Everything that God does can be boiled down to two purposes, and these two purposes are evident in the angels’ song in Luke 2. First, He works for His glory. The angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest.” We might react against God working for His glory, because we associate that with pride in humanity when we work for our own glory. But God seeking His own glory among humanity and within creation is actually a way in which He seeks our good. Humans flourish when they are accomplishing that for which they were created, and we were created to glorify God (Isa 43:7; 1 Cor 10:31). That leads into the second purpose behind God’s work: to work for human good. Again, the angels’ song is a prayer for God to bring peace to humanity with whom He is pleased. We see this evidenced elsewhere in the Scriptures, most famously in Romans 8:28 where Paul emphasizes that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love [Him], to those who are called according to His purpose.” In this we see that God is for us. Gods of human invention are fickle; sometimes they are for humanity and other times they are against us. This is because we are fickle. We sometimes work for the good of others, but mostly we work for the good of ourselves. However, God is unchanging. He is never fickle. And His plan is always for our good; it’s for our flourishing. We might not choose for the good to come to us the way that God plans for it to come, but nonetheless, it is for our good. And this is because God delights in His creation. He wants us to flourish; He wants us to have peace. It is our sinful rebellion that brings about the failure of flourishing and peace. But God has a plan to deal with human sinfulness and to bring that peace and flourishing to humanity. This is what we anticipate at advent as we join the angels’ song and prayer, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.” –Pastor Rory
Angels’ Song
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