Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
Likewise (that is, on the same principle), there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. Note carefully the language here employed: it is not, 'joy among' or 'on the part of,' but "joy before" х enoopion (G1799)] or "in the presense of the angels of God." True to the idea of the parables, it is the Great Shepherd, the Great Owner Himself, Whose properly the joy is over His own recovered property; but so vast and exuberant is it (Zephaniah 3:17), that as if He could not keep it to Himself, He "calleth His friends and neighbours together" - His whole celestial family - "saying, Rejoice WITH ME, for I have found MY sheep, I have found MY property which was lost. In this sublime sense it is "joy," before "or in the presence of the angels:" they only 'catch the flying joy,' sharing it with Him! The application of this to the reception of those publicans and sinners that stood around our Lord is grand in the extreme: 'Ye turn from these lost ones with disdain, and because I do not, ye complain at it; but a very different feeling is cherished in heaven: There, the recovery of even one such outcast is watched with interest and hailed with joy; nor are they left to come home of themselves or perish; for, lo! even now the great Shepherd is going after His lost sheep, and the Owner is making diligent search for His lost property; and He is finding it too, and bringing it back with joy, and all heaven is full of it.' Let the reader mark what sublime claims for Himself our Lord covertly puts in here-as if in Him these outcasts beheld, though all unknown to themselves, nothing less than Heaven disclosing itself in the habiliments of earth, the Great Shepherd above, clothed in a garment of flesh, come "to seek and to save that which was lost!"