Angels in the Bible: Part 2

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Angels in the Bible

Angels in the Bible - 1Religious Angels

[Part 1]

(6) In Human Form

In the Scriptures angels appear with bodies, and in the human form, and no intimation is anywhere given that these bodies are not real, or that they are only assumed for the time and then laid aside. It was manifest indeed to the ancients that the matter of these bodies was not like that of their own, inasmuch as angels could make themselves visible and vanish again from their sight. But this experience would suggest no doubt of the reality of their bodies; it would only intimate that they were not composed of gross matter. After his resurrection Jesus often appeared to his disciples and vanished again before them; yet they never doubted that they saw the same body which had been crucified, although they must have perceived that it had undergone an important change. The fact that angels always appeared in the human form does not, indeed, prove that they really have this form, but that the ancient Jews believed so. That which is not pure spirit must have some form or other, and angels may have the human form, but other forms are possible. We sometimes find angels, in their terrene manifestations, eating and drinking (Gen. xviii:8; xix:3), but in Judg. xiii:15, 16, the angel who appeared to Manoah declined, in a very pointed manner, to accept his hospitality. The manner in which the Jews obviated the apparent discrepancy, and the sense in which they understood such passages, appears from the apocryphal book of Tobit (xii:19), where the angel is made to say, ‘It seems to you, indeed, as though I did eat and drink with you, but I use invisible food, which no man can see.’ Milton, who was deeply read in the ‘angelical’ literature, derides these questions:

So down they sat
And to their viands fell; nor seemingly
The angel, nor in mist (the common gloss
Of theologians), but with keen dispatch
Of real hunger, and concoctive heat
To transubstantiate; what redounds
Transpires through spirits with ease.
Paradise Lost, v:433-439.

The same angel had previously satisfied the curiosity of Adam on the subject, by stating that

Whatever was created, needs
To be sustained and fed.

If this dictum were capable of proof, except from the analogy of known natures, it would settle the question. But if angels do not need it, if their spiritual bodies are inherently incapable of waste or death, it seems not likely that they gratuitously perform an act designed, in all its known relations, to promote growth, to repair waste and to sustain existence.

The passage already referred to in Matt. xxii:30, teaches by implication that there is no distinction of sex among the angels. The Scripture never makes mention of female angels. The Gentiles had their male and female divinities, who were the parents of other gods. But in the Scriptures the angels are all males, and they appear to be so represented not to mark any distinction of sex, but because the masculine is the more honorable gender. Angels are never described with marks of age, but sometimes with those of youth (Mark xvi:5). The constant absence of the features of age indicates the continual vigor and freshness of immortality. The angels never die (Luke xx:36). But no being besides God himself has essential immortality (I Tim. vi:16) ; every other being therefore is mortal in itself and can be immortal only by the will of God. Angels, consequently, are not eternal, but had a beginning.

Angels in the Bible - 2

Free Angel Pictures

(7) Attributes

The preceding considerations apply chiefly to the existence and nature of angels. Some of their attributes may be collected from other passages of Scripture. That they are of superhuman intelligence is implied in Mark xiii:32: ‘But of that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the angels in heaven.’ That their power is great may be gathered from such expressions as ‘mighty angels’ (2 Thess. i:7) ; ‘angels powerful in strength’ (Ps. cii:20);  ‘angels who are greater (than man) in power and might.’ The moral perfection of angels is shown by such phrases as ‘holy angels’ (Luke ix:26); ‘the elect angels’ (2 Tim. V:21). Their felicity is beyond question in itself, but is evinced by the passage (Luke xx:36) in which the blessed in the future world are said to be ‘like unto the angels and sons of God.’

Angels in the Bible - 3Archangel Gabriel

(8) Ministry

The ministry of angels, or that they are employed by God as the instruments of His will, is very clearly taught in the Scriptures. The very name, as already explained, shows that God employs their agency in the dispensations of His Providence. And it is further evident, from certain actions which are ascribed wholly to them (Matt. xiii:41, 49; xxiv:31; Luke xvi:22), and from the Scriptural narratives of other events, in the accomplishment of which they acted a visible part (Luke i:11, 26; ii:9, sq.; Acts v:19, 20; x:3, 19; xii:7; xxvii:23), that their agency is employed principally in the guidance of the destinies of man. In those cases also in which the agency is concealed from our view, we may admit the probability of its existence, because we are told that God sends them forth ‘to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation’ (Heb. i:14; also Ps. xxxiv:8, 91 ; Matt. xviii:10). But the angels, when employed for our welfare, do not act independently, but as the instruments of God, and by His command (Ps. ciii:20; civ: 4: Heb. i:13, 14) ; not unto them, therefore, are our confidence and adoration due, but only unto Him (Rev. xix:10; xxii:9) whom the angels themselves reverently worship.

Angels in the Bible - 4Guardian Angel Pictures

(9) Guardianship

It was a favorite opinion of the fathers that every individual is under the care of a particular angel, who is assigned to him as a guardian. The Jews (excepting the Sadducees) entertained this belief, as do the Moslems. The heathen held it in a modified form—the Greeks having their tutelary daemon and the Romans their genius. There is, however, nothing to support this notion in the Bible. The passages (Ps. xxxiv:7; Matt. xviii:10) usually referred to in support of it have assuredly no such meaning. The former, divested of its poetical shape, simply denotes that God employs the ministry of angels to deliver his people from affliction and danger, and the celebrated passage in Matthew cannot well mean anything more than that the infant children of believers, or, if preferable, the least among the disciples of Christ, whom the ministers of the church might be disposed to neglect from their apparent insignificance, are in such estimation elsewhere that the angels do not think it below their dignity to minister to them.

(Literature: Storr & Flatt’s Lehrbuch der Ch. Dogmatik, Sec. xlviii; Dr. L. Mayer, Scriptural Idea of Angels, in Am. Bib. Repository, xii :356-388; Moses Stuart’s Sketches of Angelology in Robinson’s Bibliotheca Sacra, No. I; Merheim, Hist. Angelor. Spec.; Schulthens, Engelwelt; etc.)

Source: From Fallows, Samuel, Ed. The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopaedia and Scriptural Dictionary, Volume 1. Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1914.

Visit Christian Image Source to get free images of Heavenly Angels.

Series NavigationAngels in the Bible: Part 1

Comments are closed.