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. I. THE ADVENT OF CHRIST WAS GOOD TIDINGS TO THE SLAVE. When He came, a large part of the race were held in abject servitude. Slavery prevailed extensively in cultivated Greece, in imperial Rome, and even in Palestine — in the very shadow of the temple of the Most High. Some Roman masters held from ten to twenty thousand slaves, and the condition of the slave was hard in the extreme. He was treated and held simply as a "thing"; bought and sold as men deal in sheep and horses, he was absolutely the property of his master; he had no rights as a man — no place under the law; could be beaten, scourged, and put to death at the will of the master. Such was the condition of half the world when the angel choir sang their Gloria in Excelsis. But that song was the death-knell to human bondage. The Infant that lay in the manger hard by was to be the great Deliverer. Glorious emancipation! Glorious harbinger of that spiritual liberty which Christ is yet to achieve! II. THE ADVENT OF CHRIST WAS GOOD TIDINGS TO THE LABOURER. The mass of men belong to the labouring class — are forced to earn their bread in the sweat of their brows. The honour, the dignity, of labour was not at all understood before Christ's advent. Philosophers taught that all forms of manual labour were degrading. In Rome only three kinds of occupation were considered respectable, viz.: medicine, commerce, and architecture. Free men had to work side by side with slaves. But Christ taught a new doctrine. He consecrated and made honourable all honest labour, both by the precepts He taught and by His own example. And just as the spirit and teachings of the great Master prevail, the labouring classes will be elevated and prosperous, and human society will approximate the heavenly world. III. THE ADVENT OF CHRIST REVEALED TO EARTH THE TRUE IDEA OF HUMANITY. The ancients had no just conception of man as man. At best, he was considered of no account, except as related to the State or the crown. IV. THE ADVENT OF CHRIST WAS GOOD TIDINGS TO THE FAMILY. The ancients had very imperfect ideas about it. Marriage was simply the means the State had to produce citizens. But, oh, the power, the blessedness, of the religion of Jesus on the family !V. THE ADVENT OF CHRIST WAS GLAD TIDINGS BECAUSE IT GAVE THE WORLD A NEW HOPE, The song of the angels on that eventful Christmas morning was the song of hope to a despairing world. (D. W. Lusk.) 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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