Luke 2:10 And the angel said to them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. Christianity is glad news. I. BECAUSE IT REVELED GOD TO MAN. Consider the state of the world before Christianity was born. Here and there an old sage had groped his way to a knowledge of the alphabet of truth. Here and there the Divine Spirit had communicated to a tribe or nation so much of the Divine wisdom that they lived faithful to their marriage vows, knew the blessings of home, acknowledged the rights of property and life to such an extent that they would not steal nor kill. But of God they knew little — of the life beyond the grave nothing. But when Christianity was born, a sun arose into the darkness of the world. Men saw what they had felt must be, but what they had never before seen. And chiefest among all sights revealed, stood God. The heavens were no longer a vacuum, Christianity told them that God is their Father. II. BECAUSE IT REVEALED MAN TO HIMSELF. Never till Jesus was born — never till he had lived and passed away — did man know the nobility of his species. Never until God dwelt in the flesh could any man know what flesh might become. Never until the fulness of God was in man bodily, might the race get even a hint of that Divine receptiveness that, above all else perhaps, most nobly characterises human nature. III. BECAUSE IT REVEALS GOD IN MAN. The proclamation of the angels is confirmed in our experience and corroborated by our knowledge that the birth of Christianity was indeed "glad news" to men, because it brought God out of distance and darkness into light, and made Him nigh, as He is nigh who shares our burdens, consoles our sorrows, and in every pinch and stress of disastrous fortune rescues us from peril and saves us from loss. (W. H. Murray.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. |
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