WARNING:
This post is going to be painful for many to read. I want to say that we are sharing our experience and understanding of Scripture. We realize that we are only human and may be wrong, but we seek to share our journey and understanding in hopes of encouraging others to walk the narrow road that leads to life.
If you love Halloween and Christmas, and nothing we share will convince you it is not Holy and Good, then you may not want to read this article.
This is a guest post from Rachel Carman:
Why we cannot say Halloween/Christmas is redeemed!
Did Jesus redeem Christmas?
First let’s take a look at the definition of redeem or redeemed:
Redeem–
To buy back or repurchase
Redeemed–
Adj: Salvation
V. Past tense of redeem
So to redeem something, you had to previously own that thing. For example, if I had a toy car, and I lost it, then one day I see my toy car at a thrift store, and I buy it back; I have redeemed my toy car. I bought it back even though it was once mine to begin with.
In the same way God has redeemed His children. We were His to begin with.
Genesis 1:31, Ecclesiastes 7:29
God created man good, so we know we are from God because all good comes from Him. But sin stole us away. We were separated from God because of our sin. So God sent His son Jesus Christ to pay for our redemption, and if we accept that, He has now bought us back. He has redeemed us.
Now if we take a look at Halloween and Christmas we can easily find, through research, that Halloween and Christmas comes from pagans. Even now pagans celebrate Halloween and Christmas as a way to worship their false gods.
God never accepted the pagan ways of worshipping.
(Deuteronomy 12:4, Deu 12:30,31; Deu 16:21,22; Deu 20:18; Lev 20:23; Matthew 15:13)
The pagan ways did not come from God. They are not good; God cannot and will not redeem what He never owned.
He is Holy, and He wants us to be Holy.
We can only worship Him the way He tells us to.
So if paganism never belonged to God in the first place He cannot and would not redeem those ways.
He cannot buy it back if He never owned it.
We know God is unchanging and He would never give us a command and then break that command.
Jesus Christ is God, so likewise He cannot, and will not go against His Father.
Nowhere in scripture do we see Jesus telling us to celebrate His birth or to celebrate in the way pagans do.
Can we redeem Halloween and Christmas?
The Bible also tells us that our hearts are wicked and desire to do wrong unless we search out God’s ways. (Jeremiah 17:9, 16:12, Proverbs 28:26, James 1:14)
When we become children of the one true God we should desire to worship Him, serve Him, and follow His ways.
Even if we look different than the world we must strive for His ways and not ours. If we want to serve the one true God, why are we desiring to do pagan things?
We should want to stay far from those ways.
We cannot make something that is evil turn good. Evil is evil and good is good. (Job 14:4)
God can bring good things out of a bad situation, but He hates evil and doesn’t mix evil with good.
God also tells us (through Paul) in Romans 3:7-8 that just because He can bring good out of a wrong we did that does not give us the right to do wrong and say, “Well, God will bring good out of this.” Otherwise we could go around lying and saying, “God will bring good out of it so it’s ok if I sin.”
If we once celebrated Halloween or Christmas we should look at that as a way we can put off our old self and accept the new.
Put off the ways of the world and evil and accept the ways of God.
Ephesians 1:4, 4:20-24
The problem with saying Halloween or Christmas is redeemed
So maybe your not convinced yet.
Well let’s think about this: If we can say Christmas and all the pagan traditions are now redeemed and are good. What is stopping us from doing wrong, and saying it’s ok now, because God changed and now what is evil is good?
Once Christmas is ok then so is all evil practices. Then what’s stopping us from saying that building totem poles is ok, and sacrificing children, etc.
If we can make up what God has redeemed, and ignore the fact that He says not to worship Him like the pagans. Then we can do anything we want and say it’s ok. Whether we say Christ redeems it or I, myself, redeemed it nothing stops you from committing any sin and saying it’s ok.
This is why we must use scripture to back up everything we do. We cannot pick and choose what commands are ok to follow and what commands aren’t. God never lies. (Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:8)
God never changes. (Hebrews 13:8, Malachi 3:6)
Once we say He has changed, we call Him a liar, and then we start picking and choosing from His law.
Which is not ok!
As followers of Christ, we must try our best to obey all His ways even if it is hard.
We are Bible believing, scripture only people. We love to learn about the Hebrew roots of our faith. We believe it is important to not add or subtract from the Divine Word of God. The compiled scriptures that agree with one another and have no contradiction is the 66 books of what is commonly referred to as the Christian Bible, or the Holy Bible.
These writings were originally written by men inspired by God. They were written in the language of the writers and readers of the original documents. Many of the original documents have been lost, but God’s Word is eternal and remains. Therefore, it is important to us to study, learn, and consider the culture, history, and language of the original writers of the scriptures.
In our studies we have learned that the true name of God is Yehovah, and His son, our Messiah, is named Yeshua. Therefore, as you read our posts we will use the Hebrew names of God and our Messiah.
We are Bible believing, scripture only people. We love to learn about the Hebrew roots of our faith. We believe it is important to not add or subtract from the Divine Word of God. The compiled scriptures that agree with one another and have no contradiction is the 66 books of what is commonly referred to as the Christian Bible, or the Holy Bible.
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