Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: July 16
Today is: Friday, April 26th, 2024 (Show Today's Devotion)
Select a Day for a Devotion in the Month of July: (Show All Months)
Luk_2:8-20
Besides, who could be cold in the presence of that great joy which moved the heavens? For no sooner had the cheerful voice of the angel ceased, than there broke in a full chorus of Song from “a multitude of the heavenly host.” And these were the words they uttered—“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men.” O happy shepherds, who alone among men were ever privileged to hear the songs of heaven! And the song was well worthy of angels, expressing the greatest and most blessed things in words so few that they become, to an acute apprehension, almost oppressive by the pregnant fullness of their meaning. First, and chief of all, glory to God—for devising a means for man’s renovation and redemption which “the angels desire to look into;” and which they have not failed, and will not forever fail, to extol in their songs on high as the most renowned demonstration of the glory of His goodness. Then, peace on earth—“for He that was born was the Prince of Peace, and came to reconcile God with man, and man with his brother; and to make, by the sweetness of his example and the influence of a holy doctrine, such happy atonements Note: Observe the now obsolete sense of reconciliation in which this word is here used—and which its very texture shows to have been its primary signification—at-one-ment. between disagreeing natures, such confederations and societies between enemies, that the wolf and the lamb should lie down together, and a little child, boldly and without danger, put in the nest and cavern of the aspick.” Note: Jeremy Taylor’s Great Exemplar. London, at the signe of the Angel in Ivie Lane. 1653. It was probably not without important significance with regard to this fact that it had been so ordered, in the Providence of God, that at the time this child was born, an unwonted and universal peace pervaded the Roman empire, and through its vast extent man lifted not up sword or spear against his fellow. Augustus having then composed all the wars of the world, caused, in sign thereof, the gates of the temple of Janus to be shut up—being only the third time this had occurred during the seven centuries which the history of Rome then covered. Surely, as the great writer just cited remarks: “It could be no less than miraculous that so great a body as the Roman empire, consisting of so many parts, whose constitutions were differing, their humors contrary, their interests contradicting each other’s greatness, and all these violently oppressed by an usurping power, should have no limb out of joint—not so mach as an aching tooth or a rebellious humor in that huge collection of parts; but so it seemed good in the eye of Heaven, by so great and good a symbol, to declare not only the greatness, but the goodness of that Prince that was there born in Judea, the Lord of all the world.”
But the glad tidings which the angels brought to the shepherds was not only matter of glory to God, and of peace to the earth, but of good-will toward men. Of that good-will the manifest rapture of the angels, at a matter in which they had no other than a benevolent concern, nor any other interest than that which all pure natures must feel in that which redounds to the glory of God, is most interesting evidence. Some find difficulties in this appearance of the angels, and even say, more or less plainly, that they would willingly dispense with it. Not so with us. We could not spare it on any account. If it were only for this one sentence, their appearance becomes most necessary and valuable. There have been times when the manifest delight of the angels at the tidings they were commissioned to deliver has seemed to us of itself such strong and touching evidence of the “good-will towards man” which they declared, and has impressed so distinct a sense of reality upon all those marvellous things in which they took part, and of that intercourse between earth and heaven of which they are the agents, as served to refresh and strengthen our faith, and impressed the feeling, that even here we were citizens of a large dominion, of which this earth, with all its too-absorbing interests, was but a part. It seems to raise one in the scale of creation to feel himself thus the object of such sympathizing goodwill to heavenly natures: and their own good-will authenticates that good-will—still higher and more precious, the good-will of God to man in Christ—in the new-born Redeemer, which they proclaimed with so much joy. The intelligence was so great, and its significance so marvellously strange in the midst of all its impressive earnestness, that it scarcely gained belief from a cold or unsympathizing messenger; but these happy, rejoicing, thankful angels, carry our hearts with them, and convince us that there is, as they declare, good-will in heaven towards man indeed. Who can measure the depths of that goodwill? The angels even cannot fathom all its depths; and man—how little, too often, does he regard it; how little does he strive to realize an adoring sense of its magnitude; how little to rest in full assurance of faith upon it! Of this good-will, the gift of a Savior—to those who were otherwise utterly undone and lost, was the highest possible manifestation—the evidence in which, of love to man, no words can adequately express, no heart adequately feel. But if not adequately, we can entertain this vast conception vitally; and to be counted worthy of this, is the highest privilege of which our mortal state—or, indeed, the state beyond the grave—is capable: and “Behold, how He loved us!”—is, probably, the most frequent, as it is the noblest, expression of holy contentment and satisfaction in the realms of light.
The good shepherds waited but to hear the close of the angels’ song; and when all again was dark and silent, they hurried away, leaving their flocks behind, to witness at Bethlehem that which the Lord had made known unto them. They found the child lying in the manger; and being thus satisfied that the vision of angels, with which they had been favored, was no illusion, “they made known abroad the saying that was told them concerning the child.” This publication, however, was probably confined to a small circle, and soon passed out of present or active remembrance—the object being, apparently, to secure evidence which might be available hereafter, that Jesus of Nazareth was born in the city of David in the time of the taxing, and that he was declared by angels to be the Christ of God. It is very possible that the shepherds, and those who heard their report, supposed that He had perished in Herod’s massacre, or that they lost sight of Him altogether, till he appeared with the claim to be the Son of God; and then all this would be keenly remembered, and produced in corroboration of that claim.
Thus, the object of the appearance to them was to make them witnesses for Christ; and to show that the birth, so little noted by men, had not passed without heavenly celebrations.
But why were these poor shepherds chosen as such witnesses? The Lord, who made choice of them, knows. It was necessary that the witnesses should reside in or near Bethlehem—and these shepherds alone were abroad and awake in the depth of the silent night. Moreover, the Gospel delights to put honor on those of low degree. The general yearning for the appearance of the Messiah, which at this time was felt throughout Judea, must have acquired peculiar intensity at Bethlehem, where it was known from prophecy that Christ was to be born; and, no doubt, “even among the shepherds who kept nightly watch over their flocks, were some who anxiously awaited the appearance of the Messiah. It is true, the account does not say that the shepherds thus longed for the Messiah. But we are justified by what followed in presupposing it as the ground for such a communication being especially made to them; and it is not unlikely that these simple souls, untaught in the traditions of the scribes, and nourished by communion with God, amid the freedom of nature, in a solitude congenial with meditation and prayer, had formed a purer idea of the Messiah from the necessities of their own hearts, than prevailed at that time among the Jews.” Note: Neander’s Life of Jesus, i. § 17.