Angels and spiritual beings

The unseen creation

The lesson on creation noted that the Nicene Creed confesses God as maker "of all things visible and invisible". Paul says the same of Christ.

For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Colossians 1:16

Among the invisible things, the church has confessed, are the angels. They are not eternal beside God; they are made. The psalmist calls, "Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His heavenly hosts" (Psalm 148:2), and gives the reason.

Let them praise the name of the LORD, for He gave the command and they were created.

Psalm 148:5

Augustine, listing what the Word made, runs from top to bottom: "every creature from an angel to a worm" Augustine.

The Hebrew word maleakh (מַלְאָךְ) and the Greek angelos (ἄγγελος) both mean a messenger, someone sent. That is what angels do first: "God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth" (Luke 1:26). They also serve God's people.

Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

Hebrews 1:14

"For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways" (Psalm 91:11). Matthew Henry describes this care as angels "protecting and keeping their bodies, instructing and comforting their souls, under Christ and the Holy Ghost" Matthew Henry. Above all, angels worship. The seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts" (Isaiah 6:3); John hears "myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands" praising the Lamb (Revelation 5:11); and there is joy "in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:10).

But angels are never to be worshipped. When John fell at an angel's feet, the angel said, "Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you" (Revelation 22:9). Paul warns against anyone who "delights in false humility and the worship of angels" (Colossians 2:18).

The angels who fell

Scripture also speaks of spiritual beings who turned against God. Peter writes that God "did not spare the angels when they sinned" (2 Peter 2:4), and Jude of angels "who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling" (Jude 1:6). Reading such texts, the church has taught that Satan and the demons were not created evil. They were made good and fell by their own choice. On Jesus' words "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18), Titus of Bostra comments that Satan "by nature" shone like lightning but became darkness, "since what God made good he changed in himself to evil" Titus of Bostra.

So Satan is not a second god. Christianity has never accepted the dualism of a good god and an evil god locked in an equal struggle. The devil is powerful, but he is a creature, and his power has limits. He is a liar: Jesus called him "a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). He is an accuser, "he who accuses them day and night before our God" (Revelation 12:10).

And he is already defeated.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:15

The Son shared our flesh and blood "so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). "This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). The victory of the cross is explored further in the lesson on the atonement.

So the Christian's struggle is fought inside a battle already won. "Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes" (Ephesians 6:11): truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and prayer at all times. Matthew Henry on that sword: "A single text, well understood, and rightly applied, at once destroys a temptation or an objection, and subdues the most formidable adversary" Matthew Henry. Jesus himself met the tempter in the wilderness with what was written. And the promise is plain: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).

Two errors

The Belgic Confession, in its twelfth article, confesses that God created the angels good, to be his messengers and to serve his elect, and that some of them fell. It rejects two errors together: the Sadducees' denial that spirits and angels exist, and the Manichees' claim that the devils came into being of themselves and are evil by nature Belgic Confession, Art. 12.

Calvin urged sobriety. Scripture teaches us about angels, he said, not to feed our curiosity but to comfort us and build up our faith, and he warned against elaborate speculation about the ranks of angels that goes beyond what Scripture says Calvin, Institutes 1.14. C. S. Lewis made a similar point about devils in the preface to The Screwtape Letters. People can go wrong in two opposite directions, he said: by not believing that devils exist at all, or by believing in them and becoming unhealthily preoccupied with them; and the devils welcome either mistake equally C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

Christians, then, neither deny the unseen world nor live fascinated or frightened by it. They keep their eyes on Christ and stay awake. Paul was convinced that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities" could separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:38). For honest questions about whether angels and demons are real, see Are angels and demons real?

Two questions Christians answer differently

The first is guardian angels. Jesus said of the little ones that "their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:10), and when Peter knocked at the door after his escape from prison, the disciples said, "It must be his angel" (Acts 12:15). Many of the Fathers read these texts as meaning that each person has an angel in charge of them. Jerome exclaims, "High dignity of souls, that each from its birth has an Angel set in charge over it!" Jerome. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches teach that every person has a guardian angel, and remember them in prayer.

Many Protestants leave the question open. Luther placed in his Small Catechism morning and evening prayers asking that God's holy angel be with us, so that the evil foe may have no power over us Luther, Small Catechism. Calvin did not dare to affirm that each believer has one angel assigned to him, and thought it enough to know that all the angels watch over us. On every side, Christians agree that God sends his angels to serve his people.

The second is ‘the sons of God’ of Genesis 6: "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives whomever they chose" (Genesis 6:2). Some read this as the sin of fallen angels. In Job "the sons of God" are heavenly beings (Job 1:6); the earliest Jewish interpreters and second- and third-century Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian read Genesis this way; many modern scholars agree, and some hear echoes of it in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6.

Others read the sons of God as the godly descendants of Seth and the daughters of men as the line of Cain. They point to Jesus' word that in the resurrection people "will be like the angels in heaven", who do not marry (Matthew 22:30), and to the way Genesis 4–5 sets the two family lines side by side. Chrysostom, Augustine and many later Fathers read it so Augustine, The City of God, Book 15, as did Luther and Calvin; Matthew Henry, too, finds here a warning against "marriages between professors of true religion and its avowed enemies" Matthew Henry. Both readings see in the passage the spread of corruption before the flood.

Practice