"A Savior Was Born"
Matthew tells how wise men came from the East, presumably Persia, asking, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him” (Matt 2:2). The star that they saw may have been the conjunction of Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Mercury in the constellation Leo on August 27, 3 BC. It was visible in the pre-dawn sky in Persia. The constellation Leo, which means lion, is the emblem of the tribe of Judah, while Jupiter is the king star and Virgo means Virgin. This stellar phenomenon signified the conception of a king of Judah within a virgin, which Jews still in Persia and through the East in those days would readily understand. Another conjunction of Jupiter and Venus happened again in Leo less than a year later on June 17, 2 BC. It was visible in the evening sky in Judea and may have announced the birth of the King in Judah to a virgin.
Matthew likely included this history in his gospel to underscore his testimony that Jesus was the promised Son of David. His first chapter recounts Jesus’ genealogy beginning with Abraham and showing His lineage through King David to Joseph, but it skips some generations, allowing Matthew to group Jesus’ lineage into three sections of 14 progenitors. Fourteen is the number of David’s name, a phenomenon inherent in all alpha-numeric languages. This tripartite repetition of 14 is compelling evidence to Hebrew-speaking Jews that Jesus was a descendant of David.
Luke, on the other hand, reports that angels appeared to shepherds tending their flocks in the fields about Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth. The angels not only announced His birth, but they sang praises to Him and His heavenly Father. The shepherds were actually Levites, for the sheep raised on Bethlehem’s hills were destined for sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem as stipulated in the Mosaic Law. Bethlehem was less than four miles from Jerusalem.
Luke likely heard about Jesus’ birth directly from Mary herself, for Luke, a converted Gentile, learned the events of Jesus’ life from “eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word” (Lu 1:2). Mary was one of those eyewitnesses who gathered in the upper room on Pentecost (Acts 1:13-14). Luke could have met her when he accompanied Paul to Jerusalem or after John moved to Ephesus to help stabilize the church in that region, following Nero's execution of Paul. John would have brought Mary, for Jesus had placed His mother in the care in John (John 19:26-27) at His crucifixion.
John began his gospel with creation, rather than Jesus’ birth. He centered his gospel on Jesus’ divinity, but he combined that testimony in his opening verses with a devastating refutation of Gnosticism, an early heresy that ravaged the apostolic church. That heresy grew out of the teachings of Simon Magus (Acts 8:9ff), the first heretic. Meander, one of Simon’s disciples, developed it and gathered disciples, multiplying the number of Gnostic teachers who challenged Christianity. Gnostics proposed that thirty divine powers, or attributes, whom they called Aeons, composed the divine council, which they referred to as the Pleroma. They considered the Pleroma the highest spiritual realm, or in our terminology, the ultimate Godhead. They borrowed and corrupted that concept from apostolic teachings. Apostle Paul expressed the Christian meaning in Colossians: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9). The phrase fulness of the Godhead in Greek is pleroma theotes. The Gnostics misapplied the phrase fulness of the Godhead and taught instead the fulness of the Aeons.
Gnostics also taught all thirty Aeons did not exist at the beginning but were progogated from each other. They explained that Bythus (source of all existence) was the first Aeon and Sige (silence) the second, from whom came Nous (intellect) and Aletheia (truth). Nous and Aletheia produced Logos (speech or expressed reason) and Anthropos (human or humanity). The rest of the 24 Aeons descended from Logos and Anthropos (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk 1, ch 1).
John’s first verse affirms that Logos, translated Word in the KJV, existed at the beginning and was not only with God, but was God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1). His testimony stands in sharp contrast with Gnostic teachings and provided a significant bulwark against the Egyptian-rooted heresy. Logos was not begotten by other attributes, but was with God at the beginning. He was God. Further, the various attributes such as Christ (christos) or wisdom (sophie) did not rest on a chosen man to abandon him on the cross, as the Gnostics taught. Instead, Logos (the Word of God) took our flesh (John 1:14) and became a man for the express purpose of dying in our place and satisfying the demands of God’s justice, which required the death of all sinners.
Who would have thought, what mind could have perceived that the source of all powers, the Intelligent Designer, who created all things—time, space, and the universe that fills them, from the largest galaxies to the tiniest particles, if one can call them that, such as quarks, leptons, or bosons—would love us, the people whom He created and who rebelled against Him, enough to follow us through death in the person of Jesus Christ and save us from sure annihilation by returning us to Him as His companions? We see that amazing love and amazing grace every Christmas when we recount how Jesus was born of Mary, laid in the manger, praised by angels, pursued by wise men, and worshiped by both priestly shepherds and wise men. This is why Christmas is such a holy time of the year.
John reminds us of Jesus’ divinity and the united relationship between the Father and the Son in creation. Even the Jews teach that God required the plan of redemption at the beginning, before He began creating. But John also testifies to Jesus' divinity and His united effort with the Father and Son in the redemption of mankind. Luke testifies to the glory of Jesus’ birth and the Levitical reception that He received. It suggests that He is the spotless lamb who would be sacrificed for the sins of the world, for He was likely placed in the same manger that the shepherds used to examine every newborn lamb and single out the spotless ones for sacrifice at the Temple, as Moses specified. Matthew assures us that Jesus is the Son of David, the rightful heir to his throne, which is eternal. Jesus has sat on that throne since He ascended to His heavenly Father, for David sang, “The Lord said unto my [David’s] Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Ps 110:1). He will reign on that throne when He comes again: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory” (Matt 25:31).
Not only do we recount all the biblical details of Jesus’ glorious birth every Christmas, but we also receive the witness of the Holy Ghost confirming its truthfulness and underscoring God’s sacrificial love for all creation. In various places around the world, the peace of God touches many, even non-believers. The spirit of Christmas is special to many, giving us, His disciples, an opportunity to invite them to come to Jesus. This Christmas, let us come to the manger and worship the Son of God, the spotless Lamb whom the Father sent to restore all who will come to Him. As we come to celebrate His birth, let us bring others to worship Him and bask in the light and life of His presence for all eternity.