What Is This Heavenly Army Doing?

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:8-14)

First an angels appears. The word, “Angel” comes from the Greek, “Angello”, and means, “messenger” or to, “deliver a message". This messenger can be from either God or Satan, obviously he is from God in this passage. And yes, I used the pronoun “he” when referring to the angel because, “Angels are always spoken of in the masculine gender, the feminine form of the word does not occur." (Vine’s Expository)

This messenger of God came at night in a bright light. The “glory of the Lord”, glory is often used to describe light, such as the case in 1 Corinthians 15:41, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.”

But glory does not have to be relegated to just light. Glory can be the magnificence of God that illuminates as light.

God can only be described and can only be described to the best man is capable of. God is too great for our comprehension and understanding. He is too great to try and squeeze within the confines of this world. Man knows three spatial dimensions with the added dimension of time. As a result, man’s description of God is often vague. It usually comes in some intangible form such as light, pure or true. It has to be this way, for how do you fit an infinitely dimensional entity into a four dimensional world?

The word “host” (Greek, “Stratia”) refers to an army when used as a noun and warfare when used as a verb. In this passage Luke is speaking of an army, of troops from heaven.

This all certainly sounds like a military operation doesn’t it? Night maneuvers. An advance messenger, bright lights and troops ready for war. But what is this God sent army doing? Within the glory of God’s magnificence and omnipotence, this troop of angels are praising God and giving glory back to Him. Then these angels turn their attention unto the human race by saying, “on earth peace, good will toward men”.

Notice this heavenly army first says, “…on earth peace”. They directed their cause and purpose towards the temporal and temporary, to our domain and habitat. God did the same thing to Noah. He effected his environment, the world (literally and figuratively) around Noah. God did it with Joseph, Israel and the 70 when He led them down to Egypt. God influenced them by affecting the environment around them. God di it to Job too. He influenced his environment as well as Jonah and Elijah, Adam and Eve and so and so on.

On earth, peace!  Were God’s messengers speaking directly to the planet so as to effect peace? Why not? After all, stones can cry (Luke 19:40), the land can spue people out (Leviticus 18:28) and mountains can respond to our command (Matthew 17:20).

Then the heavenly host turn their attention to man and they say, “good will toward men”. Interestingly, the word “towards” by definition means “in” or “by” and significantly changes the phrase and rightly contextualizes it.

Instead of good will towards men, it becomes Good will “in” men, which will produce good will “by” men. This touches on a very basic backbone tenet of our religion. Anyone can do Godly deeds, even the devil himself (and he frequently does).

But only those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, and have Christ in them, and they in Christ, can Godly deeds proceed. You can’t stop it. When God is inside, good is the natural outpouring from within to all of those with out!

“Good will”, from the Greek, “Eudokia” is simply defined, or rather defined simply as to mean “choice” or “desire”.  Eudokia is sometimes transliterated in the New Testament as, “heart’s desire” or “good pleasure”.

Most folks would probably define “will” as to mean “choice”, with the idea that free will means free choice. Will is much more than choice, but let’s look at what the heavenly host is saying. But first, let’s jump forward some 32 years.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment of them all was He said, “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

Is this not what the Heavenly Host is saying? Are they not advocating the love for God and that towards our fellow man?

God is love. Love is not only the fulfilling of the law, it is the fulfilling of all things God.

“The ultimate end of all things is to become like unto God. So, that whereby man is made most like God will be his felicity. Now, this is not a function of moral acts, since such acts cannot be attributed to God, except metaphorically. Indeed, it does not befit God to have passions, or the like, with which moral acts are concerned. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity, that is, his ultimate end, does not consist in moral actions.” (Thomas Aquinas/ Summa Contra Gentiles/Bk 3, Chapter 34:5).

And finally, good will toward “men”. Men! Is it only men that the angels are speaking to?  Are the angels some misogynistic band of “men” on some strange mission? Do we need to call the PC police and launch an investigation? Maybe ban this part of the Bible? At least we should re-write the Bible and turn “men” into some gender neutral word, right?

Actually, it already is.

One of the problems with today’s society is that it only looks and thinks in terms of its self, not understanding that meanings of words shift over time. This can and will shift context greatly. A great example from the Bible is the word conversation. Today we would define it as meaning 2 or more people talking. But nowhere in the Bible (KJV) when the word conversation is used is it a reference to talking. It usually is in regards to how someone acts or their way of life.

The word, “men” used in this passage comes from the Greek, “Anthropos”. It means all humans, female and male. Men is about as gender neutral as you can get.

The Savior was brought forth into this world. God’s Heavenly Host came to man and proclaimed, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

There is one God. Love Him and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus was born bringing peace to the world. Jesus left giving us His peace (John 14:27). Peace is the tranquility of soul that can only come through Christ.

Bill Hitchcock