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The Messiah's Heavenly Army - News Update 12-18-24

Why did Jesus come to earth the first time? Why did angels accompany Him? The answers may surprise you.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Why did Jesus come to earth the first time? Why did angels accompany Him? The answers may surprise you.

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At this time of year when we remember the first coming of the Second Person of the Godhead into this world in human form, we need to remind ourselves why Jesus came. We begin to find the answer in Luke chapter 2, where angels announce Jesus' birth to shepherds:

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.

Who were these angels? Well, let me tell you who they were not. They weren't greeting card angels. They were not cartoon angels. They were not Precious Moments angels.

They were not the feminized misrepresentations of angels that we so often see in advertisements, and in various Christmas displays, and in many works of art. Those are false images that Satan the great deceiver has put into the heart of man in place of God's truth about the angels.

The angels who accompanied God the Son as He came into this world were God's supernatural army.

The force of the original Greek in Luke chapter 2 is much stronger than most English translations: Literally, it reads like this: "And suddenly there was with the angel an innumerable company of supernatural beings, composed of the ranks of the heavenly army."

In fact, when William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in the early 1500s, that is how he rendered it: "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly soldiers." The angelic army of God.

Why did God send a supernatural army announce the incarnation of God the Son?

The answer is that when Jesus came into this world in human form, He invaded the territory of the Devil.

We must never forget that the baby in the manger in Bethlehem was, as Colossians chapter one tells us, "all the fulness of the Godhead in a body" - coming into the world He created in order to redeem a people for Himself.

This is the great miracle of the incarnation. Jesus, the almighty Captain, is leading His heavenly army into Satan's domain. But while the angels come in glory, their Captain comes as a baby in a manger.

The angelic army of God was coming to do battle with the forces of Satan. We see Jesus Himself doing battle with those forces often in the Gospels, as He cast out demons and rebuked evil spirits - and, as He went to the cross.

At the beginning of the New Testament, in the four Gospels, as Jesus is coming into the world the first time, we find a widespread outbreak of demonic activity that is more intense than anything we find recorded in the Old Testament.

I believe that today we are seeing a similar outbreak of demonic activity, indicating that the time of Jesus' Second Coming may be very near.

The Bible makes it clear that Satan and his demons know they are defeated. They know their time is short. They know that eternity in the Lake of Fire awaits them.

Two of the names for Satan in the Bible are Abaddon [meaning Destruction], and Apollyon [meaning the Destroyer]. And so Satan and his army are doing all they can to disrupt and destroy this world, knowing that destruction awaits them.

And so, God the Son came into Satan's domain in human form two thousand years ago. Why did Jesus come? What is the true message of Christmas? We'll answer that question in our next News Update.

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