What Is an Angel?

Welcome to another week on Things Unseen. I thought that since Christmas is almost on us, this would be a good time to reflect for a few days on the subject of angels. Here’s a couple of interesting pieces of trivia: the word angel appears in the Bible three times as often as the word Apostle. And here’s another: by my reckoning, at least two-thirds of the traditional Christmas carols refer to angels. And yet, apart from a side glance at Easter time, we give very little consideration to angels, but they punctuate the story of our Lord’s life and His ministry, don’t they?

They appear at the beginning, in connection with His birth. They appear again at the end, in connection with His passion and His resurrection. And of course, they’ll appear again when they accompany Him when He returns in glory. Their presence actually underlines His glory, but also it underlines the fact that He is their King as well as our King. It’s a bit like England and Scotland, isn’t it? Two peoples with one and the same king. But what are angels? And what do they do? And what is their significance for us? These are some of the questions we’ll explore in the next few days.

So, let’s think first of all about the basic question, What is an angel? Well, the words that are used in the Bible—in the Old Testament, malakh, and in the New Testament, angelos—both mean “messenger.” In the Old Testament, the word actually refers usually to human messengers, and when it refers to a heavenly messenger, it’s dominantly to the Angel of the Lord. And the Angel of the Lord is obviously a theophany, a physical manifestation of the presence of the Lord Himself. Many Christians have actually believed that the Angel of the Lord is specifically a Christophany—that is, a pre-incarnate manifestation of the Son of God. Although, this identification isn’t really picked up in the New Testament.

In the New Testament, however, the word angelos usually refers to heavenly beings. These angels are created beings. More specifically, according to Colossians 1:16, they were created by Christ. They’re heavenly beings—that is, we Christians actually believe in extraterrestrials. And they’re spirits, and yet, they’re capable of spatial extension, so they can appear in physical form. And we even know the names of two of them, Gabriel and Michael.

And this raises an interesting question: Are angels persons? Well, my own view is if we can use that term of both God and man, then by extension, we can probably also use it of angels. They certainly seem to have the characteristics of persons. They’re rational and volitional beings, and there are hints that they experience affections like joy. In addition, they speak, they direct, they obey, and they serve, and they show interest in earthly activities, and they worship.

Or, at least, many of them worship, for there are two categories of angels now, aren’t there? There are the faithful and the fallen. Those described in 1 Timothy 5:21 are elect angels, and they’re associated with God and His heavenly assembly. In fact, in the book of Job, they’re described as “sons of God” (Job 1:6). They’re members of His family, His heavenly family. But of course, there are also fallen angels. Matthew 25:41 speaks of the devil and his angels. He was a liar and murderer who fell from his original status and brought with him other angels. We read of them in 2 Peter 2:4 and in Jude 1:6.

And Scripture also teaches that there are huge numbers of angels. Jesus spoke once about twelve legions of angels waiting to minister to Him, and there were between three thousand and six thousand in a Roman legion. Or think of the vivid picture in Revelation 5 of myriads of myriads of angels, thousands and thousands of them. That’s a huge population of extraterrestrial life, isn’t it?

The Bible wants us to see that we are not alone in the universe. There is an entire world of extraterrestrial beings. And the wonderful thing is that so many of them want to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. And they do that by serving His people, serving us in ways that are beyond our understanding because so often they take place in ways that are invisible to us. Perhaps one day we’ll discover how marvelous their ministry has been.

And here’s my last thought for today: Can you imagine what pleasure and joy we’ll have in heaven meeting some of these angels who have invisibly served us? That’s something to look forward to, and we’ll talk more about these angels tomorrow.