Celebrate The Birth Of Christ

When Was He Actually Born?

This post is the first in the series from the book Friends With God, Chapter 7: Celebration of the Birth Of Christ.

The Child of God is Born!

The birth of Jesus is the most momentous occasion in all history- that God should become a man!

Yet, why didn’t God just send Jesus to Earth as a full-grown man? There are other instances in the Bible of God appearing in the form of a man. (Gen 14:18-20, 18:1-3, 32:24-30) But Jesus’ birth is the singular time when God was born as a man- with a human mother and God as his father. 

The Bible is the only record of when Jesus was born, yet only two Gospels record it. Matthew gives a broad outline, but Luke’s account is very detailed, and includes how Jesus’ birth is related to the timing of the birth of his cousin John, later known as John the Baptist.

Luke tells us that, after first being begotten by the Holy Spirit in Mary, Jesus was then carried by her for nine months till birth. (Luke 1:26-38)

Luke also includes many prophecies of Jesus’ and John’s births, which are given by the Angel Gabriel, the priest Zechariah, Mary the mother of Christ, Elizabeth the mother of John, and a very old prophet called Simeon, who held the baby Jesus in his arms and praised God in the Temple!

All these people knew when Jesus was born, yet the actual date is apparently not clearly spelt out by Luke. This is very puzzling, as Luke is very careful to spell out the date when John began preaching. (Luke 3:1-2)

Why would Luke neglect to mention the date of Jesus’ birth? We will see in this series of posts that he did not neglect to do so, but his record is clear for anyone who knows the Biblical meaning of the terms he uses.

Yet, for those of us reading his words 2,000 years later, it certainly may appear to be somewhat enigmatic. This series of posts attempts to explain this open secret, as well as providing much more detail as to what really happened in Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the weeks and months leading up to and following his birth.

Jesus Shows Us How We can be One With God!

Jesus lived a life much like any other human being, while also maintaining his direct lineage from God the Father. The fact that Jesus bothered to lower himself from being one with God (John 1:1-3), to become a physical child in his mother’s womb, shows his incredible desire to totally empathise with our human condition. His purpose for doing so was to give us a completely righteous example, which we are all able to empathise with.

His desire to live his life in the form of a physical man, shows the complete compatibility that God and Man have. Genesis tells us that while we are mortal, we are not made like any kind of animal. (Gen 1:20-31) But we are made with the amazing potential to become an immortal son of God. We are now made like the Godkind, except we are physical and mortal.  

God’s ultimate goal, however, is for our mortal bodies to be changed to immortal spiritual bodies, so that WE can also be one with Him! (1Cor 15:53-54, John 17:21-23)

And to help us comprehend this stupendous potential, God decided it would be a nice idea to be born in a physical, mortal body, in order for Jesus to also be one with us on our plane of existence. He was then resurrected after his death to demonstrate that physical beings, in the image of God, can also be made into spiritual beings that are also immortal and one with God.

Apparent Problems With The Biblical Record

However, despite the incredible importance of the birth of Jesus, there are many apparent difficulties with the Biblical record of when and how it occurred.

For example, Matthew and Luke’s accounts differ so much that they could easily be talking about two totally different events! Matthew does not record either the shepherds, or the actual birth, and Luke does not record the wise men at the birth of Jesus. Matthew also records that the wise men found the child Jesus in a house (Matt 2:11), whereas Luke tells us he was born in a stable, and slept in a feeding trough. (Luke 2:5-7)

Also, Luke tells us that about 40 days after his birth, the family left Bethlehem and went to Nazareth in the North of Israel. (Luke 2:22-40) Matthew, however, tells us that in order to escape King Herod, who wanted to kill the baby Jesus, they were told by an Angel to immediately flee South, to be safe in Egypt! (Matt 2:13-15) How can we possibly correlate these two records?

We also need to ask, “if Jesus was born on the 25^th of December, why are shepherds out in the fields with their sheep at the time?” The problem being that, if you know anything about Israel, then you know it’s so cold in winter that it often snows, and all sheep, particularly at night, would have been fed and lodged in stables, as there’s simply no grass for them to eat in the fields. What therefore would shepherds be doing with their sheep at midnight, amongst the snow, with no grass for the sheep to eat?

Preachers often down-play all these significant issues, but that approach just serves to undermine the veracity of the Biblical account of Jesus’ birth- further enabling it to be fictionalized by the foolish pagan trappings of Santa, pine trees, tinsel, yule logs, etc. We shouldn’t allow the birth of the very son of God to be denigrated and trivialized by lazy Biblical scholarship, particularly when the answers are not that difficult to search out, as will be explained in this series of posts.

Mary and Elizabeth

Luke’s account of the birth of Christ also mentions that did Mary, the mother of Christ, left her cousin Elizabeth just before she gave birth to John the Baptist. Why would she do that?

After staying with Elizabeth for three months, she decided to go away. (Luke 1:56) Why not stay to assist with the birth, and witness the completion of Elizabeth’s miraculous motherhood?

Mary’s love and affection for Elizabeth, and obvious interest in her wellbeing, would surely have compelled her to remain for this birth? Yet she left! Have you ever wondered what kind of incredible obligation could have driven Mary to depart at this critical juncture?

Later in this series of posts we we see that by looking into this little mystery of why Mary left when she did, that the answer also helps to identify the specific dates in the Hebrew Calendar, used in scripture, on which John the Baptist and Jesus were born. In turn, by appreciating the critical timing of these births from a Biblical perspective, we can develop a more in-depth understanding of the meaning, importance and relevance of the various prophecies recorded by Luke to the days when Jesus and John were born, and when these prophecies were given.

Timing by God is very important. He doesn’t do things at any old time, but at specific times, for specific reasons. The next post in this series will explain that God has many annual days that he calls “appointed times” throughout scripture, and that the days when John and Jesus were born are just two of those days.

His birth is the pivotal event within the long-term plan of God. Without Jesus’ being born as a human being, nothing else matters!

When he was born is also, therefore, of singular importance, as one would have to assume that such a divinely ordained birth would not have happened on just any old day of the year. It surely would have been a very specific day, with significant meaning attached to it?

We, therefore, need to search the Bible to see if it mentions, at least approximately, what the actual time of the birth of Christ was.  

God Wants You To Read His Word

Most preachers ignore these significant issues, and simply say something like: “it’s not possible from the scriptures to determine when Christ was born”, and then add “it really doesn’t matter when he was born, but the fact that he was born is the most important thing”. This approach, while appearing to be pragmatic and trusting in God, just leads us to continue to accept the status-quo, without even attempting to address these apparently serious logical problems in scripture.

Yet such confusion when reading scripture is not unusual, as God doesn’t actually promise to make things clear. Instead, he often expects us to search deep into his Word, in order to understand such complex and confusing subjects. (Prov 2:1-7, Prov 25:2, Matt 11:25-26, 1Cor 2:7)

The Bible is not a book that contradicts itself, or we could never have any confidence in it. If, however, we take a little bit of time to read the scriptures, we can understand the logical answers to these issues, and many others, regarding the birth of Jesus.

We hope this series of posts will help you celebrate, with greater depth and understanding the most important event that has ever occurred in the world!

In the second post in this chapter we will see when God wanted his one and only Son to be born.