WHAT ANGELS LOOKED INTO

WHAT THE ANGELS SAW

Psa. 85:10 “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

1 Pet. 1:12  “….which things the angels desire to look into.”

Through that Cross there is the reconciliation of things “in the heavens.” The angels had been taught by God concerning Himself since the first day. They have been learning and serving since then. We call to mind the picture of angels desiring to look into these things that were just announced to transpire. As they did so, they became conscious of the profoundest depth of the mystery in the hour when Jesus died; how and why? It was the mystery of that of the death of a pure and sinless, and therefore deathless, Being. Personally, I can have no doubt about the literal accuracy of the Bible story that in the hour of that death the sun was darkened. My wonder sometimes is that it ever shone again. The angels saw in the mystery a revelation. They knew the Person Whom they saw die, and recognized that the death of the Christ must have some profound significance in the economy of God. How do you kill God Who is eternal? Through the death of the Lord they beheld man reconciled to God. They saw the salvation provided for the sinner in his loosing from his sins. They saw the resultant co-operation of the saints, as, con­formed to His dying, they came to living knowledge of Himself, shared the power of His Resurrection, and entered into the fellowship of His sufferings. They saw these saints bearing through to lower reaches of God's creation the renewing forces which had remade their own lives.

What effect, do you think, had that working out into visibility of the passion and power of the love of God upon the watching angels? It was for them a new unveiling of God. In that Cross they saw Him as they had never seen Him. The essential light of Deity shone whiter, for holiness was vindicated as never before. The essential Love of Deity shone redder, for compassion was manifested more perfectly. The essential Life of Deity was realized more fully, for all its values were revealed more absolutely. I can imagine that, as the Lord Jesus Christ died, and all the issues of His dying were revealed to them, angels borrowed the song of the Psalmist, and chanted to the measure of their own perfect music:

“Mercy and truth are met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”