When we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we are celebrating one of the most improbable miracles in all of human history.
You see, the truth is that not just anyone could have showed up and claimed to be the Messiah. According to the Scriptures, the Messiah had to come from a very specific bloodline, the Messiah had to be born at a very specific place, and the Messiah had to be born at a very specific time. It was exceedingly unlikely that anyone would ever be able to fulfill all of those prophecies, but Jesus did. The prophecies about the first coming of Christ that we find in the Bible are powerful evidence for the reality of the Christian faith, and yet these prophecies are rarely taught in our churches today.
Even though the birth of Christ is most commonly celebrated on Dec. 25, in the western world, scholars openly acknowledge that Jesus was not actually born on Dec. 25. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, people did not start celebrating the birth of Christ on Dec. 25, until hundreds of years after the time of Jesus.
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In the 3rd century, the Roman Empire, which at the time had not adopted Christianity, celebrated the rebirth of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus) on Dec. 25. This holiday not only marked the return of longer days after the winter solstice but also followed the popular Roman festival called the Saturnalia (during which people feasted and exchanged gifts). It was also the birthday of the Indo-European deity Mithra, a god of light and loyalty whose cult was at the time growing popular among Roman soldiers.
The church in Rome began formally celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25, in A.D. 336, during the reign of the emperor Constantine. As Constantine had made Christianity the effective religion of the empire, some have speculated that choosing this date had the political motive of weakening the established pagan celebrations. The date was not widely accepted in the Eastern Empire, where Jan. 6, had been favored, for another half-century, and Christmas did not become a major Christian festival until the 9th century.
The Bible does not give us a specific date for the birth of Christ, but based on the chronology that we are given in the gospel of Luke it probably happened during the fall months.
And as I noted earlier, the Messiah could not have been just any random person.
In my new book entitled “Why”, I explain that the Scriptures mandate that the Messiah must come from an extremely unique bloodline.
-He had to be a descendant of Abraham. (Genesis 12:3)
-He had to be a descendant of Isaac. (Genesis 21:12)
-He had to be a descendant of Jacob. (Numbers 24:17)
-He had to be a descendant of Judah. (Genesis 49:10)
-He had to be a descendant of Jesse. (Isaiah 11:1)
-He had to be a descendant of David. (Isaiah 9:6 and Jeremiah 23:5)
-He had to be a descendant of Solomon. (2 Samuel 7:13)
In addition to coming from a very specific bloodline, the Scriptures also require that the Messiah must be born in the town of Bethlehem.
This is what Micah 5:2 tells us.
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
The Scriptures also require that the Messiah must be born of a virgin.
What are the odds of that happening?
I think that Henry Morris was being quite generous when he assigned a probability of one in 40 billion.
Consider also the matter of the virgin birth, which was prophesied over 500 years before its fulfillment. “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). The imminent fulfillment of this amazing prophecy was finally announced to Mary’s espoused husband, Joseph, also by Gabriel: “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:20).
There has been no other virgin birth recorded in all human history, in comparison to perhaps 40 billion normal births since Adam. However, an evolutionary skeptic might argue that such a thing is theoretically at least possible, especially in view of such modern genetic developments as artificial insemination, cloning, etc., as well as examples of parthenogenesis among animals. So perhaps we could assign a probability of one in 40 billion to a human virgin birth (or better, virgin conception—the actual birth being fully normal in Jesus’ case).
On top of everything else, the Scriptures require that the Messiah must be born at a very specific time in human history.
Daniel chapter 9 contains some of the most complex prophecies in the entire Bible. As I explain in my book, that chapter gives us a very specific timeline, and it also gives us a way to check to see if we have interpreted that timeline correctly. Daniel 9:26 says that the Messiah must die before the city of Jerusalem and the Temple are destroyed, and of course the city of Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed in A.D. 70.
What this means is that the Messiah had to show up before A.D. 70, and that is precisely what happened.
At just the right time, and in just the right place, the Messiah came into the world. I recently came across an editorial that discussed just how unlikely this really was.
Some people love math. I barely tolerated it; just enough to get by. Then there are people that have a passion for statistics, and others love to postulate on statistical probabilities, adinfinitum.
OK, let’s try this scenario on for size. What are the chances that a virgin teenage girl, say 13 or 14, named Mary, who lived in the village of Nazareth along with her fiancé Joseph, would immaculately conceive by the Holy Spirit and later give birth to a little boy, after traveling fully pregnant, on a donkey about 90 miles—a four to five day journey on foot—to the birthplace of Joseph’s ancestor, King David? This little baby would grow up to eventually save humanity from their sins. Come on, stat-people and mathematicians, I’ll wait for your answer.
Overall, there are over 300 prophecies in the Bible regarding the coming of the Messiah that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
After He rose from the dead, Jesus explained the importance of fulfilling all of those prophecies to His disciples. The following is what Luke 24:44 tells us.
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
Yes, anyone could theoretically show up and claim to be the Messiah.
But there is only one man that fulfilled all of the criteria set forth in the Scriptures.
Jesus is the Messiah, and that is definitely something worth celebrating.
Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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