Across cultures throughout human history, people have sought to flee oppression and escape persecution. A recurring theme in Western classical literature and in modern classics such as Superman and Disney originals, which revolve around the struggle between good and evil, is the need and critical role for a rescuer or savior.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the messiah, the ultimate rescuer and savior for mankind who would vanquish evil, oppression and falsehood once and for all. In that sense, Jesus is the most revolutionary figure of human history. No other religion makes the claim that it was founded by a messiah.
Many people assume Christianity is like other religions that require followers to give up bad habits and perform certain works and rituals acceptable to God. Not so. Christ reminds us in Matthew 11:30 that, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” When a learned Jewish Pharisee whose life revolved around living up to stressful “dos and don’ts” of the Mosaic law asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus answered simply that if we love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, we will have fulfilled all the laws.
Even non-believers recognize Jesus as the most far-reaching revolutionary. For one thing, Jesus Christ—being God, affected history with such an impact that He split time, dividing all human activities and events into happening before his coming (called B.C.) or after his coming (called A.D.). Christ had to have had a supernatural impact for non-Christians around the world to agree to dividing history in two.
The power of Christ can also be measured by beauty. A full collection of Renaissance Christian art, if it could be assembled, would be worth many times more than all the other art in the world combined.
How and why people can trust that Christ, the Savior, Lived
First, the account of Jesus Christ is more historically verifiable than other renowned figures and their works who lived in that ancient time and era—including literary greats, Virgil and Horace and military-kings like Alexander the Great—because of the number of eye-witness accounts, the short lapse of time between what Jesus said and did and the written account of those events and the number of surviving manuscripts.
No one doubts Virgil and Horace lived and originated great poetic masterpieces, although the written manuscripts of their works were recorded more than 400 years after they had died. There are only two original biographical accounts of Alexander the Great, written by Arrian and Plutarch some 400 years after Alexander died. The eye-witness accounts of Jesus were recorded in writing within a generation of his life. In addition, there are about 1,000 times more manuscripts that preserve the deeds and teachings of Jesus than there are ancient documents preserving other classical ancient works and records of historic figures who lived at approximately the same time.
Second, Christ is the only person in history who was pre-announced starting 1,000 years before he was born—with 18 different prophets from the Old Testament between 10th and the 4th centuries B.C. predicting his coming birth, life, and death. Hundreds of years later, the circumstances of Christ’s birth, life and death validated those prophecies in surprisingly accurate detail. This is unique to Jesus Christ—no one else in human history.
Third, Christ not only demonstrated his otherworldly power to heal and perform the ultimate miracle of bringing the dead back to life, but he set the absolute highest standard of love possible—being willing to die to give life to others. As Jesus prophesied, his resurrection confirmed God’s power and plan—providing “seeing is believing” evidence by bringing Jesus back from the dead and buried in a tomb to being resurrected and alive, thus providing the people with living proof of who He was.
In fact, Jesus made ten separate appearances to his disciples between the resurrection and his ascension into Heaven—a period of 40 days. Some of those appearances were to individual disciples, some were to several disciples at the same time, and once even to 500 at one time. This was not hearsay, but a matter of record of multiple separate eye-witness accounts recorded in writing.
Fourth, no other religion teaches that God became flesh. In other religions God is too otherworldly and pure to be accessible in terms of having a communion with earthly followers. In Christianity, God had his Son born in the humbleness of a stable and had Him raised in Nazareth, a small and very poor town that was one of the lowest in social status in Israel because He wanted his Son to be approachable by people from all walks of life.
Unlike other religious paths that require certain formalities and good works, the Christian approaches God not by works but by a humble recognition that Christ gave his life for our sins—that he paid the price for us—and that through Christ, we find forgiveness and reconciliation that provide a direct relationship with God.
Christianity is Foundational to the Declaration and the Constitution
As a Christian holiday, Christmas is foundational to America’s original character. If Christ had never been born and died the way He did, all of history would have been different. Neither Columbus nor the Pilgrims would have received or have been motivated by the good news of salvation through Christ to explore or establish new communities with a higher moral purpose in the New World.
There would never have been a constitutional government created in the way and time that it was in America, without two necessary conditions:
First, the foundation of recognizing man’s unalienable rights of freedom and equality that came out of the teachings of Christ, but not fully recognized until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Second, the unprecedented collection of Christian human genius that came together—rather amazingly at the same time—people we call the Founding Fathers, who were 95 percent Christian in their beliefs. It was their extraordinary biblical, historical, and classical learning, together with their wisdom, temperament, and practical experience that enabled them to write and frame the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and its Bill of Rights. Equally important, those Christian founders knew the sin and depravity that exists in everyone would lead to abuse of power and tyranny. And so, they structured the government with checks and balances between the three branches of government, and also through the federalist system of division of power between the states and the federal government.
So profound was the accomplishment of the Founding Fathers that it far surpassed achievements of Periclean Athens in Greece, Cicero and the Roman Republic, Florence under the Medicis, England the period of Elizabeth and Shakespeare, or any other nation. The spiritually-based founding of America was the greatest political and civic event in all human history, which is why evil enemy forces—both domestic and foreign—relentlessly work to destroy the United States.
The constitutional republic formed by the Founders provided for and protected individual rights of freedom and independence such that America achieved material prosperity for more people, more rapidly than any other prior civilization. Additionally, the American constitutional framework enabled people to move closer to the divine image in which all people are created free and equal more than they would have achieved under any prior system.
The Essence and Summary
It is remarkable that Christ had no servants, yet everyone called him master. He had no formal education or degree, yet educated Jews called him rabbi and teacher. Jesus had no medicines, yet he was desperately sought out as a healer. He had no army, yet emperors and kings feared him.
History shows that the greatest advancement of human character—and the accomplishments that followed—was made possible by God who became man, born in the humble circumstances of a dirty stable in the small village of Bethlehem, a speck in the vast Roman Empire. And while that empire would crumble and fall, Jesus, who had neither an army nor won military battles, went on to become the Lord and Savior for people who believe all over the world. While Jesus did say, “My Kingdom is not of this world,” He also implored His disciples and all believers that God’s “will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” In the end, the Christmas story is about peace and the great joy that good will triumph over evil.
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Scott Powell is senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. This article is a vignette out of his timeless acclaimed book, Rediscovering America, which was #1 new release in history for eight straight weeks at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599). Reach him at scottp@discovery.org