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Angels...angels...angels...
Contributed by Suresh Manoharan on Mar 31, 2016 (message contributor)
Summary: Treading upon a topic where angels...opps sorry ...I mean Christian preachers usually "fear" to tread (thanks E.M. Forster) ...that is ANGELS...Yours Truly has attempted to present a close to 360 degree view about the Angels from the revealed Scriptures (Deu 29:29)...
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Angels... Angels...Angels!!!
“The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly” remarked a Biblical Scholar insightfully bringing to light one of the remarkable characteristics’ (humility) of those ethereal ones’ serving their Creator faithfully on the other side of the Heavenly shores. Is humility only one of the unique traits of the Angels...actually what has truthful Scripture to say of these faithful ones’ and hmmm... some not-so-faithful, fallen ones!!! Well...is not Biblical insight better than eyesight in seeing (read understanding) about the “unseen” angels? Absolutely...
In this message, Yours Truly has attempted to present a close to 360 degree view about the Angels from the revealed Scriptures (Deu 29:29)...firstly...
Creation...
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?- Job 38:7
This verse from one of the Oldest Books’ of the Bible (Job) more than establishes the truth that Angels’ were in existence before the physical earth as we see it was created. It can be said that they their creation was at the point, when the Elohim God “created the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning” (Gen 1:1).
Classification...
From the Scriptural accounts’ of seeing Angel Gabriel and Angel Michael being used for important missions (from creation of Adam onwards- Daniel 10:13,21), it can be discerned that in the Eternity past after having created the Angels, the Almighty created hierarchical order in the Heavens’ with some endowed with very paramount responsibilities. Of course, all the details about the Heavenly Hierarchy is not completely revealed in the Scriptures as per His Sovereign will, so in this matter we have to be guided by the Scriptural instruction enshrined in Deu 29:29.
While that is about Heavenly “hierarchical” classification...it would not to be out of place to state here that one needs to know about “Constitutional (read about Body) classification” vis-a-vis angels and men....Consider this Scripture...
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.” –Psalms 8:4-5
Simply put, while the Almighty is supreme (at the top tier, so to speak), in performing tasks related to time and space, an angel (in the middle tier, as it were) would easily outscore puny “bottom-placed” man. Ask a certain Sennacherib about the “angelic capacity” (sic...2 Kings 19:35-36)!!!
Condemnation...
Can any message on the angels, be complete without a mention about this colossal, cosmic “angelic tragedy”???
It indeed is one of the most saddest ironies (thanks Shakespeare for the poetic licence...hmmm... “the most unkindest cut” and all that) of the Creation history... when one angel obviously endowed with very high responsibility bloated itself that it was relegated to the point of being condemned forever (Isa 14:12-15/Ezekiel 28:14-15). Now this angel, had his cronies amongst the angelic clan and for them too was reserved the same judgment of one day being condemned into the Hell-fire. Of the total angelic population, it is said that 1/3rd of them tragically joined hands with the main conspirator (Rev 12:4...Stars of Heaven and Angels are always used in one breath in the Scripture...Job 38:7/Judges 5:20) and reaped a “bitter harvest”.
Following the spotless creation and the subsequent fall of hitherto sinless man into sin (originally designed to rule this World)...the pristine World has since come under the grip of the Fallen one and his stooges as per the Sovereign will of the Sovereign Holy God and would remain that way till the release would come to a great extent during the Millennial reign and completely one day when the New Heavens and New Earth are created (Rom 8:20-22/Dan10:13/John 14:30/Rev 20,21).
Of these Fallen angels, some fell into deeper levels of sinning (of having sexual union with the women of the pre-Noahic times-Gen 6:1-4…and now I know what is written in Matt 22:30…will try and balance these 2 Scriptures some other time) and have been subsequently chained in a gloomy darkness for this act (Jude 1:6), unlike the others’ of their ilk (who had not committed such a sin) and have been Divinely-permitted to go around (Luke 8:31) a while before the Final day of condemnation arrives (Rev 20:10). The main conspirator with his stooges (though having lost their original beauty) are still permitted to enter the Heavenly portals (Job 1:6/2:1) as per the Sovereign will of God till the day of their permanent exit from Heavenly realm would arrive (Rev 12:7-8).
Now coming to the angelic functions....vis-a-vis firstly their Creator and then at His command in relation to His Prized creation –Man- we can say that they are of...