The Nature of Angels
Part 1
What is the nature of these wonderful
Creatures of God? The Word of God answers us that they are spirits. "Are
they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall
be heirs of salvation?" (Heb.1:14). This fact needs no further elucidation.
The question is often asked by thoughtful believers, have angels’ bodies?
If they have bodies, what kind of bodies do they possess?
The question as to the corporality
of the angels of God demands, therefore, a closer attention. Not a few
expositors of Scripture maintain that a spirit must be immaterial, that
spirituality excludes corporality and, therefore, the angels as spirits are
bodiless beings. We know from Scripture that they appeared in visible form,
generally in likeness of a human body. It seems these unseen spirits taking on
visibility could not always be distinguished from ordinary creatures. In an
exhortation to hospitality we read in Scripture, Heb. 13:l, "Be not
forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares."
We learn from this that pious
Hebrews in Old Testament times received strangers into their homes, entertained
them, only to discover later that they were the messengers of God. We conclude,
therefore, that they did not appear, as pictured in art, with wings and a halo
about the head. They looked like as if they were common mortals.
From other Scriptures we learn that
their bodies sometimes possessed a marvelous glory. Their garments are
described as shining, their faces like the lightning and their whole appearance
in whiteness like the snow. How can this be reconciled with the assertion that
they are only spirits? It is answered, that they possess the faculty of
appearing in corporeal form at will; that they can pierce the universe at a
speed even greater than the speed of light; that they can come and go
unperceived by mortal sense, or appear visibly. We also believe that these holy
beings possess such a faculty of taking on bodily form and appear and
disappear, as they desire. We read in Gen. 6:2 “that the Sons of God
(talking about angels) saw the daughters of men and took them wives of all
which they chose.” It wasn’t long after this that God was compelled to
destroy the world by an overwhelming flood.
But this is not the question with
which we are now occupied. Have they as spirit-beings permanent bodies? It is
not the question of their power to clothe themselves with such a garment that
will make them visible to human eyes, but have they always bodies? This question
we can answer from the Scriptures in the affirmative. The Bible teaches the
corporality of the angels.
They possess personality and,
though spirits, they have their own distinctive bodies. That the bodies they
possess are not like our own bodies may be learned from the words of the risen
Lord.
When suddenly He appeared in the
midst of the disciples, they cried out for fear. "They were terrified
and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto
them, Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my
hands and my feet, that it is myself; for a spirit hath not bones and flesh as
ye see me have" (Luke 24:37-39). Our Lord, therefore, taught
definitely that a spirit has not a body of bones and flesh.
In the great resurrection chapter,
that is, the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians,
different kinds of bodies are mentioned. The Spirit of God speaks of
terrestrial bodies and of celestial bodies. He tells us that there is a natural
body and there is a spiritual body. Man received his terrestrial, his natural
body, from mother earth. But angels never were clothed with such a body, for
that is indicated in the statement of Scripture, that man is made a little
lower than the angels. The angels, therefore, have spiritual bodies, that is,
celestial bodies, corresponding to their exalted, glorious, spiritual nature.
Apart from this general fact, we have more positive information from the lips
of our Lord. The Sadducees, those infidels of the past, who denied the
existence of angels and also the resurrection, came and asked the Lord a
question: "Master, Moses wrote unto us, if any man's brother die,
having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his
wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. There were, therefore, seven
brethren, and the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second
took her to wife, and he died childless. And the third took her; and in like
manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Last of all the
woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she, for
seven had her to wife?" (Luke 20: 27-36). In all probability the story
was of their own invention to ensnare the Lord Jesus Christ.
The answer He gave contains the
information as to the corporality of the angels. "And Jesus answering
said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage;
but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the
resurrection from among the dead (the first resurrection) neither marry, nor
are given in marriage, neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto
angels, and are the children of God, being the children of resurrection."
Here the Lord teaches that angels have real bodies.
The logical conclusion is that the
angels have bodies, but that these bodies are different from human bodies in
that the angels do not marry, or are given in marriage and that they do not
die. Here, also, is the valuable hint of the resurrection bodies of the
redeemed; the participators in the first resurrection will have bodies, at
least in these two respects, like unto the angelic bodies.
Our resurrection bodies are
deathless bodies and the earthly conjugal relationship will no longer exist.
The highest revelation concerning the resurrection body of the redeemed is
given after the Lord Jesus Christ rose from among the dead. The Spirit of God
tells us that our bodies shall be like unto His glorious body. As pointed out,
our Lord speaks of only two things in which our resurrection bodies are equal
to that of angels. We learn from these words of our Lord that angels have real
bodies.
What kinds of bodies are
theirs? This question is unanswerable. Councils in early church-history held
that their bodies were ethereal and fire like, while the scholastics and the
Lateran Council decided that their bodies were material bodies. The synagogical
literature of the Jews is rich in all kinds of suggestions as to the bodies of
angels and strange traditional beliefs. Many rabbis declared that the body of
an angel is fully described in Daniel 10:6. But these are vain speculations.
We have to own that we look
into a glass darkly in connection with these unseen things. These things are
for us in our present state unexplainable and incomprehensible. Beyond what is
written we dare not go. The time will surely come when we shall not longer look
into a glass darkly, when faith is changed into sight. Then the unseen things,
including angels and their glorious bodies, will be fully known by us. What we
know from Scripture are the following facts:
1. They are spirits called into existence by an
immediate act of creation.
2. In coming in touch with man they displayed their
faculty of assuming the human form at will, to appear suddenly and to disappear
in the same manner. They also appeared in white raiment-white as snow, with a
light of glory about them.
3. They have bodies. A creature without corporality is
next to inconceivable. Corporality is the goal of all the ways of God. The Lord
Jesus Christ shows that the resurrection bodies of His people will be equal to
the bodies of the angels, which they possess .now.
4. The nature of the angelic body is unknown for it is
unrevealed.
In the next place we have to ascertain their dwelling
places. As we have pointed out before, their number is so great that they
cannot be reckoned.
The unseen world of angels is a mighty kingdom in
which are thrones, principalities, powers and dominions.
Inasmuch as they are spirits
clothed with bodies they must have fixed dwelling places. Where are the angels
is therefore another interesting question which Scripture, at least in part,
answers also. A child who has been taught something about the Bible will answer
readily the question about the place where the angels are. The child will
answer, "In heaven." But heaven is a term of vast meaning. In the
Hebrew, heaven is in the plural, "the heavens." The Bible
speaks of three heavens; the third heaven is the heaven of heavens, the
dwelling place of God, where His throne has always been. The tabernacle
possessed by His earthly people, Israel, was a pattern of the heavens. Moses
upon the mountain had looked into the vast heavens and saw the three heavens.
He had no telescope. But God Himself showed to him the mysteries of the
heavens. Then God admonished him when he was about to make the tabernacle and
said to His servant, "See, that thou make all things according to the
pattern showed to thee in the mountain" (Heb.8:5).
The tabernacle had three
compartments, the outer court, the Holy Place and the Holiest of All. Once a
year the high priest entered this earthly place of worship to pass through the
outer court, into the Holy place, and, finally, carrying the sacrificial blood,
he entered into the Holiest to sprinkle the blood in Jehovah's holy presence.
But Aaron was only a type of Him who is greater than Aaron, the true High
Priest.
Of Him, the true Priest, our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, it is written that He passed through the heavens (Heb.
4:14). "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands,
which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God for us" (Heb. 9:24). He passed through the heavens,
the outer court, the heaven surrounding the earth; the holy place, the immense
universes, with their immeasurable distances, and finally He entered the third
heaven, that heaven astronomy knows exists, but which no telescope can ever
reach.
In the heavenlies, according to the
Epistle to the Ephesians, are the principalities and the powers, the
innumerable company of angels. Their dwelling places are in these heavens.
God who created them, who made them
spirits and clothed them with bodies suited to their spirit nature, must have
also assigned to them habitations. But what and where are these habitations?
That these dwellings are in the heavens is not only taught in Ephesians, in the
prayer our Lord taught His disciples is a petition which tells us of this:
"Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven," that is,
there are beings in heaven and they do His will.
Jude tells us, no doubt reaching
back to that far flung time of the days just prior to the time of Noah; that
there were angels who kept not their first estate, but rather left their own
habitation. Jude 6. An estate, and an habitation, these words and terms
speak of a dwelling place. The angels had a dwelling place and some left that
dwelling place and were punished.
It is also significant and not
without meaning that the phrase "the host of heavens" means
both the stars and the angelic hosts; the "Lord of Hosts" has
also the same double meaning, for He is the Lord of the stars and the Lord of
the angels. Psa. 24. As a result, all the angels of God are said to worship and
praise his name.