Scripture puts heavy emphasis on angels being unerringly directed by God and absolutely subordinate to him.
Which is not how popular imagination tends to run.
‘Angels are not kings, only servants.’
They Belong to Somebody
The God-directed, God-subordinate nature of angels shows up in how they’re described — almost always in relation to God. Angels belong to God; they are his (Psa 104:4). Each one is elected personally and specifically by him (1 Tim 5:21).
Even the two given names point away from themselves. Michael means ‘who is like God?’ Gabriel means ‘mighty one [gibor] of God.’
Their abilities are certainly greater than ours at present, in knowledge and movement (Dan 9:20-23). ‘[A]ngels … relate more freely to time and space than humans do … [possessing ability] to move at lightning speed and not be obstructed by physical objects.’1Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 280. That said, angels appear to have a local and limited personal presence, coming and going from place to place.
And while they wield vast power to effect material events on earth (Isa 37:36), angels are not — as God is — eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. In one place we learn that on occasion they may be ‘withstood’ by opposition: held back, obstructed, prevented from acting as they’d intend (Dan 10:13).
So angels cannot do ‘what God alone can do. … They cannot save, redeem or liberate the earthly creature. They cannot forgive even the smallest sin, or remove even the slightest pain.’2Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3.3, 460. They remain finite creatures, subordinate to God’s Son (Heb 1-2), serving those who trust in Christ.
They Are Not Mediators
It’s tempting to think of angels as mediators between God and humanity. But mediation is exclusive to Christ himself (1 Tim 2:5). Their status is absolutely subordinate to Christ their Creator, who as such is absolutely superior to them (Heb 1:5-2:9).
So angels do not mediate God. God mediates himself.
Angels are present when he does it — as at the conception and birth of Jesus (Matt 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38). But their service is subordinate to God’s unique work. They declare what God is doing, witness to it, and only in that way participate in his mediating ministry, bearing God’s own word to explain the significance of his work.3Thanks to Robert Doyle for clarification here.
Which is why angels must not be worshipped (Col 2:18). They aren’t to be reverenced as divine intermediaries. In terms of being they are absolutely distinct from God — not some midpoint between human creatures and their Creator. Though they transcend us for the time being, their role is ancillary; compared with Jesus and the Spirit, their nature is creaturely and their status supplemental (Heb 2:5-9).
Witnesses and Protagonists
There are things God alone can do and angels cannot: create, reveal, forgive, save, reconcile, judge, perfect.
Angels respond — and respond perfectly appropriately — performing a variety of duties in God’s Kingdom and testifying to what only God can accomplish. They respond as witnesses and as absolutely reliable, unimaginably powerful protagonists, doing God’s will exactly, immediately, without error or exception.
But note the limit again: they aren’t themselves the ones who reveal God’s Word directly. God alone speaks God’s Word. Angels confirm the revelation he provides through their ministry.
When angels speak, we hear directly from God. When angels act, we deal directly with God.
The angels are God’s angels. Their chief activities are as messengers of God and ministers to God’s people.
The Reversal Coming
Mankind is said to be ‘lower’ than ‘the heavenly beings’ (Psa 8:5; Heb 2:7) — as for a short time was Jesus himself (Heb 2:9). But this doesn’t mean angels exercise dominion over humanity.
Whatever advantages they currently hold over present human abilities are temporary.
Eventually angels are to be subordinated to perfected people. In the value structure of God’s eternal Kingdom it is the future destiny of believers, in union with the glorified Christ, to be elevated above angels (Heb 2:5-9). In distinction from human beings, ‘Angels are not kings, only servants.’4Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 281.
From our superior position in the world to come, we may expect to be somehow involved in the judgment of angels (1 Cor 6:3). Paul made that comment almost in passing — but it belongs to the astounding broader assumption that humanity’s destiny involves higher status before God than that of angels and the other creatures.
And that superior future status is anticipated now, in advance. In the Bible people are never called to serve angels. Rather, in the nearest thing to a definition of their nature and status, angels are said to be set about serving God’s people, acting ‘for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation’ (Heb 1:14).
Fascinated Onlookers
One more thing. As well as being participants and protagonists in the promotion of God’s Kingdom, angels are also enthusiastic onlookers.
The great truths of the gospel, proclaimed ‘in the Holy Spirit’ to sinful humanity by human servants, are said to be the fascination of the angels (1 Pet 1:12).
As angels are themselves heralds and witnesses to Christ, so they are deeply interested observers of human efforts as heralds and witnesses of God’s Word. It’s theoretically possible that one reason for their particular interest in God’s saving purpose for humanity ‘is that although they fight for the salvation of God’s people, they don’t experience salvation for themselves.’5John Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (P&R Publishing, 2013), 774. ‘Angels do not know God’s saving grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness by experience, but only by observing his ways with men.’6Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:1118.
Worth pausing on that. Unlike fallen humans, there is no way back for fallen angels. They cannot be redeemed.
A Claim Worth Handling Carefully
However — and here caution is required — any claim that God’s angels learn things they wouldn’t otherwise know by observing church proclamation, or that human heralds have things to teach angels about ‘the manifold wisdom of God’ (Eph 3:10), must be extremely tentative. It’s a dubious inference based on an unlikely reading of the text.
Paul’s concentration is more likely on the definitive demonstration to opposing spiritual forces of the divine power of gospel proclamation, which has produced the miracle of the Christian church.
Through the work of Christ and its subsequent proclamation, all humanity in its sinful hostility to God and each other is now being reconciled back to God and to each other, in peace, as ‘one new mankind’ (Eph 2:11-22).
It isn’t the ignorance of good angels being informed. It’s that of evil powers who oppose the work.7Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Eerdmans/Apollos, 1999), 247. The New Living Translation of Eph 3:10 conveys the preferred sense: ‘God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.’ Thanks are due to Robert Doyle for providing clearer explanation here.
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- 1Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 280. ↩︎
- 2Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3.3, 460. ↩︎
- 3Thanks to Robert Doyle for clarification here. ↩︎
- 4Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics. Abridged, 281. ↩︎
- 5John Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (P&R Publishing, 2013), 774. ↩︎
- 6Beeke, Reformed Systematic Theology, 1:1118. ↩︎
- 7Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Eerdmans/Apollos, 1999), 247. The New Living Translation of Eph 3:10 conveys the preferred sense: ‘God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.’ Thanks are due to Robert Doyle for providing clearer explanation here. ↩︎