Angels Series

You can find many accounts where a person claims their life was saved by an angel. The stories of angels range from help in car accidents, rescue from drowning, and being pulled from a fire. You might well have your own story of an encounter with an angel.

Let’s look into the scriptures and find out what is the truth about angels. The Bible is filled with over 250 references to angels. From Genesis where angels are guarding the Garden of Eden to Revelation where angels are around the throne worshiping God. When Jesus comes again he will be accompanied by angels.

There are thousands upon thousands of angels. Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. (Revelation 5:11)

Jesus refers to the vast number of angels he could have called on at his arrest. A Roman legion or company of soldiers was about 5,000 so Jesus could have called 60,000 angels do deliver him at his arrest. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:53)

We have probably been influenced by a cultural understanding of angels from movies and media. We do not become angels when we die. Angels are created by God and we do become like angels in some aspects when we go to heaven. We are not married in heaven and like angels and do not get married.

There is nothing to say that angels are genderless or that we become genderless in heaven, but the statement is specifically we are not married or given in marriage in heaven. God created angels. They don’t multiply, they don’t reproduce and they don’t marry.

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. (Matthew 22:30)

We are as humans, a little lower than the angels. In our final state with glorified bodies in the presence of God we will be above the angels.

It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

a son of man that you care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels;

you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.”. (Hebrews 2:5-8, read also through verse 16)

We will even judge angels. Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! (1 Corinthians 6:3) Angels are powerful. Yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. (2 Peter 2:11)

An angel rolled back the heavy stone that sealed Jesus’ tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. (Matthew 28:2)

Angels are spirit beings, and they don’t have physical bodies like us. They don’t normally eat. They may appear as human like when angels came to Lot and had a meal with him. They can take on a wide variety of appearances.

The angel that rolled away the stone had an appearance like lightning. When the soldiers guarding the tomb saw him they were almost scared to death. The angel had dazzling white clothes.

Angels can be unseen to us. They can have a fantastic appearance as described by Isaiah where an angel has six wings and the doorposts shook at the sound of their voice.

Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. (Isaiah 6:2-4)

Some angels can look so much like an ordinary person that we might even entertain an angel and be unaware of it. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:2)

Angels have the ability to worship before God in his glory and live. We will be able to do that in heaven. There are differing types among the thousands of thousands of angels. There are Cherubim, Seraphim, and the Archangel Michael.

The meaning of the word angel is messenger. Angels are God’s messengers. That is the main function of angels in the Bible, when they bring a message from God to man. It was an angel that brought a message to Zechariah about the coming birth of John the Baptist. He was gripped with fear.