The Reason for Christmas

Guilt is Vanishing

In all of the laments and reproaches made by our seers and prophets, one misses any mention of “sin,” a word which used to be a veritable watchword of prophets. It was a word once in everyone’s mind, but now rarely if ever heard. Does that mean that no sin is involved in all our troubles—sin with an “I” in the middle? Is no one any longer guilty of anything? Anxiety and depression we all acknowledge, and even vague guilt feelings; but has no one committed any sins?

In an age where the word sin has become quaint—reserved for such offenses against hygiene as smoking and drinking, surrendering to the authorities for armed robbery and manslaughter is not an act of repentance but of personal growth. People talking about learning to forgive themselves seemed to be confused, because the terminology is misleading. “Forgiveness” presupposes an acknowledgement of guilt. Most people nowadays who speak of forgiving themselves explicitly repudiate the notion of personal.

Our culture has declared war on guilt. Dr. Wayne Dyer was one of the first influential voices to decry guilt altogether. He named guilt as nothing but a neurosis. “Guilt zones,” he wrote, “must be exterminated, spray-cleaned and sterilized forever.” Society encourages sin, but it will not tolerate the guilt sin produces.

The Reason for Christmas

Genesis 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. Adam and Eve were dispelled from the garden being guilty of breaking a clear law that God hade given them.

The Passover Lamb
The Precursor of Christmas

Exodus 12:3 Speak you to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: Ex 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: you shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: Ex 12:11 And thus shall you eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’s passover.

Ex 25:16 And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee.

Ex 25:22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. Le 16:2 And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.

Once a year, the high priest is supposed to take the blood of a slaughtered goat and a slaughtered bull, take it behind the veil into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkle it on the top of that ark of the covenant. That happens on the day that is called “the Day of Atonement.”

The very design of tabernacle and temple was meant to remind people that sin had to be atoned for, that one could not simply saunter into the presence of the holy God, that the sacrifices God himself had prescribed had to be offered by the designated high priest once a year, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people.

Worship and religion are not primarily about offering to God something called praise, something God prefers not to be without. Worship and religion are first of all about God-centeredness—and because we are rebels, that means that worship and religion are in the first instance about being reconciled to this God, our Creator and Redeemer, from whom we have willfully become alienated. The heart of the tabernacle and temple is not its choirs, its incense, its ceremonies. The heart of the temple is about averting the wrath of God, by the means he himself has provided.

God has displayed himself as a God who holds his people to account. He has already sent Adam and Eve away from his presence.

How do you get back into the presence of this God?
How can you be reconciled to this God?

What you discover is that all of these sacrifices are mandated under this law-covenant, under this covenant of Moses, to indicate that death is still going to prevail, apart from sacrifice, because there is still so much sin even among the covenant people.

In Ezekiel 8–10 the glory of God in his vision abandons the temple and moves to the mobile throne chariot of God. This chariot abandons the city, crosses the Kidron Valley, rises up the Mount of Olives, and simply looks over the city. It’s a way of saying that God is judicially abandoning the entire city.

Ezekiel 10:18 Then the glory of the LORD departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.

God withdraws from unholy worship. We cannot come before the Lord any time and any way we choose. God demands holiness of those who would approach him (Lev 10:1–7; 20:3–7; Ps 15:1–5). God is long-suffering with us as he was with Israel, but he ultimately withdraws when his call for righteousness is ignored (Ezek 11:4–12

We need to stop and think through the first sacrifices and the tabernacle: what it was for and what it was constructed as. You’re supposed to think of Passover, Yom Kippur, and the priestly structures. We must think of how it was taken over by the temple and, in both cases, the shekinah glory manifesting himself over the ark of the covenant on the Day of Atonement, as the blood of bull and goat was offered up, to pay both for the sins of the priest and his family and for the sins of the people, until finally, the temple is removed.

The shekinah glory abandons the temple and the city, gets a ride on Ezekiel’s mobile throne chariot, crosses the Kidron Valley, and parks on the Mount of Olives, attending the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar, a judicial pronouncement of profound significance.

Then one day on the streets of Jerusalem, a voice is heard saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it again.” John 2:19

The Reason for Christmas was the Center Focus of the Tabernacle and the Temple

The blood of the sacrificial animal always pointed out the issue of guilt and the provision to cover that guilt and provided restored fellowship with God which sin had broken.

Revelation 21:22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

When all as we know in this life is over and we are in the presence of the Lord Almighty there will be no need for temple or the purpose for which it was created. The blood of Jesus will have once and for all eliminated the barrier between God and fallen man.

Hebrews 9:11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Heb 9:12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Heb 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

The general conclusion from these verses is that, according to the law, almost everything is purified with blood. Some Jewish purificatory rites were through water or through fire, but the most significant were through sacrifices which involved the shedding of a victim’s blood.

The concluding statement here—without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins—is based on the statement of Leviticus 17:11. It sums up the purpose of the blood sacrifices under law. The shedding of blood points to the death of the animal and to the ceremonial outpouring of its blood.
It implies more than the giving of life. Its effectiveness rests in the application of the blood. In this way the writer is building up an explanation of the necessity of the death of Christ.

God Demands Perfection
The Christmas Child Provides It

Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

On the ground of Christ’s death, God declares guilty sinners just—not because, from the act of justification itself, they are in their actions and thoughts truly just or righteous, but because they have been acquitted before the bar of God’s justice. Because Christ has paid their penalty, they are just in God’s eyes, even though, at the level of their very being, they are sinners still.

The reason for Christmas is guilty mankind can only become perfect by a perfect substitute provided by God himself. The perfect substitute was Emmanuel, born on what we celebrate as Christmas. He would later die after living a perfect sinless life and willingly take the place of all who will put their trust in Him.

When one places faith in Christ, Christ becomes our substitute and takes our place, gives us His right standing before God, and takes our sinful place. His blood restores us to the perfect place man was with God before sin disrupted that relationship. That is the reason for Christmas.