Harkening the Heralds: Scope

Joyful all ye Nations rise,

Join the Triumphs of the Skies;

Nature rise and worship him,

Who is born at Bethlehem.

The second part of Whitefield’s first stanza better reflects Charles Wesley’s original (‘Universal Nature say’- third line) than the contemporary words, with which we are more familiar:

With the angelic host proclaim

"Christ is born in Bethlehem"

These lines have as their theme the universal scope of the Christ's purpose. Malachi, the Hebrew prophet whose writings typically conclude the Old Testament, several times prophesies the coming Messiah, while bespeaking the gospel’s wider scope than just the Hebrew or Jewish nation. Although born as a Jew, for salvation is of the Jews, the Messiah’s goal was to save people from all sections of Adam’s race, not just Abraham’s elect. Although the theologically simple will detect here a proof for their pet universalism (‘all people will be saved’), which the rest of the scriptures reject, we have here an anticipated unison between the different tribes and nations of mankind, the redemption of the rest of the created world, and a friendly relationship between redeemed humanity and the faithful angelic realm. The gospel and the wonderful Saviour at its heart, unites and joins, weds and ties, reconnects and fixes: people to creation, people to other people, and, most staggeringly of all, people to their Creator and God, from whose presence their sins made leave. God really wants us to rejoin His great family, and this is why Jesus came. 

Harken!