Good Will toward Men? Luke 2:14, Ancient Manuscripts, and the Meaning of Advent

You see a lot of “Peace on earth, good will to men” (Luke 2:14 KJV) this time of year. It’s all over Christmas cards, both the old paper cards that fewer and fewer people are mailing, as well as the new E-cards that more and more people are emailing.

Any number of Christmas Carols feature “peace on earth, good will to men”—my favorite is Charles Wesley’s 1739 “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” George Whitfield also had a hand in that one. Others include “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Even the great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow included the line in his poem “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” written in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War. In the poem, Longfellow despairs of peace but somehow becomes hopeful when he hears church bells pealing. Is that all it takes, hearing church bells? In what world does that happen?

You may have guessed I’m not a fan of this song, or others like it. Taken out of context, “peace on earth, good will to men” is an empty platitude, good enough for a Christmas card or a pop song but powerless to change the world. In many people’s minds, Luke 2:14 is just a feel good clip from the good book, courtesy of the man upstairs. It goes over well with mommy kissing Santa Claus having a holly jolly Christmas and may they all be white. I like that music as much as the next person, but as a Bible teacher, I’m calling BS. Bah humbug! Where’s the Tylenol?

Speaking of music, songwriters have seen through this sort of shallowness for a long time. John Lennon, for one: “So this is Christmas, and what have you done?” sung in rounds interposed with “War is over if you want it.” Lennon believed that it was hypocritical to talk about peace without doing anything to achieve it. All he was saying is give peace a chance; sadly he didn’t say anything about giving Jesus the Prince of Peace a chance. Greg Lake and Peter Sinfield were quite cynical about shallow, commercialized Christmas sentiment in their song “I Believe in Father Christmas:

They said there’d be snow at Christmas,
They said there’ll be peace on earth,
Hallelujah, Noel be it heaven or hell,
The Christmas we get we deserve.

In the midst of all this sappy sentimentalism and cynical reaction, what does Luke 2:14 really say?

Luke 2:14 in Context

Understanding Luke 2:14 in context takes us away from both sentimentalism and cynicism. The verse concludes the glorious visit of an angel of the Lord to announce the joyful good news of Jesus’ birth to shepherds out in a field near Bethlehem (Luke 2:8-14). Jesus is described as the Savior (compare Luke 1:47) and the Lord Messiah (compare Luke 1:43; 2:26). The shepherds are told to find him in a “manger,” which could be a hay trough in a covered area for animals attached to a simple one-room peasant house. As this message sinks in to the frightened shepherds, who are themselves poor peasants accustomed to living in crude outdoor shelters, God suddenly provides an angelic choir to explain what’s up. This large company of angels praises God in heaven and announces peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.

In Luke 1-2 the story of the early days of Jesus revolves around in series of angelic visits. The angels tell the people what’s going to happen, and the people respond in praise to God. We understand the message of Christmas from these announcements and responses. Notice these key points:

• John the Baptist will turn many Jewish people to God, preparing a people for the Lord (1:16-17).
• Mary will miraculously conceive Jesus, who will reign on David’s throne forever (1:31-33).
• Mary praises God for his faithfulness to his promises to exalt those who fear him and humble those who don’t (1:46-55).
• Zechariah likewise blesses God for his faithfulness to his promises to bring salvation and the forgiveness of sin, guiding Israel into the way or peace (1:68-79).
• The shepherds hurry to Bethlehem to see Jesus and and praise God for what he is doing. They tell others about what they had heard and seen (2:15-20).
• The prophets Simeon and Anna greet Jesus in the Temple eight days after his birth. Simeon speaks of Jesus as God’s light for Gentiles as well as Jews. Anna thanks God and speaks of Jesus to everyone who is expecting the redemption of Jerusalem. Simeon also speaks of the conflict that is ahead—many will rise and fall due to the message this baby will proclaim (2:25-28).

Reading through the context of Luke 2:14 makes it clear that the verse doesn’t express naive optimism about peace on earth, as if God could be reduced to a smiley face emoji saying “Have a blessed day.” Luke 2:14 announces that the coming of Jesus will bring peace to people in whom God takes pleasure, people who have been humbled by King Jesus, finding forgiveness of sins and hope for the future by following him as Savior, Messiah, and Lord.

Two Translations of Luke 2:14

You may have noticed that there are two different translations of Luke 2:14. One of them, the King James Version, understands Luke 2:14 as a triplet, with the angel (1) praising God in heaven, (2) announcing peace on earth, and (3) proclaiming God’s good will to people:

Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace,

Good will toward men.

Nearly all the more recent translations replace the KJV’s triplet with a couplet that pairs (1) praise to God in heaven with (2) an announcement of peace on earth to people with whom God is pleased:

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. (NIV)

Why are the Translations Different?

Many times Bible translations differ because the translators do not agree on the best way to render ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, but this is not one of those times. In this case the translation differs because the translators were working from different ancient manuscripts. The KJV translators did a great job with what they had over 400 years ago, but since then in God’s providence many more manuscripts have been discovered.

Believe it or not, the difference in the manuscripts that leads to the two different translations is only one letter. In ancient Greek, that one letter changes the word “good will” (εὐδοκία; eudokia) from something God grants everyone to a characteristic of those to whom God extends peace. And this good will is not something that these people come up with on their own to earn God’s peace. It’s a characteristic of God, who graciously sets his good will on people who humble themselves before the baby in the manger who goes on to the cross, leaves the tomb empty, and takes his place again in glory at God’s right hand.

God’s “good will” or “pleasure” becomes clearer when you look at this expression throughout the Bible. Look at Deuteronomy 7:7-8; 14:2 and 1 Samuel 12:22, passages that describe God’s gracious good will toward Israel. Look at Micah 6:7-8 and see that God is pleased with people who act justly, love mercy, and live humbly. Notice how God speaks of Jesus at his baptism as his beloved son in whom he is well pleased (Luke 3:22; compare Isa 42:1). Paul spoke of his conversion as a matter of God’s good pleasure in Galatians 1:15. In 1 Corinthians 10:5, Paul said God was not pleased with Israel when they sinned in the wilderness. According to Hebrews 11:5, Enoch was a man on whom God’s good will rested.

It’s easy to see whom God is pleased with in Luke 1-2. In a word, they’re people like Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna. People like the shepherds. Hopefully, you’re like them, a person whose whose life is being transformed by the miracle child who will one day rule the universe.

If you’re a Greek nerd like me, you’ll want to look at the translation and textual criticism info below.

Luke 2:14 for us Greek Nerds (the rest of you can skip this)

The Christmas We Get We Don’t Deserve

Where are you when it comes to Christmas? Are you down with Longfellow’s sentimentalism or Lennon and Lake’s cynicism? When I see the world burning down, I can’t abide the empty offer of “peace on earth good will to men.” Did you notice the smiley-faced caricature of God above? This reminds me of the false prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel condemned in their day, “prophets” who denied Israel’s sins and claimed there was peace when there was really no peace. (Jer 6:14; 8:11; Ezek 13:10). So I’d definitely be hanging with the cynics over the sentimentalists if those were my only two options.

Thank God that’s not what Luke 2:14 really means. Actually, this verse tells us that God, for his own praise and glory, promises peace to those he takes pleasure in. People he takes pleasure in are those who lay aside all human pride, pretense, and position, and take a knee before the baby Jesus. In your mind right now, are you there with them kneeling around the manger?

Christmas isn’t about over-spending to get material things because you have warm, sentimental feelings about the world getting better. I pray you are not satisfied with a sugary snippet, snatched out of the Bible, and stripped of its true meaning. God isn’t really looking down on us with impotent benevolence, telling us to be nice and have a blessed day. That God exists only in the mind of wishful thinkers on earth, not in heaven.

I pray that you think of this Christmas as a Christmas you don’t deserve. I hope you are praising God in heaven because you have received his peace on earth through Jesus the Savior who is Christ the Lord. The God of Heaven, praise him forever, has sent his Son to save us from sin and fill us with his peace, so that we may become agents of reconciliation who live in peace and tell others about how they can experience peace through Christ.

This Christmas let’s lay aside all the fake stuff and take our place with Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, and the shepherds, people with whom God is pleased, people who receive God’s peace through Christ.

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Read Francis A. Schaeffer on seeing Jesus as the shepherds did here.

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When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. (Luke 2:15-20 NLT)