The
Prince of Peace
Romans 5:1;
Isaiah 7, 8, 9
Paul begins Romans 5 drawing out the first consequence or
the first implication of the fact that we have been declared righteous by faith
alone, which is we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He brought into the discussion this
consequence of justification that we have peace with God, wherein we had
formally been at enmity with God. Romans
5:10 “For if when were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of
His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His
life.” He is stressing that we
were enemies – we being every human being born at enmity with God.
As I got to thinking about the concept of peace, I reflected
on the fact that I have often heard that peace in the Bible was always
juxtaposed to a mental attitude state of worry or anxiety. That is not quite true when you analyze
the data, especially in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, peace is almost always related to the
absence of conflict. Not just the
absence of conflict, but the presence of harmonious relationships – not
just the absence of military conflict but the genuine alliance between those
who were at one time enemies.
One of the most well-known places where the term peace is
used is in the Messianic prophecy in Is. 9:6. “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and
the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Now how are we to understand this phrase “Prince of Peace”? That is very important because we all
are familiar with the Christmas story of how on the night the Lord Jesus was
born in Bethlehem, the angels, the armies of God, appeared in heavens singing
(Luke 2:14) “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward
men [or depending on how it is translated, to men of goodwill]!”
There is a connection between that
announcement and Isaiah 9:6. Often that announcement is abused, twisted,
made to be a support for some sort of pacificism or
absence of war, but that is not really what that verse says or what Isaiah
says. It is not for today, as we will see.
The word for peace in the Old Testament is the word shalem,
from whence we get our word shalom, which is used over 250 times in the Old Testament. It is usually translated with one of
three words in the Septuagint (LXX), where the rabbis in Alexandria, Egypt
translated the Old Testament into Greek – salvation, peace or complete,
which is a very good translation for shalom.
It indicates the absence of physical war, conflict or strife about 50
times. In some cases, it refers to
a state of wholeness where there is not a state of antagonism or enmity with
God. But it is clear from Isaiah
32:17 and other passages that that state of harmony between God and man, as
Paul has said in Romans 3-5, is the result of man possessing righteousness. A
third meaning has to do with the peace offerings that were given as part of the
Levitical offerings.
What we first have to do now is to look at the context of
Scripture. Sometimes people get
the misunderstanding that when you just read something in the Bible, you can
easily understand what is going on there.
That is not always true.
Whenever you open the Scripture, unless you are starting in Gen. 1:1,
you are starting in the middle of a conversation.
One night last week, after leaving the grocery store, I
turned on the radio in the car. A
caller had called in and was talking about the health problems of someone and
how there was possibly liver failure or some other problem. She had continued to feed him, and he
continued to lose weight. I
wondered if she was talking about her husband or maybe her father. Then they closed out the conversation,
and the doctor made some suggestions.
Then they went to the show’s closing where I found out it was a
veterinarian’s show. She was
talking about her dog. There are
always little things that we might miss that cause us to make guesses that are
wrong about whatever it is that is being talked about in Scripture. We have to always understand context.
I am going to show you a sign that appeared outside a
business in Florida, and I bet most of us would think this was a rather
inflammatory sign. “We would rather do business with 1,000 Al Qaeda terrorists
than with one single American soldier!”
What is the context? It is
outside of a funeral home. Context
is extremely important.
When we look at Isaiah 7, the context is war, an alliance
that is developed against the house of David by the Northern Kingdom of Israel
and the Syrian kingdom. They have
tried to woo King Ahaz, the king of Judah, to join
them in a war against Assyria. Ahaz was at least smart enough to not join them. Because Ahaz’s spiritual nature is being evaluated, he is usually
painted in Scripture as one of the bad kings because he did evil in the sight
of the Lord and promoted idolatry.
From what we know of history, he was also a fairly powerful and
intelligent king.
The issue that we find in this chapter is the issue related
to the house of David. Isaiah 7:2
“And it was told to the house of David…”
I have looked around in other places in Scripture, and this is an
uncommon way to address the king of Judah as the house of David. So obviously if you are familiar enough
with Scripture and you read this phrase, that ought to stand out and say, “Why
is the emphasis on the house of David and not King Ahaz?”
We looked at the Davidic Covenant last week. There are three elements to the promise
of God in the covenant. There is
the promise of an eternal house, an eternal kingdom, and an eternal
throne. Right away we know from
the way the text is written in 2 Samuel 7:12-13 for example, God promises that
this descendant identified as David’s seed is human and a male. “When your days are fulfilled and you
rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from
your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name,
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” There is an element
here that suggests he is not just going to be human but eternal, not just a man
who lives forever and ever. 2
Samuel 7:16 “And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever
before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” Three times we have this
statement that this is an eternal individual, eternal house, eternal kingdom
and eternal throne.
(Points 1-4) We have the issue of the war against the house
of David and the security of the Davidic Covenant. Is God able to protect the descendant of David on the throne
of Judah or is the Davidic Covenant threatened? (Isaiah 7:2) God directed Isaiah to take his young
son, Shear-Jashub, to meet with King Ahaz (Isaiah 7:3).
This is not emphasized too much.
God gives Isaiah the precise warning for Ahaz. This begins in verse 4. “Take heed, and
be quiet; do not fear or be fainthearted …” There are four commands there,
and all are 2nd person masculine singular pronouns. He is not addressing a group but an
individual.
(Points 5-6)
God then ordered Ahaz to ask for a sign.
(Isaiah 7:10-12). Normally that
would be presumptuous for a king to ask God for a sign or miracle, but since
God is the one who has made the command to ask for a sign, it is presumptuous
and arrogant for Ahaz to not ask for a sign, which he
does in verse 12. “But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord!’
” It may sound good, but it is distorted.
Then Isaiah responds to him in verse 13 with a message from
the Lord and addresses it to the house of David, not to Ahaz. This is the introduction to the key
Messianic prophecy in verse 14. It
is addressed to the house of David, which is a plural idea, not to just the
singular Ahaz.
Basically what Isaiah says is “Is it a small thing for y’all to weary
men but will y’all weary my God also?”
(I put the “y’alls” in there so you know it is
the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and Isaiah has got a good Southern accent.)
Isaiah
7:14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you
[y’all] a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call
His name Immanuel.” Immanuel means
“God with us.” It is two or three
words in the Masoretic text. Im (with) and then manu
(nu ending is first person plural meaning us) and then el (God). It literally means God with us. This is really an important term. At Christmas time, we look at Isaiah 7 and 9, but we do not
look at Isaiah 8. Isaiah 8 is
really important because it connects chapter 7 and 9 together as a singular
unit, and the key word is Immanuel.
The
sign is going to be a virgin, ha’almah. The ha
there is the Hebrew definite article, indicating that it is not just any virgin
but the virgin. There is precedent
in Scripture, and the reader should know who this is talking about. We ought to be able to look back in
Scripture and figure out if there is something that we have heard before that
would tell us about this virgin.
There
has been a lot of debate about the word almah. There are two words in Hebrew that are potential words for
expressing a virgin, but neither are precisely equivalent to the word
virgin. The word almah,
if we look at all the ways it is used in Scripture, always refers to a young,
unmarried woman of marriageable age.
There are a couple of places where marriage is not in the context, and
the word really does not have much around it to clarify it. The clear rule in interpreting
Scripture is to go with the known and do not try to interpret the clear and
explicit with something that is unclear and vague. Yet often people will say, “See this exception over here in
this verse. Because we do not
really understand this, we cannot understand these other 59 uses.” This is backward.
Almah is
unmarried and young. She has just
reached the age of puberty, and, unlike our culture, when that happened in the
Middle Eastern cultures, she is now of marriageable age. The difference between batulah
and almah is that batulah was a word that was used
for a virgin, an unmarried woman of any age. Almah emphasized that she is very young
and has just reached the age where she can be married and have children.
Another
interesting thing here is that the Hebrew does not say, “Behold, the virgin SHALL
conceive.” It is much more
emphatic than that. It states,
“The virgin is pregnant or behold, the pregnant virgin.” It is a sign – behold, the virgin
is pregnant! How can that be? There is a sense of surprise and being
astounded that this has happened.
The wording indicates that there is something extremely unusual going on
here.
One
of the problems we have seen in the way different translations, especially
liberal Christian theologians, have tried to handle this is to minimize
this. “Almah
really does not mean a virgin. We
are going to translate this the young woman.” That happened when they translated the Revised Standard
Version back in the 1950s. It so
upset conservatives that there was a boycott by conservative Christians on the
whole Revised Standard Version for decades. Anybody who was a Bible believer would not buy that
“horrible, blasphemous, piece of trash” because it denied the virgin birth by
translating Isaiah 7:14 as simply the young woman.
The
Septuagint translators, the rabbis who translated the Hebrew Old Testament into
Greek in the 2nd century BC,
understood exactly what this was saying.
In the Greek translation, they used the same word we have in Luke which is parthenos [parqenoj], meaning the
virgin. The Parthenon in Greece,
which is a very famous temple to Athena, is there because she is the virgin
goddess – that is the legend.
The
Jewish rabbis understood this as a Messianic prophecy that she was a virgin,
and it was understood to be a Messianic prophecy well into the early centuries
of Christianity. It was not until
almost 1000 years later that some Jewish rabbis finally were able to conjure up
a way to interpret this without sounding like it supported the Christians.
The
Hebrew text in Isaiah 7:14 makes it very clear that the virgin is pregnant, and
she will bear a Son. Obviously
this Son is human – human mother/human Son. But the Son is going to be called Immanuel, meaning God with
us. They are naming a human son
God, which indicates this Son will have the attributes of deity.
The
idea that they should understand something about who this virgin is goes back
to when God states the curse to Eve in the garden and makes it clear there is a
promise there also. Genesis 3:15
(addressing the serpent) “And I will put enmity [lack of peace] between you and
the woman, and between your seed [Satan’s descendants who follow him in his
thinking] and her Seed [reference to the Messiah]…” This is thought to be the first
indication of the gospel. “…He
[her Seed] shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
With
this name “God with us,” we know the child is going to be a human but also
divine. Isaiah 7:15
says “Curds and honey He [Immanuel] shall eat, that He may know [purpose
clause]…” This indicates that He
is eating this diet for a purpose of coming to learn something – “…to
refuse the evil and choose the good.”
This is not a son who will ever choose the evil; he will always choose
the good. That supports the view
that the divine/human child born here is not going to sin.
There
are also a lot of questions about what the significance is of the curds and
honey. If we look at Isaiah 7:17
ff, we learn that this is not the diet, as some have suggested. A lot of
commentaries will say that curds and honey is the diet of the aristocracy or
royalty. But that is just the
opposite. When you read the text,
you see in verse 22 “…for curds and honey everyone will eat who is left in the
land.” Those who are left in the
land are those who are left after the horrible deprivations caused by the
invasion of the Assyrians. Curds and honey is an expression of the somewhat
restricted and impoverished diet of a people who are under oppression.
So
the child of the virgin who is eating the curds and honey indicates he is
living in a time when Israel is under oppression and
that he is learning something in his humanity under oppression. He sees the consequence of sin and that
teaches him to refuse the evil and choose the good. This gets confusing because the key to understanding verses
13-15 is the fact that in 13-14 we have a focus on you, plural, which refers to
the house of David. Verse 15 is a continuation of verse 14 because it is still
talking about Immanuel. He is
speaking to the house of David.
God is going to keep the promise to David; the security of the house of
David is sound.
Then
there is another change. There is
the word “you” used (vs. 16), and it the 2nd person singular. We have all these 2nd person
singulars addressing Ahaz. Then we have verses 13-15 dealing with the plural,
addressing the house of David. Now
we are back to the sign for Ahaz. The sign that is mentioned in verse 14
is the sign for the house of David.
This
is important, but you will read 95% of evangelical scholars today who will say
this is an example of dual fulfillment.
You have a fulfillment in the near, immediate future for Ahaz to give him confidence that his dynasty will not go
down, and then you have the far ultimate fulfillment. This idea of dual fulfillment is extremely dangerous in
hermeneutics. The general
principle in hermeneutics is the single meaning of Scripture. There is no such thing as dual fulfillment. The one fulfillment of verse 14 is
Jesus Christ, not the son that would be born to Isaiah, which is usually
suggested.
The
reason they go that way is they conveniently ignore the singular and plural
pronouns. That always flows from
people who do not believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture, so
they play fast and loose with the text.
Isaiah
7:16 “For before the Child…” In most of your Bibles, I bet “the
Child” is upper case; it is in the NKJV. But there is no upper or lower case in
the Hebrew. So verse 16 says, “For
before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land
that you [Ahaz] dread will be forsaken by both her
kings.” The Hebrew with the
definite article with Child is often used as a demonstrative. It should be translated “For before THIS
child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good [before he is old
enough to make moral decisions], the land that you [Ahaz]
dread [Northern Kingdom and Assyrians] will be
forsaken by both her kings.” You
do not need to worry about this threat.
Then there is a promise that comes up following that that deals with
what will happen when the Assyrians hit.
I
want to emphasize this. There are
two prophecies here: one to the house of David and one to Ahaz. The one to the house of David concerns
the Messianic promise that God will fulfill his promise to David. The second prophecy is related to Ahaz, using singular pronouns, and promises deliverance
before Isaiah’s young child is old enough to know the difference between right
and wrong.
Just
to summarize the next section, in Isaiah 7:18 “And it shall come to pass in
that day that the Lord will whistle for the fly that is in the farthest part of
the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.” The bee is introduced and refers to the
military of Assyria. It recognizes that the bee in Assyria
is going to come and wipe out the land, so that nothing is left except honey
and curds. In verses 21-25, the
land is spoken of as being so impoverished after the Assyrian invasion that a
person will have only one young cow and two sheep. The result will be that everyone is scratching for food,
“everyone will eat curds and honey” (verse 22). It is the food of oppression.
Then
we get into Isaiah 8:1-10, and there is a description in the first 10 verses of
all that is going to happen. In
verse 8 as Isaiah is describing the devastation of the Assyrian army, he says
“he will pass through Judah, he will overflow and
pass over, he will reach up to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings
will fill the breadth of Your land, O Immanuel.” Any Jew who has read the Torah knows that the land
of Israel is God’s land; it is not a human being’s
land. Here the statement is that
this is “Your land, O Immanuel” reinforcing the view that Immanuel is God. But Immanuel who is God is going to be
born to a virgin.
In
verse 9-10 “Be shattered, O you peoples, and be broken in pieces! [the destruction of the Assyrians]… Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing; speak
the word, but it will not stand, for... [for what?]”
Your
English version translates this. Note it transliterated it the first two times.
It is the same word in Hebrew - God is with us, Immanuel. By not paying attention to the
original, you miss the dots that you need to connect to keep the string of
pearls together.
You
have Immanuel in chapter 7, Immanuel twice in chapter 8 to show that we are
still in the same context, and then the end of chapter 8, it connects this
coming of the Lord of hosts (verse 13-15) to the sanctuary, which is the
temple. It says the Lord of hosts
is going to be “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” That phrase is used of Jesus in the New
Testament, who becomes a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Verse 14-15 “…as a trap and a snare to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and many among them shall
stumble…” That is exactly what
happens when you get into the New Testament. Over what do they stumble? They stumble over the Lord of hosts.
In
verses 16-22, Isaiah emphasizes that YHWH is
the only hope. But instead, Israel
at that time was seeking hope in idols, New Age necromancy, mediums,
astrologers – trying to get answers from everywhere except the revelation
of God.
The
context then in chapter 9 is one of oppression and gloom. Light appears in Galilee
to the Gentiles. The first two
verses are quoted in the gospels to indicate the appearance of Jesus, the
Messiah, is the light appearing to the Gentiles. It is in that context of war that we have this promise of a
Child who will be born, who will be called the Prince of Peace.
Remember
the focus of much of Isaiah is on the coming of the Messiah. There is no suggestion in Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel or any of the prophets in the Old Testament that there is a
time gap in the sense of two comings of the Messiah – that he will come
once to suffer and once to reign.
They are blended together.
The Messiah is going to come and be a suffering Messiah (Isaiah
53). He is going to be a royal
Messiah, which is the emphasis here.
He is both – there are not different Messiahs. There are two different events that
define His ministry.
In
Isaiah 2:4, the promise is made regarding the future kingdom that “He [Messiah]
shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people…” At that time when the Messiah appears,
then all the nations on the earth (Isaiah 2:1-3) are going to stream to Jerusalem
to worship at the temple. There
God will (vs. 4) “judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they [the goyim, the
people, the nations] shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears
into pruning hooks…”
This
is taken out of context and is emblazoned over the entry to the United Nations
building. This shows they have a
high view of themselves and have defined a messianic role for themselves to end
all war and all violence. But what
Isaiah 2:4 tells us is that only when the Messiah comes as the true King of
Righteousness will there be genuine peace, physical lack of conflict, no war on
earth. It will not happen until then. I do not know what the statistics are
now. When I was in college and
taking military science courses, they gave us statistics that between the end
of World War 2 and roughly 1972 (almost 30 years, 360 months), there was
something like 700-800 wars or armed conflicts. That is almost two or three a month somewhere in the
world. There is no peace
whatsoever – just wars and rumors of wars continue to increase. Peace is not becoming more common; it
is becoming less common.
Among
Jewish translators, there are a number of different ways of handling the titles
in Isaiah 9:6-7 that are given to this Child who is born. The 1917 Jewish Publication Society (Tanach)
chose to ignore the problem and transliterate his name Pele-joez-elgibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom.
That way nobody is going to get
confused about who this person is because they just cannot read the
Hebrew. Christians do the same
thing when it comes to baptism.
Rather than translating it immerse, they translate it baptism. That way they avoid the problem.
It
is clear from Isaiah 9:6 in the Hebrew text, which is one verse off from the
English text, that it is talking about the Messianic kingdom and the throne of
David. “…upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and
to uphold it through justice and through justice and through righteousness from
henceforth even for ever…”
The
1985 JPS (Tanach) translates it “The Mighty God is planning grace; the
Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler.”
They are inserting verbs where there is just a series of titles. The titles look something like
this. The first one is pele (Wonderful), a term that is only used of God and
refers to someone who works a wonder or miracle. It is used of a miracle or the one who performs the miracle,
so this represents something extraordinary or is always associated only with
God.
The
second title is Counselor; it is not Wonderful Counselor. It is Wonderful (comma) Counselor, as
it was translated in the NKJV. Ya’etz – the One who plans
or Advisor. The third title is
Mighty God, El
Gibbor. Gibbor is often used of warriors, so it
is the Mighty Warrior God (interesting because of that juxtaposition with being
the Prince of Peace). Then Abiyad.
Abi meaning my father or the father of, and yad
meaning eternity. The Father
of Eternity,
which is an idiom for One who is eternal or who has existed from the earliest
of times. This is similar to Micah
5:2.
The
last phrase is that He is the Prince of Peace. We are in Isaiah 9 and have already read Isaiah 2, talking
about when He comes and rules in the Davidic kingdom. They will at that time beat their swords into plowshares and
their spears into pruning hooks.
Now we are talking about His same rule in Isaiah 9:7 “…upon the throne
of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and
justice…”
This
is a time of peace. What kind of
peace is this in the context of Isaiah?
Is it mental peace or lack of worry? Is it peace with God in a soteriological
sense like we have in Romans 5? Or
is this peace in the sense that when the Messiah, the greater Son of David,
comes, He will establish true world peace, and there will not be any more
wars. I think it is the latter;
that is the context of Isaiah.
Luke
2:1 “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar
Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Luke was a physician by training, and he is a detail
person. There are more details in
Luke about the same stories than are found in Matthew and Mark. We have indication from Acts that
during the time that Paul was incarcerated in Caesarea by the Sea for two
years, Luke is going around in Judea and Galilee interviewing everybody who
knew Jesus. It was less than 30
years from the crucifixion. He is
getting eyewitness accounts; he spoke to Mary and to Jesus’ brothers and
sisters. He has interviewed
everybody who had anything to do with the life of Jesus. He is writing an historical account for
the purpose of convincing Theophilus, the one to whom
he is writing, that Jesus is indeed the fulfillment of the Old Testament
prophecies. Theophilus was probably a Greek or Roman.
He
locks it down in space/time on a specific incident. This is not just something that is generic; it is when
Caesar Augustus sent out this decree.
Then he expands on that in Luke 2:2 “while Quirinius
was governing Syria.” There is some difference in terminology, but we have been
able to lock down a Quirinius who governed Syria. It seems that he had an administrative
position at two different times: once was from about 7-3 BC and then again from
5-11 AD, which puts the birth of Jesus
not at zero but probably around 4 or 5 BC.
We
are told that everyone had to register, so (verse 4) “Joseph also went up from
Galilee [You always go UP
from Galilee because in Israel up is in elevation, not like for us where up is
north and down is south], out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city
of David, which is called Bethlehem [House of Bread, where the Bread of Life
will be born], because he was of the house and lineage of David.” Joseph is a descendant of David and is
(verse 5) “to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife [not married yet and
in that stage of betrothal], who was with child. (Verse 6) So it was, that
while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. (Verse 7) And she brought forth her
firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.”
The
word inn here is an unfortunate translation. It is the same word that was used when Jesus sent the
disciples to find the upper room.
When you go to Jerusalem, there are three or
four different places where they say the upper room was. In these historical places over there,
like the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, they
say that was exactly where He was born.
Historical evidence indicates that there is probably a 98% that they are
right. Same
thing with the Church of the Holy Seplulchre.
When
it comes to the upper room, on a scale of 1-5 – 1 being that is just pure
guess work and 5 being that is 98% sure – the upper room is probably at
zero. It is just made up in three
or four different locations.
Houses were built with an upper room which is the guest room. They left it up because it was usually
warmer, so it was the least comfortable room in the house. If it was in the winter months or
inclement weather, there was kind of a lower area where they would let the
sheep and cows come in to get out of the weather. If you did not get there in time at Christmas and your
cousins got there first, they got the upper room, and you got stuck sleeping
with the sheep.
There
is not an inn here. It is not the
concept that we have all grown up with of Motel 6 or Holiday Inn. It is more the idea that the guest room
was already taken because they got there late, and they are
having to sleep with the animals.
That is why when Jesus is born, He is laid in
the manger.
Luke
2:8 “Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields,
keeping watch over their flock by night.”
They are there because this was where the temple flock was kept. The sheep for the sacrifices in the
temple had to be kept close to the temple, within four miles. Bethlehem is
very close to Jerusalem. When you are standing on the Temple
Mount and look at the horizon, you see the big white
wall that the Israelis have built to keep the Arabs out. Just on the other side of that white
wall is Bethlehem. You can walk there, but it is not through the best part of
town.
The
shepherds are out on that north side of Bethlehem
towards Jerusalem. (Verse 9) “And behold an angel of the Lord [It is clear
there is no definite article, so it is not THE
angel of the Lord from the Old Testament, who is the preincarnate
Christ] stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” Where do you get a picture of the glory
of the Lord in the Old Testament?
The most vivid is Isaiah 6:1-6, when Isaiah is before the Lord in all of
His glory in the heavens. Here the
glory of the Lord is now bursting forth on the earth. It is interesting to observe that here it is dark and when
Jesus is born, everything becomes light.
At the end of His life in the middle of the day at high noon when
everything is to be bright and He is crucified for our sins, everything goes
dark.
Verse
10 “Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.’ ” This comes right out of Isaiah; this is
not just for the Jews but for all the nations. Verse 11 “For there is born to you this day in the city of
David a Savior [soter/ swthr], who is
Christ the Lord [meshiach, Messiah]. (Verse 12) And this
will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths,
lying in a manger.” (Verse 13)
Instead of one angel, there is now a multitude, almost an innumerable number.
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
[antiquated word for army] praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’ ” That is how we read it in the NJKV. In the NASB, NIV, ESV or
one of the other translations, it will read “Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased [or people of favor, people
of goodwill]!”
The
difference is that the Majority Text manuscripts read “goodwill toward men” in
the nominative case. The Greek
word that is translated there is the word eudokia [e)udokia]. It does not mean goodwill. It is not that God is going to pat
everyone on the head and give them goodwill. It is a word that is always associated with the gracious
benevolence of God towards undeserving mankind. When we read goodwill, it is a word that picks up a lot of
the ideas of grace. They are
making an exclamation that this is a demonstration of God’s grace to mankind.
In
the NASB and other translations, they
base this on basically three older texts: Siniticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus. There are those within the history of
textual criticism who think that if those three wise men agree, then so be
it. But that is not right.
This
coming March 2012, we are going to have three lectures on textual criticism by
Dr. Ron Minton at the Chafer Conference.
We are wrapping the conference with a course offering that we need to
film for Chafer Seminary on textual criticism that will be about 20 hours
long. I had a conversation at the
Pre-Trib Conference with Ron Hart, who is Professor
of Bible at Moody Bible Institute.
He talked to Maurice Robinson, who is one of the greatest living experts
since Zane Hodges died a few years ago, about the Majority Text. Ron Hart said Robinson made the point
that there are dozens of whole verses that are in the Critical Text – not
just a word here or there – that are in the NASB,
NIV, ESV but are not in the Majority Text at
all. That is one of the many
reasons that I tend to lean (and I am no textual critic) toward the Majority
Text.
That
would read that this is a subject, nominative case noun, indicating God’s
gracious benevolence toward mankind in giving the Savior. Rather than He is wishing peace among
people with whom He is pleased.
That can have some theological problems. I think the text is better to go with the reading of the NJKV,
but not quite because goodwill does not capture the idea. It is divine goodness or grace toward
mankind.
What
is the peace that is being announced here? We certainly know from other passages of Scripture that
because of Christ’s mission to die on the cross for sins, there is peace with
God. Is that what this is talking
about? We know from other passages
of Scripture that if you are a believer trusting in God, then we have a peace
that passes all understanding.
Philippians 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus.”
The
peace that is here in Luke 2:14, I believe, is a Messianic peace. What is being announced in the
beginning of Jesus’ ministry is from John the Baptist. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand – the Messiah is here.”
Then Jesus came and His message during the first 2 ½ years of His
ministry was “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He sent out His disciples only to the
house of Israel and to the house of Judah. The first 2 ½ years of Christ’s
ministry is presenting Jesus as the King, the descendant of David, who would
establish His kingdom and a rule of peace upon the earth based on all the
prophecies of Isaiah.
When
the angel appears to Joseph and says not to put Mary aside because (Matthew 1:21)
“she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus [Yeshua],
for He will save His people from their sins.” This clearly anchors this whole context in the Messianic
prophecies of the Old Testament, which Luke 2: 11
does as well. “For there is born
to you this day in the city of David [Bethlehem,
Micah 5:2 prophesied] a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The announcement of the angels fits all
of the glory that is going on in the heavens; a huge angelic army announcing
His birth. Luke does not talk
about the Magi, but they come and bring gifts for royalty, for a king (gold,
frankincense and myrrh). Everything
that wraps around the birth of Jesus is about the birth of a King.
This
is why Herod got so upset because the Magi were looking for the King of the
Jews and were not looking for him.
He thought he was the king.
He was scared to death because they were from Parthia. The Magi usually anointed the king, the
emperor of Parthia. They had already conquered Judea
once and run Herod out of town. He
had to flee to Rome, whining to the Romans to come
and rescue him because he could not defend his kingdom (about 30 BC).
Everything
about the birth of Jesus is about the birth of this promised Old Testament
Messianic King. When the angels
are making this announcement, they are announcing that the King is here. That is what the gospels are about
– the King came. But the
King was rejected, went to the cross, and paid the penalty for sin in that
crucifixion. He will come back as
the King. The kingdom has been
postponed, and there will be no peace, as announced here, until He returns
according to Isaiah 2:4. Only when
He establishes that kingdom will there be peace on earth. That peace on earth is going to be the
result of the fact the He has made peace with God because of sin. He is the peace offering on the cross
that provides peace for those who are justified, peace with God, so that we are
no longer at enmity with Him. That
is our Christmas present.