| Christian Life and Doctrine | December 1975 |
“Glad Tidings of Great Joy”
AT THIS time of year our minds go back to the words of the angel who announced to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem the birth of Jesus, saying, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people!” The birth of Jesus, while not the beginning of divine interest in man, was the first manifestation to him of God’s love and sympathy. Mankind needed first to learn the lessons of divine justice and divine power, and that these would be exercised in the punishment of sin. Of divine love we read: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”—I John 4:9
Not all have learned the relationship between the birth of Jesus, his earthly life, his crucifixion, and the future glorious outworking of God’s love for our race. What our Lord Jesus did at his first advent was merely a preliminary work—important, necessary, because only by the cancellation of the death penalty could the sinner be recovered. As it was a perfect man that sinned and came under the death penalty, so the Redeemer must be a perfect man, to die the Just for the unjust.—Rom. 5:12,15-19; I Pet. 3:18
The death of Jesus is the basis upon which the Millennial kingdom will be established. His death constitutes the purchase price for the whole world of mankind, because of which the world is to be turned over to him, that he may reign a thousand years in heavenly glory and power, for the uplift, the restitution to perfection, of Adam and his race, for whom he died more than nineteen centuries ago.—I John 2:2; Acts 3:19-21
Do we inquire, Why the long delay between the giving of the ransom price and the taking over of the purchased possession? The Bible answers that another part of God’s plan was meanwhile to be developed—the selection of the church. Throughout the past nineteen centuries God, through Christ, has been merely calling a saintly “little flock” out from the world, to be footstep followers of Jesus. He has not been attempting the conversion of the world during this age—hence it still lies in the Wicked One. The church, the “called ones,” become eventually, by a share in the first resurrection, Christ’s bride class—in glory, honor, and immortality. This faithful company have the Master’s promise that “if they suffer with him, they shall also reign with him,” in his kingdom. “Joy to the world” it surely will be, and will show the “wonders of God’s love”—but not until the joys of the church have first been perfected.—Rev. 14:1-7; Acts 15:13-18