Church History – Page 3 – What Does This Mean?

Is Christmas Based on a Pagan Holiday?

Encore Post: As we discussed in an earlier post, non-Christian scholars, liberals and some conservative Christians, believe that the church created the celebration of Christmas to displace pagan celebrations. The reason for this conclusion is that Christians did not universally celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th. Yet the Emperor Aurelian did declare that the day be celebrated as the Birthday of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Son). These scholars theorized that the Church decided to replace this pagan holiday with the celebration of Christ’s Birth to keep people out of the temples of this popular pagan god.

When Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar, December 25th fell on the winter solstice. The word solstice means “The Sun stops.” On this day, the northern hemisphere has the least amount of daylight. From this point on until the summer solstice, the Sun would seem to gain strength. So December 25th was celebrated as the beginning of its return.

Most pagan societies worship the sun as a god and Rome was no exception. Beginning with Nero Caesar, Roman emperors associated themselves with the Sun God Sol and its Greek equivalent, Ἕλιος (Helios). This god became a favorite of the Roman armies. As Christianity became more widely believed in Rome, pagan Emperors increased the persecution of the Church. Aurelian promoted the worship of Sol as a kind of pledge of allegiance and promoted December 25th in the same kind of way Americans celebrate July 4th. When Constantine the Great came to be Emperor, he ended the government sponsorship of the worship of Sol.

So, did the Church decide to put Christmas on December 25th to counter the worship of the Sun? Not exactly. There is no reference to the celebration of Sol Invictus in the works of the Early Church fathers related to the date of Christmas. It appears that the reverse is the case, that the Emperor instituted the pagan festival in order to counter the rise of Christianity and the first celebrations of Christmas on the date.

The early church did associate the metaphor of the Sun with Jesus, but not because of the Roman holiday. The Prophet Malachi had prophecies of the Messiah that he would be “The Sun of Righteousness” who would rise with healing in his rays. In the earliest Christmas sermons, this theme was often used. The church did use the occasion to its advantage, but not always successfully. Christians would retain ancient customs, but would pour new meaning into them. Over time, Jesus would become the reason for the season.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

At Just the Right Time

Encore Post: Time is a funny thing. We use clocks that measure the vibrations of atoms, coordinated with telescopes to record its passage with great precision and consistency from place to place, transmit them to us via computers, satellites, radio, television and other digital signals and synchronize our clocks with them. We barely notice that time is a human thing — except on leap year or when we change our clocks twice a year or move from time zone to time zone.

Time is the way we record the change we notice more and more with each year of life. Time passes quickly. When you are a child, an hour drags on forever. As an adult, it passes before your realize it. What is important, our culture has noticed, is not time itself, but what you do with it. It has become our new currency. We sooner will write a check than hang out.

The Greek of the New Testament has two different words for time. καιρός (Chairos) translates roughly “the right time.” χρόνος (Chronos) is about the passage of time, minute after minute, hour after hour, year after year. Seasons like Advent, days like Christmas and New Years’ are χρόνος, times that we plan for, come and go, forming a part of the rhythm of life. That Christmas when you opened your first present is καιρός

The fullness of time when God sent his son, born of a virgin, is God’s καιρός (Galatians 4:4-5). His acts and plans unfolded slowly, one building on another, leading to just that right time. The next big καιρός is the Second Advent, when time itself will come to an end in God’s eternal life with his people.

The persons, events and institutions leading to that first right time, the incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Immanuel — God-with-us — were called by the Early Church the praeparatio Evangelii (The Preparation of the Gospel).

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Last Things #11: Rapture and Tribulation and Millennium — Oh My!

Encore Post: Many of our evangelical brothers and sisters are fascinated by Biblical prophecy. Seeing the evil around us, they are convinced that we are living in the very last years and months before Christ returns to raise the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil, gather all in the final judgement and begin the marriage feast of the lamb that has no end. They are not alone — in every period of time, Christians were convinced they were living in such times — even St. Paul and Martin Luther!

What makes their view unique in the history of the church is they accept a theological view called Dispensationalism, a Christian school of thought that was born in the 1800s. It adopted the ancient view that Christ would reign on earth literally for 1000 years after he returned in glory. It set this view in a way of looking at history inspired by the 19th century cultural movement known as Romanticism. Dispensationalism was developed by Charles Nelson Darby, D. L. Moody and C. I. Scofield.

Dispensationalists believe that God divided the world into seven dispensations (also called economies and administrations). In each age God supposedly revealed himself in different ways. Salvation was offered according to different plans for each age (for example, under the Law of Moses, salvation was by works, but in the church age, by grace) and humans were held accountable to the set of rules for that age. They get to these views by treating at face value prophecies written in figurative and symbolic language and using the interpretations they discover to understand in a complex way the simple and clear words of Jesus and the apostles.

For them, this age will come to an end when events predicted in prophecy occur. They look to current events to fulfill these prophecies, treating the Bible as a giant algebra problem. Some have used such calculations to predict end time events. Among these are the rapture, when all true Christians will suddenly be removed from the world, leaving only unbelievers, the Tribulation, when they will be punished, and those who come to faith seeing these events are persecuted and the Millennium, when Christ and the church will rule the world a thousand years. Two problems with this: Christ promised that he would return suddenly and the last judgement follow immediately (so the Bible is not an algebra problem) and these versions of a rapture, millennium and tribulation are not in the Bible.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018-2023 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Just Another Day that Changed the World

Encore Post: On a chilly October morning, Martin Luther left the Black Cloister to walk to the Castle Church. A light breeze blew a few leaves across his path. When he passed Saint Mary’s Church, a few students hurried to join him. As they walked along, they asked questions about their last lesson. The town was busy that morning. Children played in the street. Farmers came to sell their crops. and goods. Pilgrims walked along the same street. They hoped to see the relics on display in the church. Relics are parts of a deceased holy person’s body or belongings that are kept as objects of reverence. Luther walked up the stairs to the door of the Castle Church. He moved several notices nailed there to make room for his announcement. After nailing his call for a disputation — that is, a conference — to discuss the power of indulgences, he headed for his classroom. It was an ordinary day, but one that would change the world.

Luther’s announcement on that ordinary day, October 31, 1517, touched off an explosion throughout the Western Christian Church. Known as the 95 Theses, Luther’s announcement seemed to suggest that the pope did not have the power to offer indulgences. Pope Leo X sent a messenger to convince Luther to apologize for his comments and to be quiet. Instead, Luther studied the Bible even more carefully. Finally, at a disputation between the reformer and Johann Eck was held in Leipzig, Germany, Luther said that much of what Jan Hus had said was right. Then, in the days that followed the debate, Luther wrote that the church was mistaken about other beliefs.

In 1520, Pope Leo X condemned Luther’s teachings as heretical and threatened to excommunicate him. Undeterred, Luther burned the pope’s letter, as well as many of the church’s books, in a bond fire in Wittenberg. Later, at the Diet of Worms in 1521, an assembly of the officials of the Holy Roman Empire, Martin Luther was condemned as an outlaw.

The 95 Theses themselves were not all that important. Yet because they were like lighting the fuse for a bomb, they set off the explosion that brought the precious Gospel back to light in Christ’s Church. From the rubble of that explosion rose the the Lutheran Church. That is why we thank God for Martin Luther on October 31st.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Three Men in the Furnace — or is it Four?

Encore Post: Ancient peoples looked upon their leaders as lesser gods, worthy of worship. They built statues to honor themselves and required all people to worship them. This practice continued even in Roman times to the pagan Caesars. It was seen as a patriotic act, similar to saying the pledge of allegiance and saluting the flag. From time to time, kings would enforce public worship of their statues or the statues of their gods to test the loyalty of their subjects.

For Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, loyalty to God was more important than life itself. They trusted that God could deliver them and placed full trust in Him. Yet they were prepared for God to take them to His side instead. God sent his Son as the Angel of the Lord to protect His servants in the fire. The writer to the Hebrews included these men in the great chapter on faith. (Hebrews 11:32-34) Christian martyrs throughout the centuries looked up to these men for inspiration when called to choose between God and country.

Faith is trusting God to keep his promises. It holds on to the fact that God kept the most important of his promises to his people in the Old Testament. In the person of the Son of God, THE Angel of the Lord, he became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life for us, suffered and died at the hands of a pagan government, rose again from the grave and ascended to heaven. Because he has done these things, we are certain that he will keep the rest of his promises — to bring us to be with him forever when we die and raise us from the grave at the last day. It is that faith that sustained Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, their friend Daniel, all the martyrs for the faith who obeyed God rather than man. With them numbered may we be, here and in eternity.

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Happy birthday, Lutheran Church!

Encore Post: Most people think of October 31st, 1517 as the anniversary of the Lutheran Church. However, Martin Luther and most Lutheran historians disagree. On the day that Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses, he was very much a Catholic. In fact, Luther on this day was upset that people did not have to suffer enough for their sins, and were being let off the hook way too easy. You could say he was more Catholic than the Pope. Considering the nature of Pope Leo X, he was.

On the first Reformation day, the Reformation was just beginning. We only first begin to recognize Luther’s complete theology in his writings in 1520. And it really wasn’t until 1529 that the reformers and their princes began to think of the Lutheran tradition as a separate faith.

Emperor Charles V had many problems in 1529. The Turkish Empire of Suleiman the Great had invaded Austria and laid siege to Vienna. France and the Pope were constantly challenging his Authority in southern Europe. He very badly wanted to unify his German territories under Roman Catholic control. So he called all the territories together at Augsburg for a meeting of the Holy Roman Empire.

Elector John of Saxony, Luther’s Prince, commissioned Luther and his friends to create a unified statement of the disputes between the Pope and the Lutheran territories. The result was a document called the Augsburg confession. All of the Lutheran princes who attended the diet of Augsburg sign the document as their own faith.

On June 25th 1530, the Augsburg confession was presented to Charles V by the Lutheran princes. To this day, June 25th is known as the birthday of Lutheran Church.

As Time passed, the Augsburg Confession gained acceptance by Lutheran territories and theologians. It became the standard for what we believe and confess and remained so. Today, every Lutheran Pastor pledges to teach according to the Augsburg Confession and the other documents contained in the book of Concord 1580.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Rule #5: Look for the Intended Meaning

Encore Post: In the Middle Ages, the most popular way of understanding a Bible passage was to look for four meanings in the text — the one that author intended for his readers to find there and other, “deeper” meanings. The problem Martin Luther and the Lutheran reformers found with this method is it allowed a person to find anything they wish in the Bible. So they insisted a principle summed up in the sentence: sensus literalis unus est — “there is one intended meaning [in each passage].”

What they observed is that God used human beings, using human language to speak to his people. To understand what God wants us to believe, then, we find that original message, paying attention to the words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar and figures of speech the author uses. We look the kind of literature it is (is it intended as history? Poetry? Is it a letter? A sermon? What were the customs of that time and place?) Most of the time we do this out of habit. When we do serious study of a passage, however, a good study Bible is very helpful with these efforts.

When most Christians talk about interpreting the Bible literally, they do not mean that we should always take it at face value. It means to understand it according to the words — what the author intended it to say to his readers. So, no one thinks that, when Isaiah said, “the trees clapped their hands” (Isaiah 55:12) that cedars grew limbs to clap. They understand it to be poetry to describe how they move in the wind. When we read the Bible, then, we understand what it says as normal speech when the book it is written in is a letter or a history. We understand it figuratively when the kind of literature it is poetry, parable or similar kinds of writing.

So, this rule tells us to work to find the meaning the author intended to send. It is that message that God wants us to hear and believe. We assume that the passage has only one of these meanings, unless the text tells us otherwise.

Rule #1 |Rule #2| Rule #3 | Rule #4 | Blog Post Series

Our God, our Help in Ages Past…

Encore Post: The reign of Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, was a peaceful time for Isaac Watts and his fellow Reformed believers. Her Anglican policy of tolerance made her a very popular monarch. When she died, great anxiety spread. It was possible that the Catholic Stewart family would try to claim the throne, even after Lutheran Elector George of Hanover was crowned King George I. Only the passage of time calmed frayed nerves.

Isaac Watts was intent on improving the worship of Reformed congregations by paraphrasing Psalms so that Christians could sing the Psalms from the perspective of faith in Christ Jesus. He cast Psalm 90 as a collect for times of uncertainty. “Our God our Help in Ages Past” reminds us of what God has done for us in the past, especially by the suffering and death of Christ for our salvation, and what he will do for us in the future, when he returns in glory. The middle stanzas contrast the temporary nature of life in this world with the eternity of God, his promises and his love. The final stanza asks that God would guard us now and be our eternal place of rest.

One of the most beloved hymns in English hymnody, the song is popular for the opening of a school year, Remembrance Day in Canada and New Year’s Day in many churches. The tune most associated with it, St. Anne, imitates the tolling of bells as they mark the passage of time.

The original text is as follows:

1 Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

2 Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.

3 Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth receiv’d her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.

4 Thy word commands our flesh to dust,
“Return, ye sons of men:”
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

5 A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

6 The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by thy flood,
And lost in following years.

7 Time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all its Sons away;
They fly forgotten as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

8 Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleas’d with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ’tis night.

9 Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Digging into the Old Testament: The Theological Schools of Alexandria and Antioch

Encore Post: You might remember the Ebionites and those who followed Marcion from earlier posts. In this post I want to introduce the two theological schools that ruled the day and effectively have left marks on the way we interpret the Bible still today.

But why are they called schools? Don’t think of them so much as buildings but the way of thinking. The first is Alexandria. The other is Antioch. Both cities were centers of Christian thought. Paul and other apostles spent time in Antioch, and Alexandria was known throughout the world as another great center of learning.

So what was the difference between Antioch and Alexandria? Well, let’s look at Alexandria first. Alexandria was the melting pot of cultures. Greek philosophy was alive and well. Many theologians, Origen, for example, had a background in philosophy. If you were to read Origen’s writings that we have at our disposal you would see him interpreting the text not just literally but also philosophically or in an allegorical fashion. Words meant more than just the literal word for him and others that came after him in the Alexandria School. Now this is not always a bad thing, but we need to always be careful to always consider the literal text.

Antioch and the theologians there were of a different style. They interpreted scripture in a literal, historical sense. Antioch generally steered clear of the allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture. That being said, they did not always have a lot of opportunities to find Christ in the Old Testament.

Both schools had men fall of either side of the the proverbial horse. Origen allowed his mind to go too far. Some men in Antioch did not go far enough to find Christ in the text, and questioned some of the Old Testament’s use for the Christian. Again, we should be looking back to what Jesus says. The Scriptures are all about him. He fulfills what was said in the Law, Prophets, and Psalms. If we keep that in mind, we ought to be able to see Christ not only in the New Testament but also the Old.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Meet Frederick III, “the Wise,” Elector of Saxony

Encore Post: Frederick III grew up in the noble German household of Ernest, Elector of Saxony. His father gave him a fine classical education in the Humanist tradition. Frederick grew up to be a patron of German renaissance painters, especially Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger. He founded the University of Wittenberg and systematically built it up to become prominent. He was a pious and faithful Christian, a collector of relics, a supporter of the Augustinian observant movement in Saxony.

A skillful diplomat, he negotiated major reforms in the structure of the Holy Roman Empire, increasing the power and freedom of its electors, nobles and free cities. In 1518, he was the Imperial Vicar, second only to Emperor Maximilian I, who was approaching death. When the Emperor died in January of 1519, he was regent of the Empire. The Pope, the electors, princes and cities of the Empire preferred that Frederick be crowned the next emperor rather than young Charles V of the Hapsburg dynasty. Charles was already king of Spain, Austria, and Hungary, ruler of territories in the Netherlands, France and Italy. Becoming Emperor would make him the most powerful monarch in Europe.

Yet Frederick did not want to be Emperor. He negotiated with Charles to have the Empire repay its debts to Saxony and a number of other concessions in exchange for his vote and support. After Charles was elected Emperor, Frederick used his considerable political skills and influence to protect Luther and advance the Reformation. When he died in 1525, he was succeeded by his brother John, who was an ardent supporter of the reformation.

©2018-2021 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com