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The Creation of Angels -- Part 2
The Bible is supernatural.
Genesis, and all the way through the Bible to Revelation are accounts of how God intervened
in the personal activities.
Each intervention of God is supernatural which means that it cannot be explained by natural causes.
These are things in the biblical record which God accomplished by injecting Himself
into human activities.
We must discover and believe what the Scriptures reveal regarding the spirit world.
There is a thin veil between our natural world and the spiritual world.
That thin veil is the experience that we call death.
The spirit world began with time, and was created by the power of God.
We know according to the biblical record that angels came into existence prior to the creation
of the material world, and, also were created prior to man.
In the first place, let us see that the creation of production of angels was by God.
In Psalm 148:1-5, we read these words: "Praise ye him, all his angels ... for he
[that is, God] commanded, and they were created."
That is an important truth that we should remember.
In Colossians 1:16, we read: "For by him [that is, Jesus Christ the eternal Logos]
were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:
all things were created by him, and for him."
So, the existence of angels came about by the creative power of Jesus Christ.
There is a false teaching among some Christians that exalts angels.
This led to a veneration -- a worship of angels.
That is probably comparable to what we see today in some denominations involving
the veneration of saints.
This means that there are certain so-called "patron saints" to whom people look
for protective care or other blessings, and by looking to them
they have taken their eyes off Jesus Christ.
In Colossians 1:16, Paul could be striking at such a heresy in regard to angels.
This verse says, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers:
all things were created by him, and for him.”
Paul’s readers believed so strongly in the presence of angels that some began to worship them.
Paul pointed out that Jesus Christ, who is the Creator of this earth and all that is in it,
also created angels, and He alone is worthy of our worship.
So, we do not worship angels, and we do not pray to angels.
They are created beings created by the hand of Almighty God through Jesus Christ,
and they are here in subjection to Him.
These created beings are completely subject to Jesus Christ.
In Job 38:4-7, we read where God is speaking and saying to Job:
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of this earth... when the morning stars
sang together [God is referring to a time prior to the creation of man]
...and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Also, in Job 1:6, we read: "Now that was a day when the sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them."
The same truth is found in Job 2:1.
The sons of God here were angels.
They were living witnesses to the creation.
They saw what God did in His marvelous, infinite, creative power, not simply in creating
this little infinitesimal speck that we call the earth, but in creating all the heavenlies
-- all the solar systems, all the innumerable galaxies of space.
Angels were living witnesses to the creation.
They were the "morning stars" of that time when God brought into existence
something from nothing.
These verses point out that angels are created beings.
There are only two kinds of angels.
There are holy angels and fallen angels.
They are simply called good and bad angels.
The good are aligned with the power of God, and the bad with the power of the devil.
These living beings are of the highest position imaginable.
They are higher in their existence than man.
Psalm 8:5 points out that God made man a little lower than the angels.
This is also seen in Hebrews 2:6-7.
That means that they are superior to you and me in many of the characteristics they possess.
We must also remember that there are some ways in which angels are superior to us,
but there are also some ways in which we are superior to angels.
No angel can witness to the redemptive grace of God.
No angel knows what it's like to be saved.
These holy angels have never been lost.
They have had no need for salvation, therefore they have not had the privilege
that comes to you and me to witness to the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
These angelic, spiritual beings are the greatest consequent in our universe.
The designation of good angels (or holy angels), and fallen angels, (or that angels),
points up the truth that they are free moral beings and have their destiny
within the power of their own choice.
Like you and me, they have the ability to choose right or wrong.
The holy angels have chosen righteousness.
The fallen angels have chosen evil.
This does not imply that they are independent, anymore than we are.
This does not say that they are self-originating, self-sustaining, or equal to God.
For they are not.
But they do possess the power of choice, obviously, for Lucifer did choose evil.
The number of angels is unknown.
The Bible refers to them in many places as hosts.
Just as we cannot number the stars for the galaxies in space, neither can we number angels.
The number, however, has not been increased or decreased since the beginning.
Except for apostasy or desertion, the family of holy angels has remained the same number
since they were called into being by the power of the God.
In Daniel 7:10, they are referred to as "thousands of thousands."
In Revelation 5: 11, we get another indication of their number.
In the ministry of Jesus we read that He, by the power of God, could have called forth
legions of angels to come to His rescue, had He so desired.
These angelic hosts are the good angels who have remained faithful
after the fall of Lucifer and the rebellious spirits.
The Bible states that Lucifer and the fallen angels sinned and kept not their first state.
The Bible points out that the sin of Lucifer was the sin of pride.
The sin of pride caused his downfall.
In 2 Peter 2:4 and in Jude 6 we find that these fallen angels chose evil,
and kept not their first state.
Jesus taught that angels neither marry nor do they die. (Luke 20:36)
We must remember that marriage implies procreation.
Procreation means the necessity of death.
The only reason that we are here is because of the procreation of our parents,
our grandparents, etc.
If they had not reproduce themselves, the human race would have been eliminated.
This is not true with angels.
They have no need for procreation because they do not die.
The ranks of angels have neither been increased by procreation, nor have they been
decreased by death since God brought them into being in response to His own Divine fiat.
Their number reminds the same.
The only division is between good (holy) angels and bad (fallen) angels.
Many people believe that when they die that they will become angels.
That is not true.
We are not going become angels when we die, nor is an angel going to become
a human being in eternity.
When Jesus said that we in the resurrection state will be "equal" to angels,
He didn't mean that we were to be identical to them.
He was pointing out that we, on an equal with angels, will neither marry nor die in eternity.
This doesn't mean that we are going become angels.
It means that we will take on those characteristics of angels because in heaven
there will be no marriages and no deaths.
Now look at the divisions of angelic authority.
In Jude 6 references made to the angels who "left their own habitation."
That clearly establishes the truth that they had an estate given them.
God didn't create them without giving them an abode.
He gave them an estate.
We need not limit our understanding of the abode of angels to this earth.
This terrestrial ball which we populate is not the only place that angels can reside.
Modern astronomy presents evidence of the vastness of the material creation.
Our closest neighbor is the moon.
The moon is 24,000 miles from the earth.
That is almost a quarter of a million miles.
When a spaceship is put into space and achieves orbit, and then goes out
on its tangent toward the moon, it travels up to 18,000 per hour.
But still it takes days to reach the moon.
We should remember the progress of Mariner 9.
Mariner 9 was on its journey into space for weeks and weeks and weeks on end.
Mariner 9 was 78,000,000 miles from earth.
We have no comprehension of that vastness in place.
We can even imagine how many heavenly bodies that exist are like Mars in the
millions and millions and millions of miles that go beyond Mars.
This just staggers our imaginations.
God gave angels their own habitation.
It could be anywhere in space.
It could be anywhere in the heavenlies.
Solar systems greater than our own are known to exist.
Our solar system is thought to be one of the innumerable solar systems.
Some of these are 30 to 60 billion miles from earth.
There is no way we can understand that.
It is beyond our comprehension.
In this vast universe, our solar system, our sun represents just a single point,
dwelling among multiplied millions of possible habitations.
Is our solar system the greatest in space or the least?
Is our planet the only inhabited planet in all of the infinitude of God's creative power?
Is this the only planet on which life exists?
Science can only guess, but God's Word speaks with authority.
Angels dwell in the heavenly spheres, and they are there in numbers
beyond human computation.
Though there are only two designations, namely holy angels and fallen angels,
there are nevertheless ranks and organizations among the holy angels.
The angelic hierarchy includes the following divisions:
the seraphim, the cherubim, thrones, dominions, powers, principalities,
and even an archangel.
The prefix, "arch," implies authority.
An archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church is a ruling bishop.
An archangel is the ruling angel.
Of the many who have studied the subject concerning the number of archangels
some say that there are three, but the Bible tells us of only one.
Some say that Michael, Lucifer, and Gabriel are all archangels.
But the Bible only refers to one as an archangel, and we will study him in some detail.
The fact that there is an archangel signifies rank, divisions, organizations, and authorities.
Thrones are greater than lordships.
Principalities appeared to be higher than authority.
Implications of authority accompany each of these divisions.
Thrones imply that there are those who sit upon them.
Dominions allude to those who rule.
Principalities have reference to those who govern.
Powers point to those who exercise supremacy.
The authorities include those who are invested with imperial responsibility.
Man has never gone anywhere beyond God's presence, God's providence and God's power.
We have never touched the hem of the garment in God's creative ability.
We don't begin to understand the secrets of the universe.
We can't even grasp the distances represented in infinity out in space.
In His love and wisdom, God is helping us to grasp more of the truth of the universe
which He has created, and we need to understand that there are spiritual realities out there
just as truly as there are material realities.
Spiritual facts are discerned through God's revelation and to our continued study of His word
and an application of it.
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