[He] makes His angels spirits,
His ministers a flame of fire.
A few months ago I had
an interesting discussion. An acquaintance of mine had posted a question on an
online forum I am a member of (actually it was a series of questions). The
basic gist of his post was to inquire what angels did, and how the fall of angels
affects our salvation, and how the fact that we have salvation while the angels
don’t is just. What follows is a cleaned-up and edited version of my side of
the conversation. I am posting this here because angels are a confusing topic
for many, myself included, and straightforward answers that admit their
failures are rare and helpful.
The
first few questions dealt mainly with what angels actually are, and how their
nature plays into the fall of the angels and their lack of ability to be
redeemed.
Angels have free will, but all angels are not descended from
Satan, so all angels did not fall. Angels also have no hope of redemption, as
they already (figuratively) had eaten from both trees in the garden - the tree
of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life (they didn't actually eat
the fruit, but they were created as if they did).
When Christ explains salvation, he says that one must be born
of “water and of the Spirit.” Since Angels are created immortal, they can’t be
born of water, and since they are spirit, they can’t be reborn in the Spirit.
Angels also are shown to have special knowledge as we see them as messengers
throughout the old and new testaments, so their knowledge also condemns them as
they have complete knowledge of what they are rejecting and where they are
choosing to go.
It is also worth noting here that
angels are not created in the image of God, as humans are. Why angels are
metaphysical (mostly spirit) people are physical, spiritual and have souls.
Their multi-faceted nature comes into play when considering redemption.
If God knew Angels would fall, why did He
create them with free will?
God (God here refers to the godhead, not just God the Father)
created angels with free will for the same reason that he created humans with
free will; if you build a robot and program it to worship you, it doesn't mean
very much. God is completely self-sufficient, and he needs neither humans nor
angels to keep him "happy." However, He created angels, heaven, earth, humans,
animals and even Hell to bring glory to Himself. Even though He did not need
any of those things to survive, thrive or give Him a purpose, He still allows
us the opportunity to live in communion with Him forever.
What do angels do and why do they do it?
Angels have several primary purposes: to worship God (as seen
throughout all of scripture, specifically in the Pentateuch and Revelation); to
act as messengers (the word angel comes from the Greek "angelos"
which means messenger, think the announcement of Christ’s birth). I have also
heard quite a few times that angels serve as Spiritual Guardians. While there is some merit to this, as Angels
are shown to be immensely powerful beings and do perform tasks set before them
by God, I do not see in Scripture a solid basis for a personal guardian angel.
Angels do have a stated hierarchy, with different physical
manifestations associated with each. (Cherubim, Seraphim and Archangels are
among the upper echelons). This has more
to do with their roles than their power.
Why? Think how little we know about God, and how awesome He
is to us. Now imagine spending an eternity with Him, learning about all the
facets of His nature, and barely scratching the surface. I probably would sing
in awe the entire time, too.
We don't know much. There are few passages in Scripture that
deal with the characteristics of angels. But yes, they sing, yes they have
names, yes they interact with people and yes, they do this with joy because
they genuinely love God and His nature.
When did Satan rebel against God?
Isaiah 14:12-21 is the only passage in scripture dealing with
the fall of Satan, and there isn’t even consensus in the theological community
if that is dealing with Satan, or merely a pagan king. It isn't much to go on;
we know why he fell, and where he fell, too, but there is nothing ANYWHERE in Scripture that says when he fell, except where logic dictates that he must have
fallen after the sixth day when God saw His creation and saw that it was “very
good” and before Eve was tempted in the garden.
If Satan wasn't created or didn't rebel
against God, would Adam/Eve still sin?
Here are hypothetical questions, but, the answer is Satan
did rebel, time is a straight line (from a human perspective) there are no
alternate realities. Satan was created, he did rebel, and he did tempt Eve, and
Eve succumbed to the temptation, and subsequently Adam fell as well. Any "what-ifs" are pure hypotheticals, the real question is why would you want to know the
answer to the "what-if?" Curiosity never hurt anyone (except for the cat it
killed), but answering a question that there is no factual basis to go on is
certainly quite dangerous.
Since Satan's act of rebelling against God
was a sin, who then committed the first sin? Did sin originate from Adam/Eve or
Satan? Whose "fault" was it?
This is an interesting question. It is also a question that
assumes that Angels and humans have the same laws and consequences. But they
don’t. Since angels are not of the same nature as humans, the rules and even
physical laws of the world in which we live don’t apply to them in the same
way. Satan made the first sin among angels, while Adam and Eve made the first
sin among the earthly creation.
The major difference between the two (and the main reason I
believe that angels have no hope of redemption) is that angels sinned with full
knowledge of their sin, and they didn't have a genetic (for lack of a better
word) predisposition to sin. While men are completely responsible for their own
sin, we also don't have a choice in whether or not we sin. We have redemption ex
post facto, while angels have the opportunity to remain sinless.
--------
Scripture is not clear on the nature of angels. They show up
at important points and then vanish. Most of what we know about angels comes
from passages not directly to angels, when they are doing something, or when
they are referred to in passing. Much of the information that is in Scripture
(which isn't a lot) has become mixed with fantasy, tradition, and just plain
fiction in order to clear some of the "gaps" in the nature of angels.
I think that we need to be extremely careful in conjecture in
areas that are intentionally left vague in scripture. Quickly we can drift into
areas that have no root in scripture at all. Ideas like turning into angels
after death, child angels, cupids etc. are not necessarily bad, until we start
postulating them as fact. I would keep that in mind as we delve into the vague
glances at angels.
You may have noticed that there is very little Scripture
referenced in this article. That is because any verses that I would quote would
likely be shorter than a sentence. Angels are not talked about a lot in the Scriptures and not in large passages like we would find on virtues or the
nature of God. I did my best to avoid conjecture in this article, however, and I can pull precedent out of scripture if needed. I would be gratified if you would leave a comment or shoot an
email to
tchthoughtbox@gmail.com
if you have any concerns with any specifics of any of my points. I am not
claiming to be an expert in this matter; anyone who does is either a liar or
grossly misinformed.
