In His Name Devotionals
PEACE ON EARTH
In His Name Devotionals
PEACE ON EARTH
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14)
“...and on earth peace...” Peace with God; peace with nature by a life in harmony with its laws; peace with other men; peace in the individual soul, all its faculties and powers working together in perfect harmony; peace with conscience with conscience by forgiven sin; perfect victory over sin which is the destroyer of peace. It includes all the blessings, happiness, and prosperity, which perfect peace makes possible. It includes all that makes Heaven be Heaven in outward and inward joy. This peace is the fruit of the Gospel in each soul that receives it, and the ultimate result of the Gospel in all the world. And even now the rays of this peace are illuminating the mountain-tops of human experience —the pledge and the promise that at length the time is sure to come.
“...good will toward men...” expresses God’s feelings and purpose toward us; a divine revelation of what was but dimly known before; and exactly meets the deepest needs of man.
What the world needed to know was that God had good-will toward all men; that the holy God loved this sinful, rebellious, unworthy world, lying in darkness and the shadow of death; that the Father loved His wandering, prodigal children, all defiled with sin. To bring this message, to publish the glad tidings that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life,”—this was worthy of the whole host of angel messengers to bring to man.
The coming of the Christ has inaugurated that which shall be for the glory of God in the highest and shall bring peace on earth, and this shall be among men; and men are they in whom God has invested all, looking to them for the fulfillment of His hopes, the source of His delight, the accomplishment of His highest will.
The age-long failure of men can never altar the fact that the end toward which all God’s creative activity has moved, from the beginning even until now, is the fulfillment of God’s will in and through men.
