Evening – Day 3: The Christmas Joy of the Angels

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.-- Luke 2:10,11

Reasons for Angelic Joy

It is not enough to merely observe the joy the angels experienced when Jesus was born. We must ask why they felt this joy. What was there about the birth of Jesus that made this such a joyous event for the very angels of heaven?

The grace of God

The redeeming work of Christ glorified the grace of God. God would have been perfectly just if He had done nothing at all to redeem guilty sinners. He could have merely left all of us to the results of our sin, and no one could have accused Him of being unfair.

But He was unwilling to do so. Instead He made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and to be restored to fellowship with Himself. That way was and is His Son, Jesus Christ. It was grace that compelled the Father to give the Son, and it was grace that compelled the Son to leave heaven and come to this dark world.

The justice of God

By His redeeming work, the Lord Jesus also magnified or glorified the justice of God. It was not enough for the Son of God to come to this world. He could not have saved us by merely coming to this world. He had to do something specific while in this world. He had to satisfy the justice of God.

How few people today realize this! God’s justice had to be satisfied in order for us to be saved! There could never be salvation apart from this! From the very beginning, God decreed death as the penalty for sin, not just physical death, but also spiritual and eternal death.

That penalty had to be paid! If God had just set it aside, He would have not been true to His own word. God himself could not have let a single sinner go free without that penalty being paid. Here is the gloriously good news of the gospel: on the cross the Lord Jesus paid that penalty for guilty sinners. Yes, the Lord Jesus actually endured on that cross an eternity’s worth of separation from God on behalf of sinners. There He cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

God was just to demand that the penalty for sin be paid once, but He would have been unjust to demand payment twice. If, therefore, Jesus paid the penalty for me, there is no penalty left for me to pay! Yes, by His death on the cross, the Lord Jesus magnified the justice of God.

The wisdom of God

Furthermore, we can say that the Lord Jesus Christ also magnified the wisdom of God. We might say the cross of Christ solved a tremendous difficulty, namely, how God could at one and the same time judge sin and let the sinner go free. Or we can put it in this way: how could God both satisfy His grace and His justice?

His grace demanded that a way be found to forgive sinners. His justice demanded that sinners be punished eternally. God, in His infinite wisdom, made a way. Through the death of His Son on the cross, God satisfied both the demands of His grace and His justice. Justice saw the Lord Jesus Christ suffering in the place of sinners, and was satisfied. Because Jesus took the penalty for believing sinners, there is no penalty left for them to pay and grace also is satisfied.