The REAL Reason for the Season

By Michael Griego on December 19, 2025 • ( 0 )

While the popular explanation of the reason for the Christmas season is known by most Christians and non-Christians, few would say that it’s because of spiritual warfare.

It’s that time again when people may indirectly declare their own Christian or non-Christian beliefs by saying “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” Or they may go generic because they wish not to offend anyone.

I actually think few are offended anymore either way.

Regardless, everyone really knows the “reason for the season” is actually the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s not a secret, just camouflaged by all the other trappings and distractions of a very enjoyable and profitable holiday season.

But is that the real reason?

Yes, the birth of Jesus is real and significant. Many people would highlight the message of love spoken by Jesus as a great teacher. But Christians would add that Jesus, as God incarnate, came into this world in order to live a perfect life and to die a sacrificial and atonement (substitution) death for our sins past, present, and future.

And, of course, He did.

Astute Christians would also add that the work of Jesus was complete when He was resurrected from the dead, lending credence to the whole supernatural story that, in that, He conquered death for all mankind.

But there was something bigger playing out on a larger scale and stage over 2,000 years ago.

Though, as the holiday is marked today on global calendars as a significant event to be honored and even celebrated, many people don’t actually think about the larger cosmic story much. In fact, it’s something on which many Christians have widely diverging views and beliefs.

You see, there was a war going on. A spiritual war.

Yes, the real reason for the season was so that Jesus could engage in spiritual warfare.

And though Jesus won the war, spiritual battles rage on all around us today. The good news is that because of what Jesus accomplished these battles can be won too.

3 Rebellions that Needed to be Settled
In his popular and intriguing book, The Unseen Realm, the late Dr. Michael Heiser, a brilliant and accessible Old Testament and Hebrew Bible scholar, teacher, and author, doubles (or triples!) down on the rebellion theme first found in Genesis 3 where Adam and Eve confront what is commonly thought to be “Satan” in the form of a literal snake or serpent:

An Israelite would have known that the episode described interference in the human drama by a divine being, a malcontent from within Yahweh’s council [heavenly host]. The vocabulary used by the writer reveals several things about the divine enemy that has emerged from the council. If we’re thinking only in terms of a snake, we’ll miss the messaging.¹

This rebellion initiates the separation of God and his creation, Man, who was made in the image of God for the purpose of communion with God. God’s plan for the redemptive restoration of this broken relationship was set in place immediately (see Genesis 3:8-24 with the foreshadowing of Christ coming in verse 15).

The second rebellion is found in the strange and highly controversial passage of Genesis 6:1-4, which Heiser correctly notes that many readers and pastors would rather skip.

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:1-4)

This is a divine transgression or rebellion, a free choice made by the Sons of God (angelic beings) that made a free choice violating God’s design and strategy for His rule on earth.

This action was the precursor to the Flood – see Genesis 6:5 through Genesis 8.

Peter (2 Peter 2:1-10) and Jude (Jude 5-7) in the New Testament support the supernatural divine/angelic rebellion view of Genesis 6:1-4. As does the non-canonical Book of 1 Enoch.

On this Heiser makes an interesting point:

[1 Enoch] informed the thinking of Peter and Jude; it was part of their intellectual worldview. The inspired New Testament writers were perfectly comfortable referencing content found in 1 Enoch and other Jewish books to articulate their theology.

…All Jewish traditions before the New Testament era took a supernatural view of Genesis 6:1-4. In other words, they were in line with 2 Peter and Jude. The interpretation of the passage, at least with respect to its supernatural orientation, was not an issue until the late fourth century AD, when it fell out of favor with some influential church fathers, especially Augustine.²

The third rebellion involves the Tower of Babel presented in Genesis 11:1-9. This rebellion involving mankind (post-Flood) rebelling against God once more(!). This time to build a tower/city that reached to the heavens, the realm of the gods. Heiser notes that the building or city is cast as a source of sinister activity and knowledge.

Then he makes a connection I’ve never seen before. He connects this passage to Deuteronomy 32:8-9 where Yahweh disperses the nations at Babel resulting in His disinheriting those nations as His people:

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9) ³

By the way, many Bible translations refer to the “sons of God” as the “sons of Israel.” The Dead Sea Scrolls correctly cite Sons of God. There was no Israel at the time of national inheritance after Babel. This was the ending of God’s dealing with the nations.

Immediately after Babel, Genesis 12 lays out the lineage of Abraham, whose descendants would become the nation of Israel. Over time, that nation, God’s new people, would be encountering a pagan world full of “giants” and other gods influenced by the fallen sons of God who would war with God’s people on a spiritual level (Prince of Persia), as we will later find referenced by Daniel in Daniel 10.

So What About Jesus
When you see the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, as a larger spiritual battle, you will see the coming of Jesus as a supernatural offspring injected into this world as a resolution to the spiritual separation plight of mankind, but also dropping into very dangerous territory dominated by evil/demonic forces that do not welcome Him.

The Devil/Satan tempts him in the desert, while not understanding the real mission of Jesus: to die a sacrificial death to align God and mankind and break the bondage of death. When the task is done on Calvary and Christ is resurrected, the Devil has been defeated.

The demonic, spiritual realm is not eliminated. They fight Christians and non-Christians alike in fierce opposition to anything Jesus. But the ascended Jesus overwhelms all things through the power of His name and so we, as believing Christ-followers, have the power to wield great damage to spiritual forces.

Again, the spiritual war has been won. Only not everyone has received or fully understands the memo.

Merry Christmas!

Do you know the power you have in Christ to continue to win spiritual battles?
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For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. – Ephesians 6:12

¹The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, by Michael Heiser, Lexham Press, Bellingham, WA, 2015, p. 74.

²Ibid., p. 98-99.

³Ibid., p. 115-120