“And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear…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 among those with whom he is pleased!’” (Luke 2:9, 13-14, ESV)
Here is a second simple, breath-taking, awesome aspect of this event which points to the greatest of Jesus Christ:
2.)The number of angels outnumbered the stars. It says there was a ‘multitude’ of angels proclaiming Christ’s birth. What does multitude mean? It is the Greek word stratias, which is a military word meaning thousands. Keep in mind that this is likely a very high number, for there was not a word for millions or billions or trillions in Greek. The highest word they had was thousands.
Revelation 5:11 suggests that the number of angels that exist is so high that it cannot be numbered. We are not told clearly in this text, but perhaps those angels were all present that evening. Maybe not, but the point is that this is far more than 15 or 50 angels in the sky. It would have been thousands, perhaps countless thousands. And because we know that the unaided human eye can see about 2,000 stars, the shepherds would have seen FAR more brilliant angels than stars in the sky. The sky would have been FULL of angels, all of them shining with the blinding brilliance of the glory of God.
Consider this: God (perhaps) had all of the created angels (trillions?) show up to proclaim the coming of his Son. Not one angel would miss out on this glorious announcement.
And all of this points to the greatness of the one they were proclaiming.
Come, let us worship this glorious Messiah!
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