Luke 15 . . . one great chapter . . . three great parables. Sheep wanders off, shepherd searches for it until he finds it, laying it on his shoulders as he brings it home. Coin is lost, woman searches high and low until she finds it. A man takes his inheritance and goes south (literally), father waits patiently for him to come to his senses and receives him wholeheartedly when he returns. Interesting to noodle on why the lost sheep and the lost coin are searched for, but the lost son is waited upon . . . but that’s for another devo. This morning I’m thinking about joy before the angels.

In all three stories, when the lost is found there is rejoicing. The man with the sheep comes home and “calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'” (15:6). The woman, upon finding her coin, “calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost’ (15:9). And the father, who’s son comes home, tells his other son, whose nose is bent out of shape because he never got a dinner, that the right thing to do is “to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (15:32). And Jesus, the storyteller, makes sure that the connection is clear . . .

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance . . . there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.    (Luke 15:7, 10 ESV)

First thing to note . . . there will be joy . . . there will be gladness . . . in heaven. If we extend this joy to include the implications of the third story, there will be celebrating in heaven. I’m thinking that reasons to rejoice won’t stop when the last sinner is called home . . . that joy will be a part of eternity.

But what’s grabbed my eye is the fact that, in the cases of these stories, . . . the parables of the lost things found . . . that the “joy in heaven” is equated with “joy before the angels of God.” Other translations render it joy or rejoicing “in the presence of the angels of God.” At first, I’m prone to think that it is the angels rejoicing among themselves. But something I read earlier this year (can’t remember what) has sown a seed about how you might understand this a bit differently. If the word is to be understood as “before the angels” . . . then what, or who, is before the angels rejoicing?

And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God . . .    (Revelation 7:11 ESV)

What’s before the angels? . . . the throne! Who’s before the angels? . . . Him who sits on the throne, Almighty God! So, if there’s joy “before the angels” over one sinner who repents, who’s doing the rejoicing? . . .

Is it too much of a stretch to think that God Himself rejoices when someone is saved? That the Father in heaven is ready to kill the fatted calf when one of His children who was lost is found . . . when one of them who was dead is made alive. Does God say, “Yes!” when a sinner receives His Son . . . when the shed blood of His Son is applied to the sin stains of a wayward soul and cleanses him white as snow . . . when a pauper is robed in the righteousness garments of Christ? Does God smile? Does He shout with gladness? Does He sing with joy? Pretty sure He at least sings with joy . . .

The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.   (Zephaniah 3:17 ESV)

O’ the grace of God that seeks the lost . . . O’ the mighty power of God to save the sinner . . . O’ the overflowing love of God which sings with gladness . . . and displays great joy before the angels . . . when spiritually dead people are made alive in Christ!

To Him be all glory . . .