Good Will Towards Men

Christmas cards frequently proclaim, and Christmas carols echo, the well-known angelic pronouncement at Jesus’ birth of “peace on earth, good will toward men.”[1] Or do they? A closer look at the actual passage in Luke 2:14Open in Logos Bible Software (if available) proves both intriguing and illuminating. In context, Luke opens his narrative of the birth of Jesus Christ regarding the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus (31/27 BC–AD 14) who presided over the “Golden Age” of Rome and was widely heralded for having ushered in the period of Pax Romana, the “Roman peace.” Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus, the Roman “Prince of peace.” In keeping with Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus, too, came as the “Prince of peace,” and yet, the peace he came to bring was of an entirely different kind (cf. Isa 9:6Open in Logos Bible Software (if available); see also John 14:27Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)). Jesus’ peace was not coercive, backed up by Roman military might; it was an otherworldly, supernatural peace—peace with God—that no human power can procure and no amount of money can buy.

In God’s providence, the census ordered by Caesar Augustus brought Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father, and Jesus’ mother Mary from Nazareth where they lived to Joseph’s ancestral home of Bethlehem, the town of David. Per Micah’s prophecy, this was the city where the Messiah was to be born (cf. Mic 5:2Open in Logos Bible Software (if available), cited in Matt 2:6Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)). In the tradition of David, the shepherd-king, it was there—in Bethlehem—that Mary gave birth to Jesus. Local shepherds became the bewildered recipients of an angelic visitation pronouncing good news: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:11–12 NIVOpen in Logos Bible Software (if available))