When the angel of the Lord brought the “glad tidings of great joy” of Christ’s birth to the shepherds in the fields, there appeared also “a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Lk 2:13-14, KJV). The songs of the Orthodox Church services, like those of the Christian West, put this doxology of the angelic choir in the mouths of the faithful again and again.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace!
Today Bethlehem receives Him who reigns forever with the Father.
Today angels glorify the newborn babe in hymns worthy of God:
Glory to God in the highest!
And on earth peace, good will toward men!l
The original Greek version of this biblical text, which the Church has received and which she uses in her liturgy, reads “peace on earth, good will towards men,” and not “peace on earth to men of good will.” The theological point here is an important one. The teaching is not that God gives His peace to people who have good will. It is rather that God gives His peace and His good will to all people through His Son, the Messiah-Christ. 2
The coming of Jesus inaugurates the final and everlasting “covenant of peace” foretold by the prophets of Israel:
For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but My steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and My covenant of peace shall not be removed …(Is 54:10)
Incline your ear and come to Me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
My steadfast, sure love for David. (Is 55: 3)
I will make with them an everlasting covenant,
that I will not turn away from doing good to them;
and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts,
that they may not turn from Me.
I will rejoice in doing them good,
and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness,
with all My heart and all My soul. (Jer 32:40-41)
My servant David shall be king over them; and they
shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow My
ordinances and be careful to observe My statutes. They
shall dwell in the land where your fathers dwelt that
I gave to My servant Jacob; they and their children
and their children’s children shall dwell there for
ever; and David My servant shall be their prince for
ever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it
shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will
bless them and multiply them, and will set My sanc-
tuary in the midst of them for evermore. My dwelling
place shall be with them; and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people. Then the nations will
know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary
is in the midst of them for evermore. (Ezek 37:24-28
The peace of God which Jesus brings to the world is not worldly peace. It is, as the Orthodox liturgy prays in the great litany, the “peace from above.”3 The Lord referred specifically to this peace, the shalom of God, when He told His disciples before His passion: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (In 14:27). How sad it is that many people still do not understand this, including many Christians and many Christian preachers who may be charged with misguidance and malpractice when they announce each year at Christmastime that Jesus brought peace to the world almost two thousand years ago, and still there is hostility and war among the people of the earth!
As a matter of plain fact, Jesus Christ never promised to bring peace to the earth in the sense that nations would no longer fight with one another and that individuals would no longer quarrel. Such a peace is promised only at the end of the ages when the Messiah who was crucified comes in glory to establish the kingdom of God His Father, Then, and only then, will the great and everlasting shalom of the Lord foretold by the prophets be established.’ Until then, strife and struggle remain. And Jesus Himself, as He foretold, will remain a great reason for much of it.
Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth;
I have not come to, bring, peace; but a sword. For I
have come to set a man against his father, and a
daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be
those of his own household. He who loves father or
mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he
who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy
of Me; and he who does not take his cross and follow
Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will
lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find
it. (Mt 10:34-39)
Christian saints through the ages bear witness that the peace of God has entered the world in Jesus because they receive this peace and live by it as the content of their lives. In a real sense, all that Christians have to offer the world is God’s peace which, with His righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit, constitutes the kingdom of God (see Rom 14: 17). “Acquire the spirit of peace,” says Saint Seraphim of Sarov, “and you will save thousands around you.” Without this divine peace, whatever one’s message and deeds, nothing divine and eternal will result and remain.
But Christian saints also cause hostility and strife. They are sources of scandal and causes of contention. They witness to the truth of Jesus’ words that as He was hated and persecuted, so also His faithful followers will be arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and killed—not only by those who openly hate both Him and His Father, but by those who have come to the point where they commit murder and think that they are “offering service to God” (Jn 16:2)
If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me
before it hated you. If you were of the world, the
world would love its own; but because you are not of
the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you. Remember the word that I said
to you, the servant is not greater than his master.” If
they persecuted Me, they will persecute you; if they
kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all this
Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men
they will do to you on My account, because they do not
know Him who sent Me. (Jn 15:18-21)
Things are not different today than they ever were. External conditions may change, but the inner spiritual conditions remain the same. Jesus brought God’s peace and good will to the world. He brought God’s kingdom. But until it is established in power at the end of the ages, the struggle goes on.
Today heaven and earth are united, for Christ is born.
Today God has come to earth, and man ascends to heaven.
Today God, who by nature cannot be seen,
Is seen in the flesh for our sake.
Let us glorify Him, crying:
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace!
Your coming has brought peace to us:
Glory to You, our Savior.5
“Glory to God in the highest,”
I hear the angels sing today in Bethlehem.
Glory to Him whose good pleasure it was
That peace should come on earth!
The Virgin is now more spacious than the heavens.
Light has shone on those in darkness;
It has exalted the lowly, who sing like the angels:
Glory to God in the highest!
~Adapted from Thomas Hopko, The Winter Pascha: Readings for the Christmas-Epiphany Season
1 Matins of the feast of the Nativity. The verse, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men, is used as the first line of the great and small doxologies, chanted daily at Orthodox matins and compline. It also is used daily at matins before the recitation of the six morning psalms. And it is said quietly by the priest at the beginning of the eucharistic liturgy.
2 In the original Greek, the word “towards” is literally “in” or “among.” The word “good will,” sometimes translated in the service as “good pleasure,” is one word in Greek: eudokia. It is often used in Orthodox theology as a synonym for God’s free and voluntary action. Thus, for example, God is said to have a Son and a Holy Spirit by nature (ousia), but He creates the world and saves it by His good will (evdokia).
3 Peace is a crucial word in Christian liturgy. ‘The “Peace be unto all” directed to the faithful at each critical moment in the services is the condition for their participation in the action of God. All liturgical worship of the Church begins with an invocation of this peace: “In peace, let us pray to the Lord . .. For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord. . . . For the peace of the whole world, for the welfare of God’s holy churches, and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord . … “
4 See Is 9:6-7; 54-57; Mic 4-5; Ezek 34-37.
5 Litya verses at compline of the feast of the Nativity.
