On the night that Jesus was born, the Angel of the Lord announced His coming and told the shepherds how to find him – you remember?

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.”(*1)

Now, I can just imagine on that holy night an innumerable chorus of angels standing by in the heavens, so filled with joy and anticipation that they burst forth in songs of praise and adoration. Literally, Heaven sang while earth slept. Now clearly, those angels understood something that the mortals did not. The angels not only knew what Jesus would be; they knew what he had been.

Jesus, or Jehovah, as he was known before he was born, was in the beginning with the Father.(*2) He was the firstborn (*3) of all our Father’s children, and was his beloved and chosen from the very beginning.(*4)

So faithful and valiant was Jesus, that even before He was born, He was like unto God.(*5) He was so much like the Father [that] he was called the Father.(*6) Not just this world, but worlds without number Jesus created under the direction of the Father. (*7) He was God, the Lord omnipotent, creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are; (*8) the God of the Old Testament. It was He, under the direction of the Father, who guided Enoch to build Zion. It was He who gave the law to Moses. It was He who taught the Gospel of God to the prophets from Adam to John. He was the “Messenger of the Covenant” (*9) the “Prince of Peace,” (*10) The King of Glory,” (*11) The great I AM, (*12) enthroned in power, might, majesty and dominion. (*13) Indeed, He was greater than us all, even before he was born. (*14)

From the beginning, Jesus was that spiritual rock (*15) that led the children of God to salvation and yet, He was as meek and lowly as a lamb. (*16) And indeed, from the very beginning, Jesus prepared himself to die that sacrificial lamb that we might live. And all men from Adam to Christ exercised faith and received the benefits of an atonement that would happen, just as we today exercise faith in the very one that did. And who can say why, but after creating worlds without number, Jehovah would come to this world to work out the infinite and eternal atonement. (*17)

The God of Heaven was coming here to take a mortal body. (*18) The God of glory stripped himself of that glory (*19) and came to earth as a tiny babe to work out his salvation and ours. The Savior and Redeemer of worlds without number was born that night in Bethlehem. The heavens understood who he was and what he was, and what he would do, and they could not be restrained from singing.

Now I say to you, the more we know Him, the more we too will feel constrained to sing in praise.