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There are no apparent parallel gospel accounts of Luke 2:8-14.
In Luke 2:8-14, shepherds watching their flocks near Bethlehem are visited by an angel who announces the birth of the Savior and are then surrounded by a heavenly host glorifying God and proclaiming peace between God and men on earth with whom He is pleased.
Luke shifts the scene of his narrative about the birth of the Messiah and the manger where Mary laid Him (Luke 2:3-7) to the fields near Bethlehem where a group of shepherds are tending their flocks.
In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night (v 8).
The Shepherds of Bethlehem
The expression-In the same region-means the same region Luke has been describing. This region is the surrounding area of Bethlehem (Luke 2:4)-the town where Mary “gave birth to her son” (Luke 2:7).
Luke writes how in the vicinity of Bethlehem there were some shepherds.
In ancient Israel, shepherds were responsible for tending, guiding, and protecting their flock of sheep and goats. Shepherds had an essential but humble occupation in the agrarian economy of Israel. Shepherds often lived outdoors for extended periods, moving their flock to find pasture and water, and were skilled in using staffs and slings to defend against predators.
The expression-keeping watch over their flock- meant that at this time of night, these shepherds were guarding and protecting their flock rather than guiding them to a different spring or pasture.
According to Jewish tradition, the sacrificial Passover lambs were taken from the flocks in the same region of Bethlehem. Bethlehem is only about five miles south of Jerusalem so this would have been an area convenient to the temple.
Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem, was “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29b) and is “Christ our Passover [who] has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7b). It was with His “precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless” by which we have been redeemed (1 Peter 1:18-19). And Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins was “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).
The place that supplied sacrifices for the temple became the birthplace of the ultimate sacrifice. It is fitting that Jesus was born in the same region where the Passover lambs were raised, for His birth marked the arrival of the true Lamb who would redeem the world.
Though shepherding was vital to daily life and to temple worship (as sheep were used for sacrifices), shepherds were generally viewed as poor, socially marginalized, and ritually unclean due to their constant contact with animals, and their inability to consistently observe ceremonial laws. This negative opinion of shepherds appears to have increased with the rise of the Pharisees and the practices of their traditions.
For example, the Pharisees’ tradition-called “the Mishnah”-regarded shepherds as untrustworthy, and ineligible to provide testimony in legal matters (Mishnah. Rosh Hashanah 1.9). The Mishnah also viewed tax collectors and shepherds as robbers-tax collectors because they took for themselves more than what they were owed, and shepherds because they were perceived to be highway thugs who laid in wait to attack vulnerable travelers (Mishnah. Baba Kamma 94b).
Despite their low status in society, the image of the shepherd held deep spiritual meaning in Jewish thought. Abraham, the father of their people, was a shepherd (Genesis 13:2), as was his son and grandson who were heirs of the covenant (Genesis 26:12-14, 31:38-40). Moses was a shepherd (Exodus 3:1). And with a touch of prophetic significance for this particular moment, David, Israel’s greatest king, and the promised ancestor to the Messiah, was a shepherd (1 Samuel 17:15).
The mentioning of shepherds alludes to all these figures, but given the Messianic promise to David (2 Samuel 7:12-16) and the location (near Bethlehem), and the moment (the birth of the Messiah), the most poignant allusion of these men was likely to David. The fields near Bethlehem where these shepherds were keeping watch that night were likely some of the same fields that David shepherded his flocks when he was boy.
Similarly, Luke’s mention of shepherds also had strong allusions to God. God Himself is called the Shepherd of Israel (Psalm 23:1, Ezekiel 34:11-16).
Mary’s newborn son would grow up and later describe Himself as “the good shepherd [who] lays down His life for His sheep” (John 10:11).
In His earthly life, the Messiah and Son of God who was just born would fulfill Ezekiel’s prophecies, that the Lord God Himself “will search for [His] sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd…” (Ezekiel 34:11-16) and that God “will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them… and be their shepherd” (Ezekiel 34:23).
As “the good shepherd” (John 10:11), Jesus, the Son of God and the Messiah, is the perfect fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning both David and the Lord:
“And I, the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David will be prince among them.”
(Ezekiel 34:24a)
Returning to Luke’s narrative, he writes that these shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night.
These shepherds were doing their jobs-guarding and protecting the sheep of their flock.
While we are not told specifically the time when Jesus, the Messiah, was born, or even whether it was day or night, Luke tells us that the events of this passage and the angel’s sudden appearance and announcement to the shepherds took place at night. If we assume the angel’s appearance to the shepherds was roughly the same time as the birth, then we can presume Jesus’s birth was at night.
After describing the setting of a group of shepherds out in the fields near Bethlehem keeping watch over their flock at night, Luke then reports what happened.
And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened (v 9).
On the night that Jesus the Messiah was born, two things suddenly appeared to these shepherds while they were out in nearby fields keeping watch over their flock.
These two things were:
From Luke’s description it seems that both the angel and the glory of the Lord appeared to the shepherds suddenly and at the same instant. One moment everything appeared as usual or as expected for the shepherds; the sheep were grazing, the campfire glowed against the darkness, and the shepherds were amid their nightly routine, some may have been sleeping, then-suddenly-the scene majestically changed around them.
The Angel of the Lord
The first thing Luke describes that the shepherds saw was an angel of the Lord who stood before them.
The Greek word translated angel means “messenger.” Context determines what sort of messenger is in view. In this case the context makes clear that this angel is a supernatural messenger created by God to serve Him and carry out His purposes. Angels often appear in Scripture to deliver divine messages, provide protection, execute judgment, or offer guidance to humans.
A common response in Biblical accounts when people see an angel is surprise and/or fear. Luke writes how when these shepherds first saw the angel, they were terribly frightened.
Luke specifies that the angel was standing before them.
The phrase standing before them emphasizes the real, physical presence of the angel in this special moment of divine revelation. It signals that the angel was not appearing in a dream or vision. The angel’s form was visibly manifested, and his presence was directly perceptible. This was a personal visitation that confronted the shepherds face to face.
This posture-standing before them-also reflects the angel’s role as a messenger sent from God, one who comes with authority, urgency, and a message that demands attention and response.
This angel who stood before the shepherds of Bethlehem may have been the angel Gabriel or it may have been another angel-Luke’s Gospel does not say one way or the other.
The Lord sent the angel Gabriel to other humans to announce important events regarding the Messiah, including.
If this angel of the Lord who suddenly stood before the shepherds was in fact Gabriel, it would be fitting. It would have been fitting because nearly every time Gabriel appears in the Bible he describes or announces something about the Messiah-and this angel proclaimed the Messiah’s birth.
Again, we do not know if this angel was Gabriel or another angel, because Luke does not specify. But we do know that an angel of the Lord was suddenly standing before these shepherds.
The Glory of the Lord
The second thing Luke describes that the shepherds saw was the glory of the Lord which shone around them.
Luke’s expression-the glory of the Lord-likely refers to the Shekinah glory of the Lord.
The Shekinah glory of the LORD refers to the visible manifestation of God's divine presence dwelling among His people. The word Shekinah (שְׁכִינָה) is a Hebrew term meaning “dwelling” or “settling.” Although the term "Shekinah" does not appear in the Hebrew scriptures of the Old Testament itself, it was used in rabbinic literature to describe moments when God’s glory was tangibly present.
In the Old Testament, the glory of the Lord appeared as radiant light, or a cloud, or a pillar of fire. This overwhelming presence revealed God's holiness and majesty, and often caused people to fall on their faces in fear and reverence (Leviticus 9:23-24). Again, notice how Luke wrote that the shepherds were terribly frightened when the glory of the Lord shone around them.
The Shekinah glory of the Lord led the people of Israel through the wilderness by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22). Upon completion of the tabernacle, the Shekinah of the Lord filled the tabernacle to signal God’s presence.
“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”
(Exodus 40:34-35)
The glory of the Lord also filled the temple after Solomon dedicated it unto God (1 Kings 8:10-11). God’s glory presided in the temple until shortly before its destruction in 586 B.C.
After he was exiled to Babylon in 597 B.C. but before the city fell and Solomon’s temple was destroyed in 586 B.C., the prophet Ezekiel saw a series of visions where the glory of the Lord departed the temple and left the city of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 8-11). The key verses in these visions are Ezekiel 10:18 and Ezekiel 11:23:
“Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple.”
(Ezekiel 10:18)
“The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city.”
(Ezekiel 11:23)
Later, the temple of the Lord is destroyed. And there is no Biblical record of the glory of the Lord ever returning to the temple Nehemiah built when the Jews returned to their homeland from exile, or the expansion that Herod the Great (builder) made to it.
Until the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds the night Jesus was born, no one had seen the glory of the Lord for six hundred years.
This Shekinah glory signaled the return of the Lord’s presence among His people.
God manifested His Shekinah glory to announce the birth of His Son and the Messiah to the shepherds. God used His glorious presence (the glory of the Lord) to announce His presence in human form (the baby Jesus).
The glory of the LORD’s presence would not reside in a tent or building, but in a person-the baby who was born that day in the city of David-the baby Jesus, the Word become flesh (John 1:14) who is called “Immanuel-God with us” (Matthew 1:23).
Moses also promised that God would send a prophet like him who would speak God’s words directly in a manner in which they could hear (Deuteronomy 18:18). Moses made this promise after the people said, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die” (Deuteronomy 18:16).
Now Moses’s promised prophet has been born and He shall be the glory of the LORD among the people; He will be a “great light” (Isaiah 9:2). This great light, this testimony of the living glory of the Lord will shine in the darkness. And yet, men will love the darkness rather than the light (John 1:5).
Through the birth of Jesus, the glory of the Lord would dwell among mankind. Although Jesus was rejected by Israel’s leaders, many turned to Him. After Jesus returned to heaven, the glory of the Lord now dwells in the hearts of those who believe in Him through the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17, Acts 2;1-4, Romans 8:9, 1 Corinthians 3:16, 2 Corinthians 4:6-7).
Luke vividly described the shepherds’ reaction to seeing the angel standing before them and the glory of the Lord around them when he wrote how they were terribly frightened.
Luke’s Greek phrasing is emphatic. His expression could be more literally and descriptively translated “and they were afraid with mega-fear.”
The shepherds were fearful from the suddenness of the angel’s appearance, not to mention that the angel was a being from the spiritual realm. The shepherds were fearful of the Shekinah glory that radiated and shone around them. The power and brilliance of God’s holy presence gloriously surrounding them may have made them recognize the sinfulness of their hearts, which would have made them feel shame and terror.
But the angel did not appear in order to scare them, nor was the Lord’s visible glory around them for the purpose of terrifying the shepherds; rather, the angel and the Lord’s glory had come to encourage them with the good news which Israel had been waiting to hear since Moses and the prophets (Deuteronomy 18:18)-and-which the world had been waiting to hear since the day Adam and Eve were removed from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15).
The Angel’s Message to the Shepherds
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (vv 10-12).
The angel’s message to the shepherds can be divided into four parts:
The Angel’s Command to the Shepherds
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.”
The pronoun-them-refers to the shepherds.
Luke uses the conjunction-But-to contrast the shepherds’ terror with the angel’s gracious message for them.
The first thing the angel said to the shepherds was the command: “Do not be afraid.”
The shepherds had understandable cause to feel afraid when they saw the supernatural angel standing in front of them and the holy glory of the Lord which shone all around them.
But the shepherds did not need to be filled with terror, which was why the angel quickly told them to dismiss their fear.
The Angel Prepares the Shepherds for the Good News he is about to tell them
The second thing the angel said to the shepherds was: “for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.”
This part of the angel’s message accomplished three things:
The expression-for behold-called the shepherds to pay close attention to what the angel was about to say. This expression was often used in prophecy when the Lord was about to state what would happen, or when a prophetic instruction was given, or when a divine act of power was about to be displayed.
In this context-for behold-indicated that the angel was calling the shepherds to shift their focus from amazed terror to the wonderful news they were about to be told.
The reason the shepherds did not need to be afraid was because the angel was bringing them good news of great joy.
This helped the shepherds transition and adjust from their state of great fear into a state where they could hear and receive the angel’s message of great joy. (The shepherds would swing from mega-fear to mega-joy). The angel was preparing the shepherds for the good news he was about to bring them.
If the angel had only delivered the message without this preparatory step, the shepherds may have been too afraid to hear or understand what the angel told them and/or they might have missed that it was good and joyful news.
The angel told the shepherds that he was bringing them good news of great joy.
The Greek term that is translated as I bring good news is a form of the verb: εὐαγγελίζω (G2097-pronounced “eu-ang-ghel-id’-zō”). This verb is a verbal from of the Greek word for “gospel.” The Greek term for gospel is a compound word εὐ/“eu” = good and αγγελίovζω /“anghelion” = “message” or “news.” The Greek word for gospel literally means “good message” or “good news.”
Interestingly, the second part of the Greek word for gospel, the part that means “message” or “news” (“anghelion”) is similar in form to the Greek word for angel-“anghelos”-which means “messenger.” The heavenly messenger brings a joyful message from heaven.
The angel’s expression also could be rendered “I bring you a gospel of great joy.”
The angel’s good news is not just any good news. It is good news of great joy. It will be without exaggeration the greatest news Israel (and the world) has ever heard. This good news of great joy is the gospel of Jesus the Messiah and the redemption He will bring to Israel (and the world).
And the angel informed the shepherds that this good news/gospel will be for all the people.
In this context, the expression-all the people-means “all the people of Israel.”
The good news of Jesus’s birth would eventually be for all people of the world, but before it became that, it had to first be for all the people of Israel.
The good news of great joy which the angel was about to deliver to the shepherds was specifically for all the people of Israel and was to be shared with all the people of Israel.
The subject of the angel’s good news was the birth of the Messiah. The Messiah was Jewish. The Messiah was to redeem Israel. And the angel described the birth of the Messiah in Jewish terms, i.e. the city of David and Christ (Messiah). And these Jewish shepherds would have naturally understood the angel’s expression-all the people-to mean the nation of Israel.
While Jesus would be the Savior of the world (John 1:29) and a world-Messiah-“Light of men” (John 1:5) and “Light of the World” (John 8:12), He was first the Messiah of Israel (Matthew 10:5-6). And Jesus’s ministry was largely conducted in Israel among the Jews. Furthermore, His kingdom was first offered to (and rejected by) all the people of Israel (Luke 19:41-44, 23:23).
It was through Israel’s eventual rejection of Jesus as the Messiah that the good news of Jesus became available to the entire world. That the world’s salvation would come through Israel’s rejection of the Messiah was prophesied by Isaiah (Isaiah 49:1-7) and later explained by Paul (Romans 11:25-27).
But the message of salvation for the Gentiles would come later-after Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven.
The gospel broke through to the Gentiles after Jesus was rejected by Israel, the history of which is described by Luke in his sequel to his narrative of Jesus’s life-the Book of Acts. The first Gentiles to receive the Holy Spirit were in Caesarea; Cornelius the Roman centurion and his friends and family (Acts 10:45). But before these things happened, the Messiah had to be first presented to all the people of Israel.
Therefore, one of the reasons the angel came to tell the shepherds about the Messiah’s birth was so that they could begin the process of telling all the people of Israel that the Messiah had come.
There was a divine irony in God’s choice to have shepherds be the first human messengers to proclaim the birth of the Messiah. This is because as explained above, the Jewish Mishnah Laws-written and enforced by the scribes and Pharisees-considered shepherds to be unreliable witnesses who were prohibited from providing testimony in court.
But God does not see people the same way humans see people. God does not see merely the outward appearance of people. God sees our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7).
In choosing shepherds to tell Israel of His Son and the Messiah’s birth instead of the religious leaders, God is reversing the expectations of a corrupt world.
Presumably, in the eyes of the Jewish Council-the “Sanhedrin” which was seated by leading Pharisees (elders), scribes, and chief priests-testimony from a member of the Pharisees would have been considered highly credible, even as a shepherd’s testimony would have been ignored. When the religious leaders put Jesus on trial, their testimony was false, and they slandered and murdered Him (Mark 14:55-56). (See: Jesus's Trial, Part 1).
God’s choice of shepherds to be the ones to tell the people the good news of the Messiah’s birth is an instance of the last being first and the first being last (Matthew 20:16).
The Angel’s Announcement to the Shepherds
for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (v 11).
The essence of the angel’s good news was that the Messiah (Christ) whom all the people of Israel had long been waiting for was born here (in the city of David-the shepherds were in the fields near Bethlehem) and now (today).
The word today emphasizes how He has been born just now, on this day.
Because the angel said today, this suggests that the angel announced the Messiah’s birth to the shepherds on the same night that Jesus was born.
The angel’s expression the city of David emphasizes how He has been born here.
The city of David in this context refers to the city where King David was originally from. David was from the town of Bethlehem. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the city of David (Luke 1:4-7). And the shepherds were in the same region as Bethlehem, out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock. Therefore, the angel was communicating to them that the Christ has been born nearby-here.
The city of David is also a Messianic way to describe Bethlehem.
The LORD promised and made a covenant with David that he would have a descendant who would establish his house and rule on his throne forever (2 Samuel 7:12-13, 16). And centuries later, the prophet Micah foretold that a powerful ruler would arise from Bethlehem,
“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.”
(Micah 5:2)
Jewish leaders correctly interpreted Micah’s prophecy as connected to the Davidic covenant. And how the eternal “One” who “will go forth for the LORD to be ruler in Israel” was the same “descendant” (2 Samuel 7:12) promised to David whom God would “establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12).
Mary’s baby just born today in the city of David was the promised “descendant” (2 Samuel 7:12) and the “ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2) whom the prophets foretold, and the baby whose birth the angel was announcing.
Jesus was a descendant of David (Matthew 1:1, Luke 1:27, 3:23-31). Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-7). And when Gabriel visited Mary and told her that the Lord God would give her a son whose name was to be Jesus, he promised that God “will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end” (Luke 1:32b-33).
By describing Bethlehem as the city of David, the angel was alluding to the fact that Mary’s son was the one who would fulfill these Messianic prophecies. And later in this same part of the angel’s message-the angel explicitly identified Mary’s son as Christ.
The angel described Mary’s baby with three labels:
And it is these three labels that comprehend and outline the good news of great joy that is the gospel.
The first of these three labels is a Savior.
A Savior is literally someone who rescues or saves people from danger or harm; or who brings them to safety.
Whenever we see a word like Savior, save/saves, salvation (or any other term or account that describes salvation), it is critical that we consider the context, if we are to understand its meaning. That is, we must understand and ask these questions if we are to understand what salvation means:
In this instance, the angel clearly answers the first question “What is being Saved?” and the answer is you. The object of salvation in this context is explicitly: you.
The angel said: a Savior has been born for you.
In this context, the pronoun you means you-the shepherds, but it also means you-all the people of Israel. More broadly speaking it means you, whoever hears the angel’s report-which means “you who are reading this commentary.”
The child who has just been born in Bethlehem has come for the explicit purpose of saving you: the shepherds and all who hear this good news.
It is ironic that the One who is called the Lamb (Revelation 5:6-14) is also the One who will save the shepherds. Normally, shepherds are the ones who save their lambs.
But this child will not only save you (the shepherds), He has been born for the purpose of saving you: all the people of Israel.
The angel’s description of Mary’s baby as a Savior matched what an angel (months earlier) described to Joseph. An angel told Jesus’s adoptive father what Mary’s baby would do: “He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21b).
In fact, when that angel told Joseph this, he made a play on words with Jesus’s name. In Hebrew, Jesus’s name is “Yeshua” which means “the Lord’s salvation” or “God saves.” Therefore, when that angel told Joseph: “you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), he was saying: “you shall call His name [‘God saves’] because He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
John the Baptist would later depict Mary’s son in more visceral terms as a Savior:
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
(John 1:29b)
It is from the angel’s message to Joseph (Matthew 1:21) and John the Baptist’s description (John 1:29) (along with other scriptures) that we learn what it was that this child who was born in Bethlehem came to save all the people of Israel from. He was born to save them from their sins.
This answers salvation’s second question-“What is it being Saved FROM”?
The deliverance being gained in this use of the word savior is deliverance from sin. The shepherds who tended the flock that was sacrificed to atone for the sins of the people of Israel now have an angel announce to them what John the Baptist will later declare: that “This is the Lamb who will actually take the sins away” (John 1:29).
Before we continue, it would be appropriate if we are to grasp what made the angel’s message such good news of exceeding joy if we take a moment to explain what sin is and the destruction it havocs.
Sin is doing anything that disobeys God’s will. It is functioning in a manner that is outside God’s good design. Sin can be an external action, a spoken word, entertaining an evil thought, or harboring a selfish attitude. Sin is described as unrighteous because it disrupts the perfect harmony God designed into His created order.
Sin brings disunity, misalignment, and discord into God’s intended design of harmony. Sin divides and separates while God’s design is for many to be one.
Sin not only harms the unity of God’s good creation. It separates the sinner from God and brings discord within the sinner himself. The biblical word for this disunity, misalignment, discord, and separation is “death.”
The penalty or consequence for sin is death (Genesis 2:17, Romans 6:23a).
Physical death is the separation of our spirit and soul from our body. A person is dead when their spirit and soul no longer interact with the physical body (James 2:26).
Spiritual death is a person’s separation from having a relationship with God as a part of His family, as God originally designed. Sin separates the unredeemed from God and keeps them from being able to fulfill their designed purpose-which leads to frustration and futility.
Eternal death is being eternally separated from relationship with God. Those who are not found in the book of life are said to dwell forever in the eternal lake of fire (Matthew 25:41, 46a, Revelation 20:14-15). It may be that this lake of fire is God’s fully unveiled glory which is death for those not redeemed and made new. Eternal death can also be viewed as being eternally separated from the redemption God offers to all humanity to be fully restored from the devastating effect of the Fall, and be completely redeemed from sin.
Everyone has sinned and has condemned themselves to this terrible penalty of eternal death-forever separated from God (Romans 3:10-18, 23, Ephesians 2:1). This is not good or joyful news. It is terrible news. But it accurately describes our natural and unredeemed reality as sinners apart from God and His redemptive grace.
And what is worse, there is nothing we can do on our own to avert our doom. We cannot make up for our sin through doing good works, or through offering sacrifices, or any religious ritual. Because we have sinned and violated God’s Law, we have condemned ourselves under God’s Law and are accountable to its penalty of death (Romans 3:19). Therefore, “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight” (Romans 3:20).
This is not good news either. If anything, this is even worse news.
So where is the good news of great joy which the angel shared with the shepherds?
The good news of great joy is that a savior has been born for you this day in the city of David. The good news is that while we may not be able to fulfill God’s Law or escape from the penalty of our sin and guilt-a Savior has been born who will/did fulfill God’s Law (Matthew 5:17, John 19:30) and who can rescue us from the power and penalty of sin.
Jesus, Mary’s baby son, was born to be a Savior for you.
Paul describes Jesus’s accomplishment of salvation from sin:
“When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
(Colossians 2:13-14)
As a Savior, Jesus is the answer to salvation’s fourth question: WHO is doing the Saving?
In the context of Luke 2:11, Jesus the Savior.
And what Jesus saves people to is eternal life. Eternal Life is the answer to salvation’s third question-What is it being Saved TO or Saved FOR?-in this context.
The purpose of Jesus’s salvation is eternal life (John 10:10).
Eternal Life is both a Gift and a Reward/Prize.
The angel here in verse 11 is speaking of Jesus as a Savior who offers Eternal Life in broad terms, in the full scope of the good news and great joy of the gospel. Therefore, the angel is speaking of Jesus as a Savior who offers both the Gift of Eternal Life and the Prize of Eternal Life.
The Gift of Eternal Life includes:
The Prize of Eternal Life includes:
The answer to the fifth question of Salvation-What is required to gain Eternal Life?-is different for the Gift and the Prize of Eternal Life.
The requirement to gain the Gift of Eternal Life is faith in Jesus as God’s Son and your Savior and nothing else (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The Gift of Eternal Life is freely given. We cannot earn or become deserving of it. It is bestowed by grace and received through faith alone. Jesus earned salvation for the world, by following God’s will by faith unto death on the cross (Romans 3:21-26). His sacrifice on the cross paid the penalty for all the sins of the world (1 John 2:2).
Anyone who believes in Jesus as God and their Savior receives the Gift of Eternal Life (John 3:16).
Moreover, the Gift of Eternal Life, once received, cannot be lost or revoked (John 10:28-29, Romans 8:31-39, 11:29).
To gain the Prize of Eternal Life requires obeying God’s will which is to be sanctified, set apart from the world (1 Thessalonians 4:3). It means to endure and/or overcome life’s trials by faith in Jesus (Matthew 24:13, James 1:2, 12, Romans 8:17b, Revelation 3:21).
The Gift of Eternal Life is unconditional and freely granted to all who believe on account of what Jesus accomplished. The Prize of Eternal Life (also known as entering the Kingdom, or inheriting eternal life) is granted to believers who obey God’s word by faith to suffer with Jesus and overcome life’s trials. Because there are no standards above God, all rewards God grants are still a matter of His mercy (2 Timothy 1:16).
Most of the time when the New Testament discusses salvation, it is discussing the Prize (and not the Gift) of Eternal Life. This is in part because the New Testament was largely written for believers who had already received the Gift. The Old Testament is primarily written to God’s chosen people and the New Testament is primarily written to those who had already believed. Many of the New Testament books were written to instruct and encourage believers who were in the midst of trials or were being assaulted with false teaching. The New Testament writers loved these people and desired that they endure in their faith and obedience and win the Prize by living in a manner that was pleasing to God (Hebrews 11:6).
To learn more about the Gift of Eternal Life and the Prize of Eternal Life, see The Bible Says articles:
Jesus is our Savior in that He accomplished what was necessary to save us from our sins and offer us the Gift of Eternal Life. And Jesus is our Savior because He established the pattern of living by faith and provides believers with resurrection power that enables us to overcome our trials and obtain the Prize and Inheritance of Eternal Life (Romans 2:7, Matthew 7:13-14).
Jesus will also be a Savior because He will return to this earth and defeat and destroy Satan and his works forever and will establish a perfect peace in the new heaven and the new earth (Revelation 19-22).
The second title the angel ascribed to Mary’s son was Christ.
The good news of great joy which the angel delivered to the shepherds was that the Savior that was born for you was the long-promised Messiah.
The English word Christ is a transliteration of the Greek word = χριστός (G5547 - pronounced: “khris-tos”). It means “anointed one.” And χριστός is the Greek term that is used to translate the Hebrew word for Messiah: מָשִׁיחַ (H499-pronounced “maw-shee'-akh”) which also means “anointed one.”
Therefore, Christ and Messiah mean the same thing-“anointed one.”
The Bible used many names to describe the Messiah/Christ, including:
But the term Messiah/Christ was the most common, in part because David was anointed by God, and David, perhaps more than any other figure in the Jewish imagination, was strongly associated with God’s anointed (Christ).
The people of Israel had been waiting for centuries and had been anticipating the Christ’s birth in hope that He would redeem Israel and usher in God’s kingdom.
This was especially true during the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. when Rome occupied Judea. The people at that time were actively looking for the Christ to appear, as evidenced by the religious leaders’ questions of John the Baptist (John 1:19-20) and the people’s hope that John was “more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:9).
The Jews’ heightened expectation of the Christ’s appearance at this time was also because of Daniel’s prophecy.
Daniel had proclaimed “seventy weeks” before the Christ would come (Daniel 9:24). The Jews understood Daniel’s prophecy to mean seventy weeks of years, or 490 years. In this prophecy, the Christ would appear after sixty-nine weeks, 483 years after a proclamation was given to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem. During this time, many believed the end of the 483-year “prophetic clock” was approaching (Daniel 9:25). In hindsight, we know they were correct. Using one way to count the “clock,” Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey colt exactly 483 years after a decree to rebuild the wall.
Jesus was the Christ come to redeem and restore all the people of Israel.
As the Christ, Jesus came to redeem Israel from spiritual captivity to sin. And He would have liberated Israel from their political bondage from Rome and established His kingdom on earth, had they received Him. But they did not recognize or receive Jesus as the Messiah (Luke 22:42-44). And Jesus was rejected by His own people (Luke 23:20-23, John 1:10-11).
Finally, the third label that the angel used to describe Mary’s son to the shepherds was Lord.
Lord could refer to Jesus’s kingship and authority as the Christ. Jesus would be the Ruler Micah predicted would hail from the city of David (Micah 5:2).
Lord could also refer to Jesus’s identity as God.
Mary’s son Jesus was both the Christ and the Son of God (Luke 1:32, 35-see also Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:16).
Jesus was fully human. And Jesus was fully divine. This is paradoxical but true. Jesus’s dual nature as both fully God AND fully human is the foundation of the gospel (John 1:14). The divinity and the humanity of Jesus is the founding paradox of our faith.
The gospel would be meaningless and not be good news for all people without both aspects of Christ's identity being true.
But because He is both God and human, salvation is available to all who believe in Him (John 3:14-15):
“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.”
(1 Timothy 2:5)
These three titles: Savior-Christ-Lord-sum up the goodness and great joy of the gospel of Jesus.
Jesus is a Savior. He saves us from our sins and its penalty of death-separation from God-and restores unto us the Gift of Eternal Life and offers us the opportunity to win the Prize of Eternal Life to know and partner with God forever.
Jesus is the Christ. He is the Anointed One who will defeat God’s enemies and establish God’s perfect kingdom on Earth, whose rule will never end.
Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is God in human form. He is God as Man. And God with us. Because of Jesus, we can better relate to and know God.
And the angel’s message was good news to the shepherds because our Savior, Christ, and Lord was born on that day in the nearby town of Bethlehem.
The angel’s message is still good news of great joy for us over 2000 years later.
The Angel’s Sign for the Shepherd
This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger (v 12).
After delivering the good news of great joy to the shepherds, the angel gave them a sign by which they could find this newborn baby.
The sign was actually two signs.
The first sign was: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths.
As described earlier, the Greek word for cloths was strips of cloth, rather than a blanket or baby gown. Here the angel says that the baby is wrapped in these strips of cloths. If the shepherds found a baby wrapped in a blanket or dressed in baby-gown in Bethlehem, that baby would not be the Christ.
Again, the strips of cloths could be an allusion to Jesus’s death and burial as His body would wrapped in similar cloths-see the commentary for Luke 1:7).
The second sign was: you will find the baby…lying in a manger.
A manger was a feeding trough for livestock. The shepherds, by their profession, would know where to find a manger, and likely knew where to locate the cave or shelter where Mary’s son, the Christ, was born. As local shepherds, they would likely know which caves were near the village and were suitably large enough to house travelers.
The angel’s sign would lead them to the newborn Christ, and it was given in expectation that the shepherds would go search and find this special baby. The shepherds did seek and find Him (Luke 2:15-16).
The Heavenly Host’s Praise and Proclamation
And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (vv 13-14).
After delivering the message, the angel who was standing before the shepherds as the glory of the Lord shone around them, was suddenly joined by a multitude of the heavenly host.
Instead of a single angel, there now suddenly appeared a multitude of angels.
This heavenly host was praising God.
Luke writes what they were saying (which could mean speaking or singing-as the Christmas carols describe). The Greek participle that is translated as-saying-is in the continuous aspect-which indicates that the heavenly host was repeatedly saying these things. Their repetition is similar to how one repeats phrases and lines in a song. So, perhaps their saying might really have been their singing.
The angels were saying two statements.
The first statement the heavenly host was continuously saying was: “Glory to God in the highest.”
The first declaration of the heavenly host was a line of pure praise of God.
This moment of divine praise is the proper response to everything that had just unfolded in the city of David that was determined back in eternity past and repeatedly promised since the days of Adam (Genesis 3:15).
Christ the Lord had been born this day.
The angelic chorus, though celebrating what had just occurred on earth, begins with heaven's highest priority: God’s glory. It is a reminder that every act of divine mercy, every moment of redemptive history, is ultimately for the exaltation of God’s name.
By starting with praise, the heavenly host frames the birth of Christ not just as a gift to mankind, but as a supreme revelation of God’s character and greatness. His faithfulness, humility, justice, and love were all converging in this one event, and heaven erupted in worship because of it.
The angels, who had watched the Fall of mankind and longed to understand redemption, now saw God’s eternal plan taking shape in real time-and they praised Him with a burst of reverent awe as the veil between heaven and earth was briefly lifted. The heavenly host’s opening line invites all who hear it to join in that same posture: not merely to receive the gift, but to glorify the Giver of all good things. We know that the angels are intensely curious to learn and understand God and humans, and here they are thundering applause and joy at what they see happening (1 Peter 1:12, Ephesians 3:10).
The second statement the heavenly host was continuously saying was: “And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
The second declaration of the heavenly host shifted the focus from heaven to earth.
The expression peace on earth was an offer of reconciliation between heaven and earth. The stewards of earth, Adam and Eve (and through them the entire human race), rebelled against their Creator and King when they disobeyed God’s command in the garden and ate from the forbidden tree. Since that time, earth and its people has been in a hostile position against God.
God’s Son, who was conceived and born through the virgin Mary (Luke 1:31-33), came to reconcile men and earth back into harmony with God (Luke 19:10, John 3:16-18). God will grant peace-His reconciliation and peace-to those men (i.e. people) with whom He is pleased.
Whereas before the expression all the people meant all the people of Israel, here those people with whom He is pleased means whoever pleases God. Faith is what please God (Hebrews 11:6).
This is an indication and an early hint in Luke’s Gospel that the good and life-transforming news of Jesus will expand from the people of Israel to all the people among the Gentile world. The narratives of Luke and Acts tell the story of how the gospel began among the Jews and then spread across the entire earth.
Trusting God to obey His will and commands is what pleases God. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus pleased God, His Father by trusting Him and obeying His will instead of His own desires (Luke 22:42, Philippians 2:5-9). For this reason, Jesus is described as “the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).
God’s will is that we experience the peace of knowing Jesus. Contained within this peace is the idea of “Shalom” (peace).
Shalom (peace) is a state where everything is in harmony with God and all other things. All is as it should be. Shalom is more than the absence of conflict. Shalom means perfect justice and love between people. Shalom is possible only through the presence of God. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is done in heaven (Matthew 6:10), He was teaching them to pray for Shalom.
The angel’s proclamation of peace on earth is not a proclamation declaring the end of all conflict, war, and strife-though it points to those divine desires. It was an invitation to enter the peace and Shalom made possible by God’s Son who had just been born and was now lying in a manger.
And the way we enter that peace is by receiving Jesus by faith (the Gift of Eternal Life) and following Him by faith (the Prize of Eternal Life).
If we do not accept Jesus as God’s Son and our Savior, we will never know this peace.
At the end of His earthly life, Jesus wept for Jerusalem and how they did not know “the things which make for peace,” and the terrible destruction the city would suffer for rejecting Him. This destruction came forty years later when Rome sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple.
Either eternal peace or eternal destruction await everyone. Which we receive depends upon our response to the baby whom the angel announced and whether or not we receive Him as Savior, Christ, and Lord.
Used with permission from TheBibleSays.com.
You can access the original article here.
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