The Dei Gloria
This is a transcript. It may contain some inaccuracies.
Roy had been a shepherd for a long time, as long as he could remember. He'd really been helping his father shepherding the sheep when he was still a little boy. And increasingly, as his father got older, he took more and more of the task. Finally, his father's body was too old, and warned for him to be a shepherd anymore, and so he replaced his father altogether in the family business.
Shepherding was hard on the body. Miles of walking every day, mostly standing, doing your job as a shepherd. Very few places to sit and rest. And then you have the merciless sun during the day, the biting frost, cold at night. Even sleeping was done in shifts. So at least one pair of eyes was continually watching for wolves and predators and thieves. Roy had lost a few sheep and goats that way when sleep had gotten the better of him. But now his body hardened. He was used to this life.
He and his fellow shepherds had made their living from pilgrims needing to buy animals for the temple sacrifice. Just one hour north in Jerusalem. And they had Levites who were regular customers. Keeping their flocks just about an hour south of Jerusalem, around Bethlehem meant enough space for the animals to graze and be fed, but close enough to the city to secure a steady income and get the few coins they had to survive on.
Now, Roy did not enjoy going to Jerusalem from Bethlehem. He didn't really fit in among all those elites there and all the priests in Jerusalem. You know, their perfect robes and jewelry and oils and fragrances. Roy lived with animals most of the times, so he looked like it and smelled like it. People didn't even try to hide their disgust while he was in Jerusalem visiting, often staring at him, and some of them even taking their robes and covering their noses as he was walking by. But he was used to it. He wasn't noble, he wasn't wealthy, he wasn't even learned.
He learned a few letters when he was a boy in Torah school at the synagogue, but his life now is about sheep and goats. To be honest, he sometimes had to admit that he enjoyed his animals more than people. Animals were simpler to him, they were innocent.
Well, that night, the cold was enough to cause the sheep and goats to huddle, which made it easier than on the warmer nights, when the sheep usually wandered off, and he had to chase after them. The other shepherds were sitting around the fire with their usual coarse language and laughter, the only real sound in the night. But then as they did so, they noticed on the ground a light, like that of lightening, except it wasn't a flash.
It was a continual glow, a bright, dazzling light. And when they looked up to see the source, and they saw as they squinted in his light, a being standing right in front of them. And of course, these hardened men were terrified. In fact, terribly frightened, the text tells us. They couldn't run. There was no place to hide.
No point for looking for a place. All they could do is wait to see what this being, this dazzling being, would do to them. But amazingly, he spoke, and he spoke in their language, and he spoke, rather than speaking words of, threatening words, he spoke words of comfort. He said, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I come today with good news.
Good news of great joy. In fact, good news of great joy for all men. Today in the city, your city, the city of David, Bethlehem, a Savior has been born. Messiah, the Lord, go looking for Him. And here's how you'll find Him. Unusually, He'll be lying in a feeding trough wrapped in clothes. And now that angel was joined by many, many others, and they praised God with this simple statement in the third song in Luke verse 14. “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
In this short, beautiful song, we actually find the great secret of existence. The great secret of existence. In this short, beautiful song, we have the great secret of the ‘Euangelion’, the Gospel. It's the two parts of what life is really all about. God's glory, man's good. God's glory, man's good, right here. That's what life is all about. Glory to God! Goodwill to man.
That's it. And if you're trying to get the one without the other, you will usually make some kind of an error, and if you mistake the one for the other, you will end up with a massive error. But if you understand why glory to God is goodwill to man, why man's good and his peace is based in the glory of God, you will understand the great secret of the Bible, indeed, the great secret of the universe.
And so, what we'll do now is simply take those two halves of the statement, this song, The Dei Gloria. “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
Look at them both. Obviously, this is now being proclaimed in front of the shepherds, not just on any occasion, but on the occasion of the birth of Jesus, which tells us that this particular song has particular reference to the incarnation. The Word made flesh and dwelt among us. So, the first part of the song, then, can be summed up this way. God's Incarnate Son brings greatest glory to God. God's Incarnate Son brings great or greatest glory to God. And you find that in verse 14a. “Glory to God in the highest”. God's Incarnate Son brings greatest glory to God. It's the first thing that these angels say.
Glory to God who dwells literally in the highest places. Glory to God. Glory to God. We've heard those words before. Many, many times. We sing them, in fact. We recite those words. But what does it mean to speak of the glory of God, to glorify God? Has that just become Christianese to you today? Is it just the technical vocabulary of religion? Do we really know what it really means to glorify God, what the glory of God is? Or is it just this vague idea, a kind of like a hallowish concept out there?
Just, well, something we say, something we've learned in Sunday school. What does it mean? And why would the angels sing and say to these shepherds that the coming of the Son of God to this earth is glory to God? Why would they say that? Why? Well, let's do a little bit of a study on this.
The Greek word rendered glory is that Greek word, ‘doxa’, splendor, brightness, honor, greatness. The glory of God is the outshining of His perfection, the manifestation of His excellence. And bound up in those words, glory to God is the idea, glory is being rendered to God, glory ought to be rendered to God, glory shall be rendered to God.
Did you notice there are no verbs in that first part? Glory to God. No verbs in this ascription of praise. It's as though we have the indicative, the subjunctive, and the future all bound up together. There's glory to God. Let there be glory to God. There shall be glory to God.
Now, the meaning of the word ‘doxa’ is closest. It's a very difficult word. I mean, it's just so many words to redefine one word, to explain it. But it's closest to this notion of beauty, real beauty. In fact, the Hebrew word, the equivalent in the Old Testament, ‘kabod’, means weighty, heavy, heavy weight, weighty.
In other words, the idea is that glory is heavy with value, dense with majesty, large and imposing in excellence. So, therefore, God's glory is His weighty beauty. It is His weighty beauty. It is His dense and deep and heavy value. It's all that He is shining out to be loved and admired and to be awed by. Glory.
So you could take His attributes, God's attributes, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence, His eternality, His self-existence, His justice, His mercy, His sovereignty, His immutability, His grace, His long-suffering, His patience, etc., etc., etc. You could take all of those dazzling colors in the spectrum of who the infinite God is and bring them all together into one bright, dazzling white light. That is God's holiness, God's revealed beauty, God's glory.
Now follow closely, beloved. Follow closely. The Bible teaches one of the most important secrets of the universe. Don't miss that. One of the most important secrets of the universe. God seeks His own glory more than anything else. Mark it down. God seeks His own glory more than anything else. God's love for His glory is the chief, His chief and ultimate love.
Let me say that again. God seeks His own glory more than anything else, and God's love for His glory is His chief and ultimate love. His own glorification is uppermost in His affections. God is utterly God-centered. God is utterly God-centered. God's first love is God.
If you don't understand that, if you think, no, no, God loves the world most, or God loves people most, or God loves the salvation of sinners most, then you have substituted a means for an end. You have not understood that those things lead to his ultimate goal, which is God's glory. You say, well, now, how can you say that? How can you say that? I've never heard that before, put like this. Where could you even get that from?
Would you bear with me for a moment for a list, which is just a sample? Isaiah 43:7 says that God created us for His glory. Isaiah 49:3 says that God called Israel to show forth His beautiful glory. God rescued Israel from Egypt for his glory. Psalm 106:7 -8. The Bible says that God actually raised Pharaoh up to show His power and get glory. Exodus 14:4. God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of His name. Why didn't he judge them and wipe them out? He says in Ezekiel 20:14, “I acted for the sake of My name,”– My name– “that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations”.
Second Samuel 7:23 says that God gave Israel victory in Canaan for the glory of His name. Sometimes, Jerusalem was surrounded by armies. In 2 Kings 19:34, God says, “Indeed, I will defend the city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake”. When Israel was in exile in Babylon, God restored Israel from exile. Why?
For the glory of His name. Ezekiel 36:22-23. Why does God forgive you? Why does God forgive me? Why? Isaiah 43:25. “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.” He forgives our sins for his own sake.
God, in fact, instructs you and me in 1 Corinthians 10:31 to do everything we do for the glory of God. The essence of sin, Romans 3:23 is what? For all sinned and what? “Fall short of the glory of God”. That's the essence of sin, to fall short of the glory of God. John 17:24, Jesus said that his ultimate aim would be that we would see His glory.
God's plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory. Habakkuk 2:14, Everything that happens will lead down to the glory of God. Romans 11:36, Herod is struck dead because he did not give glory to God. Acts 12:23, and Revelation 21:23, in the New Jerusalem, the glory of God replaces the sun. Beloved, it's everywhere. This is but a sample.
It is everywhere, the glory of God, the glory of God, the glory of God, and it's not just doing a little word study on the word glory. Take the first three requests of the Lord's Prayer. “Hollowed will be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” And you will find, you will find in there basically the very same idea. God's name, God's kingdom, God's will.
All pleasures, all His pleasures, all His desires. And do a search in Scripture and look for God's commitment to His name, God's commitment to His kingdom, His rule, His throne, and God's commitment to His will, His pleasures, His sovereign council, and what you will find. And you will know what you will find. He is committed above all else to His glory.
And probably no text in the Bible reveals the passion of God for God's own glory more clearly and bluntly than Isaiah 48. Turn with me to Isaiah 48:9-11. Three verses, Isaiah 48:9-11. God says, right off the bat, He says, “For the sake of My name,” –right there, – “For the sake of My name, I delay My anger, And for My praise, I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” – Now watch this. – “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another?”
And I found that for many people, those words come like six sledgehammer blows to a man-centered way of looking at the world. Look at it. In verse 9, for My name's sake, For “My praise”. Verse 11, “For My own sake, for My own sake”, – repeated, – “how should My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.”
What this text hammers home to us, beloved, it clearly is the centrality of God's glory, God in His own affections, the centrality of God and His glory in His own affections. The most passionate heart for the glorification of God is God's heart. It's God's own heart. God's ultimate goal is to uphold and display the glory of His name.
You see, if you could drill down to the tiniest, tiniest, tiniest particle. When I was in school, 500 years BC, it was still the proton, electron, neutron. Then they got deeper, and they found more things. Then there was the lepton and boson, and then they got a little deeper. The quark, the up quark, the down quark, and they keep going deeper and deeper, finding more stuff. I don't know if they'll ever get to the bottom, but I think if they could get to the bottom, do you know what you will find? The very DNA of the universe, you would find the glory of God. The glory of God. And if it were possible to take a macro snapshot of the entire cosmos, you know what you will find that it's all about? The glory of God. The glory of God. And if you could gather up the souls of every human and every angel ever created, they all exist for the glory of God.
Someone says, well, wait a minute, maybe you're sitting here today, maybe that's you, thinking, wait a minute, doesn't this make God a selfish God? I mean, Proverbs 25:27 says, “To eat too much honey is not good, Nor is it glory to search out one's own glory”. So how can God tell us not to seek our own glory when He's doing it?
How can God say in 1 Corinthians 13:5, love “does not seek its own” while God seems to be seeking His own? How could this really be the big secret of the universe? Three answers. First, it would only be selfish if God were one person. It would only be selfish if God were one person. But scripture reveals that God is more than one person. So when God delights in His own being, it's not selfish vanity. You know what it is? It's love. It's love.
It's love. It is the Father enjoying the Son, the son enjoying the Father, and their infinite enjoyment proceeding forth in a third Person, the Holy Spirit. It is love.
GK Chesterton once noted that the cruelty found in Islam was partly due to its idea of an absolute unitary monotheism. He said this, he said, “A God who is a mere awful unity is not only a king, but an eastern king. Out of the desert, from the dry places, and dreadful suns, come the cruel children of a lonely God, the real Unitarians, who with the scimitar, a sword in hand, have laid waste the world, for it is not well for God to be alone.” In other words, he's saying, if God is not Trinity, then He's not love. And if He's not love, then He's pure will and pure power.
And such a God produces a religion of submission and discipline, but not of love. You see, beloved, if God is one person alone and sought His own glory, then we might suspect that something is off. But God's glory takes place within the happy society, the joyful communion of the Trinity.
Second reason why God, being God-centered and God being doxological and God being theocentric is not selfish or vain or evil, is this. It would only be selfish if He were not the most beautiful One. It would only be selfish if He was not the most beautiful One.But God is most beautiful. And God is most glorious. And so when God loves Himself most, you know what He's being? Truthful. Truthful. Just.
You see, if God loved the world more than Himself, while knowing that we were worthless, that we were not as glorious, that we were not as valuable, and God loved us more than Himself, do you know what that would make Him? Untruthful. Unjust. Impure. Unrighteous. It would not make God humble.
It would not make Him... Well, it would make Him duplicitous. It would make Him disingenuous.
God esteems Himself highest because he knows He is infinitely beautiful and He is perfectly righteous in His judgments, so He always values His own value perfectly, being highest and ultimate. If a creature loves his glory or her glory more than anything else, it's selfish. Egotistical, because no creature is perfect in value or perfect in beauty. It would be sinful pride, but when God loves Himself perfectly, it is truth. It is truthful.
The third reason is loving His own glory most of all would be selfish if it came at the expense and pain of His creation. If it came at the expense and pain of His creation, but listen to this, God's glory is the health and the ‘shalom’ of the universe. God's glory is the health and the ‘shalom’, – the peace – of the universe, the well-being. Like rain or snow that falls on the mountains and nourishes the rivers and the trees and the animals below, so when God is glorified, it blesses.
It nourishes the work of His hand. Creation, beloved, is the overflow of God's benevolence, God's generosity. Remember, they sing in heaven, Revelation 4:11, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will, they existed and were created”.
And in Psalm 104:31, “Let the glory of Yahweh endure forever; Let Yahweh be glad in His works”.
So let me say it again. God is the most God-centered being in the universe. God is the most God-centered being in the universe. God loves God with all His heart, soul, and might. God is supremely jealous for His name. Why? Because He is triune. Why? Because He is just. Why?
Because He is generous. Now, all of this brings us back to the angels' song, Glory to God in the Highest. That's always been the theme of history. That's always been the idea. So why now? They're saying it since this baby Jesus has been born nearby in this city, Bethlehem.
Why does this glory now reach a new level, a new high? How does the coming of the Incarnate Son, God the Son, bring maximum glory to God?
Well, let me give us the answer to that using Paul's words. In one of his most famous scriptures, turn with me to Romans 3. This is an incredible text. Romans 3, as Paul explains why this brings maximum glory to God, now follow it with me. Verse 20, because by the works of the law, Paul writes, Romans 3: 20, “by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
Now follow closely verse 25 and 26, “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”. Let's stop here for a minute. And let's try to imagine for a moment scenarios and which one would bring maximum glory to God.
Okay, Maybe God should never have created at all. That's scenario number one. In Himself, He was infinitely joyful, and there would have been glory to God that way. But apparently, best we could tell, God desired to give Himself to himself for there to be a gift within the Trinity of Father to Son, Son to Father. And creation seems to have allowed this gift of the Cosmos to take place within the Trinity, so God created.
Or we can imagine another scenario in which somehow we just never sinned. That wasn't His plan. His plan was to include men and angels who would then sin. Once we'd sinned, there now appears to be a dilemma of less glory to God, no matter what. How do you get out of that? After we've sinned, the creation now marred. God could have condemned the entire human race to hell. He would have gotten glory as judge. You would have gotten glory as a severe one of inflexible justice who had holiness. But it would seem less glory because now the creation is ruined. His people were separated from Him.
On the other hand, if God decided to pardon all men and angels, including Lucifer, it would break his law. He would get some glory as a merciful God, but He would get no glory as a just and Holy King. And so there seems to be this dilemma. Either less glory for God because you have a fallen world where everyone is judged, or less glory to God because He has to pardon all of us, and that would render His perfect justice less than perfect.
Maybe that was Satan's gamble, if you will, thinking if he gets Adam to fall, then God will get less glory one way or another. But Romans 3 tells us what God did. Look back at verse 24, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.”
When the Incarnate Son came, when the Word became flesh, God the Son took the justice on Himself, on the cross, paid the penalty, becoming, here the text says, the propitiation. What is that? What is that word? It's the word atonement. It's being the wrath bearer, the wrath absorber, absorbing the justice of God on Himself, do us. And in so doing, God could now remain just while also mercifully justifying.
Do you see that in the middle of verse 25? Look at verse 25 with me, “for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time.” – Now watch this – “so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Do you see that, beloved?
This is amazing. Now God can get glory, maximum glory as a judge on sin, and gets maximum glory as a forgiver of sinners. He can punish rebels. He can pardon the repentant. Maximum glory to God through the coming of the Son, the enfleshment of the Word. You see, the first creation, He gives to his Son as an inheritance, and then we fall. We fall. But the Son comes to redeem us, to buy us back, to buy His people back, and even remove the curse.
So finally, according to 1 Corinthians 15, he's going to give the kingdom back to the Father, the entire ‘cosmos’, – the renewed creation – back to the Father that He may be all in all.
Maximum glory, ultimate glory, greater beauty, as Isaac Watts has it in one of his hymns, far greater glory than what Adam's sons lost in Adam. More glory, greater glory now through the Son.
Let's look back at this song again. Luke 2. The rest of the song of the angels. “Glory to God in the highest”. This is the first and chief idea behind reality, the universe, meaning the purpose, the cosmos. “Glory to God in the highest”. But now the good news as well for us. What does it say? Verse 14: “Glory to God in the highest.” – And here it is. – “And on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased”.
God's Incarnate Son brings greatest glory to God. And here is the second part of the song. God's Incarnate Son brings greatest good to man. God's Incarnate son brings greatest good to man.
“And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased”. The first part, the one in the highest, that's God. The second part, those on earth, mere men. Men. And God, the Son's coming, and His death brings not only glory to God, but it brings something else as well to men. What does the text say that men get because of the Son's coming? They get peace. They get peace. Peace. Peace. The cessation of warfare. The cessation of enmity that produces warfare.
It's that Greek beautiful word, ‘eirene’. This is the Greek version of the Hebrew word, ‘shalom’, which is not merely the idea of the absence of conflict and of mere calm. No, no. ‘Shalom’ is the idea of flourishing. Happiness. Real happiness. Fullness. Joy. Unspeakable. Satisfaction. You know what it is? ‘Shalom’ is the end of Ecclesiastes 12:13 “fear God”. That's the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God. Keep His commandment. That's the end of the matter for all mankind. It's all that we are. It's what we're seeking, fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction.
Man gets this kind of peace and favor. Beloved, do you understand that we are the recipients of that same God's desire to overflow in goodness and blessing and favor and pleasure and happiness? We're the recipients of that.
You know, there are small, small, tiny, faint, really, really faint, pale in comparison images of this in our lives. Think of how sometimes we treat our pets. They're just innocent creatures, and what do we do? We lavish kindness on them for a purely benevolent reason. So we're not trading with that dog. We're not in business with that cat. It's just a benevolent overflow of kindness for what that thing is. And man fallen in Adam, a rebel against God, an enemy of God, gets what? This unmerited favor.
Now, literally, the text rendered, reads this way, glory in highest places to God and on earth peace toward men of good pleasure or good will. In other words, the recipients of this peace, this ‘eirene’, this ‘shalom’, are the object of God's pleasure and God's delight and God's favor and God's goodwill. The emphasis is falling not on all men indiscriminately, but Christ has come to bring peace to those who have been marked out in the good pleasure of God to be His own.
And here, beloved, we have expressed in different terminology the glorious biblical doctrine of God's free sovereign election of His people. This peace upon the earth will be found among men on whom God has set His good pleasure. Now here's the main thing. God's glory, God's glory, all that we just spoke about now, does not come at the expense and pain of mankind unless we rebel. It doesn't come. The glory of God does not come at the expense and pain of mankind unless we rebel.
God's glory and man's good were never made to be competitors. Let me say that again. God's glory and man's good were never, never, never made to be competitors. Do you remember Genesis 1:26? “Let us,” – God says, – “make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”, in other words, let them be reflectors of Our glory. Let them enjoy being reflectors of the most beautiful One of all.
It was never meant to be a kind of competition. Never. As long as man was willing to be a reflector, a happy, joyful reflector of the glory of God, he would enjoy and delight in that glory and get beauty and get goodness.
In Jesus' high priestly prayer, we could see that glory and joy to be complimentary, not contradictory. Good pleasure toward man. Turn with me to our Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17. Look at how our Lord talks about glory and then talks about joy, almost in the same breath. Glory, joy, almost in the same breath. Look at verse 4. John 17: 4, “I glorified You on the earth, having finished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was”.
Drop down to verse 13. “But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, so that they may have My joy made full in themselves”. See that? Glory, joy.
Verse 22, as He climaxes His prayer, this is what I really want from My people. Father, “The glory,” – verse 22, – “which You have given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one just as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved the, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
I hope you could see it, beloved. That glorifying God and man's good are absolute Siamese twins - conjoined together. Joy and the glory of God joined together. This is why the old West Minister's confession began with, What is the chief end of man? Answer: the chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.
Fullness of joy is not a contradiction to glorifying God. If you want to experience really full joy, you ought to be a God glorifier. Psalm 144:15, “How blessed” – how happy are the people – “for whom God is Yahweh!” Happy.
Psalm 16:11, “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” And Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And beside You, I desire nothing on earth.”
Now, once again, beloved, it is the coming of Jesus, what we celebrate this season. It's the coming of Jesus that unites these two, the glory of God and the good of men. That's the Incarnation. It's the birth of the Incarnate Son that allows God, that allows what God wants most, which is His glory, and what you want most, desperately need, and I desperately need, which is satisfaction, fulfillment, whatever you were made to be, and a sense of meeting that according to the appointed way. Those two are united in Jesus.
And you know why they're united in Jesus? Because man in his natural state does not love the glory of God. Man in his natural state does not love the glory of God. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:2-4 that men are lovers of themselves, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. Plain and simple. That's the assessment of scripture.
Man does not do this, by the way, out of ignorance, not because he doesn't know, not because he's really good and kind and, you know, sort of like sheep, you know, they go astray. Like, you know what? No, no, no. He does it out of rebellion. He does it out of rebellion. Romans 1:21, “For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:19, “this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light for their deeds were evil.” They didn't want to come to the Light because the Light will expose their deeds. But now what happens with the coming of the Son?
Here's what happens, beloved. God intervenes. God intervenes. And with the story that we celebrated this time, the narrative, the account of this period of time, the Incarnation, the Christmas period, we remember that God was committed not only to His own glory, but to love His creatures with an infinite love. “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”. “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10)
And Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You know what we're back to? We're back to what we learned in John 3:16. God gave what was most precious to Him, and best for you and me.
Ephesians 2:4, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ –by grace you have been saved” I hope and pray that when you look at that idea, that notion, that truth, that God is glorious, that you see it simultaneously, God is good. God is kind. God is tender. God feels compassion, even upon those who have rejected His glory.
God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God has moved towards need and pain and suffering, which is even self-wrought on the part of man. And do you know what God does?
He announces through His Son amnesty. But not just amnesty. Reward and inheritance. And you know what's mind-blowing? Sonship. Sonship. To those who simply repent of self-worship, and bow the knee before God, the Son.
And everyone who does that, everyone who bows the knee to the Son, receives more than amnesty. They receive family. They receive blessings. They receive goodwill. They receive the peace of God. You see, you could spend your whole life fighting for your own glory. Trying to get pleasure and love and benefit independently from God and hoarding it. But let me tell you, it is worse than futile when you do this.
It's worse than futile. Why? Because firstly, it's insane to battle the Creator. Did you hear that? It's insane to battle the Creator. In fact, it's ridiculous. It's totally absurd. To arm wrestle Yahweh, the Omnipotent One. It's even more insane when He offers you more joy than you could ever get on your own. He offers you more happiness than your attempts to hoard it for yourself will ever achieve. Why? Because He offers you union with Himself, the source of perfect joy and perfect beauty.
And to turn from Him, to live under your own lordship and for yourself is to turn from a fountain, to licking the gutter. It is to go from a feast to digging out garbage out of our rubbish bin. It's going from health and life to sickness and death.
You see, in the song of the angels are the inseparable two. Glory to God, peace to man. But wage war against His glory and you will find neither peace nor goodwill. Submit and surrender to Him, you will find more than you could ever get on your own. Now, why was this all important message? These two phrases that sum up all of life's purpose and meaning, why was it sung to shepherds?
Well, let's go back to Roy. Roy was not even his name. Roy is just the Hebrew word for shepherd. The shepherds here in Luke 2 were not even named at all. They are anonymous. So why would God give this hymn, which is the very meaning of life, to some anonymous shepherds?
They couldn't even testify in courts, because they were counted as unreliable witnesses. Because firstly, God intends to show us that this is for all men. It's a general announcement made to nameless men so that anyone can know I can fill my name in there. If I give glory to God by embracing His Son, then I will know the favor of God and get the peace of God.
And I think the second reason is this. If you really want this, then like these humble shepherds, you need to leave your name behind. You need to leave your name behind. You need to leave your identity behind. You need to give up your pride, give up your reputation, and you need to come and receive the Son. Come empty-handed. Come with nothing in your hands to bring. Come and say, Glory be to God in the highest. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.
It's all about You from now on, God. I just trust you in Jesus Christ for Your peace and Your favor upon me. But as far as I'm concerned, the old me is dead, Lord. My old life is gone. I don't have an identity anymore left to myself. I trust in Your goodness, Your kindness towards me in Christ Jesus, Your Son.
And then, then can I say, let him name you. Let him name you. Let him give you your identity in his son. Live then like Paul, who said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Listen carefully. If you are a glory thief and seek what belongs to God, you will never, ever, ever get the peace and goodwill that's promised to those who come to Him by faith. You'll be chasing a mirage in the desert. But make God's glory your highest aim, and you will receive His peace and His goodwill.
And so these shepherds went to Bethlehem, and they found the Baby in the manger, just as the angels had said, and they knew that it's happening. And so they told everyone they could, because that's what you would do if you've received this message and embraced it. You tell everyone in your life that the meaning of life is, ultimately, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased. And it's all about Jesus. All of it.
And if you've never come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I plead with you today.
Give your life to Him. Later in the ministry of Jesus, He would be working His way through the crowd, and a woman would come in behind Him and reach out and touch the hem of His garment. And He would stop and turn around and says, “Who touched me?” – And they would have wanted to say to Him, with all the crowd around Him pressing in, Lord, who hasn't touched You? Everyone is touching You. Yet Jesus knew the moment someone reached out and touched Him.
As you sit in this place, anonymous, maybe. Maybe everybody thinks that you're a Christian, but you're not. I promise you, in your heart right now, if you would reach out to the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, He would know. He would know. He would know before you even reach out. And He would give you His undivided attention. And if you humble yourself before Him in repentance and faith, He will touch your heart. He will touch your mind. He will touch your soul.
And if you're not reaching out to Him, it is absolutely tragic that you will continue down that path. And in reality, every one of us here need to reach out to Christ, to touch the hem of His garment, as it were. And He knows the moment our hearts turn to Him. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. May you come to know the Savior, who is Christ the Lord, this day. So you too can leave this place, and with your heart rejoicing, glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.
Goodwill toward men with whom He is well pleased. Let's pray.
Shepherding was hard on the body. Miles of walking every day, mostly standing, doing your job as a shepherd. Very few places to sit and rest. And then you have the merciless sun during the day, the biting frost, cold at night. Even sleeping was done in shifts. So at least one pair of eyes was continually watching for wolves and predators and thieves. Roy had lost a few sheep and goats that way when sleep had gotten the better of him. But now his body hardened. He was used to this life.
He and his fellow shepherds had made their living from pilgrims needing to buy animals for the temple sacrifice. Just one hour north in Jerusalem. And they had Levites who were regular customers. Keeping their flocks just about an hour south of Jerusalem, around Bethlehem meant enough space for the animals to graze and be fed, but close enough to the city to secure a steady income and get the few coins they had to survive on.
Now, Roy did not enjoy going to Jerusalem from Bethlehem. He didn't really fit in among all those elites there and all the priests in Jerusalem. You know, their perfect robes and jewelry and oils and fragrances. Roy lived with animals most of the times, so he looked like it and smelled like it. People didn't even try to hide their disgust while he was in Jerusalem visiting, often staring at him, and some of them even taking their robes and covering their noses as he was walking by. But he was used to it. He wasn't noble, he wasn't wealthy, he wasn't even learned.
He learned a few letters when he was a boy in Torah school at the synagogue, but his life now is about sheep and goats. To be honest, he sometimes had to admit that he enjoyed his animals more than people. Animals were simpler to him, they were innocent.
Well, that night, the cold was enough to cause the sheep and goats to huddle, which made it easier than on the warmer nights, when the sheep usually wandered off, and he had to chase after them. The other shepherds were sitting around the fire with their usual coarse language and laughter, the only real sound in the night. But then as they did so, they noticed on the ground a light, like that of lightening, except it wasn't a flash.
It was a continual glow, a bright, dazzling light. And when they looked up to see the source, and they saw as they squinted in his light, a being standing right in front of them. And of course, these hardened men were terrified. In fact, terribly frightened, the text tells us. They couldn't run. There was no place to hide.
No point for looking for a place. All they could do is wait to see what this being, this dazzling being, would do to them. But amazingly, he spoke, and he spoke in their language, and he spoke, rather than speaking words of, threatening words, he spoke words of comfort. He said, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. I come today with good news.
Good news of great joy. In fact, good news of great joy for all men. Today in the city, your city, the city of David, Bethlehem, a Savior has been born. Messiah, the Lord, go looking for Him. And here's how you'll find Him. Unusually, He'll be lying in a feeding trough wrapped in clothes. And now that angel was joined by many, many others, and they praised God with this simple statement in the third song in Luke verse 14. “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
In this short, beautiful song, we actually find the great secret of existence. The great secret of existence. In this short, beautiful song, we have the great secret of the ‘Euangelion’, the Gospel. It's the two parts of what life is really all about. God's glory, man's good. God's glory, man's good, right here. That's what life is all about. Glory to God! Goodwill to man.
That's it. And if you're trying to get the one without the other, you will usually make some kind of an error, and if you mistake the one for the other, you will end up with a massive error. But if you understand why glory to God is goodwill to man, why man's good and his peace is based in the glory of God, you will understand the great secret of the Bible, indeed, the great secret of the universe.
And so, what we'll do now is simply take those two halves of the statement, this song, The Dei Gloria. “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
Look at them both. Obviously, this is now being proclaimed in front of the shepherds, not just on any occasion, but on the occasion of the birth of Jesus, which tells us that this particular song has particular reference to the incarnation. The Word made flesh and dwelt among us. So, the first part of the song, then, can be summed up this way. God's Incarnate Son brings greatest glory to God. God's Incarnate Son brings great or greatest glory to God. And you find that in verse 14a. “Glory to God in the highest”. God's Incarnate Son brings greatest glory to God. It's the first thing that these angels say.
Glory to God who dwells literally in the highest places. Glory to God. Glory to God. We've heard those words before. Many, many times. We sing them, in fact. We recite those words. But what does it mean to speak of the glory of God, to glorify God? Has that just become Christianese to you today? Is it just the technical vocabulary of religion? Do we really know what it really means to glorify God, what the glory of God is? Or is it just this vague idea, a kind of like a hallowish concept out there?
Just, well, something we say, something we've learned in Sunday school. What does it mean? And why would the angels sing and say to these shepherds that the coming of the Son of God to this earth is glory to God? Why would they say that? Why? Well, let's do a little bit of a study on this.
The Greek word rendered glory is that Greek word, ‘doxa’, splendor, brightness, honor, greatness. The glory of God is the outshining of His perfection, the manifestation of His excellence. And bound up in those words, glory to God is the idea, glory is being rendered to God, glory ought to be rendered to God, glory shall be rendered to God.
Did you notice there are no verbs in that first part? Glory to God. No verbs in this ascription of praise. It's as though we have the indicative, the subjunctive, and the future all bound up together. There's glory to God. Let there be glory to God. There shall be glory to God.
Now, the meaning of the word ‘doxa’ is closest. It's a very difficult word. I mean, it's just so many words to redefine one word, to explain it. But it's closest to this notion of beauty, real beauty. In fact, the Hebrew word, the equivalent in the Old Testament, ‘kabod’, means weighty, heavy, heavy weight, weighty.
In other words, the idea is that glory is heavy with value, dense with majesty, large and imposing in excellence. So, therefore, God's glory is His weighty beauty. It is His weighty beauty. It is His dense and deep and heavy value. It's all that He is shining out to be loved and admired and to be awed by. Glory.
So you could take His attributes, God's attributes, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence, His eternality, His self-existence, His justice, His mercy, His sovereignty, His immutability, His grace, His long-suffering, His patience, etc., etc., etc. You could take all of those dazzling colors in the spectrum of who the infinite God is and bring them all together into one bright, dazzling white light. That is God's holiness, God's revealed beauty, God's glory.
Now follow closely, beloved. Follow closely. The Bible teaches one of the most important secrets of the universe. Don't miss that. One of the most important secrets of the universe. God seeks His own glory more than anything else. Mark it down. God seeks His own glory more than anything else. God's love for His glory is the chief, His chief and ultimate love.
Let me say that again. God seeks His own glory more than anything else, and God's love for His glory is His chief and ultimate love. His own glorification is uppermost in His affections. God is utterly God-centered. God is utterly God-centered. God's first love is God.
If you don't understand that, if you think, no, no, God loves the world most, or God loves people most, or God loves the salvation of sinners most, then you have substituted a means for an end. You have not understood that those things lead to his ultimate goal, which is God's glory. You say, well, now, how can you say that? How can you say that? I've never heard that before, put like this. Where could you even get that from?
Would you bear with me for a moment for a list, which is just a sample? Isaiah 43:7 says that God created us for His glory. Isaiah 49:3 says that God called Israel to show forth His beautiful glory. God rescued Israel from Egypt for his glory. Psalm 106:7 -8. The Bible says that God actually raised Pharaoh up to show His power and get glory. Exodus 14:4. God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of His name. Why didn't he judge them and wipe them out? He says in Ezekiel 20:14, “I acted for the sake of My name,”– My name– “that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations”.
Second Samuel 7:23 says that God gave Israel victory in Canaan for the glory of His name. Sometimes, Jerusalem was surrounded by armies. In 2 Kings 19:34, God says, “Indeed, I will defend the city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake”. When Israel was in exile in Babylon, God restored Israel from exile. Why?
For the glory of His name. Ezekiel 36:22-23. Why does God forgive you? Why does God forgive me? Why? Isaiah 43:25. “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.” He forgives our sins for his own sake.
God, in fact, instructs you and me in 1 Corinthians 10:31 to do everything we do for the glory of God. The essence of sin, Romans 3:23 is what? For all sinned and what? “Fall short of the glory of God”. That's the essence of sin, to fall short of the glory of God. John 17:24, Jesus said that his ultimate aim would be that we would see His glory.
God's plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory. Habakkuk 2:14, Everything that happens will lead down to the glory of God. Romans 11:36, Herod is struck dead because he did not give glory to God. Acts 12:23, and Revelation 21:23, in the New Jerusalem, the glory of God replaces the sun. Beloved, it's everywhere. This is but a sample.
It is everywhere, the glory of God, the glory of God, the glory of God, and it's not just doing a little word study on the word glory. Take the first three requests of the Lord's Prayer. “Hollowed will be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” And you will find, you will find in there basically the very same idea. God's name, God's kingdom, God's will.
All pleasures, all His pleasures, all His desires. And do a search in Scripture and look for God's commitment to His name, God's commitment to His kingdom, His rule, His throne, and God's commitment to His will, His pleasures, His sovereign council, and what you will find. And you will know what you will find. He is committed above all else to His glory.
And probably no text in the Bible reveals the passion of God for God's own glory more clearly and bluntly than Isaiah 48. Turn with me to Isaiah 48:9-11. Three verses, Isaiah 48:9-11. God says, right off the bat, He says, “For the sake of My name,” –right there, – “For the sake of My name, I delay My anger, And for My praise, I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” – Now watch this. – “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another?”
And I found that for many people, those words come like six sledgehammer blows to a man-centered way of looking at the world. Look at it. In verse 9, for My name's sake, For “My praise”. Verse 11, “For My own sake, for My own sake”, – repeated, – “how should My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.”
What this text hammers home to us, beloved, it clearly is the centrality of God's glory, God in His own affections, the centrality of God and His glory in His own affections. The most passionate heart for the glorification of God is God's heart. It's God's own heart. God's ultimate goal is to uphold and display the glory of His name.
You see, if you could drill down to the tiniest, tiniest, tiniest particle. When I was in school, 500 years BC, it was still the proton, electron, neutron. Then they got deeper, and they found more things. Then there was the lepton and boson, and then they got a little deeper. The quark, the up quark, the down quark, and they keep going deeper and deeper, finding more stuff. I don't know if they'll ever get to the bottom, but I think if they could get to the bottom, do you know what you will find? The very DNA of the universe, you would find the glory of God. The glory of God. And if it were possible to take a macro snapshot of the entire cosmos, you know what you will find that it's all about? The glory of God. The glory of God. And if you could gather up the souls of every human and every angel ever created, they all exist for the glory of God.
Someone says, well, wait a minute, maybe you're sitting here today, maybe that's you, thinking, wait a minute, doesn't this make God a selfish God? I mean, Proverbs 25:27 says, “To eat too much honey is not good, Nor is it glory to search out one's own glory”. So how can God tell us not to seek our own glory when He's doing it?
How can God say in 1 Corinthians 13:5, love “does not seek its own” while God seems to be seeking His own? How could this really be the big secret of the universe? Three answers. First, it would only be selfish if God were one person. It would only be selfish if God were one person. But scripture reveals that God is more than one person. So when God delights in His own being, it's not selfish vanity. You know what it is? It's love. It's love.
It's love. It is the Father enjoying the Son, the son enjoying the Father, and their infinite enjoyment proceeding forth in a third Person, the Holy Spirit. It is love.
GK Chesterton once noted that the cruelty found in Islam was partly due to its idea of an absolute unitary monotheism. He said this, he said, “A God who is a mere awful unity is not only a king, but an eastern king. Out of the desert, from the dry places, and dreadful suns, come the cruel children of a lonely God, the real Unitarians, who with the scimitar, a sword in hand, have laid waste the world, for it is not well for God to be alone.” In other words, he's saying, if God is not Trinity, then He's not love. And if He's not love, then He's pure will and pure power.
And such a God produces a religion of submission and discipline, but not of love. You see, beloved, if God is one person alone and sought His own glory, then we might suspect that something is off. But God's glory takes place within the happy society, the joyful communion of the Trinity.
Second reason why God, being God-centered and God being doxological and God being theocentric is not selfish or vain or evil, is this. It would only be selfish if He were not the most beautiful One. It would only be selfish if He was not the most beautiful One.But God is most beautiful. And God is most glorious. And so when God loves Himself most, you know what He's being? Truthful. Truthful. Just.
You see, if God loved the world more than Himself, while knowing that we were worthless, that we were not as glorious, that we were not as valuable, and God loved us more than Himself, do you know what that would make Him? Untruthful. Unjust. Impure. Unrighteous. It would not make God humble.
It would not make Him... Well, it would make Him duplicitous. It would make Him disingenuous.
God esteems Himself highest because he knows He is infinitely beautiful and He is perfectly righteous in His judgments, so He always values His own value perfectly, being highest and ultimate. If a creature loves his glory or her glory more than anything else, it's selfish. Egotistical, because no creature is perfect in value or perfect in beauty. It would be sinful pride, but when God loves Himself perfectly, it is truth. It is truthful.
The third reason is loving His own glory most of all would be selfish if it came at the expense and pain of His creation. If it came at the expense and pain of His creation, but listen to this, God's glory is the health and the ‘shalom’ of the universe. God's glory is the health and the ‘shalom’, – the peace – of the universe, the well-being. Like rain or snow that falls on the mountains and nourishes the rivers and the trees and the animals below, so when God is glorified, it blesses.
It nourishes the work of His hand. Creation, beloved, is the overflow of God's benevolence, God's generosity. Remember, they sing in heaven, Revelation 4:11, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will, they existed and were created”.
And in Psalm 104:31, “Let the glory of Yahweh endure forever; Let Yahweh be glad in His works”.
So let me say it again. God is the most God-centered being in the universe. God is the most God-centered being in the universe. God loves God with all His heart, soul, and might. God is supremely jealous for His name. Why? Because He is triune. Why? Because He is just. Why?
Because He is generous. Now, all of this brings us back to the angels' song, Glory to God in the Highest. That's always been the theme of history. That's always been the idea. So why now? They're saying it since this baby Jesus has been born nearby in this city, Bethlehem.
Why does this glory now reach a new level, a new high? How does the coming of the Incarnate Son, God the Son, bring maximum glory to God?
Well, let me give us the answer to that using Paul's words. In one of his most famous scriptures, turn with me to Romans 3. This is an incredible text. Romans 3, as Paul explains why this brings maximum glory to God, now follow it with me. Verse 20, because by the works of the law, Paul writes, Romans 3: 20, “by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the Law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
Now follow closely verse 25 and 26, “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”. Let's stop here for a minute. And let's try to imagine for a moment scenarios and which one would bring maximum glory to God.
Okay, Maybe God should never have created at all. That's scenario number one. In Himself, He was infinitely joyful, and there would have been glory to God that way. But apparently, best we could tell, God desired to give Himself to himself for there to be a gift within the Trinity of Father to Son, Son to Father. And creation seems to have allowed this gift of the Cosmos to take place within the Trinity, so God created.
Or we can imagine another scenario in which somehow we just never sinned. That wasn't His plan. His plan was to include men and angels who would then sin. Once we'd sinned, there now appears to be a dilemma of less glory to God, no matter what. How do you get out of that? After we've sinned, the creation now marred. God could have condemned the entire human race to hell. He would have gotten glory as judge. You would have gotten glory as a severe one of inflexible justice who had holiness. But it would seem less glory because now the creation is ruined. His people were separated from Him.
On the other hand, if God decided to pardon all men and angels, including Lucifer, it would break his law. He would get some glory as a merciful God, but He would get no glory as a just and Holy King. And so there seems to be this dilemma. Either less glory for God because you have a fallen world where everyone is judged, or less glory to God because He has to pardon all of us, and that would render His perfect justice less than perfect.
Maybe that was Satan's gamble, if you will, thinking if he gets Adam to fall, then God will get less glory one way or another. But Romans 3 tells us what God did. Look back at verse 24, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.”
When the Incarnate Son came, when the Word became flesh, God the Son took the justice on Himself, on the cross, paid the penalty, becoming, here the text says, the propitiation. What is that? What is that word? It's the word atonement. It's being the wrath bearer, the wrath absorber, absorbing the justice of God on Himself, do us. And in so doing, God could now remain just while also mercifully justifying.
Do you see that in the middle of verse 25? Look at verse 25 with me, “for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time.” – Now watch this – “so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Do you see that, beloved?
This is amazing. Now God can get glory, maximum glory as a judge on sin, and gets maximum glory as a forgiver of sinners. He can punish rebels. He can pardon the repentant. Maximum glory to God through the coming of the Son, the enfleshment of the Word. You see, the first creation, He gives to his Son as an inheritance, and then we fall. We fall. But the Son comes to redeem us, to buy us back, to buy His people back, and even remove the curse.
So finally, according to 1 Corinthians 15, he's going to give the kingdom back to the Father, the entire ‘cosmos’, – the renewed creation – back to the Father that He may be all in all.
Maximum glory, ultimate glory, greater beauty, as Isaac Watts has it in one of his hymns, far greater glory than what Adam's sons lost in Adam. More glory, greater glory now through the Son.
Let's look back at this song again. Luke 2. The rest of the song of the angels. “Glory to God in the highest”. This is the first and chief idea behind reality, the universe, meaning the purpose, the cosmos. “Glory to God in the highest”. But now the good news as well for us. What does it say? Verse 14: “Glory to God in the highest.” – And here it is. – “And on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased”.
God's Incarnate Son brings greatest glory to God. And here is the second part of the song. God's Incarnate Son brings greatest good to man. God's Incarnate son brings greatest good to man.
“And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased”. The first part, the one in the highest, that's God. The second part, those on earth, mere men. Men. And God, the Son's coming, and His death brings not only glory to God, but it brings something else as well to men. What does the text say that men get because of the Son's coming? They get peace. They get peace. Peace. Peace. The cessation of warfare. The cessation of enmity that produces warfare.
It's that Greek beautiful word, ‘eirene’. This is the Greek version of the Hebrew word, ‘shalom’, which is not merely the idea of the absence of conflict and of mere calm. No, no. ‘Shalom’ is the idea of flourishing. Happiness. Real happiness. Fullness. Joy. Unspeakable. Satisfaction. You know what it is? ‘Shalom’ is the end of Ecclesiastes 12:13 “fear God”. That's the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God. Keep His commandment. That's the end of the matter for all mankind. It's all that we are. It's what we're seeking, fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction.
Man gets this kind of peace and favor. Beloved, do you understand that we are the recipients of that same God's desire to overflow in goodness and blessing and favor and pleasure and happiness? We're the recipients of that.
You know, there are small, small, tiny, faint, really, really faint, pale in comparison images of this in our lives. Think of how sometimes we treat our pets. They're just innocent creatures, and what do we do? We lavish kindness on them for a purely benevolent reason. So we're not trading with that dog. We're not in business with that cat. It's just a benevolent overflow of kindness for what that thing is. And man fallen in Adam, a rebel against God, an enemy of God, gets what? This unmerited favor.
Now, literally, the text rendered, reads this way, glory in highest places to God and on earth peace toward men of good pleasure or good will. In other words, the recipients of this peace, this ‘eirene’, this ‘shalom’, are the object of God's pleasure and God's delight and God's favor and God's goodwill. The emphasis is falling not on all men indiscriminately, but Christ has come to bring peace to those who have been marked out in the good pleasure of God to be His own.
And here, beloved, we have expressed in different terminology the glorious biblical doctrine of God's free sovereign election of His people. This peace upon the earth will be found among men on whom God has set His good pleasure. Now here's the main thing. God's glory, God's glory, all that we just spoke about now, does not come at the expense and pain of mankind unless we rebel. It doesn't come. The glory of God does not come at the expense and pain of mankind unless we rebel.
God's glory and man's good were never made to be competitors. Let me say that again. God's glory and man's good were never, never, never made to be competitors. Do you remember Genesis 1:26? “Let us,” – God says, – “make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”, in other words, let them be reflectors of Our glory. Let them enjoy being reflectors of the most beautiful One of all.
It was never meant to be a kind of competition. Never. As long as man was willing to be a reflector, a happy, joyful reflector of the glory of God, he would enjoy and delight in that glory and get beauty and get goodness.
In Jesus' high priestly prayer, we could see that glory and joy to be complimentary, not contradictory. Good pleasure toward man. Turn with me to our Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17. Look at how our Lord talks about glory and then talks about joy, almost in the same breath. Glory, joy, almost in the same breath. Look at verse 4. John 17: 4, “I glorified You on the earth, having finished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was”.
Drop down to verse 13. “But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, so that they may have My joy made full in themselves”. See that? Glory, joy.
Verse 22, as He climaxes His prayer, this is what I really want from My people. Father, “The glory,” – verse 22, – “which You have given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one just as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved the, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
I hope you could see it, beloved. That glorifying God and man's good are absolute Siamese twins - conjoined together. Joy and the glory of God joined together. This is why the old West Minister's confession began with, What is the chief end of man? Answer: the chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.
Fullness of joy is not a contradiction to glorifying God. If you want to experience really full joy, you ought to be a God glorifier. Psalm 144:15, “How blessed” – how happy are the people – “for whom God is Yahweh!” Happy.
Psalm 16:11, “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” And Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And beside You, I desire nothing on earth.”
Now, once again, beloved, it is the coming of Jesus, what we celebrate this season. It's the coming of Jesus that unites these two, the glory of God and the good of men. That's the Incarnation. It's the birth of the Incarnate Son that allows God, that allows what God wants most, which is His glory, and what you want most, desperately need, and I desperately need, which is satisfaction, fulfillment, whatever you were made to be, and a sense of meeting that according to the appointed way. Those two are united in Jesus.
And you know why they're united in Jesus? Because man in his natural state does not love the glory of God. Man in his natural state does not love the glory of God. Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:2-4 that men are lovers of themselves, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. Plain and simple. That's the assessment of scripture.
Man does not do this, by the way, out of ignorance, not because he doesn't know, not because he's really good and kind and, you know, sort of like sheep, you know, they go astray. Like, you know what? No, no, no. He does it out of rebellion. He does it out of rebellion. Romans 1:21, “For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:19, “this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light for their deeds were evil.” They didn't want to come to the Light because the Light will expose their deeds. But now what happens with the coming of the Son?
Here's what happens, beloved. God intervenes. God intervenes. And with the story that we celebrated this time, the narrative, the account of this period of time, the Incarnation, the Christmas period, we remember that God was committed not only to His own glory, but to love His creatures with an infinite love. “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”. “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10)
And Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You know what we're back to? We're back to what we learned in John 3:16. God gave what was most precious to Him, and best for you and me.
Ephesians 2:4, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ –by grace you have been saved” I hope and pray that when you look at that idea, that notion, that truth, that God is glorious, that you see it simultaneously, God is good. God is kind. God is tender. God feels compassion, even upon those who have rejected His glory.
God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God has moved towards need and pain and suffering, which is even self-wrought on the part of man. And do you know what God does?
He announces through His Son amnesty. But not just amnesty. Reward and inheritance. And you know what's mind-blowing? Sonship. Sonship. To those who simply repent of self-worship, and bow the knee before God, the Son.
And everyone who does that, everyone who bows the knee to the Son, receives more than amnesty. They receive family. They receive blessings. They receive goodwill. They receive the peace of God. You see, you could spend your whole life fighting for your own glory. Trying to get pleasure and love and benefit independently from God and hoarding it. But let me tell you, it is worse than futile when you do this.
It's worse than futile. Why? Because firstly, it's insane to battle the Creator. Did you hear that? It's insane to battle the Creator. In fact, it's ridiculous. It's totally absurd. To arm wrestle Yahweh, the Omnipotent One. It's even more insane when He offers you more joy than you could ever get on your own. He offers you more happiness than your attempts to hoard it for yourself will ever achieve. Why? Because He offers you union with Himself, the source of perfect joy and perfect beauty.
And to turn from Him, to live under your own lordship and for yourself is to turn from a fountain, to licking the gutter. It is to go from a feast to digging out garbage out of our rubbish bin. It's going from health and life to sickness and death.
You see, in the song of the angels are the inseparable two. Glory to God, peace to man. But wage war against His glory and you will find neither peace nor goodwill. Submit and surrender to Him, you will find more than you could ever get on your own. Now, why was this all important message? These two phrases that sum up all of life's purpose and meaning, why was it sung to shepherds?
Well, let's go back to Roy. Roy was not even his name. Roy is just the Hebrew word for shepherd. The shepherds here in Luke 2 were not even named at all. They are anonymous. So why would God give this hymn, which is the very meaning of life, to some anonymous shepherds?
They couldn't even testify in courts, because they were counted as unreliable witnesses. Because firstly, God intends to show us that this is for all men. It's a general announcement made to nameless men so that anyone can know I can fill my name in there. If I give glory to God by embracing His Son, then I will know the favor of God and get the peace of God.
And I think the second reason is this. If you really want this, then like these humble shepherds, you need to leave your name behind. You need to leave your name behind. You need to leave your identity behind. You need to give up your pride, give up your reputation, and you need to come and receive the Son. Come empty-handed. Come with nothing in your hands to bring. Come and say, Glory be to God in the highest. Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.
It's all about You from now on, God. I just trust you in Jesus Christ for Your peace and Your favor upon me. But as far as I'm concerned, the old me is dead, Lord. My old life is gone. I don't have an identity anymore left to myself. I trust in Your goodness, Your kindness towards me in Christ Jesus, Your Son.
And then, then can I say, let him name you. Let him name you. Let him give you your identity in his son. Live then like Paul, who said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Listen carefully. If you are a glory thief and seek what belongs to God, you will never, ever, ever get the peace and goodwill that's promised to those who come to Him by faith. You'll be chasing a mirage in the desert. But make God's glory your highest aim, and you will receive His peace and His goodwill.
And so these shepherds went to Bethlehem, and they found the Baby in the manger, just as the angels had said, and they knew that it's happening. And so they told everyone they could, because that's what you would do if you've received this message and embraced it. You tell everyone in your life that the meaning of life is, ultimately, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased. And it's all about Jesus. All of it.
And if you've never come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I plead with you today.
Give your life to Him. Later in the ministry of Jesus, He would be working His way through the crowd, and a woman would come in behind Him and reach out and touch the hem of His garment. And He would stop and turn around and says, “Who touched me?” – And they would have wanted to say to Him, with all the crowd around Him pressing in, Lord, who hasn't touched You? Everyone is touching You. Yet Jesus knew the moment someone reached out and touched Him.
As you sit in this place, anonymous, maybe. Maybe everybody thinks that you're a Christian, but you're not. I promise you, in your heart right now, if you would reach out to the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, He would know. He would know. He would know before you even reach out. And He would give you His undivided attention. And if you humble yourself before Him in repentance and faith, He will touch your heart. He will touch your mind. He will touch your soul.
And if you're not reaching out to Him, it is absolutely tragic that you will continue down that path. And in reality, every one of us here need to reach out to Christ, to touch the hem of His garment, as it were. And He knows the moment our hearts turn to Him. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. May you come to know the Savior, who is Christ the Lord, this day. So you too can leave this place, and with your heart rejoicing, glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth.
Goodwill toward men with whom He is well pleased. Let's pray.
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