Angels play an important role in the Bible and in the history of our world. They bring messages from Heaven to people and help in various ways, visibly and invisibly.1 Children have their own angels in Heaven, who continually behold the face of the Father, who is in Heaven.2 As a child, I sometimes felt encouraged and comforted by a simple little poem that was sung by my mother, which taught me that I was surrounded by angels. The lyrics go: ‘Two at my head, two at my feet, two at my left hand and two at my right hand; two that cover me, two that awaken me, and two that will carry me to Heaven’s paradise,’ – if I remember it correctly!
‘Angels are ‘ministering spirits’. Scripture calls them,3 servants of God.4 They played a significant role at the birth and in the life of the Lord Jesus.5 Not only Angels can speak directly from the Father and the Son and they sometimes do that. Jews were aware of the fact that God and angels could speak with an audible voice. When the voice came from Heaven, some Jews said it had thundered; others said that an angel had spoken. Jesus spoke: “’Father, glorify Your Name.’ Then a voice came from Heaven…” So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.” 6 When the risen and glorified Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, the men accompanying him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one, as recorded in Acts 9:7 and 22:9. In Acts 7:38, the first martyr, Stephen, was recorded to have said that an angel had spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19 – 20) where he received the Ten Commandments. Ezekiel and Daniel received their visions about the future from angels.
We shall come across the angels many times again in the book of Revelation because they fulfil a significant role in carrying out the final trials, plagues and judgments on planet earth. The angel who now plays a mediating role in bringing John the Heavenly message knows that he is only a fellow servant of John: “and of your brothers the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book; worship God!”7 The focus of the angels is wholly on God. They belong to the dimensions of the other ‘worlds’ created by God that surround us: the Heavens. They long to look into things that have been revealed to mankind.8 However valuable the angels are, man is nevertheless the crown and glory of God’s creation, according to Psalm 8. And the Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, ‘who existed in the form of God having equality with God being even higher than the angels’ became man and was glorified and received an incredible resurrection-body, as Hebrews 1 explains. Then He was highly exalted by God Who bestowed upon Him ‘the Name that is above every name, that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow of those who are in Heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’, Philippians 2:5-11. He became a man with flesh and blood like us. And having fulfilled in a perfect way the will of God He then returned to the Heavens with His glorified everlasting human body that He never laid down again but that He took with Him to sit at the right hand of the Father – as a glorified human being, as the first fruit of redeemed mankind.9
Bible References:
1.Acts 12:7–9; Hebrews 13:2 2. Matthew 18:10 3. Hebrews 1:14 and Matthew 26:53 4. Psalm 103:20–21; Psalm 91:11 and Luke 16:22 5. SeeLuke1:1–38; Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 2:8–20; Matthew 2:13–15 and 19; Matthew 4:11; Luke 22:43; Matthew 28:2–7; Luke 24:4–9; John 20:12 and Acts 1:10–11 6. John 12:28–29 Revelation 22:8–9 8.1 Peter 1:12b 9. 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 10. Acts 7:53 Galatians 1:8
