Satan's Christmas deception today
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| Annunciation (The Holy_Doors) from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
First of all, ancient mythologies and world religions counterfeited Christ’s virgin birth with a proliferation of bizarre stories and inaccurate parallels. These stories undercut and minimized the uniqueness and profound impact of our Lord’s birth. Several accounts illustrate the point.
- The Romans claimed that Zeus impregnated Semele without contact and produced Dionysus, lord of the earth.
- Babylonian religion asserted that a sunbeam in the priestess Semiramis conceived Tammuz, the Sumerian fertility god (Ezek. 8:14).
- Buddha’s mother allegedly saw a large white elephant enter her belly when she conceived the deified Indian philosopher.
- Hinduism teaches that the divine Vishnu, after living as a fish, tortoise, boar, and lion, entered Devaki’s womb and became her son, Krishna.
Satan has propagated other similar legends, all with the purpose of undermining the nature of Christ’s birth and deceiving people into seeing it as just another myth or nothing exceptional.
In addition, the scientific age and the emergence of modern and postmodern theologies during the past two centuries have eroded many professed believers’ confidence in the reality of the virgin birth. (Along with that trend has been a noticeable decline in the percentage of “Christians” who believe in the deity of Christ.) But such skeptical thinking is foolish and directly contrary to the explicit teaching of all four Gospels, the Epistles, and the historical testimony of the entire early church that Jesus was none other than the virgin-born Son of God.
Unfortunately, a heart attitude of unbelief concerning Jesus’ identity has characterized the majority of men and women since the Fall. The Jews who opposed Christ vividly illustrated that attitude on more than one occasion (John 5:18; 7:28–30; 10:30–39). But such hostility and lack of faith should not discourage us or deter us from embracing and defending the truth of Christ’s virgin birth. The apostle Paul reminds us, “For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:3–4, 10:16; Isa. 53:1). The world’s opinion, popular as it might be, is rarely a reliable source of truth.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2001). God in the manger: the miraculous birth of Christ (pp. 2–3). Nashville, TN: W Pub. Group.
In addition, the scientific age and the emergence of modern and postmodern theologies during the past two centuries have eroded many professed believers’ confidence in the reality of the virgin birth. (Along with that trend has been a noticeable decline in the percentage of “Christians” who believe in the deity of Christ.) But such skeptical thinking is foolish and directly contrary to the explicit teaching of all four Gospels, the Epistles, and the historical testimony of the entire early church that Jesus was none other than the virgin-born Son of God.
Unfortunately, a heart attitude of unbelief concerning Jesus’ identity has characterized the majority of men and women since the Fall. The Jews who opposed Christ vividly illustrated that attitude on more than one occasion (John 5:18; 7:28–30; 10:30–39). But such hostility and lack of faith should not discourage us or deter us from embracing and defending the truth of Christ’s virgin birth. The apostle Paul reminds us, “For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:3–4, 10:16; Isa. 53:1). The world’s opinion, popular as it might be, is rarely a reliable source of truth.
MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2001). God in the manger: the miraculous birth of Christ (pp. 2–3). Nashville, TN: W Pub. Group.
