The World Book Encyclopedia defines Christmas as “a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.” 1
The encyclopedia goes on to write that:
Christmas is the happiest and busiest time of the year for millions of Christians throughout the world. People of different countries celebrate the holiday in various ways, depending on national and local customs.2
Christmas celebrations can be different depending on who you are and where you grew up. But typical Christmas customs in America include Christmas trees and Christmas presents, carols and carolers, parades and decorations, cold weather and school holidays, church plays and church concerts, sentimental letters and Hallmark cards, employee bonuses and employee vacations, and above all – Santa Claus and his reindeer.
But all this leads to a very important question . . . Why is there a Christmas holiday in America? Why should we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ at all? Who was He and what did He do that makes Him so special? Six billion people have a birthday every year, what makes Jesus’ birthday so significant? To answer these questions, it would be best to go straight to the source. Here are 5 reasons why Jesus Christ came to earth (from the lips of Jesus Himself).
1. To Fulfill God’s Law
Matthew 5:17-18 says:
Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Many people think that Jesus came to rebel against the laws of His people, but He tells us that He actually came to do the opposite . . . He came to fulfill them.
Rebellion was very common among the Jewish people. Just a century or so before Jesus, a Jewish priest named Mattathias was commanded to sacrifice a pig to Zeus in the Jerusalem Temple. Mattathias refused and formed a rebellion against Rome. For the next few decades, the Jewish people – led by Mattathias and his 5 sons – ruled Israel instead of the Romans.
Mattathias’ family, called the Maccabeans, led the Hebrews to several victories over Roman legions using guerilla warfare. His most famous son was Judas Maccabeus, who became a national hero. In A.D. 164, 3 years after Rome issued the command to sacrifice swine in the Jerusalem Temple, Judas entered the temple with his army and cleansed it of all the unclean sacrifices and statues to foreign gods.
This act of purification is still celebrated among the Jews today around Christmas time. It is called the Feast of Lights or, in Hebrew, Hannukah.3
Because of this hunger for rebellion, Jesus told His listeners in Matthew 5 that He did not come to rebel against authority. He did not come to do away with the Old Testament; He came to complete it. He did not come to lead an uprising; He came to submit to God’s commands. He came to obey every word of Scripture and, as a result of this, He came to fulfill the law.
2. To Call Sinners
Matthew 9:12-13 says:
It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick . . . for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
The Greek word for “call” here is kaleo. It means “to invite,” “to summon,” or “to call to one’s house.”4 In verse 13, Jesus is saying that He did not come to summon those who are faultless. He came to call those who know that they have failed to keep God’s commands.
One British pastor summed it up like this:
If you think you deserve heaven, take it from me you are not a Christian . . . Now, that is a very good definition of a Christian. Any man who thinks that he deserves heaven is not a Christian. But for any man who knows that he deserves hell, there is hope. 5
If you think you should go to Heaven when you die, let me assure you, you do not understand Jesus Christ and you do not understand the Bible. James 2:10 says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” God is perfectly holy. God possesses an absolute moral perfection and in order for you to enter His presence, you must possess that, too. If you break one part of His law, you are guilty of breaking all of it, and the punishment for that is an eternity in Hell. Every person has a tarnished record before God and part of salvation is acknowledging that.
You must believe that you deserve Hell if you would be saved. You must believe that you have broken God’s law and that you are a sinner. And if you can believe all this, there is hope for you. Jesus Christ came to call people just like you. He came to call people who have broken God’s law and He came to call people who deserve Hell. He came to call sinners.
3. To Bring a Sword
Matthew 10:34-36 says:
Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
Violence is not something we typically equate with Jesus. “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” is not a stereotypically Christian message. After all, Jesus is the “Prince of Peace”6 and He came to bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men7. Scripture speaks of His peace “which surpasses all understanding”8 and the Prophet Zechariah said the Messiah “will speak peace to the nations.”9 Why does Jesus say the exact opposite of this in Matthew 10? Why does He talk about bringing a sword?
Jesus makes it very clear that His followers must love Him more than they love any other earthly relationship. In Luke 9:23-26, Jesus commands His disciples to deny themselves and give up their lives for His sake. In Luke 14:33, He tells an audience that no one can follow Him who does not give up all his possessions. In John 14:15, Jesus tells the twelve apostles that no one truly loves Him who does not keep all His commandments. In short, to follow Jesus Christ is to serve Him and obey Him as God.
This is a very divisive thing to teach. To command your disciples to love you more than they love their own families is bigoted. To tell them to give up all their earthly possessions for you and keep all your commandments is very narrow-minded. To order your people to deny themselves is prejudicial in the extreme. Where is the freedom of the individual? Where is the right to do whatever you want? Where does my self-will fit into all this?
Yet these are the terms that Jesus Christ offers His followers. This “bigoted” and “narrow-minded” and “prejudicial” person is the Jesus of the Bible.10 These are His conditions for discipleship. They are very offensive. They are very intolerant. They require a heavy sacrifice. And, because of that, they bring division, not unity among the people of the earth. In other words, they bring a sword.
4. To Seek and To Save What Was Lost
Luke 19:9-10 says:
Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
In this passage, Jesus was staying at the house of Zaccheus, a man of small stature and big problems. Zaccheus was a chief tax collector, which means he was passionately hated by his own people.
Tax collectors in First Century Israel were Jews hired by the Roman government to collect taxes for Rome. They would travel with a Roman guard and collect taxes from their fellow Jews. As if this was not bad enough, most tax collectors charged extra sums of money to make themselves rich and to keep their bodyguards happy. So, not only were tax collectors traitors to their kinsmen, they were thieves as well.
You could not find a more disgraceful job in ancient Jewish society than the one Zaccheus held. He collected taxes for the foreign oppressors and he used muscle to steal money from his own people. Because of this, men of his profession were usually placed on the same social level as prostitutes. Tax collectors were cut off from all things Jewish and every decent Jew shunned them completely. 11
So no one had to tell Zaccheus that he was lost. He understood that completely. Socially and spiritually, he was the living dead. He had no part in God’s Temple and he had no part among God’s people. He was totally ostracized from the nation of Israel.
Yet, Jesus says in Luke 19:9 that “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.” Because Zaccheus responded to Jesus in faith (vv. 5-6) and because he offered to pay back all his stolen money (v. 8), Jesus tells him, “Welcome back to the land of the living!” “The man who was rejected by the Jews is now a ‘Son of Abraham!’”
Zaccheus knew he was lost. He realized that he could not save himself; so he came running to Jesus to save him. And he came to the right place. For Jesus “has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
5. To Give Life
John 10:7-11 says:
Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Sheep are very problematic animals. They have no natural sense of direction, no natural defenses, and no natural awareness of their environment. As such, they are extremely high-maintenance. A story is also told of a group of Palestinian shepherds who fell asleep when they were supposed to be watching their sheep. When they woke up, their flock was missing but they could hear their bleating coming from the bottom of a nearby cliff. As they looked over, they saw that their sheep had jumped – one right after the other – over the cliff’s edge. Some of the last ones to jump survived by landing on the soft wool of the others.
For sheep to survive, they need the help of a shepherd. They need a guide to bring them to safe pastures and to fresh waters. They need a leader to protect them from wolves and lions and poachers. They need a friend to steer them away from cliffs and dangerous places because, on their own, sheep are helpless. 12
That is why Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd. As a shepherd, He protects His followers from the dangers of sin and death and Hell. He guides them to places of safety and to places where they can find nourishment for their soul. But not only is He a shepherd for His sheep (v. 11), Jesus is also a door for them (v. 7). He provides a way for His disciples to enter greener pastures. He provides a way for them to have life. In John 14:6, Jesus said it this way, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus can show His sheep the way because He is the Way. He can teach them the truth because He is the Truth. And He can give them life because He is the Life.
CONCLUSION
So why did Jesus come? 5 reasons: He came to fulfill God’s law, He came to call sinners, He came to bring a sword, He came to seek and to save what was lost, and He came to give life to His sheep. To answer this question another way: Jesus Christ came to be punished so that His followers would be rewarded. He came to suffer God’s wrath so that every believer would enjoy God’s pleasure. He came to be put to death on the cross so that Christians could have life in eternity. And He came to rise again from the dead so that His people might rise again with Him.
All these blessings are yours if you would become His follower; but you must follow Him on His own terms. You must believe that He is perfect and that He is God. You must believe that you are a sinner and that you have broken God’s law. You must leave your life of sin and deny yourself for His sake. And you must believe that He died for your sins and was resurrected for your life.
If you are willing to do this, or if you have any questions about anything in this pamphlet, please feel free to contact us.
End Notes
1 Robert J. Myers in The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 3 (Chicago: World Book, Inc., 1994) 528.
2 Ibid., 529.
3 Harold W. Hoehner in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979) 184-185.
4 G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (New York: T & T Clark, 2001 ed) 228.
5 Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Cross: God’s Way of Salvation (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1986) 75.
6 Isaiah 9:6.
7 Luke 2:14.
8 Philippians 4:7.
9 Zechariah 9:10.
10 John Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006). It was for this reason that Piper wrote, “No one I have ever known in person or in history was as blunt as Jesus in the way he dealt with people” (218).
11 D. A. Hagner in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume Four (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988) 742-743.
12 Charles Jefferson, The Minister as Shepherd (Washington, Penn.: CLC Publications, 2001 ed) 41-48.