The Constant Church of God presents clear answers to your questions, directly from the Bible!

Christians and non-Christians alike believe Jesus Christ was born on December 25th.

Is that what the Bible says?

You can search the entire Bible — from Genesis to Revelation — and you will not find any scriptural accounts of Christ, His apostles or the early New Testament Church ever celebrating Christmas as His birthday.

Surely, if God wanted us to observe the day of Christ's birth, God would have revealed it in the Bible.

So, when was Jesus born?

The straightforward, truthful answer from the Bible is we don't know exactly when He was born.

The Bible does, however, provide scripturally-supported evidence that Jesus' birth actually took place in the autumn season.

Not in December or in any of the winter months.

Notice Luke chapter 2 and verse 8.

This is the plain testimony of the Bible.

8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.

Since winters were severe in Judea — with frequent heavy snowfall — this never could happen there in December.

Neither in November nor even late October.

Shepherds were never in the open fields during the rainy, winter season.

To protect them from the rain and the winter cold, shepherds brought in their flocks from the fields and kept them in barns or similar protected places from about mid-October to mid-March.

Since the shepherds had not yet brought in their flocks at the time of Jesus’ birth, clearly the cold, rainy season had not yet begun.

On the basis of Luke’s testimony alone, Jesus’ birth could not have been December 25th.

There is additional evidence in Luke chapter 1.

The virgin Mary miraculously became pregnant with Jesus at the same time her relative Elizabeth was already six months pregnant with John the Baptist.

So John was six months older than Jesus.

If we could determine the time of John’s birth and add 6 months, then we could know the time of Jesus’ birth.

Notice Luke chapter 1 and verse 5.

5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

WHAT was the division of Abijah and HOW does it provide us with the information we need to determine when Christ was born?

The answer is in 2nd Chronicles chapter 23.

During the reign of King David, there were so many priests, they had to be divided into 24 courses or shifts.
Each course taking turns, performing their priestly duties in the temple one week at a time.

From one Sabbath to the next.

Jewish records reveal that the first course began in the spring, on the first month Nisan.

The second course worked the second week, and so on.

The third week — being the annual festival season of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread — found all 24 courses serving together.

The third course then took its turn in the fourth week of the year.

The eighth course — the course of Abijah in which Zacharias served — was the ninth week of the year.

The following week — the tenth week — was Pentecost week.

Zacharias stayed on to help out together with the other courses.

It was during this two-week period — near the end of spring and beginning the summer — that the angel Gabriel came and told Zacharias that his wife Elizabeth would soon conceive.

After the end of his shift, Zacharias hurriedly returned home, and Elizabeth conceived some time in late June or early July.

She would have given birth nine months later in late March or early April of the following year.

Six months after John’s birth, Jesus would have been born in late September or early October.

Clearly, the Bible tells us Jesus could not have been born in December.

The third proof of when Jesus was born is this prophecy from the book of Daniel, chapter 9 and verse 25.

25  “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. . .”

The command or decree to restore and build Jerusalem was made in the year 457 BC.

During the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia.

Applying the biblical day-for-a-year principle, 69 weeks is equivalent to 483 prophetic years.

Four hundred eighty three years from 457 BC brings us to 26 AD.

There being no year 0, we have to add 1 when we move from BC to AD.

And so, in the autumn of 27 AD, Jesus the Messiah began His public ministry at about 30 years of age.

That means Jesus Christ was born in the early autumn of 4 BC.

The Biblical evidence is clear, plain and straightforward.

The Bible does not reveal the exact date of Christ’s birth.

But what we do know for sure is that it was not in the winter.

The shepherds were still in the fields, tending to their flocks.

Jesus Christ was born in late September or early October, six months after John the Baptist.

According to the prophecy in Daniel, He was about thirty years old when He began His public ministry in the autumn of 27 AD.

Jesus Christ was born in 4 BC.

Sometime in the early autumn.

Not in the winter.

Nor on December 25th.

This is Ross Abasolo with the Constant Church of God.

Join us again next time to hear more about what the Bible actually says!