evergreen, like fir and holly, and above all, mistletoe.
All these evergreens were taken in and used to decorate
the home, and putting a wreath of holly on your front door
goes right back to those pre-Christian festivals. One of the
features was very amusing. In the carnival they could dress
up how they liked, and they reversed the sex of people
dressing up, so men dressed as women and women dressed

6
as men. We have still got that today. In every pantomime the
principal boy is a girl with the longest legs, and the mother
of the principal boy is a “Dame”, who is a man. That is a
cross-dressing which goes right back to the carnivals of the
original mid-winter festival.
There are more things than that I would like to mention.
It was a time of gluttony, when it didn’t matter how much
you ate. You could eat yourself under the table, and that
was alright at Christmas. That still happens with Christmas
dinner, and the turkey and the plum pudding, when we eat
far more than we normally eat for lunch – it is a relic of the
old fertility festival. The drinking too: you could drink as
much as you would like and drink yourself under the table.
That, too, has survived. Again, at the office party or over
Christmas the pubs are full of people getting drunk.
What else has survived? Well, the social rules are reversed,
the sexual rules are reversed. The eating and drinking rules
are set free and, interestingly enough, gambling, which was
normally frowned on during the year – at Christmas you
could really gamble as much as you liked. That certainly
has a modern counterpart in the money that is spent over
Christmas, which leaves many people in debt to face the
New Year and pay off what they have had on credit over
Christmas. So all these things go right back to those twelve
days of Christmas. Many communities elected a lord of
misrule, who ruled over the twelve days and had the freedom
of any woman in the community during those twelve days.
That is the origin of the twelve days of Christmas, “when
my true love said to me....”
So we have a very indulgent festival when people simply
let go and could do what they wanted. It was a self-indulgent
festival. But there was a good side, and it was that the rich
were expected to help the poor over Christmas. The haves
were concerned about the have-nots, and especially the

7
poor, the lonely and the disabled were a special concern.
That was a good feature of the annual winter festival, and
it has survived. Boxing Day is when the boxes in church
were emptied for the poor and the boxes were then used to
distribute whatever had been put into them on Christmas
Day, to those who were needy on Boxing Day.
Well, that is how it began. It went an up and down sort of
journey through the ages. I will just mention one or two of
the downs and one or two of the ups. During the Middle Ages
it wasn’t particularly popular except among the aristocracy
and the upper classes. Then it steadily declined over the
centuries until the nineteenth century, and then Christmas
as we know it really began, when two authors wrote stories
about Christmas. On this side of the Atlantic, it was Charles
Dickens. Much of what we know of Christmas today we owe
to him. Not just his book A Christmas Story and Scrooge. As
to the turkey in that story – the turkeys came over from the
States originally and there was an author called Washington
Irving, and he was the Charles Dickens of America. So the
modern Christmas developed on both sides of the Atlantic
in a kind of cross-fertilisation and set off by these two
authors – their stories really raised interest. But I suppose the
biggest factor over this side of the pond was Queen Victoria
and her husband, Prince Albert, from Germany. Our kings
had a strong German taste about them, and they had already
brought Christmas over.
Some of our kings and queens were very keen on the
celebration, the carnival aspect, the buffoonery aspect; Henry
VIII celebrated and Elizabeth I was known to dance and
gamble on Christmas Day. Right through the Stuart and the
Tudor times, Christmas was celebrated particularly by the
royal family. But it was Victoria and Albert who focused on
the family as the main celebrating unit – not the community
but the family; they stamped family life on Britain. It

8
was Albert who introduced the Christmas tree to Britain.
Germany being full of forests, he introduced the Christmas
tree to the home as the main visible sign of Christmas. During
Victoria’s reign it became a major part – every family had
to have a Christmas tree.
During the nineteenth century someone thought of sending
a Christmas card to your relatives and friends. A card was
relatively simple and cheap. The penny post became the
halfpenny post for Christmas cards. That difference between
letter and card postage lasted quite a long time, right into the
twentieth century. So this was a quick and easy way of greeting
your relatives or friends. Instead of writing long letters, all
you would do was sign a card and send it off for a halfpenny.
So it is to the nineteenth century that we really owe the
modern Christmas – in particular, a gentleman who is known
on this side of the Atlantic as Father Christmas, but on the
other side of the Atlantic as Santa Claus. That name came
from Holland, because New York, in which Santa Claus had
first appeared, was a Dutch colony called “New Amsterdam”.
In Holland there was a strong emphasis on a saint from long
ago called Saint Nicholas, a bishop from Turkey who was a
very kind man, concerned for the poor. There was in Turkey
a father who had three daughters who had no chance of
getting married, though they were good looking, because they
didn’t have any money for a dowry, and a bride or her father
was supposed to supply money (the dowry) and the peasant
couldn’t. So good Saint Nicholas smuggled some gold coins
wrapped in a cloth into the cottage of the peasant. He didn’t
climb down the chimney and he didn’t put it in a stocking, but
he wrapped these gold coins in a cloth and threw them through
the window, and the three girls were able to get married. Now
this story really captured the Dutch imagination and Saint
Nicholas became almost their patron saint. They called him
Sinterklaas, which is short for Saint Nicholas. Then, in New

9
York, Santa Claus as we know him was born, and given red
robes edged in white ermine, and with hunting boots and a
long white beard. We had the Santa Claus that we know.
I remember when we had our little three children in
Buckinghamshire we took them out in the car one morning
to go and see Santa Claus in a big shop. But on the way we
saw another Santa Claus getting on a bus, and we saw yet a
third Santa Claus walking along the street. I remember the
confusion this led to with our three children. Santa Claus
seemed to be everywhere we went that morning. Of course,
he is everywhere now, he is part of Christmas.
So, all that happened in the nineteenth century. I will tell
you in a moment about the Christians who opposed it all
quite strongly. But public sentiment was too strong for the
protestors. What has been added in the twentieth century
to all this? Well, there is no question about it: the biggest
thing is commercialism. In October there are already the
advertisements for Christmas displayed on television and
the shops begin to stock up for Christmas, and so on.
It is interesting that the bulk of the advertising is aimed
at children – very expensive toys, too. The twentieth
century Christmas focus on children is something which the
Victorians did not do. Children could be seen but not heard
then, but now children have become the focus of Christmas
for many families.
Another thing that has been added is what we call the
Christmas Broadcast of the Queen. It has become a ritual, and
you can’t imagine Christmas without it now. But it was begun
by her grandfather, George V. He made the first Christmas
broadcast and quoted that memorable thing: “I said to the
man who stood at the Gate of the Year....” The reply of the
man was, “Put your hand into the Hand of God and you can
go into the future safely yet.” It really struck a chord in the
nation when King George V quoted that, and therefore he

10
went on making a radio broadcast every year. But his son,
King George VI, stopped it because of his dreadful stammer.
You may have heard of the film The King’s Speech and know
all about that stammer. In the first year of World War II, for
the sake of the soldiers who were away from home, he was
persuaded to make it. He managed to do it and he kept it up,
right through the war. So his daughter, our Queen, has to
make the Queen’s Royal Broadcast and it is part of Christmas
now, as is television entertainment.
It is interesting that all the mass media now cash in on
Christmas. As early as, I think, 1900, The Times never
mentioned Christmas in its December issues. But if you look
at newspapers and magazines today, Christmas takes over
for a time and becomes the main subject.
So those are the historical features, none of which are
Christian of course, and all of which have so gripped the
public sentiment that the thought of abolishing all that would
really horrify the public.
One other twentieth century addition to the mess is Rudolph
the Red Nosed Reindeer with his shiny nose – that has become
now such an important part of Christmas. So it is a funny mix.
Well now, let me just begin to look at how Christians
have coped with this annual pagan fertility custom. In the
first four centuries, good Christians ignored it. They really
were convinced that Christians should not be involved in
such an indulgent thing, and the carnival aspect particularly
worried them. In the fourth century, Pope Gregory sent a
missionary to England called Augustine – not the Augustine
who wrote the Confessions, the other one. There was one in
Africa, the one we know best, but another Augustine was sent
to England and he reported back a year or two later he had
made progress – he had baptized the King of Kent; he had
a number of people coming to a church, which later became
Canterbury Cathedral. But he said, “I have not been able

11
to wean the British off their annual fertility cult festival,”
namely Christmas, though it wasn’t called that then. Try his
best though he could, he could not get them off this indulgent
activity. So he asked Pope Gregory, “What can I do about it?”
Pope Gregory virtually said, “If you can’t beat them,
join them.” But what he actually said was, “Baptize it into
Christ; bring it into the Church and do it in the name of
Christ.” Furthermore, he suggested, “As they celebrate the
birth of the sun, you can say, ‘We’ll celebrate the Sun of
Righteousness,’” who has risen with healing in his wings.
That is a quote from the Old Testament.
So December 25th became the official birthday of Jesus.
Of course it isn’t anything of the kind – he wasn’t born in
December. Shepherds don’t watch their flocks by night in
December, there is often snow on the hills of Israel then.
We are told in the Bible when he really was born, which
was not anything like December. But just as the Queen has
her own birthday, and an official birthday when they have
the parading of the colour at Horse Guards Parade, so now
Christ was given an official birthday, which was not his
birthday but was celebrated as such. That was the profound
beginning of a Christian Christmas.
What was included to make it especially Christian was a
Roman Catholic Mass. Then the name “Christ-mass” came
into being, and it has been known as that ever since. So this
was the Roman Catholic Church’s missionary strategy. If
you couldn’t get people to drop things, then bring them in
and make them part of the Church’s programme and that will
keep everybody happy. I am not convinced about it at all.
But in the Philippines and in Latin America I found
that Catholics still practise animism and spiritism because
that was their original religion and the Catholic Church
encouraged it to come in. It is quite disturbing to find out
how far these old things are still deeply rooted. So that

12
was the beginning, and it was Pope Julius, following Pope
Gregory, who made it an official institution of the whole
Church, though it was originally only for Britain and to get
the British to drop certain things.
Over the medieval period there was a steady decline of
interest, but there is still a medieval feel about Christmas—
stagecoaches on Christmas cards and old thatched roofs, you
have seen them all. There is a kind of nostalgia for the good
old days. They weren’t all that good, but nostalgia looks at
them through rose-coloured spectacles. Now all that changed
radically when the Protestant Reformation came, as we shall
see in the next chapter.

13
The truth about Christmas Part 2

We have seen that by the medieval period Christmas had

become an official Christian institution and the church gave
its full support. Significantly, much of the pagan practice of
Christmas continued. Even as late as the fourteenth century
they were still electing lords of misrule to reign over the
twelve days, so that we have a period during which the pagan
customs and the Christian approval were moulded together
and continued side by side. With the Protestant Reformation,
mainly Luther and Calvin, there came a big change. Luther
struggled with anything Roman Catholic, and of course,
Christmas was a Roman Catholic creation. He also struggled
with the pagan roots of Christmas.
Nevertheless, Martin Luther gave in, as most state
churches did, because when you are a state church you regard
yourself as including everybody. You pastor a country, and
therefore the tendency in state churches is to keep public
customs and sentiments. So Luther did celebrate Christmas,
reluctantly, but especially he loved his guitar and singing
songs and carols to the children. So he kept it.
Calvin, on the other hand, in Geneva did the opposite.
Calvin strongly opposed Christmas and Easter because the
New Testament is opposed to festivals of any kind. So Calvin,
in Geneva, would not have anything to do with Christmas.
Calvinism in the form of Presbyterianism came to this country

14
– but to Scotland, not so much to England. The result is
Scotland has no Christmas. They celebrate Hogmanay, or the
New Year, but they don’t celebrate Christmas. Presbyterians
don’t, they follow Calvin. John Knox was Calvin’s man
in Scotland and he persuaded the Scots to drop Christmas
altogether, as in a later time when the Presbyterians nearly
took over England as well as Scotland in the civil war.
When Cromwell came to power and the Royal Family
was abolished and King Charles lost his head in a crisis,
then what happened was that legally Parliament in Britain
abolished Christmas altogether. Of course you can’t abolish
popular sentiment as easily as that, and in the country areas
particularly they kept up some celebration of Christmas.
But officially it was now abolished in England as well
as Scotland. However, you know the civil war led to a
Republican Britain with Cromwell as the First Protectorate,
or head of it all. It only lasted a few years and the people
wanted a king again. They wanted Charles II back on
the throne, and they got him back on the throne and he
reintroduced all the Royal Family’s support of such carnival
activity. Christmas was back on the agenda.
In the nineteenth century, as mentioned earlier, the
Christmas as we know it really came to be, with the trees and
the decorations. Gradually, these things crept into the church
towards the end of the nineteenth century, until in the twentieth
it was quite common for a church to have a Christmas tree
right in the place of worship. I was amazed a few Christmases
ago to find a Pentecostal church in which the church had a
huge Christmas tree and the church itself was decorated with
Christmas streamers and so on. So, gradually, the churches
capitulated to the popular desire to go on celebrating Christmas.
Indeed, the churches began to cash in on it themselves.
For example, they replaced the service on Christmas morning
with Holy Communion on Christmas Eve, and found they

15
got more taking bread and wine on a Christmas Eve than at
any other time during the year. Even Evangelical churches
today can put on a Christmas Eve communion. Churches put
on carol services and sang carols instead of hymns.
So, gradually, churches gave in, and what has been called
“the cult of the crib” began. This was that churches should have
a model crib with the baby Jesus in it, and Joseph and Mary
and donkeys, and sometimes camels, and all sorts of creatures.
They used to make a display of the crib and make it a place
of devotion and veneration. From there, the cult of the crib
spread into society and the nativity play was born – especially
when children were expected to act out the story of the birth
of Christ, leading to some very amusing situations. When you
are trying to make little children act like adults you can expect
trouble. I think of one nativity play in a primary school where
the three kings came on and the first one said, “Here’s some
gold for the baby Jesus,” the second one said, “Here’s some
myrrh for the baby Jesus,” and the third one said, “And Frank
sent this” – and presented the third gift to the baby Jesus.
I recall another nativity play where Mary and Joseph,
Mary being great with cushion, arrived at the inn and said,
“Is there room at the inn?”
Little Joseph said, “You can see my wife is nearly ready
to give birth to a child, we need a room.”
The boy playing the landlord had forgotten his lines and
said, “Come on in! You can have the best room in the house
for Mary!” The whole thing was getting off course.
Fortunately, the boy playing Joseph had great presence of
mind, and he pushed his head in through the door and came
back and said to Mary, “You should see the state of this inn;
it’s not fit for you. We’ll be better off in the stable, come on,”
and turned the whole play round again, to the great delight
of the parents watching.
The Christmas story is not for children, it is an adult

16
story. The Bible was written for adult believers. Anyway,
that is how Christians came to be involved and this has led
up to another crisis. In America you had the churches deeply
divided over Santa Claus and Christmas. On the one hand,
the Presbyterians, again from Calvin, and the Baptists and the
Quakers, together raised a howl of protest against churches
accepting Christmas. It is often from those quarters that we
still have a protest.
The mainline denominations tended to bring Christmas in.
The Free Churches at first tended to keep it out, but most of
them, Methodist, Congregationalists, gave way. I have to say
Baptists, Salvation Army, and even Pentecostals have given
way and usually celebrate Christmas in some way or another,
which raises the whole question of, “Where are Christians
today and what should be their attitude?” We have a choice
before us: either to take it in and try and keep it somehow
well-behaved or to reject it and not even try.
Or, to put the situation quite bluntly, either we can try
and put Christ back in Christmas or we can take him out
of Christmas and let it go its own way as a pagan festival
again. Britain is increasingly secularised and the second most
godless society on earth (Japan being the first according to
a poll of the nations) – that is not saying “not religious”,
just godless. So we are up against a changing situation, that
if it goes on as it is, the trend is entirely towards a secular
Christmas that has more in common with the pagan origin
than with anything specifically Christian.
I have to be honest with you, I am in the second group,
and I don’t observe Christmas and I don’t preach it. I talk
about it but I believe the safer way is to free Christ from
all that has come up around Christmas. I will tell you why
I have come to that conclusion. It is a bit startling. But
at the Pentecostal church which was in Croydon where I
preached at Christmas time, though I was horrified to see all

17
the tree and the decorations right inside the church, I did a
thing that I have often done and asked the Lord questions. I
call it “interrogatory prayer.” I hope you practise that. You
have heard of intercessory prayer, where you pray for other
people. But interrogatory prayer is when you ask the Lord
questions and wait for an answer. I have found that a very
helpful form of prayer, but a very startling one when the
answer comes. In the middle of the service I said, “Lord,
what do you feel about Christmas?” He reminded me that I
had a photograph album at home, which was produced by
my mother who was a very keen amateur photographer, and
she used to win competitions. This album is of me and my
life, from a little baby right through to a boy.
When I show it to people they say, “Oh, what a lovely
baby,” and I hate it. I want to say, “I’m not a baby! You have
to relate to me now as I am now, not as I was then!” Much
easier to relate to a baby – they don’t answer back. You can
coo over them and you pick them up and cuddle them, but
they don’t fight you (not usually, anyway). So there was this
album and I had it at home. I thought, “Why should the Lord
remind me of that?” Then I realised that he wanted to say to
the people: “I’m not a baby, not now. You have to relate to
me as I am now, or it is not a real relationship.”
I realised that cooing over a crib is not a real relationship
because it is not with a real person, it is with a doll. If you
want to be related to Jesus now you have to relate to him as
he is, a full-grown man with his character what it is. When
all the world is so excited about a little crib with a doll in it,
Jesus is saying, “I’m not like that now. I want a relationship
with you that is real between you and me as I really am.” I
shared that with the congregation because it came to me as
I sat there on the platform.
The other thing that has had a big influence on my thinking
was that years ago I met with some leading Christians in this

18
country and we decided to engage in interrogatory prayer
to find out more about our Lord. Together we said, “Lord,
we’d love to know you better, would you please share with us
some of your own feelings?” We then made it quite specific;
“Is there anything that makes you feel sick,” which is an
unusual question. I’ll never forget the moment, my blood
runs cold almost. Suddenly, for more than one person in that
circle who were praying, just came one word: “Christmas”.
I think from that moment I began to have serious thoughts
about it. Now there is nothing wrong with a family festival,
nothing wrong with family reunions – nothing wrong with
having a happy time together, and if that is the way you
want to celebrate the cold dark winter, do so. Don’t make
Jesus the excuse for it. That is my plea. Don’t think that he
is excited about it. How important it is for Christians not to
think, “What do the churches say or do,” but, “What does
Christ himself think or feel about it?” Try asking him and see
if he gives you the same answer he gave us on that occasion.
But find out what his real thoughts are.
Do you know that far fewer people are converted at
Christmas than at any other time of the year? That is
because most evangelists are not busy over Christmas.
They are home with their families and they find they can’t
get appointments over Christmas to hold a crusade, so they
seize the opportunity to have a bit of family life. There are
fewer people – there are more people taking bread and wine
at midnight communion, but far fewer coming to Christ. He
has a very raw deal out of it all. I just leave that thought with
you because every Christian today must, I think, face up to the
fact of Christmas. We can’t get away from it, it’s all around
us and we have to decide what we are going to do about it.
Well now, on the back of all that, let’s go back to the
Christian story of Christmas and look at it afresh. It’s much
more than in a school nativity play. So I want to begin now to

19
look at the biblical Christmas, and you find it in the Gospels.
The story is an amazing mixture of natural and supernatural,
and how seriously you take the supernatural part will have
a big effect on how you celebrate Christmas.
The natural part is really quite ordinary. There was nothing
very different about the birth of Jesus. After some hours of
labour, and in not very nice circumstances, Mary brought
forth her firstborn boy. That birth was quite normal. It was
not a miraculous birth.
It wasn’t in a stable – that is part of the myth. It wasn’t in
a cave, though if you go to Bethlehem today they will show
you a cave in the crypt of the big cathedral there, which
they believe to be the cave where Jesus was born. They also
show you a spot on the floor of the cave marked with a silver
cross where Mary’s milk was spilt. It is quite objectionable,
the whole thing. He was born in an inn, but not in a room
in the inn. There was no room in the inn, but he was still
born in the inn. Because if you go to a middle eastern inn,
even today you have a big square wall with no windows
in it surrounding the inn, pierced by two big gates or a big
double gate at one side. When you go in, you see rooms all
around the inner side of the wall and all the windows face
inwards, and in the middle is a space with troughs for water
and mangers for food for the animals. All this is for security
and safety in a dangerous world. You take your animals and
family into the gates and then you ask, “Is there a room
for us?” The clear biblical record is there wasn’t a room
available, which meant that they had to do what others had
to do, and that is camp in the courtyard in the middle, where
the only place to put a baby was one of the troughs. That is
the picture. So Jesus was born under the stars in the open
air in the courtyard of the inn. Do you see the picture now?
Most Christmas cards have got it altogether wrong—either
a stable or a cave or something. There is no word “stable” in

20
your Bible. He was born where the animals and his family
were spending the night.

Photo above is an example of a modern day Inn.

It is a very ordinary story of taxes, poll taxes, and a

pregnant fiancé of a young man. He was probably about
seventeen or eighteen and she would be fifteen, which was
the normal age for betrothal in those days. There they are.
Why are they so far from home? The answer is she was
pregnant before marriage, and that was in those days, as it
still is in many circles, a disgraceful event. She would be
boycotted in her home town of Nazareth, nobody would
help her. They wouldn’t talk to her; they would just leave
her alone. So she had to give birth somewhere else. Since
Joseph, her fiancé, had to go to Bethlehem for the poll tax
because he belonged by his ancestry to that town, she had
to go with him. A seventy-mile journey on a donkey is not a
thing that a woman advanced in pregnancy would normally
undertake, but she went.

21
 Now it is amazing how many myths and legends have
grown up around this birth. We had shepherds who came to
see her – well there is nothing mythical about that. But then
came “wise men”. It simply says “wise men”. But legend
has said they were kings. The origin of that whole thing is
that they brought three gifts, and therefore it was thought
there must have been three of them and they must have been
royal. Who else would come to a King? And they have been
given the names. Well, all that is just not true. It is fiction.
So you have this strange mixture of fact and fiction.
All the fiction isn’t included. Many of Jesus’ own cousins
were assassinated because he was born in Bethlehem. King
Herod was jealous, and he ordered the killing of every baby
under two years to make sure that this baby born to be king
of the Jews would not survive. When did you last see that
on a Christmas card? The soldiers of Herod slaughtering
the babies—there must have been dozens of them, and most
would be related to Jesus because the people who had come
to Bethlehem to be taxed were all of the same extended
family. Did you ever hear that preached about at Christmas?
It is all part of the true story, but we select from the story
what we like and we then add to it anything that improves
the story in our imagination.
Oh, we even sing about it. Did you ever sing Away in a
Manger and about the baby that never cried? “No crying he
makes”—rubbish! The only way a baby can let its mother
know that he is hungry is by crying, and to think that Jesus
was so holy that he never cried – that is a ridiculous idea.
But we have sung it heartily, or at least got our children to
sing it. Whenever you see the picture of Jesus’ birth you see
golden halos over the baby. It is a symbol of glory, but it
was never seen by anyone.
I have a real admiration for Joseph. Named after the
Joseph of the Old Testament, he was a dreamer as well, and

22
he got messages from God in dreams. The first message he
got was when he discovered that Mary was pregnant. He
was horrified and he even thought he would have to break
off the intended marriage and have a proper divorce from
his fiancé, because betrothal was serious then.
Well, Joseph believed the dream when God told him,
“I’m the Father.” For the first time in history – such a thing,
fancy Joseph believing it! Yet he believed it, and the very
next morning he married Mary to cover up even admitting
or acknowledging that the baby was his, at great personal
cost. I love Joseph. He doesn’t say much in the story, but he
does an awful lot in response to dreams.

23
The truth about Christmas Part 3

Let us look at the facts of our Lord’s birth. The first fact is he
was not born in December. He was born somewhere around the
end of September or the beginning of October, for the seventh
month of the Jewish calendar bridges our September and
October. It was during that time that the Feast of Tabernacles
was held. It is quite clear from the Bible that Jesus was born
in the Feast of Tabernacles. How do we arrive at that? With
a very simple bit of mathematics—nine plus six, which is
fifteen. With that simple sum you now know when Jesus was
born. We’re told that his cousin John was born to Zechariah
and Elizabeth. When Zechariah went into the temple and was
told that his wife, who was way past childbearing, would have
a son and be called John that was how John the Baptist began.
Now when the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her that
she would have a son even though she had never known a man,
he also said, “And the proof will be that your cousin Elizabeth
is also, amazingly, pregnant at her age.” Immediately, Mary
set off to visit her cousin who lived in a little village near
Jerusalem. When she went into the room, her cousin Elizabeth
felt the baby inside her jump – the first time she felt that. She
said, “My baby jumped for joy when you came into the room,”
and they shared what had happened.
Now it says that was when Elizabeth was six months old
or six months gone. Nine months later, Jesus was born. Six

24
plus nine is fifteen. If we knew when Zechariah went into
the temple and was told he was going to have a son and add
fifteen months to it, we’d know when Jesus was born. Do you
follow me? Well, from the Second Book of Chronicles, we
know in chapter twenty-four there is a list of the priests who
had a rota to go and serve in the temple. Zechariah’s turn to
serve is listed there. He was the eighth out of twenty-four.
Therefore, a third of the way through the year Zechariah
went into the temple. When you add the fifteen to that, you
come to the seventh month of the following year, which is
the Feast of Tabernacles. Every Jew believes the Messiah
will come at the Feast of Tabernacles. It is written in their
scriptures; it is written in their culture. So that is when they
expected him. You find in the Gospel of John that the Word
of God became flesh and “tabernacled” among us. You also
find out that Jesus’ own brothers who were sceptical of
who he was, when the Feast of Tabernacles came around
later in John’s Gospel, said, “It’s the Feast of Tabernacles,
you’d better go and show yourself in Jerusalem if you’re the
Messiah.” They were teasing him. They knew that the Feast
of Tabernacles is when he should come.
I am also convinced that is when he will come again. I
can’t tell you the year, but I can tell you the month. It will
be in the seventh month, and that is when Jews all over
Israel celebrate the future coming of the Messiah, and they
have that in that month precisely for that reason. So he was
born end of September, beginning of October. The biggest
miracle in Jesus’ birth was not the birth itself, though that
is where the world focuses when they celebrate Christmas.
The real miracle happened nine months earlier; it was his
conception that was supernatural because Mary had never
had a sexual relationship with a man.
Now that is not the only virgin birth there has been.
A professor of gynaecology in London University once

25
told me that there have been probably six or seven, virgin
births in the human race recorded or claimed. But he said
the one thing that convinced him the claims were possibly
established was that in every single case the result was a
baby girl. It would have to be a baby girl. The scientific
process is called “parthenogenesis”, when a female egg
spontaneously divides and produces an individual without
having been fertilised. It is common in the vegetable world.
It is not unknown in the animal world; the Komodo dragon
is one species that has virgin births. As I have mentioned,
there are records of it happening to humans, but never to
produce a boy. So here undoubtedly is an amazing miracle.
We now know enough about conception and birth to know
what could have happened, and there are three possible
things that God could have done in Mary’s womb. First, he
could have created a complete initial foetus and planted that
in Mary’s womb. If that is what happened, then God was the
Father, but Mary would not have been the mother. She would
not have contributed to the foetus; she would be a surrogate
mother, nothing more than an incubator. So it can’t be that.
The second thing that could have happened: The only
difference between a male and a female foetus is in one tiny
chromosome and in every cell in my body every chromosome
looks like a letter y; in my wife’s body, that chromosome looks
like the letter x. All that God needed to do was just a tiny bit
of genetic modification to use the term that is popular today.
Now if that were the case, Mary would have been the mother,
but God would hardly have been the Father.
The third possibility, the one I incline to, though I
wouldn’t be dogmatic on this, is that God created a male
sperm bearing the DNA of divinity and fertilised one of
Mary’s eggs with his created sperm. That would mean that
Mary was fully the mother and God was fully the Father and
the resulting child would be human and divine together. So

26
it is that third possibility that appeals to me.
However, the miracle is that Mary produced a baby boy
without the help of a man. That has never been heard of before
or since. Let us go a little further. I have told you that I think
Joseph must have been a fine young man to believe in a dream
and act upon it. In a second dream he was warned about Herod
and took Mary and the baby as refugees to Egypt, where no
doubt they had to sell the gold, frankincense, and myrrh just
to keep alive. Then, later, when Herod died they came back to
Nazareth. So he only had two dreams. We don’t have a single
word that he ever said, but he acted on those two dreams. To
believe on them and act on them must have taken tremendous
faith. I am looking forward to meeting Joseph.
Now Mary. Protestants say far too little about Mary.
Again, the Roman Catholics have said far too much, and
we have reacted against that and we say far too little. I have
heard so many sermons about other characters like Peter and
Paul and John, but rarely heard a sermon about Mary – but
she was the first charismatic. She was the first one to say,
“Whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do with me, I’m willing,”
and she spoke in tongues on the day of Pentecost. I have
never heard all that mentioned, have you? But it is there in
your Bible. Mary was a most wonderful woman.
I enjoy preaching on Mary, and I have done so in front of a
bunch of sixty Roman Catholic priests with a cardinal sitting
in the middle of the front row. My subject was what the Bible
really says about Mary. I said it doesn’t say anything about her
Immaculate Conception or her Perpetual Virginity—she had
more children, at least seven of them after Jesus—or about her
bodily assumption to heaven. I went through the four dogmas
that the Roman Catholics believe, and I said that none of them
are in the Bible. But I said, “You have discouraged us from
preaching what is in the Bible about Mary because you have
added so many things that aren’t in the Bible” – one of which,

27
a very important one, we will come back to.
Now as a human being Jesus had a beginning. But when
you write the story of Jesus, where do you begin? Mark
began with his baptism because that’s when his public
ministry began. Matthew went further back and began with
his birth, tracing his family history back to Abraham. Luke
went further back than Abraham. He went back to Adam
because Adam was the ancestor of Jesus.
Finally along came John and he went back to the
very beginning. He took the words from Genesis 1 – In
the beginning, he already was. That word “was” is very
significant. Not in the beginning he began, but in the
beginning he was already there. Since the human mind can’t
go back beyond the beginning of all things, you just can’t
imagine when there was nothing, not even space. John is
saying: at the very beginning he already was there and he
was face to face with God and he was God. Of course the
Jehovah’s Witnesses have had to change that in their Bibles;
they don’t accept Jesus’ full divinity.
But this means that Jesus’ birth was unique – not in the
way he was born, but in the fact that he chose to be born.
Nobody else in the whole of history has ever chosen to be
born as a baby. You didn’t, I didn’t; you didn’t choose your
parents and I didn’t choose mine. We had no choice, but
Jesus had, and he chose his parent and chose to be their baby.
That is the most amazing thing, and yet I have never heard
it mentioned in any nativity play. Did you? I never saw it
on a Christmas card. I would love to see a Christmas card
saying: “The man who chose to be born.” Now there is a
truth for adults, not children. It makes you think.
The problem that John had was: if he existed before his
birth, even before his conception, what was he called? He
only got the name Jesus after his birth and he only got the title
“Christ” when he became the Jewish Messiah, that is what it

28
means. He only got the name “Lord” after his resurrection and
ascension. So what was our Lord Jesus Christ called? John,
with his inspiration of the Spirit, called him “the Logos” –
that is the Greek for “word”, but it is much more than word.
John was writing his gospel in Ephesus where there was a
man called Heraclitus who was the father of modern science.
He taught his students to use their eyes to observe what
went on and to find out the reason why things happened as
they did. The word for “reason why” is “logos”, and every
branch of science has the word “logos” in it; psychology,
physiology, zoology, meteorology. Every one is a study of
how things behave in that field – until you know the reason
why. So meteorology studies the weather and asks why the
clouds come and drop rain or why the wind goes a particular
way. That is the basis of all science, and John called Jesus
“the Logos” because he is the reason why everything else
behaves as it does. Isn’t that a lovely title?
So in the beginning was the Word, the Logos, the “-ology”
of our research and all our questions. He is the reason why.
He is the answer. Then he wrote these amazing words: “The
Word, the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us”
– pitched his tent among us, lived among us. That word
“flesh” is very important. I want to add five adjectives to
bring across the sheer wonder of it. The Word, the logos, the
reason why the second person of the Godhead – who had
always existed along with his Father, but chose to become
a baby – took upon himself physical flesh. You could touch
it. He could touch people, they could touch him. It was real
physical flesh such as you and I have.
Secondly, it was male flesh, not female. I know Jesus has
been claimed to be both male and female. The most famous
picture of him, knocking at the door was by Holman Hunt who
used three females as models for it – one for the long ginger
hair, one for the face, and one for the figure. It is a thoroughly

29
female Jesus in that picture, so I am not too fond of it. Jesus
was male. He came to show us God, and God is a Father,
not a mother. He is King of the universe, not the queen. He
is husband of Israel, not the wife. Therefore, to show us God
the Father it had to be male flesh, whether we like it or not.
Thirdly, it was Jewish flesh. He was born and circumcised
as a Jew and is still Jewish, yet most Sunday school pictures
of him are of a Scandinavian with fair hair and blue eyes.
That is not Jesus. He was Jewish with a Jewish nose and he’s
still Jewish and always will be. The next thing is that it was
sexual flesh. There has been a kind of common impression
that Jesus was sexless. If that is so, then he didn’t have the
problems that I have and that every male has and he didn’t
overcome them as he calls us to. It was sexual flesh, and in his
teen years particularly he must have had sexual temptations.
There was a film that caused an outcry called The Last
Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin Scorsese. It
imagined that Jesus had sexual temptations. Well, that is
true. He must have done. It was male, sexual flesh. But he
didn’t give way to any of the temptations that brought, he
overcame them.
Finally, and this may be a shock to you, the New Testament
says his flesh was sinful flesh. Now we rebel against that.
We think, “No, he was without sin.” Yes, he didn’t sin. But
he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, which means he
took on our human nature and had that battle to face as we
have to face. If it wasn’t sinful flesh then he hasn’t fought
our battles and can’t give us the strength to. But he has been
tempted in all points, like as we are. The three points we are
tempted in are the world, the flesh, and the devil, and Jesus
was tempted in all points just as we are. Now that is a truth
that many Christians can’t accept.
The Catholics have invented the Immaculate Conception
of Mary to get around the problem, and they believe that

30
Mary was born without sex or without sexual temptations,
and therefore she was able to produce a boy that didn’t
have sinful flesh. But if Jesus was born of Mary then our
nature was passed to him through Mary and he had the
battles we have, but he never gave in and he won the battle.
It’s Paul who says, “He was born in the likeness of sinful
flesh,” Romans 8. People say, “Ah, just a moment. He says
he was born in the ‘likeness’ of sinful flesh, you mean just
the appearance.” No, the word “likeness” means exact
reproduction. It’s used in Philippians 2 where it says he took
on himself the likeness of human flesh. That really means
he was reproduced as human flesh, and Paul says the same
thing of sinful flesh.
I finish with this very direct question: do you think it is
appropriate to mix this pure Son of God with all that goes
on at Christmas? With the office party? With the mistletoe?
With all the rest of it? With the huge expense? With all the
money that is spent, even on the children? Do you think it
is fitting to put Christ in the middle of that? The one thing
that is certain is nobody is going to be able to abolish the
sentiments of Christmas that come from its pagan origin.
There have been so many attempts to clean up Christmas
through the centuries, that when you read the history of it
you realise it never succeeded. These things should not have
been brought into the church, they should have been left
outside. People coming to Christ should be told: leave these
things behind; don’t bring them in with you.
So we are left with that basic question: do we want to
mix Christ up with all that? And I am afraid that my answer
is: no we don’t. Let us rescue Christ from Christmas. Let
us celebrate his birth when it really happened. It is much
cheaper and simpler to do so. Let us separate Christ from all
that is not of him and let us worship him as he ought to be
worshipped. That is my final word on Christmas.

31
 ABOUT
DAVID
PAWSON
A speaker and author with uncompromising faithfulness to the
Holy Scriptures, David brings clarity and a message of urgency to
Christians to uncover hidden treasures in God’s Word.
Born in England in 1930, David began his career with a degree in
Agriculture from Durham University. When God intervened and
called him to become a Minister, he completed an MA in Theology at
Cambridge University and served as a Chaplain in the Royal Air Force
for three years. He moved on to pastor several churches, including
the Millmead Centre in Guildford, which became a model for many
UK church leaders. In 1979, the Lord led him into an international
ministry. His current itinerant ministry is predominantly to church
leaders. David and his wife Enid currently reside in the county of
Hampshire in the UK.
Over the years, he has written a large number of books, booklets, and
daily reading notes. His extensive and very accessible overviews of
the books of the Bible have been published and recorded in Unlocking
the Bible. Millions of copies of his teachings have been distributed
in more than 120 countries, providing a solid biblical foundation.
He is reputed to be the “most influential Western preacher in China”
through the broadcast of his best-selling Unlocking the Bible series
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Countless believers worldwide have also benefited from his
generous decision in 2011 to make available his extensive audio
video teaching library free of charge at www.davidpawson.org
and we have recently uploaded all of David’s video to a dedicated
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 UNLOCKING
THE BIBLE

A unique overview of both the Old and New Testaments, from

internationally acclaimed evangelical speaker and author David
Pawson. Unlocking the Bible opens up the Word of God in a fresh and
powerful way. Avoiding the small detail of verse by verse studies, it
sets out the epic story of God and his people in Israel. The culture,
historical background and people are introduced and the teaching
applied to the modern world. Eight volumes have been brought into
one compact and easy to use guide to cover both the Old and New
Testaments in one massive omnibus edition. The Old Testament: The
Maker’s Instructions (The five books of law); A Land and A Kingdom
(Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings); Poems of Worship
and Wisdom (Psalms, Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job);
Decline and Fall of an Empire (Isaiah, Jeremiah and other prophets);
The Struggle to Survive (Chronicles and prophets of exile); The
New Testament: The Hinge of History (Mathew, Mark, Luke, John
and Acts); The Thirteenth Apostle (Paul and his letters); Through
Suffering to Glory (Hebrews, the letters of James, Peter and Jude,
the Book of Revelation). Already an international bestseller.
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 JESUS:
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WONDERS
OF HISTORY

This book is the result of a lifetime of telling ‘the greatest story

ever told’ around the world. David re-told it to many hundreds of
young people in Kansas City, USA, who heard it with uninhibited
enthusiasm, ‘tweeting’ on the internet about ‘this cute old English
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Taking the middle section of the Apostles’ Creed as a framework,
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themselves falling in love with their Lord all over again.
 JESUS: THE SEVEN WONDERS OF HISTORY
1. His Birth
2. His Death
3. His Burial
4. His Resurrection
5. His Ascension
6. His Return
7. His Judgement

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 OTHER TEACHINGS
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 THE EXPLAINING SERIES
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The Amazing Story of Jesus
The Resurrection: The Heart of Christianity
Studying the Bible
Being Anointed and Filled with the Holy Spirit
New Testament Baptism
How to study a book of the Bible: Jude
The Key Steps to Becoming a Christian
What the Bible says about Money
What the Bible says about Work
Grace – Undeserved Favour, Irresistible Force
or Unconditional Forgiveness?
Eternally secure? – What the Bible says about being saved
De-Greecing the Church – The impact of Greek thinking
on Christian beliefs
Three texts often taken out of context:
Expounding the truth and exposing error
The Trinity
The Truth about Christmas

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 SUPPORTING THE DAVID PAWSON TEACHING TRUST
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 THE
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David Pawson has a worldwide

teaching ministry, particularly
for church leaders. He is known
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Each book in the Explaining series

examines an important aspect of the
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David Pawson teaches on the theme
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