Permission must be obtained from the copyright holder for any other purpose, or for multiple copies.
Angels: God's Messengers
Bible teaching about God's "ministering spirits"
THE story has been told of how the first Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was instructed by Soviet premier Khrushchev to watch out for angels when he went into space in April, 1961. On his return he reported that he had seen no angels. Khrushchev is said to have replied, “Good, I knew you wouldn’t. There are no such things!”
It is all too easy to assume that what you do not see does not exist!
Do you believe in angels? Do you know who they are, or what they do? Are they just figments of the artists’ imagination in religious paintings down the centuries? Is there really something out there we ought to know about? Is it important to know if they exist?
Back to the Bible
Positive answers to such questions are to be found only in the Bible. We have no other source of reliable information. The Bible is the inspired word of God and contains a whole library of information on the subject; so where better to look?
Let us go straight to the Bible, to remarkable evidence about these heavenly beings. The example we are to look at first is not the earliest occasion when angels are mentioned, but it is a particularly illuminating one. In the days when the kingdoms of Syria and Israel were at war in the 8th century BC, the king of Syria was much frustrated by the constant discovery of the whereabouts of his advancing forces (2 Kings 6:8-11). Being told that the informer was Elisha the prophet of God, his agents tracked down Elisha and his servant to a small hill town in northern Israel. He dispatched a large army to capture the prophet, and surrounded Dothan with chariots and horsemen under cover of night. When Elisha’s young servant looked out the next morning and saw this great host, he was terrified: “Alas, my master! How shall we do?”
The man whose eyes were opened
It was a natural response. Totally outnumbered by a cruel and sadistic enemy who would show no mercy, he might be excused for being terrified. Yet his master’s reaction was quite different! Calm and confident, Elisha’s response was: “Don’t be afraid!” Not be afraid? Who would not be, in these circumstances? The reason was: “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.” What did he mean? Could Elisha see something that the servant could not? All became clear when the prophet prayed to God:
“Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:17)
Elisha was a man of God, and the Lord had sent his protective forces in the service of His prophet. Elisha had already experienced a similar thing a short time before, when his predecessor Elijah was taken up from him and Elisha had cried, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof” (2 Kings 2:12). Elisha knew from that experience that the angels were there, but the inexperienced young steward had not yet learned where true strength lies. His spiritual eyes were closed.
God works through His servants
The Dothan experience is an instructive revelation of how God works on man’s behalf through His hosts of messenger servants. They were more numerous than the chariots of the Syrian army; they were powerful and like a consuming fire, and they were invested with the authority of the “King of kings” who sent them. Did their presence at Dothan achieve anything? Certainly it did, for in addition to saving the two men and the town’s inhabitants, the Syrian army was neutralised, their soldiers temporarily blinded and led away from Dothan into the hands of the king of Israel.
The chariots and horses revealed to Elisha’s servant were the angels of God, concerned for those who feared God. The incident demonstrated what another “man of God”, king David, well understood and which he described in the following Psalms:
“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” (Psalm 34:7)
“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.” (Psalm 68:17)
“Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.” (Psalm 103:20,21)
“Bless the Lord … who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire.” (Psalm 104:1-4)
The hosts of God
Here are all the elements of the Dothan experience: the chariots, as a symbol of strength; the surrounding army, a mighty protective force around those who put their trust in God; the symbol of fire, holding back or destroying the enemy. We note the impressive numbers, telling us of the great host at God’s disposal. Jesus told Peter that he could summon “more than twelve legions of angels” (over 72,000) to his help, against which the Roman governor’s legions would have had no power at all (Matthew 26:53; John 18:10). We observe, too, that these forces are God’s forces. They are “his angels”, “his hosts”, and they are “his ministers”, doing His pleasure. In other words, the Lord God has total control over them. They “excel” in strength, they have more than enough power to complete their commissions.
With the evidence of this important Bible event, it is clear that there are such beings as angels, and that they have been at work on behalf of God and man. If we wish to know more about them, we must start with a simple question.
Who are the angels?
The English word “angel” comes from the Greek angelos, which means ‘messenger’. In the Old Testament, with two exceptions, the Hebrew word for “angel” is malak, also meaning ‘messenger’. The prophet Malachi took his name from this word. He was himself a messenger, and he prophesied about the coming of “the messenger of the covenant”, Jesus Christ (Malachi 3:1).
Although the word “angel” in the Bible, meaning a messenger, nearly always applies to heavenly beings, it can occasionally apply to human messengers. Malachi himself said a priest was a messenger (malak) of the Lord of hosts (Malachi 2:7), and in the Book of Revelation the elders of the seven churches of Asia were called angels (1:20; 2:1 etc.). But when we meet messengers doing supernatural things, there is no doubt they are heavenly beings – God’s messengers, working for Him and for the ultimate benefit of mankind.
The Creator of the universe
The Lord God is the Creator of everything in the universe, and He made the angels. Of course, atheists and agnostics do not see the need for angels. If (as they believe) everything around them has come about by chance rather than by design they will be indifferent to how God works. But there is overwhelming evidence of a Supreme Designer who not only created, but is in control of a master plan for the earth and the human race. The sympathetic reader will therefore understand why the Creator will wish to explain His purpose to the intelligent beings that He has created.
