Um … they don’t. Really. Look it up.
Aw, come on, you’re Googling, aren’t you.
It’s okay. I did too. I also got my concordance out. But this particular misconception is
not confined to the famous Christmas carol.
Although ... it’s awfully hard to prove a negative. Perhaps it
would be more accurate to say that we have “no unequivocal biblical evidence” of
angels singing.
I owe my father for this one, by the way. It’s a small
point, but one of a number of things that prompted me to begin looking at the
words of Scripture a little more attentively, and actually look things up rather
than just believing what I was told.
But singing angels are a popular culture staple. Movies have
been made with angels singing in the title. Meat Loaf and Social
Distortion, among others, include singing angels in the lyrics of their pop
tunes.
Angels also don’t play harps, so far as I can find — sorry, I mean I can find no “unequivocal
biblical evidence” that angels play harps. The four living creatures and the
twenty-four elders of Revelation 5 have harps and sing “a new song”. So I suppose
if you are entirely confident that the “four living creatures” are angels, you have an
instance of angels both singing and playing harps.
I’m just not sure they are. The “living creatures” and “many
angels” are listed in verse 11 separately. Which is not definite proof, but suggestive that there is a distinction of some sort there.
Just no singing. Sorry.
The closest I could come to proving angels sing is this website, wherein the writer concludes a short post on the same topic with the
hopeful conjecture that because humans sing, “It would seem logical that God
would have created the angels with that same ‘propensity’ ”.
I’m not sure about logical. Possible, of course. Demonstrable, not so much.
I’m not sure about logical. Possible, of course. Demonstrable, not so much.
If I may appropriate a phrase of Scripture completely out of
context (okay, it does have to do
with angels, remotely), “we must pay … closer attention”.
Speaking of paying closer attention, I’m always open to
correction on this or any other issue if somebody has come across a Scripture reference I
haven’t thought of. It’s not like a major doctrine turns on it.
And truly “Hark, the Herald Angels Say”, though at least provable, doesn’t seem quite as appropriate to the Christmas season as we like to picture it.
But forget the singing. There are many equally common — and more significant — misconceptions about heaven.
Next: More on that. Possibly
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