GLORY TO GOD 

GLORY TO GOD 

Luke 2:14 NET.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom he is pleased!”

We are back in the fields with the shepherds today. We are focusing on the words that the army of angels said after the angel had given his message to the shepherds. Are you aware that you know a little Latin? Yes, you do. In fact you just sang in Latin when we were singing “Angels We Have Heard on High.” “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” is one way of translating “Glory to God in the highest” in Latin.

The English word glory sometimes means the impressive appearance of someone or something. When we see something amazing, we might call it glorious. Luke used this word when he said that the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds.

But there is another meaning of the word. It sometimes refers to the fame, renown, praise, and honor that someone is due. The opposite of glory is shame. What the angles appear to be saying is that the greatest glory belongs to the greatest God—the God who created all things and rules all things.

You will notice that I used the word “saying” there instead of “singing.” The Christmas cards and carols are wrong. The Bible does not tell us that these angels were singing. It says that they were praising God and saying something.

It probably felt like they were singing. They were, after all, angels. Their voices probably resonated throughout the countryside. When these shepherds went into the towns and villages to share the good news that these angels told them, the villagers probably asked them what all that racket was about. I imagine those angel voices shook the mountains. When the shepherds went to tell the good news on the mountains, over the hills and everywhere, they were explaining the miraculous supernatural event that they experienced firsthand. When they told the villagers about the baby boy in the manger, they could explain that he was the one that all this noise was about.

Well, once again, I have to say that it was not exactly a silent night. It was a typically quiet night up until the army of angels showed up and started praising God and talking about his glory. Then, it became a noisy night. The angels were noisy, and they passed the noise on to the shepherds. The shepherds went to see Jesus, and then they gossipped the gospel throughout the countryside. I imagine the silence was broken that night and people would be talking about that noisy night for years afterward.

On that night God’s glory shone around the shepherds. On that night, God’s glory was celebrated by the angels, then by the shepherds, and then by all the believers who heard the message that the king had been born. I want to talk about that glory today.

God’s glory is a message.

The message is about God, who lives in the highest place. We call that place heaven. It is the realm in which God resides and the realm over which he presides. No human being had ever seen that glory. Some of the people of God had come close to seeing it. But God does not share his visible glory with the likes of us. We can only imagine what it is like to be in the visible presence of Almighty God. Some have even dared to describe what it might be like, but all the descriptions we have ever heard or read about do not approach any proximity of accuracy.

Those angels celebrated this marvelous glory of Almighty God that night. The angel Gabriel – when he was sent to share the good news with Zechariah – told him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news” (Luke 1:19). Imagine standing in the presence of God. I don’t feel worthy even to lie prostrate in the presence of God. But this mighty angel stands in the presence of his creator without shame. He is one of God’s sacred angels. He is in another category – he is not a fallen creature, like all of us human beings are.

We miserable mortal creatures have decided that we are going to launch ourselves into space to see what is up there – to reach what is out there. We can go farther than we had ever imagined, but we have never reached the highest place. We never will reach the highest place. The Bible says that no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven — that is Jesus himself (John 3:13). I hear a lot of people talking about dying and going to heaven. It is just not so. Religion has fostered that fallacy for generations, but the Bible denies it. Our goal in life is not to get to heaven but to be ready when heaven’s king comes back to earth.

One of the reasons that the angels were celebrating that night is that God was putting into action his plan to rescue humanity, and he had chosen this angelic army to begin the process of spreading that message. God’s glory is a message. It is a message that says that the God who lives in the highest place has decided to reach down to the lowest place. It is appropriate then, that these angelic messengers pass the baton on to these lowly shepherds. It is as if God is telling us that when he decides to act to redeem his fallen creatures, he is going to make that salvation available to everyone, great and small.

When we look at humanity as a whole, we see all kinds of differences. We see racial differences. I believe that black lives matter just as much as white lives. But we can talk about black lives because people who are African Americans grow up in a different world than those who are not. I am fortunate to have some black friends, but I can never be just like them because there is a difference that cannot be explained just by referencing the color of our skin. I was born into and live in a different world.

There are also socio-economic differences among human beings. We have a lower economic class, a middle class, and an upper class. Back in the biblical days, they also had a slave class. I thank God that we no longer have a slave class in America, but we do have many who are destined to live their whole lives as subservient to others. We have a long way to go before we can imagine a world in which there are no socio-economic differences.

There are also gender differences. God created us, male and female. Those differences are obvious. Some in our society today want to blur those distinctions. Some want to recreate the world and make it have several genders. Some want to medically alter themselves so that they can pretend to be a different gender than the one they were born as. Some want to turn gender distinctions into an opportunity to tyrannize others. It gets very complicated. But the fact that we were born with a gender difference is obvious.

There are also religious differences. There are different religions, denominations, and forms of atheism and agnosticism. There are fanatical cults and lukewarm pretenders. We cannot unify everyone under one religion because religions involve belief, and none of us believe the same things as anyone else.

When we look at all these differences, we discover that very few things are true of every human being. We are a divided species. But there is one thing that unites us because it is true of all of us: We are all part of a fallen species, a sinful species, a reprobate species. The message of glory is that our God is going to change that.

God’s glory is a mission.

The good news that the angels declared that night is the announcement that God in the highest place was beginning his mission to reach down and save all of us who live in the lowest place. So, the angels compared heaven (the highest) with earth. The earth is the mission field. It is characterized by sin, corruption, violence, and warfare. But God has made it his mission to bring peace on earth. He plans to bring peace back to the earth. He is not going to eradicate all our differences. But he does plan to deal with the sin problem because it is sin in us that turns all our differences into means of exploiting and hurting one another.

So, the Christmas cards get this one right. Christmas is a message of God’s mission to bring peace on earth. God is putting his plan into operation on this night, which will eventually result in a world restored to the original peace of the pre-fall paradise.

But some even manage to get this aspect of the mission wrong. They think that God has already brought peace to earth and we celebrate that on Christmas. They think that just by being born on this planet, Jesus has already undone the effects of sin and shame brought about by the fall. So, they misread what the angels declared that night.

The angels promised peace on earth “among people with whom he is pleased.” The peace that God brings only comes to some of the people on this planet. He is coming with a mission to eradicate sin. Only those who repent of their sins and put their faith in the Savior will experience redemption. They will know peace with God at first and will eventually experience universal peace from God when Christ restores all things.

That explains why Jesus said something that appears to contradict what the angels promised. He said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Jesus’ mission was not to bring peace to all of us but to bring peace to some of us. Those of us who put our faith in him will experience division, persecution, violence, and martyrdom at the hands of those who do believe. The mission to bring peace to Earth will happen in stages. The peace is always conditional. Those who accept peace with God will be at war with those who reject his peace.

This explains why our Christmas traditions are filled with stories of violence and rejection as well as stories of blessing and joy. Herod rejected God’s mission of peace and went to war, trying to eliminate the newborn king. The wise men were warned not to disclose the whereabouts of the holy family to Herod but to return to their country. The other newborns in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns are violently put to death. The sacred family are forced to become political refugees and flee to Egypt and live there as immigrants.

There is one more aspect implied in the angels’ doxology that I want to point out today.

God’s glory is a man.

Before the angelic army chanted their “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” a single angel told the shepherds not to be afraid because he was here to proclaim the good news that brings great joy. The good news was that a baby boy had just been born. What made that good news glorious was that it announced the birth of the world’s only savior. He was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, and he is Christ the Lord. God’s glory is a man.  

What does the Bible say about that man? Our Declaration of Principles sums up the Bible’s description of Jesus. It says that Jesus Christ is “our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; who came into our world to seek and to save that which was lost; who died for our sins; who was raised bodily from the dead for our justification; who ascended in heaven as our High Priest and Mediator, and who will come again in the end of this age, to judge the living and the dead, and to reign forever and ever.”

The Bible also expresses who Jesus is by different titles that he holds.  Moses called him the Rock. Job called him his Redeemer.  Isaiah called him the Prince of Peace and Immanuel (God with Us). Jeremiah called him the Branch. God called him his Beloved Son. The angel called him the Christ – the Messiah – Anointed One. Jesus called himself the Vine, the Bread of Life, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and the “I Am,” Matthew called him the Son of Man.  John called him the Word, the Alpha and Omega, the Good Shepherd, the Lion of Judah, the Bridegroom, the King of Kings, the Bright and Morning Star, and the Lamb of God. Paul called him the Chief Cornerstone. The Author of Hebrews called him the Mediator.

Each of Jesus’ titles reflects a relationship that he has with us as his followers and something about his mission. God has a glorious message and a glorious mission and they all center around this glorious man. He stands at the center of time and calls everyone to himself. Christmas comes every year, but Jesus only came as our savior once. The next time he comes, it will be to fulfill the rest of the Bible’s promises about him. He is coming in his glory because God’s full mission to bring his glory and peace to earth has not been accomplished. As we celebrate the first advent of our Lord this year, let’s keep in mind that however spectacular that event was, his second advent will be even more glorious. Let’s get ready for that.