ANGELS, GOD'S HEAVENLY MESSENGERS - Part 2

I'm fascinated by the angel sightings in the Christmas story.  Angels appear individually to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, then to Mary and later Joseph.  Angels appear to lowly shepherds on a quiet hillside in the middle of the night.  Always they come with messages that leave those who see and hear them changed forever!  Maybe you are equally curious and fascinated by these beautiful, yet terrifying beings.  So let's find out more about them.

The simple, basic definition of angels is this:   spirit beings from outside this world, and there are two broad categories – good, or holy angels, and bad angels.

The good ones are God’s angels who have always loved and served God and always will.

The bad ones are fallen angels, Satan and his demons, evil spirits who disobeyed God and who will continue to do so.  More about this later.  For now we’ll concentrate on the “good” or “holy” angels.

The word translated “angel” in Old Testament Hebrew and in New Testament Greek, means:  “messenger”.

When we encounter angels on the pages of God's Word, they are couriers of God's message.

• They are God’s ambassadors, His agents.
• They represent Him alone, never themselves.
• As God’s agents, they are channels to carry His information.
• They speak & act according to God’s instructions.
• They bear God’s authority.
• Their overarching purpose is to do God’s will and accomplish His work.

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is filled with accounts of angel appearances in which God’s heavenly couriers bear specific messages from God, or minister to people.  There are fewer appearances of angels in the New Testament.  

Why is that?  During those Biblical times when angels were more prominent, there was no written word of God as we have it today.  God relied on other means to communicate His message:

He communicated then and He communicates now through creation:

§  Romans 1:19 – “Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what was made.

 Even today we have only to look at the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, trees changing in the fall, new fallen snow, the tiny, perfect fingers and toes on a newborn to see the invisible God’s power in the glory of His creation!

God also communicated His message through the Old Testament prophets – like Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, Joel and John the Baptist, the last of the prophets.  

Now that the written word of God is available and accessible to everyone – it has become the primary way through which God communicates today.

• 2 Tim. 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

God also speaks to us through His Son Jesus – about whom the entire Bible testifies:

• Heb. 1:1-2 “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, who He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. 
•  
• God also speaks to us through His Holy Spirit:

•   John 15:26 Jesus said: “When the Counselor comes (by which He meant the Holy Spirit), whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me.”

Through the Old and into the New Testament, angels have always been ONE WAY messengers, delivering God’s messages to us.  Never are they man’s messengers to God.  Why not?

We don’t need an angel to communicate FOR us TO God, because Jesus already fills that role!

o   I Timothy 2:5 “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.”

Why would we want to approach God by means of an angel, when we can approach Him by means of His own Son?

There must have been those in the first century who believed that angels were superior to Christ because the author of book of Hebrews opens his book with an argument to prove the superiority of Jesus over angels.

Take a look at chapter 1 of the New Testament book of Hebrews:

o   1:4-5 God calls Jesus His Son – a title never attributed to angels 

o   1:6 God commands the ANGELS to worship JESUS  

o   1:7-8 God gives Jesus an eternal throne from which to rule as King.  Angels minister at His command  

o   (1:9) Jesus knows more gladness than angels.  God set him high above his companions (the angels) by anointing him with “the oil of joy”.  

o   V. 10 -13 Jesus himself created the world – a temporal world with an appointed end.  Meanwhile He himself stays unchanged and eternal, sitting at right hand of God in the place of honor.

  (1:14) Angels, on the other hand, are only servant spirits whose job is to wait on US – those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ   

o   In the world to come, it isn’t angels who will be in charge, but Jesus  (2:5, 7-8)

Angels can SERVE us, but they can’t SAVE us from our sins – only Jesus can do that and that is why He is superior to the angels.

o   In Philippians 2:9-10 Paul tells us that, “God has exalted Jesus to the highest place and has given Him (not angels) a name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven, and on earth and under the earth.”

Angels are created beings.  God made them – the way God made everything else in creation.   

·         Colossians 1:16, speaking of Jesus says:  

o   “By Him all things were created:  things in heaven and on earth, visible (like us) & invisible (like angels); all things were created by Him and for Him”.

·         Jesus is the cause of everything that has been created,

o   He is the means through which they were created and

o   He is the purpose of their existence. 

·         When the Apostle John gives us a glimpse into heaven itself in the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation, chapter 5, verse 11, we see the angels acknowledging the superiority of Jesus for themselves: 

o   “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.  They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.  In a loud voice they sang:  Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain (this is Jesus), to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.”

·         If angels are CREATED beings, then are the following statements true or false?

1.      People who have died become angels who watch over their loved ones

2.      Humans can evolve or transform into angels.

3.      Each of us has an “angel within us”

§  ALL ARE FALSE

o   God created angels to be angels and people to be people – and never the twain shall meet!

When did God create angels?

·         Scholars believe that the answer lies in the Old Testament book of Job, the oldest book of the Bible, in chapter 38, verse 4.

·         God asked Job: 

o   “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation, while the morning stars (probably means archangels – angels are referred to “stars” in other places in God’s Word) sang together and the angels shouted for joy?”

o   God’s question to Job suggests that when God laid the earth’s foundation, the angels had already been created, since they sang for joy at the laying of it.  

o So when in the sequence of creation, would that have been?  For the answer, we need to go back to Genesis 1:

• V. 3 On the first day of creation God separated the light from the darkness. 
• V. 6  On the second day of creation, God made a separation between the waters above (sky) and the waters below.
• V. 9-10  On the third day of creation, God gathered the waters together and the ground appeared so that there was land and there was sea.  

If the angels were there to celebrate when God did these things, He must have created angels BEFORE the end of the 3^rd day of the week of creation.  

If when God finished the work of creation and said this:

• ·         Genesis 1:31 – “God saw all that He had made and it was VERY good.  And there was evening, and there was morning – the 6^th day.”

Then when did the bad angels go bad?  Can you reason it out?  

It seems reasonable to expect that bad angels went bad sometime between the end of creation and the temptation of Adam and Eve recorded in Genesis 3, since Satan played a critical role in their deception and temptation to sin.

Let’s look at some passages that talk about Satan’s rebellion.

• Isaiah 14:12-14  “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn (The King James Version of the Bible says: “O Lucifer, son of the morning)! 

• You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!

• You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God (angels); I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.  I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

•  Ezekiel 28:12-17 (Ezekiel is speaking about the King of Tyre but using some words that could only apply to an angel) 
• “You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.  You were in Eden, the garden of God.  You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you.  You were on the holy mount of God. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.   
• So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God and I expelled you, O guardian cherub. . . Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.”

So what was Satan’s downfall?  Pride.  He was not content to simply serve God.  He wanted to be worshiped as God is worshiped.  

• In  Luke 10:18Jesus says: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

• In 2 Peter 2:4 Peter says: “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment. . .”

• In Jude 6: “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home – these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”

Bible scholars estimate that about 1/3 of the angels in heaven joined Satan in his rebellion.

Has God created any more angels since?

·         There is no Biblical evidence that He has. 

·         Apart from the angels who fell –there is no reason to believe that there has been any loss or gain in the number of angels.  Since they don’t marry – they probably don’t reproduce.

o   Matthew  22:30 “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”

Exactly how many angels are there? 

·         A lot!  The Bible doesn’t give us an exact amount.  The words that are used indicate a vast number.

o   Matthew 26:53 mentions “legions” of angels.  A typical Roman legion included from 3000-6000 men.  Twelve legions would be 144,000 angels who could have come to Jesus’ rescue.

o   Hebrews 12:22 pictures:

§   “thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly” – The Greek word for “thousands upon thousands” is the word:  myriad

o   Psalm 68:17 -  David, probably thinking of angelic warriors, speaks of  – “tens of thousands and thousands of thousands”

o   Daniel 7:10 – Daniel saw God on a flaming throne surrounded by:

§  “thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him.”  This would be 100 million angels!

o   John uses the same description in Rev. 5:11

We may not know how many there are, but God knows EXACTLY how many – for us, all these words simply describe a VAST, HUGE, MYRIAD number of angels – probably more than we can imagine!

More angel blogs are coming.  We've covered about 5 of the true or false quiz questions so far.  How did you do?