The Angels' Hymn.
I. "Glory to God in the highest." This is the first jubilant adoring exclamation of the angels, as they beheld the fulfilment of that eternal counsel of God, which, partially known no doubt long since and foreseen in heaven, was now at length actually accomplished upon earth; as they beheld the Lord of glory, Him whom they had worshipped in heaven, become an infant of days, and as such laid in that rugged cradle at Bethlehem. But what is the exact force of these words? Can God receive increase of glory, more than He has already? Is it not the very idea of God that He is infinitely glorious, and that this He always has been, and ever will be? Assuredly so; in Himself He is as incapable of increase as of diminution of glory. But wemay ascribemore glory to Him; more, that is, of the honour due unto His Name; as we know Him more, as the infinite perfection of His being, His power, His wisdom, His love, are gradually revealed to us. So, too, may angels, and the heavenly host declare in this voice of theirs that the Incarnation of the Son of God was a new revelation, a new outcoming to them of the unsearchable riches of the wisdom, the power, the love, that are in God.
II. "On earth peace, good will toward men." That same wondrous act which brought such glory to God, namely, the taking of our flesh by the Son of God, brought also peace on earth, and declared God's good will towards men. (1) Christ made peace for man with his God. Man was alienated and estranged from God by wicked works; he knew that he hated God, and he feared that God hated him. But now the child was born who should kill the enmity in the heart of man, who should make a propitiation to enable the love of God to flow freely forth on the sinner as it could not flow before. (2) In setting men at peace with God, Christ sets them at peace with themselves. (3) But man, at enmity with God and with himself, is also at enmity with his brother; selfishness is the root of all the divisions upon earth, from the trivial brawl that disturbs the peace of a village to the mighty war which makes a desolation over half the world. But He who was as upon this day born came to uproot this selfishness in the heart of man, to plant love there in its room: and distant as that day may be, it will yet arrive, when the nations shall not learn war any more. It was, then, with threefold right that the angels hailed His advent as the advent of "peace on earth, good will toward men."
R. C. Trench, Sermons in Westminster Abbey,p. 68.
References: Luke 2:13; Luke 2:14. Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 44; J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons,p. 12; Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 50.