Christmas Carols Changed by Adventism | 13

Nikki and Colleen remember how Adventist edited out truth about Jesus from the Christmas carols. They share some of their favorite carols now and talk about the strength and joy revealed by the gospel in those songs. Podcast was published December 11, 2019. Transcription by Gwen Billington.

 

Colleen:  Welcome to Former Adventist podcast.  I’m Colleen Tinker.

Nikki:  And I’m Nikki Stevenson.

Colleen:  And today we are entering the Christmas season.  In fact, probably many of us have already hit the ground running.  Did you realize that we have basically six fewer days in the Christmas season this year than in some years?

Nikki:  No, I didn’t.

Colleen:  Because Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, and this year that fourth Thursday was the last week of November.  Some years, it’s the third week.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  If that makes sense.  I’m not good with numbers.  But anyway, we have six days fewer, so it feels a little rushed.

Nikki:  I think that explains why I’ve been a little bit panicked this week.  All of a sudden I realized, “We are just weeks away from Christmas, and I haven’t done any shopping yet.”  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  Join the club.

Nikki:  Really?  Good!  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  Yes.  Unlike my Tracy –

Nikki:  Yeah.  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  – who shops months in advance.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  She’s great.  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  I always vow I’ll be like her, and I never quite make it.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  Me, too!

Colleen:  So this week we’re going to talk about Christmas carols and how those have helped to redefine Christmas for us in many ways, because of the gospel that they often proclaim.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  But before we do that, I just want to remind you that if you have questions or comments or suggestions, feel free to email us at formeradventist@gmail.com.  You may also subscribe to our podcast.  We would love for you to do that and rate it and like it, and you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and if you want to donate to Life Assurance Ministries to help this podcast continue to be produced and to go out, you may go to proclamationmagazine.com and find the link for online donating.  So, back to Christmas.  Nikki, you have talked to me about how Christmas carols have been part of a redefinition for you of this holiday.  Could you talk a little about that?

Nikki:  Sure.  Well, you know, I think we all get used to hearing Christmas carols growing up.  My Abbie was just telling me, today in school – she goes to a public charter – she said, “There was Christian music in the classroom today,” and I said, “Well, it’s Christmastime, and it’s more acceptable to hear” –

Colleen:  That’s true.

Nikki:  – “the Christmas music, even in the secular setting.”  And so we were talking a little bit about that, and I realized I grew up around them, I heard them, I know I sang them, but I didn’t understand, and I didn’t know I didn’t understand, what they proclaimed –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – until I became a Christian, and suddenly I heard these lines, and I was like, “Whoa, I never heard that before, I didn’t notice that before.”  I remember one of them is in “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”  It talks about the fact that He came to give us second birth.

Colleen:  Yes, yes.

Nikki:  Is that – am I getting the right carol?

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  And I thought, “I’ve never heard that before,” and that just – that started to become my experience at Christmas, the Christmas carols proclaiming.

Colleen:  That’s so cool.

Nikki:  Yeah, yeah.

Colleen:  Yeah.  I’ve had a similar experience with carols.  Speaking of Christmas and how things like this are more acceptable at Christmas than at other times of year, I remember shortly after we left Adventism, Richard came home from work.  He had been listening to a Christian radio station on the way, and he said, “Because of Christmas, the entire world has heard of Jesus.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Whether it’s an unbelieving country or not, the idea of Christmas is out there, and it’s kind of a remarkable thing, how the Lord has used traditions that are related to the church, but have also entered the secular arena, for good or bad, but there they are, and they still can proclaim Jesus, so people who don’t know can say, “Well, what is Christmas?”

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Today they can google.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  I think I need another sip of my coffee.  I am sporting a new mug today.

Nikki:  Tell us about this mug.

Colleen:  Well, many years ago, when I had just graduated from college, I was teaching in Idaho at Gem State Academy, and that was back in the days when I was so young, I was like 10 years older than my students.  Well, I have a friend who was a student when I was at Gem State, and I saw her and her husband this week, we had dinner together, and she gave me a mug she made, so I just want to give a shout-out to Bethany, and thank you for the mug.  I’m going to have a sip right now.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  Well, one of the things that I wanted to talk about in reference to Christmas carols is that they often mention the Deity of Christ and the blood of Jesus.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I didn’t pay much attention to that as an Adventist.  In fact, actually, in the Adventist hymnal, the Christmas carols that are there often have those components left out of the words of the Christmas carols, even if they’re originally parts of the carols.  But I remember being so offended if people messed up Christmas with the cross or the blood of Jesus.  I would think, “You can do that at Easter, leave my Christmas alone.”  And I remember before we left Adventism, but it was during that period of time when we were having Bible studies with our neighbors –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – they invited us to a Christmas pageant at a Christian church where one of their relatives was performing.  And I remember the feeling.  I’m thinking, “Okay, we are going to a Christian church, and I can do this.”  I remember exactly what I wore.  I remember the feeling I had walking bravely and kind of boldly into this Sunday church.

Nikki:  Were you attending a Sunday church at that time?

Colleen:  No.

Nikki:  Okay, so this was kind of the first time going in.

Colleen:  Yes!  And I was pretty excited we were going to see a Christmas pageant, and I was irritated when partway through this pageant the story actually included the crucifixion and then the resurrection.  Well, I’ve come to see now that is the story of Christmas.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  But I remember how offended I was and even angry that they would mess up the beauty of that sweet birth with something so messy as the cross.  It had failed to register in my mind yet that you can’t separate the birth from the cross.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.  That’s funny, because now, what do you put in your yard every Christmas?

Colleen:  We put a cross.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  Every Christmas.

Nikki:  Yeah?

Colleen:  Um-hmm, that’s true.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  We’ve come full circle, haven’t we?

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  So I was talking with you, Nikki, recently about the ways the Adventist hymn book has changed or omitted words to change the meaning of the Christmas songs, or to at least craft them so they’re able to fit in with Adventist doctrine.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And one of the first things that I understood that was a problem with the Adventist renditions of Christmas carols was about the song, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” when a few years ago a young former Adventist woman told the story of having sung a Christmas concert at her secular college and singing the song with her college choral “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and when she came to the second verse, she realized she was singing words she had never heard before, and she’d grown up a very observant Adventist, singing the songs from the Adventist hymnal, and here was the second verse that she sang:

Christ by highest heav’n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a virgin’s womb

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel.

I don’t know if you who are listening find those words familiar or not, but she had never heard them before, and she went online and discovered that they were, indeed, the original words to the song, verse 2.  But here was the Adventist hymnal’s verse 2.

Christ by highest heaven adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
In the manger born a king
While adoring angels sing,

“Peace on earth, to men goodwill;”
Bid the trembling soul be still
Christ on earth has come to dwell
Jesus our Immanuel.

So does that seem vastly different to you?

Nikki:  Quite, yeah.

Colleen:  What do you notice?

Nikki:  Well, you have the Deity of Christ absent.

Colleen:  Absolutely.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  It’s completely missing.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And that original verse dealt with the virgin birth, it dealt with “veiled in flesh the Godhead see.”

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  So the whole fullness of Deity in flesh, “Hail the incarnate Deity.”  It’s said twice in different ways, and she had never heard that before.

Nikki:  You know, and there’s a lot of reason for them to get rid of that.

Colleen:  There is.

Nikki:  There’s a lot of conflict inside Adventism about the nature of Christ.

Colleen:  Absolutely.  Did you think of Him, as an Adventist, as God in the flesh when He was born?

Nikki:  You know, it is the strangest thing to try to explain what I thought in Adventism, because so often it uses biblical words.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  If you had asked me that, I would have said, “Yes.”  But then, as a Christian, when I realized that He was God in the flesh [laughter] –

Colleen:  Yes.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  Then suddenly I realized, I didn’t know that before.  How do you explain that?  I don’t even really know how to explain it.  I know when I first understood it, it was reading Isaiah and talking about how a Son would be given, and His name would be Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Everlasting Father – Wonderful Counselor, that was it, Wonderful Counselor – I got it out of order – but that’s the Trinity –

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  – and then I suddenly realized that was the fullness of God, that wasn’t God decided to become a human and give up His Godness.

Colleen:  Right.  All the attributes –

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  – were in Him.

Nikki:  Yeah, um-hmm.

Colleen:  As I was looking through the hymnal, the Adventist hymnal and a Christian hymnal, before doing this podcast, I realized that there are a lot of hymns in the Adventist hymnal which use some of the original words –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – but they rather conveniently leave out the verses that actually belong to the hymn, that actually describe the Deity of Christ or the blood of Christ.  And it’s interesting, just a couple – I’ll just do a couple of examples.  One is The First Noel, and I think that’s a song pretty much everybody knows.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  It’s a Christmas carol; everybody knows at least the first verse.  Well, there is a verse in the original version that says this:

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made heaven and earth of naught.
And with His blood mankind has bought.

Now, that verse is used in many Christian hymnals, but the Christian hymnal I was using as a comparison is the Grace Community hymnal, Hymns of Grace –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – and it includes this verse as the last verse in the song, but the Adventist hymnal completely omits it.  It’s the only verse that clearly talks about His blood purchasing us from sin, and that’s left out.  Another one that was significant to me was “O Come, O Come Immanuel.”  Now, the original song includes these two verses:

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave.

Well, do you think those verses are in the Adventist hymnal?

Nikki:  No, that’s far too finished.

Colleen:  Exactly, and that mention of hell.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  I don’t think an Adventist would ever talk about saving Thy people from hell.

Nikki:  Yeah, well – and you can’t know if you’re saved.

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  So that would be a very scary verse.

Colleen:  Very.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I’ll do one more here.  This is “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” and here is a verse from the original:

This flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispel with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.

Now, this verse is used in many Christian hymnals, and it’s in the Hymns of Grace hymnal.  It’s not in the Adventist hymnal.  It leaves out “True man, yet very God,” and even though Adventists say He saved us from sin and death, the reality of that is mysterious and sort of metaphorical, and it’s not clearly understood, so why bring it into Christmas.

Nikki:  I’m sitting here thinking the issue with the blood – because they do talk about His blood –

Colleen:  They do.

Nikki:  – at least the ones who are committed to the Investigative Judgment will talk about His blood being applied.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  But the difference is, in Christianity, His blood atonement, it was finished.  It was effectual, and it was finished.  In Adventism, His blood is contaminated.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  It’s contaminated with our sin.  It’s carrying our sin up into a sanctuary up there.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  And there’s something else going on with the blood that isn’t something that you would rejoice over.

Colleen:  That’s right.

Nikki:  You know, even if they do talk about His blood, they have a different idea of what it does, what it did.

Colleen:  Very true.  In 1957, when the Adventist denomination published “Questions on Doctrine” to validate the things they had told Walter Martin, so they could avoid being labeled a cult –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  One of the things they did in that book, which has been acknowledged by Adventist scholars since then, they used language that split the atonement from the sacrifice, knowing that the Christian evangelicals who read that book or who talked to them would not understand they were making that distinction.  So in that book they said that Christ completed His sacrifice on the cross, knowing that Christians would understand that to mean it is finished, He did everything necessary.  But privately, they would say, “He continues the atonement in heaven, where He carries out His sanctuary work.”  So they would say the sacrifice was done on the cross, but the atonement was not completed, it is being completed in heaven now.  That’s clearly unbiblical, but that’s how Adventists have understood the difference between Jesus’ sacrifice and the actual atonement for sin.

Nikki:  See, this is where I just believe – now I’m just getting on a soapbox, but –

Colleen:  Go ahead.

Nikki:  – but I believe that there are people who are absolutely are intentionally deceiving, because if they believed that they had a remnant message to get to the world, if they believed that this message was important to share, that was the time to share it –

Colleen:  Yes!

Nikki:  – not to hide it and try to –

Colleen:  Exactly.  They deceived.

Nikki:  But they were very intentional.

Colleen:  Very.  And it’s admitted.  I mean, it’s been admitted now that those men that talked to Walter Martin back in the ’50s did use words that he would understand in a certain way so they wouldn’t understand the true cultic nature.  It’s also true that some of those men who talked to him hoped they could shift Adventist doctrine, but that was never going to happen at an official level because they have Ellen White –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – and they can’t let her go, and she has established the fact that Jesus’ atonement was not finished on the cross, He is now carrying out that atonement during the Investigative Judgment, so they’re stuck with it.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And as you said, it’s a deceptive thing, because many, many of them know the problems, but they’re not willing to abandon it.  So it changes how we see everything.  It changes how I experienced Christmas.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I knew it was about the birth of Jesus, I knew it was “God came down to earth, God with us, Emmanuel,” but I did not understand that that baby in that manger had all the fullness of Deity in Him at that moment.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.  Yeah.

Colleen:  So now, when we approach Christmas, Nikki, talk about the carols and how that affects you and why they’re important for you.

Nikki:  What I did, when I was looking at the Christmas carols, knowing we were going to do this, is I have a favorite album.  It’s by Sovereign Grace, and it’s called “Prepare Him Room.”  I recommend it.  They are doctrinally rich songs.  Some of them they’ve written, some of them they’ve even written verses into old carols that have more doctrine in them.  But I chose some of my favorites and just took a verse out of each of them to just kind of highlight what I didn’t understand about Christmas in Adventism, as an unbeliever.

Colleen:  Good.

Nikki:  So the first song that I chose was, “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

Colleen:  Okay.

Nikki:  And in this album – and I have to say, because I don’t have access to a hymnal to compare these, I don’t know what Sovereign Grace has written in –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – and what’s the original.  This is just in their album.  Verse three says:

True God of true God, Light from Light eternal
Humbly, He enters the virgin’s womb
Son of the Father, begotten, not created
O come, let us adore Him.

As I was listening to this and looking at the lyrics, I thought, this is just one short verse that details a different Jesus –

Colleen:  Yes, it does.

Nikki:  – than the one I knew.

Colleen:  “Humbly, He enters the virgin’s womb.”

Nikki:  “Begotten, not created.”  “True God of true God.”

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  That was new to me as a Christian.

Colleen:  Oh, that’s so powerful, it makes me feel emotional.

Nikki:  Yeah, it’s hard to listen to Christmas carols without feeling emotional.  They’ve gone from being seasonal songs to points of worship.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  I wish we could sing them all year long, actually.  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  Well, we probably could – [Laughter.]

Nikki:  We probably could.  [Laughter.]  So the second one was “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and it’s funny, because I sang about Emmanuel, God with us.  I still didn’t grasp it, you know?

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  So this one’s verse four:

O come, our great High Priest, and intercede
Thy sacrifice, our only plea
The judgment we no longer fear
Thy precious blood has brought us near.
Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel
He banished every fear of hell.

Colleen:  Wow.

Nikki:  For me, that’s just so amazing, and it’s so fresh, so new, not fearing hell.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  We don’t fear hell, we fear God.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  We don’t plea, “We are the remnant commandment-keepers.”

Colleen:  No.

Nikki:  I mean, surely when John wrote that, he was talking about the people of God, but when I say that, I mean that in the sense that Adventism means it.

Colleen:  Right.

Nikki:  You know, “We are the Sabbath-keepers, so we ought to be saved.”

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  No, our only plea is His sacrifice.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  And you have the blood atonement in there:  “Thy precious blood has brought us near.”  And no more fear of judgment.  As an Adventist, I believed that when you became a Christian you were entered into a judgment –

Colleen:  Yes!

Nikki:  – not that you were removed from judgment.

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  You were placed in.  The only people who are in the Investigative Judgment are professed believers –

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  – according to Adventist doctrine.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  There’s no judgment.  And then talking about Him as our high priest, understanding now that He is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Colleen:  Isn’t that so cool?

Nikki:  This does not mean a Levitical high priest in an Investigative Judgment.

Colleen:  No.

Nikki:  The Christmas carols just kind of undo all of those –

Colleen:  They do!

Nikki:  – all of those ideas.  So the other one was “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” which you already mentioned.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  But it was this verse here, and I think it was my first Christmas as a believer.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  So this one is:

Mild He lays His glory by – and by the way, it says He lays His glory by, not His Deity.

Colleen:  Exactly.  I noticed that.

Nikki: 

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth

Colleen:  Wow.

Nikki:  I didn’t understand the new birth as an Adventist.  I thought it was a hippie phrase, “Born again,” you know.

Colleen:  Oh, yes.  Yes.

Nikki:  How old is this hymn?  I mean, Christians have understood –

Colleen:  I know.

Nikki:  – they have understood these truths, and they proclaim them at Christmas, and I just, I didn’t understand.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  The last one I have written here is called, “What Child Is This?”

Colleen:  I love that.

Nikki:  I love verse two:

Why lies He in such mean estate
Where ox and lamb are feeding
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.

Nails shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

And in this one verse, you have the Deity of Christ and His intercession, even as an infant –

Colleen:  Wow.

Nikki:  – on behalf of believers.  I remember hearing that and just realizing that this baby was still God.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  He was still omnipresent.  He was still omniscient, even there in the manger.  It was overwhelming.

Colleen:  It is overwhelming.  You know, these songs and these verses that you’ve just read, Nikki, there’s a theme through all of them of Jesus’ blood being a price, a payment, a rescue of us from our sin, from hell, and from judgment.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And I think that that’s actually, at the bottom line, what I did not understand about Christmas as an Adventist.  Yeah, I knew I was a sinner; yeah, I knew Jesus came to save us from our sins and came to die to save us from our sins, you know, whatever that meant.  I did not understand that I was born condemned.  I thought I became a sinner, like maybe right after I was born, but I believed that sin was probably – well, I knew it was inevitable.  I knew I was going to sin.  That’s what I was taught, because I had propensities to sin, and I had inherited sin, which I understood to mean in my gene pool.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Because I didn’t understand spiritual death.  I remember even thinking about, “How could Jesus have been a small child and not had sin?”  And I know that I’ve even heard people say that that included Him somehow supernaturally not fussing and crying as a baby.  I mean, just recently we had somebody ask us that.  Do you remember that?

Nikki:  Yeah, I do.  I remember.  She asked, you know, “So did Jesus not cry?”  Because she thought that crying was sin.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  That that’s evidence that, you know, we sin right away when we cry.

Colleen:  Yes.  But no, crying as an infant is not sin.  That’s how the Lord made infants to let their parents know they need something.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  As Richard said recently, when we were visiting our newborn little granddaughter, “Think about it,” he said, “if a parent fell asleep and the baby didn’t cry, well, too much of that and the baby might die, because how would you even wake up to feed the baby?”  So no, crying in an infant is not sin.

Nikki:  Well, not to mention when a baby’s born, the crying helps them get rid of the fluid in their lungs.

Colleen:  Yes.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  It’s how we know they’re breathing.

Nikki:  But that lines up so well with the idea that we are sinners because we sin rather than we sin because we’re sinners.

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  It’s reversed in Adventism.

Colleen:  Yes.  And Jesus was sinless not because He managed not to sin, but because He was born alive.  He was born not a sinner.  One of the things I didn’t understand was John 3:18, and I think it’s so interesting that we all memorize John 3:16, but we somehow miss two verses later, so John 3:16 is the old familiar and wonderful verse that says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life,” and then 17, and I had to think my way through this one when I first heard it, when I first really paid attention to it, “For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him,” and then here’s 18, “He who believes in Him is not judged.  He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  So did you catch that?

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  We are born not believing, we are born condemned.  Adventism didn’t teach us that.  The need for a Savior just didn’t seem nearly as intense, you know.  Especially if we didn’t understand He was born sinless and we are born sinful, and His sinlessness was not something we could copy.

Nikki:  Well, you know, I don’t know if everybody thought this way, but I remember thinking, “The people who don’t know what I know, they’re lucky –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – because I’m going to be judged based on what I know, and so I’m in more trouble than the people who haven’t even heard the gospel yet, because God knows their heart, and He’ll judge them mercifully.  I really didn’t get that we’re all born condemned.

Colleen:  I didn’t either.

Nikki:  I had the feeling that we had to know the truth and obey it, and if we didn’t know the truth and obey it, then we had an easier time.

Colleen:  Yes, and He would wink at our sin, because it was a sin of ignorance.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  But the Bible doesn’t say that.  The realization that Jesus came as a human baby but spiritually alive, because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that He never sinned, even when He cried.  He cried, He laughed, but He didn’t sin against God or against His fellow man.  Do you ever wonder what it must have been like to be His brothers?  I can’t even imagine how – but let’s not go there.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  It’s overwhelming to me that He was God in the flesh.

Nikki:  Yeah.  You know, we’ve talked before about how the resurrection wasn’t as important when we didn’t understand the gospel, it was just like the next phase, but understanding the resurrection, understanding what Christ came to do, really helps me understand the incarnation too.  He was born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  And in 1 Peter 1:3, it says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Colleen:  Wow.

Nikki:  So when we’re singing about Jesus coming to give us life, coming to save us, we’re also singing about the cross.

Colleen:  We are.

Nikki:  It’s all tied together, which is why I love that in “What Child Is This?” that it moves right from the cradle to the cross in that verse.

Colleen:  Yes.  We can’t see that baby in the manger without also seeing the shadow of the cross, into which He grew.  That’s why He came.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  He came for that.

Nikki:  You know, something that has been fun to see this year that I haven’t necessarily noticed, at least as significantly, in years past is the fact that everybody who saw Christ, saw Him when He was born, they recognized Him as Lord, right away, Lord.

Colleen:  Yes, they did.

Nikki:  He was the one they would obey, they would bow to.  I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that we get a lot of commentary from Adventists who say, “Well, if you don’t have to keep the 10 Commandments anymore than what are you going to do?  Are you just going to do whatever you want?”  No, when you see Christ –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – you see your Lord, and you obey your Lord –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – and you bow.

Colleen:  Yes.  Oh, my, yes.  We are not our own authority, and our flesh is not our authority.

Nikki:  Uh-uh.

Colleen:  When we have the second birth, we have a new spirit, we have the life of God in us, we have an eternal Savior who’s always living to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7), and we are safe with God, and we honor Him.  That’s what’s new since becoming a born-again Christian.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  That’s what’s new about Christmas.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  This baby was my Lord, even when He was in Mary’s womb, and He came to die.  It’s a sweet story, but it’s not just a sweet story.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.  And His life and death and resurrection accomplished something –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – completed something.  Gave us life.

Colleen:  And fulfilled prophecy.  This was all foretold.  One of the things that makes the rush of Christmas better for me is the music.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I first noticed, when we first left Adventism, that often I would find myself struggling with feelings of loss and depression and overwhelmed and thinking, you know, somehow this new life, there’s sort of an illusion that if you’re doing everything right, everything should just go smoothly –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – but it doesn’t.

Nikki:  Uh-uh.

Colleen:  But what is different is that we now have Jesus with us in all of the mess and in all of the rush and in all of the loss, and I’ve found that when I’m listening to doctrinally rich music, it’s hard to stay depressed –

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  – because the reality of the living Lord Jesus is impressed on my mind, and the Holy Spirit uses those truths to encourage me.  That’s why we started with Christmas carols when we wanted to talk about Christmas this year, because the Christmas carols tell the truth about the incarnation and the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Nikki:  And it’s something that we can listen to all month.  We can play – like Abbie’s teacher played in the classroom.

Colleen:  You can.

Nikki:  You can get away with it this time of year.

Colleen:  That’s true.

Nikki:  Share that Christian music.  Talk about it, sing about it, worship the Lord.  It’s kind of fun.  After we talked about wanting to start the December podcasts off with Christmas carols –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – we went to church, and our pastor started his sermon series in December talking about the songs, the Song of Mary and the Song of Elizabeth.

Colleen:  That’s true.

Nikki:  He has talked before about the fact that the Jews and the Christians, we’re the only ones who sing to our God; right?

Colleen:  That’s true.  Other religions might chant, but we sing.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And it’s a command in Scripture to sing.  Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heart to God.”  Isn’t it interesting that Paul uses three different ways of articulating singing worship to God, psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.

Nikki:  And he says to admonish each other with them, which is a big argument for doctrinally rich and accurate music.

Colleen:  It’s a great gift from God to us, to be able to sing the truth about Him, to each other and back to Him.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  So as we move through December, we just want to challenge everyone, go and find some favorite Christmas albums.  Nikki, would you tell us one more time the name of your favorite album?

Nikki:  Yeah.  It’s called, “Prepare Him Room,” by Sovereign Grace, and I do want to say they have a song on there called, “O Holy Night (Hear the Gospel Story)” –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – so they wrote the gospel into “O Holy Night,” and it’s one of the most beautiful renditions of that song I’ve ever heard.

Colleen:  I agree.  It makes me cry.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  You played it for me just before this.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  And I was sitting in the chair, fighting tears.  We would just like for each of you to find some comfort and some strength in these songs that are God’s gift to us as His church, and if you’re facing a Christmas where you’re not sure who you’ll spend Christmas Day with or if there are uncomfortable dynamics with Adventist friends or family, know that Jesus lived on earth as God in the flesh, experiencing all the kinds of temptation and disappointment that we experience.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And He knows, He sees, and He’s not distant from you.  And these songs will just remind you of why we have this season.  It’s not about the rush, it’s about this baby who grew up as a man, a sinless man, never ceasing to be fully God, with all the attributes of God in His flesh, who went to the cross, took our imputed sin into Himself, hung them on the cross, died our death, and then broke death from the inside out on the third day.  We hope you enjoy these songs as much as we do.  And Merry Christmas!

Nikki:  Merry Christmas! †