CHRISTMAS,
OBSERVANCE OF

The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.

Samuel Johnson

Christmas is coming! Quite so; but what is “Christmas”? Does not the very term itself denote its source – “Christ-mass.” Thus it is of Romish origin, brought over from Paganism. But, says someone, Christmas is the time when we commemorate the Savior’s birth. It is? And who authorized such commemoration? Certainly God did not. The Redeemer bade His disciples “remember” Him in His death, but there is not a word in Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, which tells us to celebrate His birth.

Arthur Pink

We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas.

First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English.

Secondly, because we find no scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. “Superstition” has fixed most positively the day of our Savior’s birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred … It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the Church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the

Western Church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it.

… Probably the fact is that the “holy” days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the 25th of December … Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son.

C.H. Spurgeon

When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide, and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then.

C.H. Spurgeon