A Quick Biblical Theology of Angels

 

A Brief Look at Angels in the Bible – an Overview Summary

Definition:

Angels are created, spiritual beings with moral judgement and high intelligence, but without physical bodies.  (Wayne Grudem)

 

1. They are created beings – Read Colossians 1:16, Nehemiah 9:6

2. They exercise moral judgement – some sinned and fell from their positions (2 Pet. 2:4)

3. They have high intelligence – they are able to speak to people and sing praise to God.

4. Angels are spirits and do not ordinarily have physical bodies – (Hebrews 1:14, Luke 24:39).  In their ordinary activities of protecting and ministering and worshiping God they are invisible.

However, from time to time angels took on bodily form to appear to various people in Scripture, (Matthew 28:2-5; Hebrews 13:2), this should be regarded as exceptions.

 

Other names for angels: holy ones, heavenly host, watchers, sons of God, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, powers.

How many?  They are innumerable, myriads of myriads, thousands upon thousands.

Do they have names?  Apparently so, but there are only two angels named in Scripture.

            Gabriel – spoke to Daniel, and Mary; Michael – Daniel 10:12-14
                                                                                          Jude 9, Rev. 12:7-8

Do they have ranks?   Apparently, Michael is called an archangel, and chief prince.

The archangel will sound the trumpet at the Parousia, and fights the Dragon and his angels in Revelation. (See also Colossians 1:16)

Are there different kinds of Angels?

            Three other types mentioned:

A) Cherubim -- guard the entrance to Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24);  cherubim figures were on top of the ark of the covenant (Ex. 25:22).

B) Seraphim – angels that continually worship God (Isa. 6:2-7)

C) The Living Creatures – Heavenly beings around God’s throne (Ezek. 1:5-14; Revelation (4:8) Their appearance is said to be like a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle.

Do we have Guardian Angels?

There is an idea of general protection (Psalm 91:11-12) and ministering to all God’s people (Hebrews 1:14). There is no overwhelming support for the idea of individual guardian angels. Any assertions about that are extra-biblical speculation.

Angels Do Not Marry

Jesus taught that in heaven, we will be like the angels in heaven, who “neither marry nor are given in marriage.”  (Matt. 22:30; Luke 20:34-36)

Angel Power

Called mighty ones, who have greater might and power than rebellious human beings (2 Peter 2:11), we are temporarily made lower than the heavenly beings (Heb 2:7), the angels do battle against Satan and his demons in Revelation, but when we receive our glorified bodies we will be in a position higher than the angels, for we will judge them (1 Cor. 6:3)

 

THE ANGEL OF THE LORD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the OT, there is someone who is at times called “the angel of the LORD,” not “an angel of the LORD.”  Several passages suggest that this angel is God himself taking on temporary form to appear briefly to human beings.

            The LORD appears to Hagar (Genesis 16:10-13)

            The LORD appears to Jacob in a dream (Gen. 31:11-13)

            The LORD appears to Moses in the burning bush as the angel. (Ex. 3:2,6)

“These are instances of the angel of the LORD or the angel of God appearing as God himself, perhaps more specifically as God the Son taking on a human body for a short time in order to appear to human beings.”  (Grudem, 401)

At other times the angel of the Lord seems to be distinguished from God (2 Sam. 24:16; Psalm 34:7; Zech. 1:11-13) and passages that mention “an angel from God” usually indicate an angel sent by God. Context is the key to interpretation.

Conclusion:

Angels are heavenly beings created by God to help fulfill his purposes in redemption, they are ministering spirits sent to help us in all our ways, they are powerful warriors against evil, they worship and glorify forever their Creator in holiness. They are glorious in appearance when allowed by God to be seen.

We are commanded not to worship them (Colossians 2:18; Revelation 19:10), we should not pray to them (1 Tim. 2:5 – only one mediator), the Bible does not command us to seek after them, but rather we should “seek the Lord.” They are more active than we realize, they live forever, and apparently have a unique interest in the salvation plan of God for humankind (1 Peter 1:12).

Reasons to Fear Monkeys

by

Eric J. Bargerhuff, Ph.D. & Scott Swain, Ph.D.

The following list comes after much reflection and despair over the nature of those things we call monkeys. As children growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, we had many reasons to fear these beasts. And even today, as this list will show, there is still warrant for such fear.

 

TOP TEN and then some

1.      The Wizard of Oz – those flying monkeys that make weird sounds and carry you off to nether land.

2.      Viet Cong Guerilla Warfare – What a frightening phrase. We heard this on the news when we were little, and for all we knew they did nothing but kill us in the middle of the night.

3.      King Kong – he grabs people and can even climb tall buildings to get you.

4.      The Planet of the Apes ­– here is the ultimate fear! They are monkeys that ride horses, can talk in English, rule the world, and hunt down and shoot human beings.

5.      Donkey Kong – even in our video games as kids we were afraid of the monkeys who sought to destroy a poor innocent Italian guy named Mario.

6.      Abominable Snowman – no one knows what this thing is, but surely he has to be a monkey. Like that guy on the Rudolph the Rednose reindeer claymation show; We don’t care if he had a tooth problem that the dentist fixed, or that he was able to put a star on the top of the tree. He’s terrifying.

7.      Grape Ape – a large bass-voice animal with swinging arms. A cartoon from the early 80’s.

8.      “Monkey see, Monkey do” – many of us were reminded as kids that this is how our sin nature works.

9.      Monkeys at Zoos – they are hyper, they scream loud at you, and if you get too close they bite (and throw poo at you).

10.  “Monkeying Around” ­– again, a phrase that our parents used to describe our sin nature. Similar to #8.

11.  Monkey Pox – the disease speaks for itself.

 

The Only Positive Monkey on Record

Curious George

 

He is our hope that the whole mess of them are not spawns of the devil.

 

This list comes a result of much late night reflection among friends while doing a doctoral degree.

Praying According to God's Nature

“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.”  Psalm 69:13, ESV

I have recently been struck by the way in which King David describes the nature of his relationship with his God, which of course is the One true God of the Universe. It is not a relationship that is experienced at a distance, or a relationship that is shallow, or even a relationship whereby God is unknowable. It is a very personal, intimate, unique fellowship between Creator and created one, between Heavenly Father and child of God, between the Redeemer and the redeemed.

David speaks of the nature of this relationship throughout the Psalms, and the reader is drawn into it as he/she oversees the soul cries of this great King who knew God in more than an intellectual sense but also in an experiential sense. He speaks in the above verse about the steadfast love (hesed) of God and the saving faithfulness of God who has proven himself in the past, and this is the basis of his confidence that God will hear and act on his prayer in the present. But yet he also knows that God’s timing is perfect, and so he concedes that there is a future “acceptable time” in which God will answer according to his sovereign timing and purposes.

This is what it means to pray in faith. It means to pray according to God’s will and timing, to pray in the context of an active relationship with the Lord, and to pray according to the very nature of God himself who has proven himself loving and faithful in the deliverance of his people.

I don’t think there is anything wrong in asking God to answer our prayers. David did. And based on the kind of God David described, he knew full well that God would be faithful in doing so.

 

The Most Misused Verses in the Bible: Surprising Ways God's Word is Misunderstood

So excited to be able to announce my latest publication, The Most Misused Verses in the Bible that was published May 1 through Bethany House Publishers (a division of Baker Books). The book covers some of the most popularly misused verses that are taken out of context and frequently misunderstood and misapplied. At present I have been doing some radio interviews on the national syndicate (i.e. Moody radio) discussing the book and today appeared on Chris Fabry Live!

http://www.moodyradio.org/chrisfabrylive.aspx

Verses like "where two or three are gathered" (Matthew 18:20), "judge not lest you be judged" (Matthew 7:1), "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13) are but a few of the verses that are covered in the book. I think we can all admit that there have been times when we unknowingly took a verse out of context and used it because it seemed to "fit" a particular situation. But this book at aims at enlightening our minds about our favorite verses while also teaching us interpretive principles that are necessary in order to understand God's Word properly. I hope you will pick up a copy, available on most major bookstore chain websites.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764209361?ie=UTF8&ref=aw_bottom_links&force-full-site=1

http://www.christianbook.com/misused-verses-bible-surprising-word-misunderstood/eric-bargerhuff/9780764209369/pd/209369?item_code=WW&netp_id=935405&event=ESRCN&view=details

How Do You Know that the Bible is True?

Have you ever had anyone ask you: how do you know that the Bible is true? I mean what makes this book so special – what makes it stand out from all the rest? In an age where there are all of these competing religions that claim to have their own versions of what they call the scriptures, what makes the Christian Bible so different? What sets it apart?

Well if you’ve ever been asked that question I can’t help but wonder if you’ve ever gotten that sinking feeling in your stomach – maybe your face has turned a little red, because you’re not quite sure how to answer that one – but you feel like you should be able to.

After all, The Apostle Peter told the church that every Christian must be prepared to give a reason for the hope they have within them, right? So we must always be prepared to explain and defend why we believe what we believe.

And in a society today that increasingly believes that “all roads and all religions” lead to the same God, it seems even more important for us to be equipped and ready to explain why we believe that Christianity is the only religion of truth – why Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life – and why the Bible is the only inspired Scripture on the face of the earth.

Here we have a Bible that claims to be the Word of God – divine revelation – a book inspired by the Holy Spirit of God who used over 30 human authors over a period of 1,500 years, containing well over 30,000 verses. And there are many different reasons why we can trust and believe that this and this book alone is the only one that is fully true in everything it affirms.

So without going into a big dissertation, let me give you just a few quick reasons to consider.

1) This Bible has proven itself to be a life changing book in the lives of millions of people who have believed its message throughout the centuries. One sure sign of being authenticate is its ability to transform lives – to change minds, to change hearts.

People have been converted, hearts have been convicted and changed, people have experienced healing, hate has turned to love, and so this book has power. And for believers, the Holy Spirit has a way of affirming this in the very depths of their hearts and its power is revealed by our lives.

2) Secondly, there is an amazing sense of unity to this book. Like I said, there are over 30 different authors who have written over a period of 1500 years, and not a once is there a contradiction. Its message in each book is consistent and is uniquely tied together – that man is a sinner and that God alone has the answer.

Several languages are used and hundreds of topics are discussed, and yet there is this amazing unity to it all – and from Genesis to Revelation the idea that man needs a Savior runs through all its pages.

3) Thirdly, the Bible has had an amazing track record of proving that it’s historically true, and much of this has been affirmed in significant ways through modern archaeology. It has proved itself to be factually accurate, in both the Old and the New Testaments.

The ancient city of Jericho has been dug up in recent times, and the Bible story claimed that the walls fell in and the city was burned by Joshua and the Israelites when they took over the land. And sure enough, archaeologists have dug down and discovered collapsed walls and a 3-foot thick layer of ash at the site of this ancient city.

And ironically, there is no other ancient account of this happening other than what is found in the Bible, and so the Bible proves itself to be historically true over and over again.

4) Fourth, the Bible is truly unique from all other books in that it alone thoroughly contains a rather long list of predicted prophecies that have been literally fulfilled. The prophets predicted the existence of certain kings, kingdoms, famines, and wars, all of which have been verified to be true.

* Yet having said all of this, in the end, it is God alone who ultimately convinces us of the truth of God’s Word as the Holy Spirit convicts and confirms the inspired nature of Scripture in our hearts as we read it. In order for this to happen, one must be spiritually reborn by the Holy Spirit who illuminates the Word and leads and guides us into truth. God’s power inherently reveals itself as you thumb through this book, and many of us know exactly what that means as we’ve seen this book change our lives over time. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!

Powerful, Expectant Prayer - A Lost Art

Prayer is talking to God. Prayer is also listening to God.

It is often the most neglected of privileges that a Christian has in his or her arsenal. But, when used properly, it is a mighty weapon. The God who listens is a God that can move mountains, a God who can change hearts, a God that can rearrange circumstances and overthrow tremendous obstacles. He is the God of the impossible, and many times our vision of who God is and what He can do is often way too small, and this is reflected in the amount of time we may spend in prayer.

It is true that God is sometimes less concerned with changing our circumstances and is more concerned with changing the heart and mind and perspective of the person praying. As someone has said, “Prayer doesn’t change God, prayer changes me.”

And if that is true then it is also true that the person who is most resistant to change and is satisfied in being self-sufficient and self made is probably a person who isn’t praying at all. When we become content with who we are, then prayer will seem irrelevant.

So when we bow our heads to pray then, we acknowledge several things. First we acknowledge our willingness to change. We also acknowledge a proper assessment of ourselves and our need for God.

But perhaps more importantly, when we bow to pray we acknowledge the Supremacy and Sovereignty of the Almighty God who grants us every breath and who holds our life utterly and completely in the palm of His hands. Prayer is a statement that says that God’s glory and His plans are far more important and necessary to know that anything else. And prayer is often the way we come to know those things.

When you pray, be bold. Be specific. Don’t be afraid or intimidated by silence, and let the Holy Spirit bring to mind the things that need to be lifted up. Pray according to the truths that are revealed in Scripture. Pray with your heart and with your mind. Be willing to put your opinions before God so that He might change them or perhaps refine them. Pray with expectancy and pray with faith.

If you pray this way, then it is more likely that you will learn to pray more in keeping with God’s will. As someone has said, no one out on a boat in the water throws a rope onto a dock and expects the dock to be pulled out to him. Instead, the goal is to pull the boat to the dock. And in the same way, when we pray to God, we shouldn’t expect that God would be pulled more towards our will, but rather that our will is pulled over toward God’s.

So pray with joy, knowing that God is good, and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

The Need for Wise Counsel from Godly People

I am always intrigued by new discoveries that are made as I read through everyday narratives of Scripture in my times alone with God. This morning I was reading through some of the Chronicles of the Old Testament Kings and was struck by the faithfulness of an obscure priest that hardly anyone today would recognize or remember.

His name was Jehoiada. Now there are a couple of men by this name in the Old Testament, but this man was a high priest in the kingdom of Judah – a godly man who was faithful to God in the midst of a dark time.

Some background:

The Nation of Israel had been divided into two – the Northern Kingdom known as Israel was being led by the ungodly King Ahab, and the Southern Kingdom known as Judah was being ruled by King Ahaziah (whose corrupt mother named Athaliah was as much an influence as the King himself). King Ahaziah of Judah assumed his reign as King when he was 22 years old and it lasted only one year. He made the mistake of listening to the counsel of his wicked mother along with a select number of ungodly men, and as the ESV so aptly points out, this was “to his undoing.” (2 Chron. 22:4).

Not but a short time after ascending to the throne, King Ahaziah suffered a downfall that was “ordained by God,” (22:7) and it ended up that he was murdered by a group of thugs that God had raised up to execute judgment on Israel. Following his death, the King’s mother Athaliah decided to murder some of the remaining descendants of the godly line of David in what surely was a Satanically-inspired attempt to destroy the line of blood that was prophesied to one day produce a Messiah. But miraculously, Athaliah’s stepdaughter hid away one of the remaining heirs to the throne in order to prevent Athaliah from wiping out the entire royal bloodline. (Isn’t it interesting to see how God has a way of making sure his promises will come true as he preserved the line of David?)

Time passes, and Athtaliah, who was the mother of the dead King, has made herself Queen of Judah (the only female queen to occupy the throne of Judah). But six years later, in steps the godly priest known as Jehoiada, and he knows about the one remaining son (named Joash) who has been hidden for six years. He courageously rallies some of the faithful, believing commanders in Judah’s army and they go around and collect a group of Levite priests spread throughout the Kingdom. They find Joash (now 7 years old) and take him to the temple in Jerusalem and anoint him as King. It is a big deal with lots of noise, and when the wicked Queen Athaliah hears the noise, she comes running to see what all the hubbub is about.

When she entered the temple, she finds the people rejoicing and blowing trumpets as they celebrate the newly anointed King, and she is furious as you can imagine. She tears her clothes (a sign of angst) and shouts “Treason! Treason!” Just then Jehoiada the faithful priest orders that the Queen be removed from the house of God and put to death, and the wicked Queen meets her demise in public. Literally, the wickedness is removed from the kingdom of Judah.

And then we read this:

“And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself and all the people and the king that they should be the LORD's people. “ (2 Chronicles 23:16)

They subsequently removed all the sinful idols from the land, tore down the altars to Baal, and began worshipping the LORD again. The young King Joash grew, and Jehoiada the high priest became his advisor. And during this time, there was abundant favor and blessing that came upon the King and the land, as the Kingdom of Judah began to worship the One True God once again. Even the house of God was repaired and restored. For it had fallen in disrepair due to years of neglect. And text tells us that,

…they offered burnt offerings in the house of the LORD regularly all the days of Jehoiada. (2 Chronicles 24:14)

What a powerful story which gives us a brief glimpse at a godly man. This high priest, Jehoiada, was bold and courageous. He was willing to take a stand against evil and he successfully lead God’s people into a season of repentance from sin while calling them to an obedient life that honored and worshipped God. He lived a rich and long life, dying at the age of 130. And in honor of his life, the people of Judah buried him in Jerusalem alongside previous kings (an almost unheard of privilege since only Kings were allowed to be buried there.)

Oh how encouraged I was to see what a godly “pastor” Jehoiada was to the people of Judah. He had no fear, and he believed that God’s favor was uniquely linked to obedience to God’s Word – both for the King and for all of God’s people. He further poured himself into those who were leaders, and God brought about reformation and revival as they worshipped God together.

For pastors who wish to see God’s blessing on their congregations, they would do well to follow in the footsteps of godly shepherds like Jehoiada. Point people to Christ, give them the Word of God and godly counsel, and pour yourself into fellow leaders who along with you will help shepherd God’s flock under your care. And your life will be honored by both God and man.

Yet, in a frightening twist to our story, as soon as Jehoiada died, some of the ungodly princes of Judah who had not repented and turned back to God resurfaced again, and they came and flattered the king by paying homage to him. The young King Joash listened to their advice, and fell away from God. Yes, it seems that when one listens to bad counsel, it is only a matter of time before corruption sets in. Whether it was the wicked Athaliah’s counsel to her son the King before his untimely death, or Joash the new boy King who was ambushed with bad advice after the death of the Jehoiada, the godly high priest. Who one listens to is important.

Who do you listen to? Where do you seek counsel? Where do you turn for advice? Are they godly people? Are their views shaped by biblical convictions? Do their lives model faithfulness to God and His ways? These are all things that we have to question as we choose who we befriend and seek counsel from. For as Paul warned, “bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Cor. 15:33).

I have been fortunate to have had several different “Jehoiada’s” in my life, men who are full of the Spirit who have given me wise counsel. And by God’s grace, I hope to become one myself.