Che cosa sono gli angeli

From Diwygiad

Introduzione

Vi sono diverse ragioni per le quali è necessario avere una comprensione accurata ed estesa su che cosa siano gli angeli.

• In primo luogo, la fonte autorevole di informazioni su questo argomento non può altro che essere la Parola di Dio e solo quella. "Ogni Scrittura è ispirata da Dio e utile a insegnare, a riprendere, a correggere, a educare alla giustizia" (2 Timoteo 3:16). Sull'argomento degli angeli le Scritture sono le uniche a "fare testo". Quando infatti si esamina la letteratura disponibile oggi sull'argomento si trova spesso che quando l'autore va oltre a ciò che afferma la Bibbia, ci si addentra nello speculativo, nel fantasioso e nel soggettivo. L'unica fonte di verità al riguardo degli angeli è la rivelazione biblica.
• In secondo luogo, in questi tempi di apostasia, troviamo come spesso la cultura è caratterizzata dallo spiritualismo, da presunte rivelazioni speciali e da culto di demoni. In molti ambienti oggi ci si interessa molto di angeli e di demoni. Molti cristiani ne sono ingannati ed altri non sanno che dire su queste cose. Con una comprensione degli angeli e dei demoni fondata fermamente sulla rivelazione biblica saremo in grado di giudicare rettamente su queste cose e sapremo come rispondere quando qualcuno, magari entusiasmato da certa letteratura, ci fa delle domande al riguardo.
• In terzo luogo, la comprensione di quanto dice la Bibbia sugli angeli arricchisce la nostra vita e promuove la nostra riconoscenza per la salvezza che otteniamo in Cristo. La questione degli angeli non è cosa sulla quale Dio ci ha lasciato all'oscuro. Sicuramente non ci ha detto "tutto" al riguardo, ma possiamo stare certi che quanto ci ha rivelato va a nostro beneficio. Martin Lutero

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Martin Luther wrote, "The acknowledgment of angels is needful in the church. Therefore godly preachers should teach them logically. First, they should show what angels are, namely, spiritual creatures without bodies. Secondly, what manner of spirits they are, namely, good spirits and not evil; and here evil spirits must also be spoken of, not created evil by God, but made so by their rebellion against God, and their consequent fall. Thirdly, they must speak touching their function, which, as the epistle to the Hebrews shows, is to present a mirror of humility to godly Christians, in that such pure and perfect creatures as the angels do minister unto us, poor and wretched people, in household and temporal policy, and in religion" (Table Talk, pp. 278-279).

The great Reformation came at the conclusion of the Dark Ages; it may be argued that the Reformation was the reason the dark, middle ages came to a close! During the several hundred years before 1517, under the ignorance by which the Roman Catholic Church kept her members bound, there was a lot of superstition regarding heaven and hell, angels and devils, ghosts and goblins, etc. In the area of theology there were all kinds of speculations and endless discussions on the subject of angels. About 1200, a certain Albertus Magnus asked and attempted to answer 120 questions about angels. He discussed the language the angels spoke, and he was not afraid to write at length about the fall of Satan in heaven. About the same time, Bonaventura asked such questions as, "Can an angel be in several places at the same time?" "Can several angels be at the same time in the same place?" "How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?" Duns Scotus, the last of the scholastics or schoolmen, was so speculative in this theology that many in Europe called for saner methods of theological discussion, and Luther called him "the most arrogant of sophists" (specious reasoners). The Reformation brought an end to this wild, speculative method of biblical interpretation; it was a return to the Bible and the principles of Scripture alone and the sufficiency of Scripture.

The Belgic Confession, written about 1560, gives the Reformed view of angels, and shows the restraint that the Reformation engendered in its theologians. (We ask that you read Article 12 of the Confession.) It is very striking that in an article entitled "Of the Creation" more than half the lines are used to set forth the truth concerning angels! There are reasons for this: first, to set forth in a calm, biblical way what we must believe over against the speculations of the scholastics; and second, to distance the Reformed churches from the Sadducees and the Manichees. The former denied the existence of angels altogether. The latter taught that the devils were not created but were eternal, and did not fall but were eternally corrupted.

Angels as such

What are angels? Scripture presents us with four main teachings.

1) Angels are creatures; they were created by God, and are not to be worshiped. They are not eternal. And they are dependent. They have their being, not in themselves, but in God. The creation of angels is not recorded in the first chapters of Genesis. All those who believe in the literal meaning of Genesis 1 agree that angels were created on one of the six creation days. Some place their creation on day one, when God created the heavens and the earth. They point out that at this point the earth was without form and void, but not the heavens. We lean towards this interpretation. Others are content to say that they were created prior to the fourth day, when God made the sun, moon, and stars, basing their view on job 38:7. Herman Hoeksema prefers the sixth day, although he refuses to be dogmatic about it. Rev. G. Lubbers stated in a recent conversation that he leans toward the second day. It is enough for us to know that as creatures the angels were created during the creation week.

As creatures, angels have their own peculiar natures. They are not glorified human beings. In Hebrews 2:16 we read that Christ did not take on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Likewise, Hebrews 12:22 is careful to distinguish between the host of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. They do not have flesh and blood, although God can give them bodily form. They are spirits, not in the sense that God is Spirit, but created spirits. God made His angels winds (Ps. 104).

Angels are greater than men in knowledge, but they do not know everything. A certain woman said to king David, "My lord is wise according to the wisdom of an angel, to know all things that are in the earth" (II Sam. 14), but we also read that of the day and hour when the Son of God returns, no one knoweth, not even the angels of heaven (Matt.24:36). And Peter informs us that the angels desire to look into the things which the prophets foretold, the things of salvation. No, the angels do not know all things. Nor are they almighty, though they are stronger than men. We read of angels being mighty in strength, of angels who have power, even the power of Christ, of their work in rolling the stone from the door of the tomb of Jesus and setting the apostles free from prison. But only God is omnipotent. So angels are created spirits, higher than men.

2) Next we ought to see that God's eternal, double decree of predestination pertains to the angel world. In I Timothy 5:2 the apostle writes, "I charge thee in the sight of God, and Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things." And of the reprobate angels we read in Jude 6, "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the last day." God elected some angels, and reprobated all the rest. The Belgic Confession states that the elect angels have, by the grace of God, remained steadfast and continued in their primitive state, while others have fallen from that excellency in which God had created them.

At this juncture several important points must be made. First, according to the decree of reprobation, a large number of angels fell into sin. If you have been looking for something new here about that fall, you will be disappointed. Very likely you know as much as we about that matter. The angels fell sometime after their creation and before the appearance of the devil in a serpent to our first parents in Paradise. Their fall into sin was motivated by pride. The prince of the devils was not satisfied in being a holy angel in the presence of God, but he wanted to be God himself. He succeeded in getting a large number of angels to join in his rebellion; Revelation 12 states that his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven down with him. But how sin entered into God's holy heaven, how rebellion filled the minds of Satan and his cohorts, is a mystery that has no present answer. Will we know in heaven? Perhaps not even then.

Further, angels do not comprise a race similar to the human race, but they are a host or a realm of individuals. Angels are not organically related. They do not marry and bring forth little angels. Their number is constant from the moment of their creation. Angels are not legally related either. They do not form a corporation or federation. When Adam fell into sin, the entire human race became guilty and corrupt in him. He represented us in Paradise (Rom. 5:12). But when Satan fell into sin, all the angels did not become guilty of his sin. Those who willfully joined his rebellion became wicked and depraved, while those who remained steadfast by the grace of God remained upright and are still upright today.

The third point is that the death of Christ did not atone for the sins of a single angel. He is not the Savior of angels. The holy angels do not need redemption and the fallen angels have fallen absolutely. Yet, the Scriptures make clear that the work of Christ in His humiliation and in His exaltation does have significance for the angel world. Through His death, resurrection, and ascension to God's right hand, Christ did unite all things in heaven and on earth. He makes all of God's creation one, and He is Head over all exalted. There is that difficult passage in Colossians 1:20 ("And having made peace through the blood of the cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.") which states emphatically that through the blood of the cross Christ has reconciled all things unto God whether they be in heaven or on earth. The difficulty is that we usually think of reconciliation in terms of the removal of the guilt of sin through the satisfaction of the justice of God. But the holy angels have no guilt of sin. The answer to the difficulty must be found along these lines. The peace that Christ established through the blood of the cross is, first of all, peace with God. The opposite of peace is rebellion and war. Man is at war with God, and man is at war with man. There was also war among the angels or war in heaven (Rev. 12). Although the elect angels did not sin, yet a certain stain or reproach did attach itself to the angel realm because of the rebellion of Satan and his demons. Christ arose as the Firstborn of every creature, so that in the cross of Christ every thing is reconciled to God and every aspect of the universe is brought into peace with God. The division in the angelic realm is healed. Christ is the new Head of the angels as well, and He has the pre-eminence everywhere for uniting all things in one under Himself.

3) When God created the angels He placed them in various orders or at different levels. Angels differ as far as their glory and positions are concerned. We can call this the classification of angels. (We will limit ourselves to the holy angels; you can read C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters for the classification of devils.) Scripture speaks of the cherubim which are the guardians of God's throne, righteousness, and holiness; of the seraphim which stand above the cherubim, and lead the worship of God in heaven; of the archangels, one of which is Michael and perhaps another is Gabriel; angels entrusted with specific, great tasks by God. Paul speaks in Colossians 1 of further organization of angels when he writes of thrones, principalities, dominions, and powers, all of which were created by Christ and for Christ. One more angel is mentioned in the Old Testament, the Angel of the Lord. Really this is not a created angel, but he is the Christ as He appeared in the form of an angel before His incarnation through the virgin birth. When Christ appeared in the form of an angel, to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Balaam, Gideon, and others, there is a foreshadowing of the great mystery of godliness, when God was manifest in the flesh.

4) The last point we wish to make regarding angels as such is their number. We said earlier that the number of angels remains constant. They do not increase or decrease. Now we notice that that number of holy angels is very great! In Daniel 7 the prophet writes that "Thousands of thousands ministered unto God, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him." Literally that is a hundred million, but the idea is really a countless throng! As we read in Hebrews 12, an innumerable host of angels.

In their relation to the church

What is God's purpose with angels in regard to His church? We read in Hebrews 1:14, "Are they (angels) not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" Angels are the servants of the church as a whole and of the saints individually.

There are five items to be observed here.

1) Angels are messengers from God in heaven to His church on earth, appearing at the most critical points in the history of salvation. After the Fall God placed at the east of Eden cherubim to keep the way of the tree of life, for fellowship with God was no longer through the tree but through Christ typified in bloody sacrifices. God delivered the Law to Moses at Sinai by the hands of angels. The birth of Jesus Christ was announced to Mary and to Joseph by Gabriel, after he had announced the birth of John the Baptist. An angel appeared to the frightened shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem speaking of the birth of the Savior; then, a multitude of the heavenly host taught the shepherds and us to sing, "Glory to God in the Highest." After Jesus was baptized and had been tempted in the wilderness, angels came to Him and ministered unto Him. When Jesus groveled on the ground as a worm and not a man in the Garden, an angel came to Him to strengthen Him. At the empty tomb an angel spoke the resurrection gospel to the women, "He is not here, he is risen even as he said." On the Mount of Olives an angel asked the staring disciples, "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and promised that Christ would return in like manner. And when Jesus comes at the end of time He will come with His angels in great glory. So angels are messengers, sent to reveal the will of God and to comfort both Christ and His church.

2) There are angels whose business it is to guard the people of God and their children. In Psalm 91 we find the wonderful words, "For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." As parents, who cannot always have our eyes on our children, we take great comfort from the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:10, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Little children of God have their own, personal angels, who go from the face of God in heaven to do His will, to watch over our children.

Not only is this physical protection that the angels give, but they safeguard our children from the devil and the world. We believe that God watches over us. We believe that He preserves us from the evil one. But we are not often aware of the means that God uses, those ministering spirits whom we may call guardian angels.

3) There is a sense in which the angels observe what is happening on the earth, at least in the life of the church and in the life of the saints. Jesus concluded two of His parables with the astounding words, "Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." When there is the refusal to confess our sins to God and to one another, and to extend forgiveness to one another, we may be sure that the angels in heaven weep. But when a sinner comes to repentance, the angels rejoice before God because they understand that repentance worketh life, and repentance comes to pass only by the irresistible grace of God! Angels delight in the grace of God in Christ!

The second proof we have for the position that angels are aware of what goes on in the church below is the rather difficult passage found in Ephesians 3:10, "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God" Paul says that he preaches among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, that he makes known the mystery which was hid from the beginning of the world, with the intent that the angels might know these things by means of the church!

When the church preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ, and when the members of the church confess and live that gospel, the wisdom of God in saving His church through Christ is made known to the angels. They are not saved by that gospel, but they are deeply interested in it, and that interest is satisfied as the angels are attuned to the life of the church.

4) The angels of God are reapers in the great harvest at the end of the world. In the parable of the tares and the wheat (Matt. 13), the field is the world, the good seed stands for the children of the kingdom, and the tares are the children of the wicked one. At the end of the world, the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.

And those same angels shall bring the righteous into the kingdom of their Father. Accordingly, Jesus teaches in Matthew 24 that He "shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

Angels reap, they gather, they bring together the elect unto Christ, and bring the wicked unto the flame.

5) Finally, we must notice that there is a change worked in the relationship between the angels and us due to the great victory that Christ achieved as the Captain of our salvation. According to our creation, and according to the manhood of Jesus Christ, we were both made a little lower than the angels. But because of His perfect obedience unto death, God has so highly exalted Christ that He is now higher than the angels. Thus Hebrews 1:4, "Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."

Because the child of God is represented by Christ, and is engrafted into Christ, we share in His exaltation and honor, and are given a place above the angels in the world to come. One of the implications of the church's sharing in Christ' s glory is that when Christ returns to judge the quick and the dead, we are going to judge with Him, and according to I Corinthians 6:3, we are going to judge the angels.

Questions that often arise

When the subject of angels is discussed, there are particularly two questions that people seek to have answered. The first one is, Do angels appear just before a child of God dies? Or, just as a saint expires, is it possible that he sees angels?

The question is prompted by certain remarks made by people as they die. You have heard of such statements, I am sure. Although I have been at the bedside of several saints as they died, I have not heard these words firsthand; but they have been repeated to me by other family members whose parents have gone the way of all flesh. For example, "Oh, it's very beautiful!" "I hear music!" "I see angels!" What are we to think of this?

Our response is that it is entirely possible. Who are we to say that it is not true? If we keep in mind that the soul of the redeemed child of God enters into glory at the moment of physical death, and if we keep in mind that Christ sends His angels to gather His people home, why is such an experience not possible? Although this may not be experienced in every case, we see no reason to doubt the authenticity of these remarks.

Another question that needs answering today goes something like this: "What do we say to those who claim to have seen angels in their lifetime, have had visions of angels, and have even heard angels speak?"

That is an entirely different question. Not as someone is dying, but while he is living! We do not believe it. We do not believe it because there is no longer any reason for God to send us angels, and to give us messages by angels. Not since the canon of Holy Scripture has been completed. We put such visions of angels in the same category as speaking in tongues, miracles of healing, and special revelations from God. All these were common during the days of the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles. The reason for such things was that there was no New Testament yet - no full, written Word of God. Further, these miracles and revelations had the purpose of proving that what the prophets and apostles were saying was indeed true. But there is no longer any need for that.

This all reminds one of the rich man in hell of whom we read in Luke 16. This rich man says to Abraham in heaven, "I pray thee, father, send Lazarus to my father's house that he may testify to my five brothers, lest they also come into this place of torment." And Abraham says to him, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." In other words, they have the Bible. Let them give careful heed to what God says in the Bible. But the rich man objects (implying that he was brought into torment unfairly), "Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." And the final word of Jesus in the parable is, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." The Scriptures are sufficient. God does not speak through other means since the time the apostle John finished Revelation, and pronounced woe upon those who added to or subtracted from the Word of God. The Standard Bearer, Feb-Mar 1996

Rev. Kuiper is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church 1535 Cambridge Ave., S.E. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506 Phone: (616) 452-7047

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