As we seek to understand angels we do well to remind ourselves that, ‘Belief in a spiritual world is rooted in and profoundly expresses the truth of revelation; only God can make it known to us, and he has done so in Scripture.’1Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Baker Academic, 2011), 276. In the face of atheistic disinclination to recognize the reality of the spirit world, Bavinck remarks, ‘[N]o science or philosophy can advance any argument against the possibility of such spiritual beings. Humans are psychic beings and cannot explain the life of the soul from material metabolism but have to predicate some spiritual substance for that life. This continues even after death and, therefore, the reality of the spiritual world is not inconsistent with any argument of reason or fact of experience’ (276).
Those last two clauses matter more than they look. We are a physical creation in a material world; angels are purely spiritual. So only God can give us knowledge of them — and he has, in Scripture.
The word for ‘angel’ in both Hebrew (mal’ak) and Greek (angelos) means the same thing: envoy, herald, messenger, bearer of news.
Everything else Scripture says about these creatures builds outward from that job description. Which is worth holding onto, because our curiosity runs the other way.
Angels, as it were, do not decide. They follow orders.
What They Get Called
Occasionally the word refers to human messengers — possibly in the address to the seven churches (Rev 2-3).2See D. Broughton Knox, ‘Translating “Angel” in the New Testament,’ Selected Works (Matthias Media, 2000), 1:363-373.
Other expressions for angels include ‘sons of God’ (Job 1:6; Psa 29:1), ‘heavenly beings’ (Psa 8:5), ‘holy ones’ (Psa 89:5), and ‘watchers’ (Dan 4:17). Metaphorically they’re likened to ‘stars’ (Job 38:7), ‘winds’ and ‘flaming fire’ (Psa 104:4), ‘burning coals,’ ‘torches’ and ‘lightning flashes’ (Eze 1:13-14).
Servants Who Never Improvise
Angels reside now in God’s immediate presence, serving — as their name suggests — as his emissaries and messengers.
They never speak on their own authority. They never act on their own initiative. Angels, as it were, do not decide; they follow orders.
And notice where biblical attention falls. It’s on their office as servants and messengers, far more than on their metaphysical nature. We want to know what angels are. Scripture is much more interested in what they’re for.
What Are They Made Of?
Angels are described as a type of ‘spirit’ (Psa 104:4; Heb 1:14), and on that basis it’s usually been assumed they’re immaterial, noncorporeal creatures. That may well be so. Certainly their relationship to the physical world differs from ours.
But rather than assume they’re inherently immaterial, it may be preferable to reckon they have some material presence — a relation to matter, space and time beyond human conception, possibly corresponding to the ‘spiritual body’ glorified humans will assume (1 Cor 15:44).3Diverging from Bavinck, who acknowledges the line of reasoning supportive of the suggestion that angels may have a material constitution that is hyperphysical or superphysical: ‘Some … occasionally restate convictions about the corporeality of angels in some sense because the concept of a purely incorporeal nature is metaphysically inconceivable. Like God, angels are spirits; but quite unlike God who is unbounded by time and space, angels are bounded, finite, because they are creatures’ (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 279).
They can certainly take on bodily human appearance and functions, including the digestion of food (Gen 19:1-3). If they do have bodies, those are patently quite different from ours.
Angels are ungendered and immortal. They don’t mate and can’t die, being unceasing spiritual beings (Matt 22:30) who exist as unique personal identities across human history (Dan 8:16; Luke 1:19).
Not necessarily all of them are winged, though they do fly (Dan 9:21; Rev 14:6), and cherubim and seraphim are presented as winged (Exo 25:20; Isa 6:2). Wings may be inferred — but not necessarily inferred.
How They Differ From You
Only human beings are explicitly said to be made in God’s image.
‘Part of the problem lies in defining the image of God, which may refer broadly to man’s whole being and function as God’s visible reigning representative on earth (Gen 1:26-28), or more narrowly to knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Eph 4:24).’4Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:1117. Perhaps the distinction lies in differing capacities to choose and to love.
‘While angels may be mightier spirits … humans are far richer in relationships.’
‘While angels may be mightier spirits — greater in intellect and power — humans are far richer in relationships; the full image of God in all its richness is unfolded only in humanity.’5Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 282. Unlike us, angels don’t couple, bear children, rear families, or draw identity from ancestry and intimate relationships.
But They’re Persons
Despite being ‘non-organic and non-generating,’6D. A. Carson, ‘Sin’s Contemporary Significance,’ in C. W. Morgan and R. A. Peterson eds., Fallen: A Theology of Sin (Crossway, 2013), 26. angels possess personal characteristics in common with us.
Two are named in Scripture — Michael and Gabriel7Michael – Dan 10:13, 21; 12:1; Jude 1:9; Rev 12:7; Gabriel – Dan 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26. — which suggests the others have personal names too. Gabriel refers to himself in the first person (Luke 1:19). They are evidently self-conscious beings of unique identity, moral capacity, rational intelligence and emotional affections.
The angels were overjoyed at God’s creation of the material world (Job 38:7). Jesus mentioned that ‘the angels of God’ are especially thrilled when just ‘one sinner’ turns to repentance (Luke 15:10).8‘The angels are in concord with us even now, when our sins are forgiven’ (Augustine, Enchiridion, 17.64; trans. Outler, 376). Elsewhere they express desire and longing (1 Pet 1:12).
That they’re personal beings is particularly evident in their use of language.
Moral, Intelligent, Powerful
Three headings summarise it.
Angels are moral creatures, possessing volition, self-determination and will, and consequently ethically responsible. Some are described as ‘holy’ (Matt 25:31), but others lie and sin (John 8:44). They will be held to personal account before God (1 Cor 6:3).
Angels are intelligent creatures, possessing knowledge often immensely greater than ours (cf. 2 Sam 14:20), despite what they know remaining limited (Matt 24:36). Their knowledge interacts with human behaviour and is affected by it (Luke 12:8; Eph 3:10). And it’s the very nature of angels as God’s messengers that they’re language-users. They communicate. They speak. Unless it’s hyperbole, Paul suggests there are angelic languages (1 Cor 13:1).
Angels are vastly powerful creatures, ‘mighty ones’ (Psa 103:20), surpassing fallen human powers in many respects (2 Pet 2:11). The consequences of their action (Gen 19:11; Acts 12:7-11) and the great offices they hold — thrones, rulers, authorities — express decisive effect across vast cosmic dominion. Their power comes from God, and their activity is directed and limited by him. As residents of God’s throne-room, their role is devoted to executing the divine will.
‘From this we conclude that angels, like humans, are a unity of created, spiritual, rational, moral beings; both were originally created in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness; both were given dominion, immortality, and blessedness; both are called sons of God (Job 1:6; Luke 3:38).’9Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 281.
Seraphim and Cherubim
Related heavenly beings are seraphim and cherubim.
Seraphs — ‘burning ones’ — appear just once, acclaiming the superlative holiness of God and declaring from the altar God’s provision of atonement for sin (Isa 6:2, 6). Cherubim come up more often. Their exact connection with angels isn’t given, though they’re likely a class of angel — a distinct kind of spiritual creature with particular abilities or functions.10‘The similarities between Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, and Revelation 4 suggest that cherubim and seraphim might not be distinct kinds of angels, but different ways of describing the same spirits. It is difficult to be sure’ (Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:1112.)
In the Bible’s earliest explicit appearance of spiritual creatures, cherubim are placed east of Eden after Adam and Eve’s ejection, with ‘a flaming sword … to guard the way to the tree of life’ (Gen 3:24).
Images of them were later placed on the ark of the covenant (Exo 25:18-22), the tabernacle veil (Exo 26:31), and the temple’s inner sanctuary (1 Ki 6:23-35). Which is why the LORD is said to be ‘enthroned above the cherubim’ (1 Sam 4:4). Most significantly, when Moses entered the tent of meeting he heard the LORD’s ‘voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat … from between the two cherubim’ (Num 7:89).
Ezekiel depicts them as ‘living creatures’ with human hands, four-fold faces and numerous eyes (Eze 1:5-10). In the New Testament, ‘cherubim of glory’ overshadow ‘the mercy seat’ (Heb 9:5).
Put it together and cherubim seem to guard the holy presence of God against intrusion, play a ministerial role in the presentation of Divine speech, and convey the majesty of God’s sovereign rule.
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- 1Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Baker Academic, 2011), 276. In the face of atheistic disinclination to recognize the reality of the spirit world, Bavinck remarks, ‘[N]o science or philosophy can advance any argument against the possibility of such spiritual beings. Humans are psychic beings and cannot explain the life of the soul from material metabolism but have to predicate some spiritual substance for that life. This continues even after death and, therefore, the reality of the spiritual world is not inconsistent with any argument of reason or fact of experience’ (276). ↩︎
- 2See D. Broughton Knox, ‘Translating “Angel” in the New Testament,’ Selected Works (Matthias Media, 2000), 1:363-373. ↩︎
- 3Diverging from Bavinck, who acknowledges the line of reasoning supportive of the suggestion that angels may have a material constitution that is hyperphysical or superphysical: ‘Some … occasionally restate convictions about the corporeality of angels in some sense because the concept of a purely incorporeal nature is metaphysically inconceivable. Like God, angels are spirits; but quite unlike God who is unbounded by time and space, angels are bounded, finite, because they are creatures’ (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 279). ↩︎
- 4Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:1117. ↩︎
- 5Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 282. ↩︎
- 6D. A. Carson, ‘Sin’s Contemporary Significance,’ in C. W. Morgan and R. A. Peterson eds., Fallen: A Theology of Sin (Crossway, 2013), 26. ↩︎
- 7Michael – Dan 10:13, 21; 12:1; Jude 1:9; Rev 12:7; Gabriel – Dan 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26. ↩︎
- 8‘The angels are in concord with us even now, when our sins are forgiven’ (Augustine, Enchiridion, 17.64; trans. Outler, 376). ↩︎
- 9Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 281. ↩︎
- 10‘The similarities between Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, and Revelation 4 suggest that cherubim and seraphim might not be distinct kinds of angels, but different ways of describing the same spirits. It is difficult to be sure’ (Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:1112.) ↩︎