Another “Secular” Abomination
The word “abomination” is not in vogue today. It is not a part of the average person’s vocabulary. Yet it is used extensively in God’s word – the Bible. It expresses God’s loathing of something that destroys man’s relationship with Him — particularly when it involves practices and customs in the worship of other gods. “… for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:31). If God declares something to be an abomination, then we must not be indifferent about it.
In just a few days, the world will celebrate the beginning of another year. Billions of people will participate either by watching through mass media or physically joining in the festivities. To the masses, this practice is secular, enjoyable, and serves as a time to bring the world together. On the surface this may appear to be true, however, we need to perform only a small amount of research and quickly find this is not the case.
In 45 B.C., Julius Caesar reformed the calendar, now known as the Julian calendar, and defined the shortest day of the year, the winter solace, as January 1. On this day, the days begin to grow longer. The Romans attributed this to the re-birth of the sun god, Saturn. The celebration of Saturnalia commenced on January 1, accompanied with much unrestrained and licentious parties where many gifts were exchanged.
Around 324 A.D., the Catholic church came into power in the Roman Empire and legalized Christianity. The church did not like the wild parties and celebration of the “pagan” god Saturn. So around 900 A.D., the church said Saturnalia would not be celebrated. Instead, it would be a mass for Christ’s birthday – Christmas. They decided to replace the pagan holiday with a new holiday to celebrate the birth of the baby Christ. They replaced the “Sun” with the “Son” and replaced the Greek “baby of fertility” with the “baby Jesus”.
The Julian Calendar was flawed. It reckoned the year having 365.25 days per year. The year has 365.2422 days – give or take a small amount. By 900 A.D., this small error moved the winter solstice from January 1 to December 11. The calendar was corrected and became the Gregorian calendar we use today.
One of the adjustments was to remove 10 days from the calendar, which moved the winter solstice to December 21st – as it remains today. Christmas (Saturnalia) was not moved back to January 1 but to December 25th. What we know as New Year’s Day stayed January 1. These changes resulted in the winter solstice, Christmas, and New Year’s Day being separate dates. There are 12 days between December 21 and January 1, these came to be known as “the 12 days of Christmas”.
Thus, New Year’s Day and Christmas share the same common basis. They both were founded upon the worship of pagan gods and built upon a religious, not secular, foundation of which God has a very strong opinion.
“When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deuteronomy 12:29-32, NKJV).
Satan is the master of disguise and masquerades New Year’s Day as secular. As God’s people, we must not be fooled.
Bill Hutchison
