The angels are singing…but why do they sing? What is this good news they tell of? Who is this child that is worthy of glory and honor? Come join us as we take a look at the classic Christmas song Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and take a deeper look at Christ in the Carols.
Do angels sing? George Whitfield thought they did when he changed the original wording of John Wesley’s “Hark how all the Welkin (heavens) ring” (1739) to “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” in 1754. In Luke 2:13-14 the angels who praised the announcement of the Lord’s birth merely said, “Glory to God in the highest” and so forth. However, Job 38:7 states:
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7 NAS).
“Morning stars” is a Hebrew code word for angels. Hence, Job denotes how the angels “sang” when they watched God create the vast and complex cosmos, including the earth. The Hebrew word for “sang” predominately means to “shout in jubilation,” most notably toward God in the OT. Yet according to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, the word, “ranan” ( רנן) sometimes occurs in a parallel relationship to two Hebrew words that speak of singing: “shir” (Psalm 59:16) and “zamar” (Psalm 98:4). They go on to surmise, “The jubilation which is the main thrust of the root is elsewhere also in a context of music (II Chr 20:22, cf. v. 21), and singing may well be indicated. In many cases the jubilation could equally well be expressed in shouting or song—either would suit the context.”[1] Biblically, it looks like Whitfield was right. Angels do shout for joy, and they can sing.
When Wesley envisioned, in a poetic format, what the angels could have sung regarding Christ’s birth, he took various Scriptures relating to Jesus, and wove them into the three verses, with a short refrain we enjoy singing at Christmas. All told, these insightful and instructive verses provide two answers to the following question:
What Questions Does This Famous Christmas Carol Answer About The Arrival Of Jesus?
This carol provides the definitive answer for anyone who needs clarification on what Christmas is about. First up, we encounter this all-important question:
Who Was Jesus?
Was He just another Jewish boy with the all-familiar name Jesus? No. He was far more than a normal little boy from a small, backwater town. To discover His unique identity, you need to study the carol.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King:
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
join the triumph of the skies;
with th’angelic hosts proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
At His birth, Jesus was a king. He was the prophesied king. Genesis 49:8-12 foretold that the messianic king, named Shiloh, would arise from the tribe of Judah. He would eventually command the obedience of all the people on the planet (Gen. 49:10; Isa. 2:1-5; Zech. 14). Christ’s father, Joseph, was from the line of David, who, in turn, was from the tribe of Judah (Matt. 1). Joseph, of course, came through David’s son, Solomon. Since Solomon’s line was eventually cursed and prohibited from having a king on the throne by the evil activity of King Jehoiachin (Coniah) by Jeremiah (Jer. 22:28-30), Jesus had regal rights to the throne through His father. His blood rights to the Davidic throne came through His mother, Mary, who was a direct descendant of David through his other son, Nathan (Luke 3).
You, therefore, could not get more regal than Jesus. He was born a Davidic king, as prophesied over several thousand years with great specificity. The prophet Micah prophesied some 800 years before Christ’s birth that He, the eternal One, would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David (Mic. 5:1-2).
2 ” 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.” (Mic. 5:2 NAS)
Isaiah, a contemporary of Micah, had much to say about the Davidic king who would eventually eternally occupy David’s throne.
6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 There will be no end to the increase of His government of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this. (Isa. 9:6-7 NAS)
First, the child had to be born (in Bethlehem), and then He, the divine One, would eventually establish a worldwide empire of peace. We live in the tension of this prophecy. He was born at the right time, in the right town, to the right family, and He offered the kingdom to His people, but they rejected Him. Now, we are in the mystery form of the kingdom that Christ speaks about starting in Matthew 13, but this will not nullify the coming King and kingdom.
Daniel’s interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the great statue detailed the rise and fall of the final world empires before the coming of the Messiah’s Davidic empire (Dan. 2). In chapter 7, the establishment of this empire is prophesied to occur after the destruction of the Antichrist and all world powers:
13 I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. 14 And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13-14 NAS)
The angels, therefore, could naturally sing about Christ’s birth because they knew these prophecies. His birth signaled that great things were on the horizon for this sin-tainted, war-weary, corrupt-ridden earth.
Jesus was more than the final Davidic king. He was the eternal Lord who became God-man of His own free will. Verse 2 introduces us to this crucial data point:
Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
late in time behold him come,
offspring of the Virgin’s womb:
veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
hail th’ incarnate Deity,
pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.
The “highest heaven” or the angelic class, I assume, adored Jesus, and rightly so, because He was the “everlasting Lord,” who had now become the God-man as prophesied in Isaiah 7:14.
14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. (Isa. 7:14 NAS)
True, this prophetic sign Isaiah gave to the weak-kneed King Ahaz, who wrongfully thought his Davidic rule would be destroyed by the alliance between the King of Israel and the King of Syria, Rezin, probably applied in part to the birth of Isaiah’s firstborn son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz (whose name means “Speeding to the plunder). When Isaiah gave this prophecy, he could have been single, and his future wife was still a virgin. The birth of this boy would be proof that before he could differentiate between good and evil (Isa. 7:15), these two kingdoms would be brought to naught, and they were, as prophesied.
The more extensive prophecy, however, spoke here of a coming Davidic king from a virgin who would bear a king who would be Immanuel, or God with us. This would be an extraordinary sign, far beyond the birth of the prophet’s son. The favored future virgin would be Mary, and the King would be unlike any earthly king ever born, for He would be the God-man, one hundred percent God, and one hundred percent man. When Joseph naturally struggled some eight hundred years later with the fact that his fiance was pregnant, an angel of the Lord spoke to him in a dream to comfort him and to challenge him to go through with the marriage:
20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 23 Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 24 And Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took her as his wife, 25 and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus. (Matt. 1:20-25 NAS)
You have to admire Joseph’s courage and conviction.
Jesus, the God-man, had to be a virgin born miraculously. Why? The answer is found in the angel’s enlightenment of Mary:
31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; 33 and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end.” 34 And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God. (Lk. 1:31-35 NAS)
The child in her womb would be holy. Had Joseph been the father, then the Adamic line of sin would have continued through him to Jesus (Rom. 5:12-21). As Professor Wayne Grudem correctly notes,
“But the fact that Jesus did not have a human father means that the line of descent from Adam is partially interrupted. Jesus did not descend from Adam in exactly the same way in which every other human being has descended from Adam. And this helps us to understand why the legal guilt and moral corruption that belong to all other human beings did not belong to Christ.”[2]
Sin did not come through Mary either, and the Spirit’s role in this probably kept sin from tainting Christ in the birth process. Jesus was, then, Immanuel in every sense of the word because God, by definition, could not have any sin about Him (2 Cor. 5:21). And because He was sinless as the God-man, He was positioned and equipped to deal with our sin problem as our perfect and final substitutionary sacrifice (Heb. 10:1-10). Further, because He was the God-man, or the “everlasting Lord” as the song states, He was positioned to eventually rule and reign eternally over the prophesied worldwide empire of David (2 Sam. 7; Isa. 9:6-7; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 37:24-25; Amos 9:11; Zech. 14).
Was Jesus the God-man?
- He had divine titles. When Thomas saw Him after His resurrection, he called Him, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). John opens his gospel by making this remarkable statement: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (Jn. 1:1 NAS)
- He performed miracles that only God could do, and in so doing, He revealed divine omnipotence. Turning water to wine at a wedding (John 2:1-11), cleansing a leper (Matt. 8:2-3), healing two blind men (Matt. 9:27-31), feeding the 4,000 (Matt. 15:32-39), and raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11) to name a few.
- He claimed deity status on many occasions. To the doubting religious leaders, He remarked definitively: “58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (Jn. 8NAS). They immediately sought to stone Him for blasphemy (John 8:59), for He had taken the divine title of the great I Am of the Old Testament. The “I am” statement, viz., ego eimi, as seen in the LXX version of Exodus 3:14, was reserved for God. It would be a title Jesus would claim during His trumped-up trial because it was true. He was the Lord who had become the God-man (John 18:5-6), as prophesied (Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:1-2).
Rightly, then, do we join in the proposed words of the angels who sing:
Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
late in time behold him come,
offspring of the Virgin’s womb:
veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
hail th’incarnate Deity,
pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.
Jesus was no ordinary King. He was the divine King who became the God-man to fulfill the Father’s kingdom prophesies and purposes. The question this Christmas is this: “Is Jesus your King?” Better yet, “Is Jesus the Lord of your life?” Currently, His kingdom is spiritual, but His kingdom of peace and holiness is coming. Will you be a part of it? How can this be possible for you as a sinner? That is answered in the next question this song answers about the work of Jesus.
What Did Jesus Accomplish?
Verses one and three of this excellent, moving old Carol give us the answers. Let’s circle back to the first verse:
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King:
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
As the perfect and sinless God-man and divine King of all Kings, Jesus was positioned through His substitutionary death for our sins to provide for our sins to be forgiven so we might be reconciled to the Holy Trinity. The various Greek words in the NT that speak of divine reconciliation, katallasso (Matt. 5:23-24), katallage (Rom. 5:11; 11:15; 2 Cor 5:18-19), and hilaskomai (Heb. 2:17), all denoted bringing people together who had been estranged. Of course, Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden plunged the entire human race into sin (Rom. 3:23; 5:12-21), resulting in all of us, from birth, being removed from an intimate relationship with the Holy Trinity. Spiritually fallen creatures, like ourselves, need reconciliation if we want to know, walk, and be with God in eternity.
Paul talks about this in his second letter to the Corinthians:
18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5 NAS)
Dr. Norman Geisler’s comments on these verses are worth quoting:
“There are two sides to reconciliation: the objective side, the potential for which Christ accomplished for all humankind (v. 19), and the subjective side, by which we actually become reconciled to God (v. 20). Once again, the whole world is reconciled in the sense of being made savable by Christ (v. 19), but not in the sense of being saved (see Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:20).
It is also noteworthy that God is not reconciled to us; we are reconciled to Him. God does not move in relation to the sinner; the sinner moves in relation to Him. Both alienation and reconciliation are mentioned in Colossians 1:20–21, a powerful expression of what it means to be saved:
[It was God’s purpose] through him [Christ] to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” [3]
Christ was born to deal with our sins on the cruel cross so we might, through His glorious resurrection, have the opportunity to be reconciled to the Godhead for all eternity. Today, in our church, there are but two kinds of people: Those reconciled to the Godhead because they came to Him, by repentant faith, through the person and work of Jesus, and those who are irreconciled because they have not embraced Christ by faith, choosing instead to live in a divinely ordered status of sin. Would today be the day you allow Christ to repair the broken relationship with the Godhead. That will prove to be the most life-changing decision you ever made. Will you make it?
The final verse puts the accomplishments of Christ in His birth and life in bold relief:
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
He laid aside the spectacular and highly luminous world He lived in to become the God-man who would accomplish three distinct things for us:
- He was born so that we’d have the prospects of eternal life. Before He raised Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus rightfully told Martha: “25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11 NAS). At the moment of belief, you pass from death to life. Yes, you will physically die, barring your participation in the Rapture of the Church (1 Thess. 4:13-18); however, you will live on in God’s eternal presence, for He granted you eternal life at the moment of your confession.
- He was born to raise us from the earth, as the song states. This probably is an allusion to the saint’s physical resurrection, which will occur at the Rapture of the Church or at the beginning of the Kingdom Age. Paul speaks, in part, about this in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us through His power” (1 Cor. 6:14). Jesus was raised in a new physical body fitted for the dimension of heaven, and so, too, will we be. Currently, when a believer dies, they go immediately to be with Him (2 Cor. 5:1-5); however, there is coming the great day of the saint’s resurrection when He will give us bodies like unto His own so we can thoroughly enjoy the wonders of His heavenly abode. Will you be raised? He came to provide you with the costly option.
- He was born to give you the hope of a second birth. We are all born physically, but spiritual birth, or the second birth, is not a given. It depends on what we do with the person and work of Jesus as it relates directly to our sin. Nicodemus, a religious ruler among the Pharisees, knew there was something unusual about the words and works of Jesus, but he came to Him at night so no one could see him stopping to talk with Christ. John recounts what happened:
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; 2 this man came to Him by night, and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3 NAS)
Everyone sitting here right now was born when your mother’s water broke. But not everyone is born again, spiritually speaking. That is another personal matter altogether. How is it possible to be born spiritually?
“14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3 NAS)
This Christmas, the most significant and wisest thing you can do is lay your sin at Christ’s nail-scarred feet and tell Him that you believe He came to do everything this old carol says He would do for sinners. You believe, and He will give you life where there is death; he will provide you with purpose where there is despair, and He will give you forgiveness of sins where there had only been guilt. You could receive no more excellent gift, so accept it, and then you will know how to enjoy this carol titled Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
[1] R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Vol. 2 (Chicago, Moody Press, 1980), 851.
[2] Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 230.
[3] Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, Volume Three: Sin, Salvation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2004), 226–227.
