No! Epiphanies, seeing an image of Christ hanging in a church, brake it in pieces. It is Christ's Godhead, united to his manhood, that makes him to be Christ; therefore to picture his manhood, when we cannot picture his Godhead, is a sin, because we make him to be but half Christ - we separate what God has joined, we leave out that which is the chief thing which makes him to be Christ.

But how shall we conceive of God aright, if we may not make any image or resemblance of him?

We must conceive of God spiritually. (1) In his attributes - his holiness, justice, goodness - which are the beams by which his divine nature shines forth. (2) We must conceive of him as he is in Christ. Christ is the 'Image of the invisible God' as in the wax we see the print of the seal. Col 1: 15. Set the eyes of your faith on Christ-God-man. 'He that has seen me, has seen the Father.' John 14: 9.

Anglicans and Lutherans maintained Advent. Puritans -- British and American Christians who sought to purify the Church of England in the 1500s and 1600s -- believed churches should eliminate all worship practices without clear biblical warrant, and they included Advent in that category. In fact, they eliminated all Christian celebrations except the Lord's Day.

Early Baptists, with many of their roots in Puritanism, "would have shared that sort of attitude," Haykin said.

Not until the late 1700s did Baptists' aversion to Christmas start to shift, with English pastor John Ryland, for example, preaching a Christmas sermon. By the mid-1800s, Baptists began to celebrate Christmas more broadly, Haykin and Norman said.

Basil Manly Jr., one of Southern Seminary's founding professors, wrote in an 1867 letter that "a custom has sprung up, since the [Civil] War began, of having a Christmas tree." London pastor Charles Spurgeon said in an 1891 sermon that while "perhaps it is not right to have the birthday [of Christ] celebrated," he would "say nothing, today, against festivities on that great birthday of Christ."