Ignorance Of Angelic Work
Angels walk through Scripture, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, speaking to faithful men, drawing the veil of human sight to reveal visions of God, warning, punishing, working miracles, caring for some, destroying others – and in how many places where it is said that God said,or did, something it is probable that the agent who actually performed the work was an angel.
One might think today that this angelic work had ceased, so unconscious are men generally of the presence and work of angels.
Why, if the presence of angels was so dominant in Scriptural times, should those who claim to be Christians virtually ignore them today? This ignorance could, of course, be partly the result of rationalist attacks on Biblical beliefs. Many orthodox clerics are unhappy with any manifestation of the supernatural. Angels are discarded, with miracles, as myths or Hebrew folklore.
But perhaps there is a more fundamental reason why belief in the work of angels in the world is rejected or ignored by the Christian world in general. When Platonic philosophy began to influence Christianity it imposed the idea of ‘spirit’ as a mystical, de-personalized moral power quite different from the supernatural physical power wielded by angels – and of which angels we were made (Ps. 104:4). And so a different kind of religious life was imposed on Christianity in which the manifestation of physical, miracle-working power, played little or no part. If there was, indeed, a direct ‘line’ between the divine soul of man and Christ or God, angelic work seemed quite superfluous. Augustine, one of the major figures in the introduction of Platonic philosophy into the Western Church, rarely speaks about angels. And with his Evangelical successors today angels are accepted theologically but ignored practically.
What then about we Christadelphians? Do we ever give much thought to the presence of angels, and the work they do in the earth? Perhaps we, too, should look in our hearts and ask if we have not been somewhat influenced by the idea that there is a direct link With the Almighty within us (though we would not connect this with belief in an immortal soul) and that angels are therefore hardly necessary to our lives. The other side to this belief is to imagine that God can only work by this kind of direct link, and does not intervene in our lives from outside by the exercise of physical power through the angels. I believe that angels work as much now as they did in Scriptural times, and indeed perform identical kinds of work.
Christ with Us
I would like first to consider the work of angels in the Church, the work which they do with the faithful body of Christ as a group, as distinct from their work with individuals. In John’s gospel Jesus promised his people a Comforter to lead them after he had departed from them, and I have previously made out a case for the Comforter being Jesus’ representative angel. It seems to me that this promised guide was given to the disciples as a body, as they were the incipient Church of God, and that when Jesus declared that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house (14:2) he was thinking of the disciples forming a corporate Temple in which, when he had been resurrected, he could dwell in the person of his angel (14:16-18).
The Comforter was given to the Church in order, as I have said, to guide them into a promised inheritance, just as God had once given the Angel of the Presence to Israel to guide them into the Promised Land. Now, surely, God’s people have not yet reached that Land. Instead, over the ages, the Church has proved unfaithful and has, as it were, fallen in the wilderness. But in the very last times there will surely be a people, like the children of the murmurers, who will enter the Land under the guidance of the Comforter. The Angel of the Presence did not forsake Israel utterly, in spite of their terrible sins; and so, if we believe we are the people of God in the last days, we must also believe that the Comforter, Christ’s angel, is still with us to lead us, as a body, into the promised inheritance.
This is easy to say; but in practice it is as hard for us to live with Christ in this way as it was for Israel to live with God in the wilderness. To them it certainly meant day-to-day guidance; and if they had been prepared to obey the Angel unquestioningly they would quickly have reached the promised inheritance. But it also meant great carefulness on their part to do exactly as the angel said, for God’s Name was in the Angel, and He insisted that He would be sanctified in those who came near Him. There were two of the priests who came near to God doing something He had not commanded; they died without mercy.
If Christ dwells with us, in the presence of his angel, may we not take the lesson of Israel to ourselves? If we are totally obedient to Christ’s commands, as written down for us through the work of the Holy Spirit in the days of the apostles, we will be guided swiftly and surely into the inheritance in Christ’s Kingdom. But should we not take great care in the presence of the angel as we approach near to God?
Our speech, our dress, our conduct should all bear witness to the truth that where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, they form a holy temple and Christ, represented by his angel, stands in the midst. If we had been Israelites, and had come to the tabernacle or temple to offer our sacrifices, would we not be overcome with reverence and a sense of holiness as we approached the building where God’s immortal representative dwelt? Yet we can actually enter the new temple (which the Israelite could not do) and come into the very presence of Christ before the angel.
Do we let our minds wander as we worship, or gossip loudly on trivial matters as soon as the last prayer is said? Because the angel is unseen, we forget ourselves, forget that he is listening. But there is one thing we should never forget – “THOU GOD SEEST ME”. We may not see the angel, but he sees us, and relays our prayers and deeds to his Lord – sometimes in a kindly way helping our infirmities when we hardly know how to pray; sometimes, perhaps, grieved when we put Christ to an open shame.
None of us, of course, can be so confident as to think that he or she is personally good enough to dwell with the holy angel. We only do so by grace – by a recognition of our faults, in knowledge that Christ died to cleanse us from sin, and that a truly contrite heart will always be accepted by him. But we do need constantly to remind ourselves of the holiness of Christ and the angel who stands among us in his name.
There is another lesson which we can learn from Israel. Because they became corrupt, the time came when the Angel of the Presence forsook them, and left the nation to captivity to sin. This could be true of us as a body, unless we take care not to fall in the same way. Now it is only too easy to set ourselves above the rest of the Brotherhood, to think of others as leaving the true paths, yet remaining detached ourselves as somewhat better than the rest. Yet not one of us really deserves anything God’s hand. If we see others doing what they should not in our estimation, then we should think of them as parts of us, not as separate and different, and pray for God to forgive us, and to continue to dwell with us, though we fail so often. And maybe those we easily despise may see faults in us which we cannot see ourselves, and pray for God to heal us.
Personal Angels
So far I have been speaking of a single angel representing Christ as the guide and indwelling spirit of the temple-Church. There must, however, be other angels under the direction of the angel who represents Christ; such were the angels of the churches of Asia Minor, and it seems reasonable to suppose that each ecclesia has its own guiding Spirit. And the verse in Hebrews which reads, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”- suggests that individuals, too, have angels appointed to guide them. These would carry our prayers before God’s throne, and direct our steps in life, which we are assured are ordered by God (Ps.37:23). In this way we can be assured that everything that happens in our lives is right for us – while we trust God and obey His commands, and walk in His ways and not in our own.
Against this background of angelic guidance we remain free to choose between good or evil. Our angel will put us in situations which will turn out to be the best for us, but we can always reject the guidance and go our own way. If we resent the situation we find ourselves in, and act angrily or grudgingly, we may be fighting against God; and instead of allowing meek acceptance to improve our characters, we make them worse. Continual acts of this kind lead to a situation in which there is no remedy for us.
The exhortation then comes to us to accept our life as given us by God, our situations as the result of angelic guidance. ‘Circumstance’ is really only a word for the considered and careful work of the angel, where a son of God is concerned.
“For I have learned”, says the apostle Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Phil.4:11).
This kind of content does not come easily. It has to be learned, and often learned the hard way. The natural man tries to imagine that God’s will for him is something more pleasing than the life as given to him, and is always trying to change it for the ‘better’, and to justify his efforts by deceiving himself into thinking God has ‘led’ him into the way in which his inclinations lie. But perhaps if we are more conscious of the real presence of an angel beside us we shall find the flesh easier to combat, and at the end of our lives may speak, like Jacob, of the angel which redeemed us from all evil through our whole lives.
The Solution