Every year, people rail against those who would "take Christ out of Christmas," but the reality is this holiday's always been pagan.

Christmas' origins, in fact, lie with the ancient Roman festival Saturnalia, which celebrated the birthday of "the unconquered sun," or the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen.

All our modern-day Yuletide trappings—presents, lights, tinsel, trees, food and drink—hearken back to the merrymaking and gluttony of heathen Romans worshipping their imaginary agricultural god Saturn.

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"The real miracle the pagan religions have tried to corrupt and counterfeit and usurp is the fact that God the Son was going to become a man," said my pastor, Richard Jordan, in his Christmas sermon delivered this past Sunday. "The real miracle of Christmas is the incarnation. That's the thing that makes that little baby in the manger different from every other baby."

Jesus Christ, the God-Man, had two natures—the divine and the human—all in one flesh-and-blood body, making Him the unique person of the entire universe.

"If you ever wanted to see God living in His creation. what would it look like, how would it function, what would the mechanics of it be, there it is," my pastor said in the sermon.

In essence, Christ is the "last Adam," or the "other Adam." Where Adam "fell" in the Garden of Eden through Satan's assault, Jesus Christ reigned victorious.

Christ, who had been fasting 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, didn't even flinch when Satan offered Him all the kingdoms of the world if He'd just fall down and worship him.

"By then, Satan had had long experience dealing with men and he had always been successful," my pastor explains in another sermon I have on tape. "Satan's been in the rings with the greats. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman would have been glad to be able to put people out like he did… It didn't occur very many times, but you should see the men who got in the ring with him and got bounced out. David, Abraham, Job. Off they go, off they go. The big saints.

"When the man Christ Jesus showed up—the last Adam—the devil used the same tactics because this is the way sin attacks."

As a man, Jesus Christ "was in all points tempted like as we are" (Heb. 4:15) and yet He led a sinless, selfless life without ever once slipping. He could hang out with publicans and other sinners and befriend them and not adopt a single one of their bad habits or engage in any sinful conduct.

We are told He "made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
"And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (Phil. 2:7-8)

As the God-Man, Christ performed so many miracles in His short-lived earthly ministry that John testifies there wouldn't have been enough room in the world to hold the written accounts:

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." (John 21:25)

The point is no human could have ever possibly taken it all in if given all of what Jesus Christ was about and accomplished.

"Jesus Christ is the proof of what we have and who we are," says my pastor. "You never need go around thinking, 'I wonder if the Bible really is the Word of God. I wonder if I can really trust it.'

"You know why I don't go around wondering that? Because what I believe is founded in hope of eternal life and Jesus Christ is our hope! He's the proof that what you're believing—what He tells you—is true…Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' He's the way because He's the truth. He's the truth because He's the life.

"How many people have you met who have a life like his? Over 300 specific prophetic things prophesied as much as 1,500 years before He was born, all fulfilled on the money. If you got three you'd swear you were a lottery winner.

"This is not esoteric, mystical kind of stuff. This is the flesh-and-blood reality of a (thoroughly documented) historical event. Jesus Christ entered into humanity, demonstrating himself to be God and what He said was true like what no one else said was true. He's declared himself to be the Son of God."

People ask how can it be that Jesus Christ was fully truly God and fully a human like us with the likeness of sinful flesh?

"There is a choice that Jesus Christ made to submit himself to the will of the Father," explains my pastor. "In theology they call that submission among equals. It’s why people get all screwed up in their head when they try to think about the Trinity. All three members of the Trinity are God, equal in essence and being, and yet they’re willing to submit themselves one to another.

"That's the kind of life each member of the Godhead lives for the other one. Nobody lives for their own self…that's why Christ would say, 'All the words I speak are the words that the Father gave me' and that kind of thing. That's Him willingly submitting himself. He didn't quit being God He just chose, in order to be the Son of Man and our kinsman Redeemer, to submit himself, humble himself. He didn't pretend to do that. When He said, 'Without the Father I can do nothing,' He wasn't pretending. He really was doing that. It was a real submission. How wondrous that makes Him."