One of the more gratifying aspects of writing and editing a blog over a decade or more is the occasional recent comment on an ancient post. That a post from March 2014 is still drawing the odd pair of eyes ten years on is testimony to both the goodness of the Lord and the short-term durability of the expression of internet opinions — at least so long as somebody continues to ante up the annual fees for ownership of your domain.
In this case, a reader weighs in on the existence of angels, a controversy that goes all the way back to the disagreements between Pharisees and Sadducees in the time of Christ.
Really? No Evidence?
Fr. David writes:
“Even if the Bible did refer to an ‘Angel’ there really is no evidence that they exist. The Bible talks about Cherubim and Seraphim and other creatures, but when it uses the word ‘angel’ it is referring to humans ... ‘The Angel of the Lord’ is a reference to Jesus Himself and the ‘Angels of the 7 Churches’ in Revelation are just the pastors of churches, because the word ‘angel’ just translates as ‘messenger.’ So the argument about the English words ‘say vs. sing’ is minute compared to the discussion of whether or not there even exists a being that claims the definition ‘angel.’ ”
So then, are the biblical texts commonly taken to refer to angels all really just about human beings? It’s a question worth considering. When we talk about evidence of the existence of angels, I’m going to limit myself to evidence from the text of scripture, which I believe is probably what our reader means, since anecdotal evidence for supernatural spirit beings cannot be confirmed with certainty. Let’s have a look at that.
Angels in the Old Testament
First, our reader is quite correct that the word “angel” just translates as “messenger”, and that the “Angel of the Lord” is a reference to Jesus himself. (Technically, it would be more accurate to refer to him as the Word, the Son, or Christ is his pre-incarnate state, before the name “Jesus” was ever in use, as he had yet to take a body.) But note that right off the bat (Genesis, the very first time the word appears), the writers of scripture are using the Hebrew mal'āḵ (“angel”) to designate an immensely powerful spirit being, not a man. The Messenger of the Lord may have appeared as a man, but the human body prepared for him by God in which he would live, minister and go to the cross was still centuries away.
The word mal'āḵ appears over 200 times in the Old Testament. The KJV, for example, has used the word “angel” for 111 of these and the generic “messenger” for 98. We should look at these more closely.
1/ The Messengers at Sodom
The first occurrence of mal'āḵ that does not refer to the “Angel of the Lord” is Genesis 19:1 (and again in v15). The Lord sent two “messengers” to Sodom to extract Lot and his family. Could these have been human beings? Like the Angel of the Lord, they certainly appeared human. The writer of Genesis calls the Lord and his two companions “three men” a chapter earlier, and that is how Abraham and Sarah interacted with them, even preparing food for them, which they ate. However, one of these “men” is later revealed to be “the Lord” [YHWH], so we cannot discount the possibility (strong likelihood) that the other two were also spirit beings manifesting themselves as men. Interestingly, when the men of Sodom tried to break down Lot’s door that evening, these two “messengers” struck them blind.
That’s not definitive, since scripture tells us God also performed miracles through human beings on many occasions, but at very least let’s say these “men” were unusually powerful.
2/ The Messenger Before Abraham’s Servant
When Abraham sent his servant to Mesopotamia to look for a wife for Isaac, he promised him “The Lord, the God of heaven … will send his messenger [mal'āḵ] before you.” Either Abraham was lying or else the “messenger” the Lord sent was spirit rather than flesh, invisible to the human eye, as we do not read of any human agent going along with the servant at the Lord’s direction, providing miraculous guidance or anything else. When he arrived, the servant shared Abraham’s statement with Laban, and Laban’s conclusion was “This thing has come from the Lord.” He saw the hand of God going ahead of the servant during his journey even if modern readers may not.
3/ Messengers Ascending and Descending
A few chapters later, Jacob is on his way to Laban in Haran. He falls asleep and dreams of “the messengers of God” ascending and descending a ladder firmly planted on the earth with its top in heaven. The usage is plural, so this is not the “Messenger of the Lord”, but other “messengers” of one sort or another who Jacob saw going up and down between earth and heaven. Could these have been human beings? Again, it’s not impossible, but it would seem highly unlikely. We have precedent in scripture for human beings being taken to heaven. We do not ordinarily see them coming back. The most natural interpretation is that the origin of these messengers was heavenly rather than earthly.
As in the previous two cases, I am very comfortable with the standard English translation of “angel” rather than “messenger”. Something supernatural was going on. At least, that was how those involved perceived it.
4/ Plural References to Messengers
Throughout the Old Testament, its writers regularly pluralize mal'āḵ (“messengers”) in contexts that are unambiguously supernatural. These are manifestly not references to the Angel of the Lord, but to other “messengers” acting on God’s behalf. Manna from heaven is called “the bread of the angels”, which seems a likelier translation than “the bread of the messengers”. If these messengers were human, who were they? Likewise, the psalmist refers to “a company of destroying angels” turned loose on Egypt during the plagues. Psalm 91 says, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.” In context, these are agents acting on God’s behalf performing miracles of protection. Satan even used this passage during the temptation to describe beings sent to minister to the Lord Jesus. The book of Zechariah is full of “messengers”, plural, in supernatural settings.
Angels in the New Testament
Let us move on. Rather than transliterating it, New Testament Greek replaces the Hebrew mal'āḵ with the word angelos, probably derived from words meaning a literal bringer of tidings. We know the two words are synonyms because the Lord Jesus quotes from the Psalms and replaces the Hebrew with its closest Greek equivalent. The term is used 185 times in twelve different forms in the NT, from Matthew through Revelation. In the aforementioned temptation of Christ, these “angels” are manifestly supernatural servants of God. Satan expected these beings from the Psalms to catch Jesus before he hit the ground if he were to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple, something of which few humans (okay, precisely zero) would normally be capable.
References to these beings in the NT are so numerous they make individual analysis unfeasible, but they appear in Joseph’s dreams, minister to the Lord Jesus, reap the harvest at the end of the world in the Lord’s parables, come with the Son of Man in the glory of his Father and behold the face of the Father in heaven. In fact, Jesus repeatedly calls them “the angels in heaven”. That they are not human is evident from the fact that the Lord compares us with them. In the resurrection, he says, we humans will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but will be “like angels in heaven”. How could these be human messengers? In Corinthians, Paul says we humans will judge angelos with respect to matters not pertaining to “this life”. Other human messengers? Surely not.
The Lord Jesus also contrasts us with angels: “No one knows, not even the angels of heaven.” Jesus said he could have appealed to his Father and received twelve legions of angelos as support. Surely he did not mean human beings. Angels who were not Jesus appeared at his tomb to announce he had risen. One of these “descended from heaven” to roll back the stone, then referred to the risen Lord in the third person. Again, these were not human beings. When Stephen’s face became “like an angel” in his death, how is that remarkable if angels are just human messengers? Why would Luke even mention it? Again in Acts he says the law was delivered “by angels”, plural. He is not talking about Moses.
But the definitive statements about angelos come in Hebrews 1, where Christ is contrasted with them throughout as vastly superior to them, and the writer finishes with a biblical description of these “messengers”: “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?” In short, no, these “angels” are not human beings. The “angels of the seven churches” in Revelation may be human pastors, though I doubt it. The class of “ministering spirits” to which Jesus is superior are definitely not.
In Summary
Notwithstanding the convictions of the Sadducees, scripture is full of evidence for powerful spirit beings who dwell in heaven and serve God by guarding regenerate humanity, carrying messages and doing works of destruction at his command. English translators have traditionally distinguished these supernatural messengers from ordinary human messengers by labeling them “angels”, determining from context which messengers are human agents and which supernatural. If you dislike the word “angels”, feel free to call them something else, but they are not Christ, not human, and there is oodles of biblical proof they exist.
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