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Transcript 004B — Can We Know the Date of Christ's Birth?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Mr. Camping. Could you please explain what it means in Galatians 4:4, where it talks about Jesus being born of a woman in the fullness of time? What is that referring to? Does the fullness of time mean December 25, or what?
HC: Actually, you're asking two questions. One question is, what does it mean that Christ was born in the fullness of time? The second question that you've really asked is, can we know the date of His birth? Was He actually born December 25?
First of all, the fullness of time simply is indicating that God has a very precise timetable for the unfolding of His Gospel program. Nothing is happening by whim or caprice. God does not begin the whole plan of salvation by simply deciding, "I'll make my decisions as I go along, and when it seems appropriate then I'll send the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Savior."
When we think about this, already from before the foundations of the earth, God had elected or named those who were to be saved. And since we're saved in all different generations all through the whole duration of the earth's existence, all of this had to be understood by God in a very meticulous fashion. By the same token, God had a very precise time when the Messiah would come. We find, for example, in Daniel 9 that God prophesied concerning the coming of the Messiah and said that it would be seventy sevens of years, or 490 years after the command to rebuild the temple that the Messiah would be cut off, or that He would bring in everlasting righteousness and He would bring in an end to sin, which means the time that Christ would go to the cross.
Actually, we find that that was anticipating that in AD 33 Christ would be crucified. And I'm not going to try to show this at this moment, but that is exactly what that was really saying. It gives a very precise timetable there for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has a very predetermined, well thought through, definite plan. And everything must happen in exact accord with God's plan.
And so when the time came that Jesus was to be conceived, when the Holy Spirit would overshadow Mary and Jesus would enter her womb, and He entered into her womb, because after all, Jesus is eternal God, who is from everlasting. This was not the beginning of His creation, as would be true of a human being who is created in the womb. Actually, Christ simply took up His abode within Mary's womb and was born as a baby in the fullness of time.
Now what can we know about the date of Christ's birth? First of all, there is no suggestion in the Bible at all that Jesus was born on December 25. The early church decided that that would be an appropriate date to celebrate the birth of Christ because it was a pagan day that was used to celebrate the fact that the days now would begin to lengthen. It was the time of the winter solstice. The days had been getting shorter and shorter up until abut the 22nd of December, and around that date the days would begin to get longer. And so they selected that day to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus.
That's a very appropriate day, incidentally, because the Bible indicates that He is called the Day, "This is the day the Lord hath made." He is also called the "Sun, who rises with healing in his wings," or the "Daystar that rises in the East." The sun of course has to do with the length of the day. And so it's an excellent day to commemorate the birth of Christ, even though there is not the slightest biblical evidence that He was born on December 25.
Actually, if we would work it out from the biblical evidence, we could probably conclude that Jesus was born in the Fall of the year, around September or October. How can we know this? Well, we can know this because of the priest Zacharias, who was officiating in the temple, who later on became the father of John the Baptist.
Now we find that Zacharias was ministering in the temple during the time of course of Abia (that's in Luke 1:5). And when we go back into the Old Testament, we find that the temple service was divided into twenty-four courses. And when we work out the time of the year when the course of Abia would have been offered, and recognize that that was about the time when Elizabeth, Zacharias' wife, would have become with child with John the Baptist, and then recognize that John the Baptist was six months older than the Lord Jesus (and the Bible is very clear about that fact), then we would come to a conclusion that Jesus in all likelihood was born around September or October, in the Fall of the year.
But God does not seek to give us any further information as to the precise date. God has His own purposes for that, but God does indicate that He was born in the fullness of time. Incidentally, likewise in connection with the year that Christ was born, there is no definite language in the Bible that would suggest the year of His birth. However, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence in the Bible that points to the year 7 BC as the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Right now you are probably saying, "No, that can't be. Our calendar is keyed to the birth of Christ, and that presumes that Christ was born in the year 0, or 1 AD or 1 BC, or someplace in there." But the fact is, very mysteriously, the priest who many many years ago was assigned the task of working out our calendar made an error in arriving at the birth of Christ. He made an error of several years. We know that this is so because Herod, for example, the Herod who killed all the babies in Jerusalem, actually died in the year 4 BC. There is abundant secular evidence to that fact. While that's not a biblical statement, there is lots of secular evidence, and there's no controversy about it. He died in the year 4 BC.
Secondly, we know that when the Wise Men or the Magi, came seeking the Christ Child, they told Herod that they had seen the star two years earlier. And so that means that Jesus would have been born in at least 6 BC. And if there were any time at all from the coming of the Magi and the death of Herod, it could easily be that Jesus could have been born anywhere between 6 BC and 9 BC. But all the circumstantial evidence of the Bible points to 7 BC. And from the information we have in the Scriptures, in all likelihood He was born in the Fall of the year, around September or October.
But December 25 is an excellent date to celebrate His birth, because first of all it was a pagan day, and it's always good to commandeer a day that the unsaved of the world have tried to use for their own interests and make it God's day in some way. That's not a bad idea in itself. But also it's because it's the time when our days begin to lengthen in time, and therefore it points to Christ as the Sun of righteousness, who rises with healing in His wings.
But the big truth of all is that everything is under the control of God. Christ was born in the fullness of time. Christ will come on the last day, in the fullness of time, when God's plan calls for it. There is nothing done by caprice in the Bible. Everything is done with utmost precision as far as God's salvation is concerned.