Angels among us: God’s heavenly messengers for the world
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Archangels Michael and Gabriel are among the best-known in scripture. Photo of 12th century icon at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
“Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.” Even if you haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life —and why haven’t you?—you have probably heard this saying. But is it true?
Angels seem to be everywhere, and growing in popularity. Collectible and decorative angel figurines line store shelves. Angel characters appear in television shows, novels, and movies. They even play baseball in Los Angeles—well, that’s a different story.
At Christmastime, some set angels up with their nativity scenes , put angels at the the top of their Christmas trees, and dress young children as angels for the church Christmas pageant .
We call first responders angels, recognize those who volunteer at the homeless shelter as angels, and know that we shouldn’t drive faster than our guardian angels can fly.
There is even a survey indicating that angels are #3 on a list of the most popular tattoos!
Clearly, we love angels. But what do we actually know about them?
Angels in the Bible
The word angel comes from the Greek word aggelos (pronounced angelos ), which means messenger . Some English translations of the Bible also translate malak , the Hebrew word for messenger, as angel when the malak is from God. Sharing a message from God is the primary role of angels in the scriptures.
In the Christmas story, for example, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her she will be the mother of Jesus. An unnamed angel comes to Joseph in dreams to guide him through Mary’s pregnancy and the early days of Jesus’ life. Another appears to Zechariah to tell him that Elizabeth will give birth to John the Baptist.
Then, on the night of Jesus’ birth, an angel informs a group of shepherds that they can find the Christ child in a manger, followed by a large group of angels praising God.
Messengers from God announce other special births in the Bible. Three visitors tell Abraham and Sarah that Isaac will soon be born, and a messenger from God tells a woman she will soon be the mother of Samson.
God's messengers visited Abraham and Sarah to tell them they would soon have Isaac. Photo of “Abraham Entertaining the Angels” by Rembrandt (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
In addition to making heavenly birth announcements, these messengers sometimes serve in other capacities. King Nebuchadnezzar says a messenger protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from being consumed in the fiery furnace, and Daniel tells the king that God sent a malak to keep him safe in the lions’ pit.
God’s messengers minister to Elijah when he is on the run and to Jesus when he is tempted in the desert. Jacob sees them ascending and descending on a ladder or staircase, and Balaam’s donkey sees one that helps God get the prophet’s attention.
Winged creatures—called seraphim —appear around the throne of God in Isaiah’s vision, and assist in calling him into the ministry of prophecy. John reports in the book of Revelation that angels surround God's throne where they fall facedown and worship.
In the book of Acts, angels encourage the early followers of Jesus to begin their ministry, free Paul and others from prison, and facilitate meetings between believers and non-believers.
These and other encounters described in the Bible offer clues about the nature and function of angels, but questions remain.
John Wesley on angels
John Wesley , founder of the Methodist movement , wrote three sermons on angels. Very early in his career, he preached a sermon called “On Guardian Angels” at St. Michael’s in Oxford on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels in September of 1726. Then in January 1783, more than 56 years later, he published two more sermons on angels. “ Of Good Angels ” and “ Of Evil Angels ” attempt to describe the work of angels and demons respectively.
In these sermons, Wesley refers to the biblical evidence and makes inferences about angels from those texts.
Albert Outler , noted Wesley scholar and editor of The Works of John Wesley , writes that Wesley’s ideas are “unsurprisingly conventional.” Wesley does not say anything notably different from the Anglican theology out of which he came ( Works of John Wesley , Volume 3, pg 3).
Toward the end of “Of Good Angels,” however, Wesley writes this:
we may imitate them in all holiness; suiting our lives to the prayer our Lord himself has taught us; labouring to do his will on earth, as angels do it in heaven.
In It's a Wonderful Life , Clarence the angel, played by Henry Travers (l), offers hope to a despondent George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart). Photo public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
While there is much we may never know of angels until we meet them, they serve as our example of how to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God today . We aspire to live as they live, “laboring to do [Jesus’] will on earth, as angels do in heaven.”
Imitating angels
Which brings us back to Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class, who shows George Bailey how different things would be had he never been born. Clarence “earns his wings” by showing Bailey the positive influence he has had on the lives of his friends and neighbors; giving him hope when he feels hopeless.
Frank Capra, the director of It’s a Wonderful Life , never intended his depiction of Clarence to be biblically accurate. Alas, scripture does not support the idea that when a bell rings an angel gets wings. Wesley is clear in "On Good Angels," that angels are spiritual rather than physical beings, citing Hebrews 1:14.
Though he probably would not "trifle" away the time needed to watch a movie, Wesley may have seen some value in Clarence’s story. Being a messenger of the love and grace of God to one who is struggling, is one of the roles of angels that we are to imitate.
While questions about angels persist, let us aspire to live into their example—living on earth as they do in heaven.
TWEET THISThis feature was originally published December 2, 2015.
* Joe Iovino works for UMC.org at United Methodist Communications .
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....Nearly 70 years later, angelic interest has hit a fervor pitch. A 2011 Associated Press poll showed nearly eight in 10 Americans believe in angels. That belief is often linked to religion, with 88 percent of Christians, 95 percent of evangelical Christians and 94 percent of those who attend weekly religious services of any sort saying they believe in angels. But most non-Christians think angels exist too, as do more than four in 10 of those who never even attend religious services.
None of this comes as a surprise to Frederick Mannella, Ph.D., who spoke on all things angelic to a riveted audience of Alvernians and area residents at the Reading-based McGlinn Conference Center of the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters earlier this year. The former parish minister and instructor at both St. Thomas University and Catholic University said God and angels are very much alive and working in the world.
Mannella says angels are all around us, despite claims from skeptics who discount them because they can’t be seen or scientifically proven. We only need to be attentive to their presence to know they are there. “God’s providence is real. There’s an invisible world behind the scenes that’s really operative in our lives,” Mannella says.
While angels are more prevalent in the Catholic tradition than in many other faiths, people of any religion can touch the invisible world as they draw nearer to God, according to Mannella.....
Byrne says every person has a guardian angel, regardless of his or her religion, nationality or belief in God. “Your guardian angel is trying to help you. It is a gift from God and it never leaves you for one moment, from before your birth to after your death,” she said.
....“I see guardian angels as a light about three steps behind each person,” writes Byrne on her website lornabyrne.com. “Sometimes, a guardian angel will open this light up for me and will show me a very beautiful, perfect human appearance. Although angels are neither male nor female, they will sometimes take on the appearance of a man or a woman. Sometimes, the guardian angels I am shown have wings, sometimes they don’t.”
In the beginning, there were...angels
According to Catholic theology, angels are spiritual creatures superior to human beings and often commissioned by God for work on earth. Perhaps the most significant activity of good angels (yes, there are bad angels commonly known as demons) is to be agents of God’s particular providence for mankind....
....Angels have been present since creation, and their presence in the Bible is frequent. It was an angel who brought Elijah bread and water while fleeing from Jezebel after his victory on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 19:5-6). An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and instructed him to take Mary as his wife and name her baby Jesus (Matthew 1:20-21).
It was an angel who instructed Philip where to go in his travels so that he could meet the Ethiopian eunuch and lead him to Christ (Acts 8:26). When Paul and his shipmates were caught in a horrible storm, an angel appeared to him, assured him that no life would be lost, and that he would live to stand trial before Caesar (Acts 27:23). Daniel Chapter 6 tells the story of how an angel shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was thrown into their den.
It was an angel — if not the Angel of the Lord, who joined Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, rescuing them from the flames (Daniel 3).
And it was Jesus himself who said, “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven,” (Matthew 18:10). (Jesus was no stranger to angelic help — they protected him in his infancy, served him in the desert and strengthened him during his agony in the garden.).....https://www.alvernia.edu/news/2015/12/angels-around-us
The power of a supernatural being has always been used to explain what man did not understand, which, in the early years of man's existence, was pretty much everything. Hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, drought. disease, pestilence, you name it, it was all explained by magical superpower. There is a creator up there watching us, rewarding and punishing us, this was the explanation. One by one, natural explanations were discovered and God belief took one step back after another, again and again, and again.
One of the latest steps back was over heliocentricity. God believers were the last to accept that the earth was just one of a group of planets that orbited the sun, and no wonder, the bible describes the earth as flat, stationary, and supported on pillars!
Today the denial of the godders is over evolution, and many faiths are already accepting this basic fundamental of biological science. Soon they will all have to accept it and god belief will take yet another step back.
Is any of this conclusive evidence that there is no God? Well, no, it's impossible to prove that something does NOT exist, but after all the times they have been wrong, you would think that believers would admit that maybe, just MAYBE, there really is no God.
Until we die and don’t return in the afterlife to eternal reward as we were before Adam and Eve sinned and the angel guarded Eden before the flood or face judgement and eternal death thereafter as a result of being body and soul consumed in hell before the world is re created as it was when Adam and Eve were created, we will believe....
And a belief is all it is. But belief does not equal fact!
I’m grateful to my guardian angel for protecting me personally as well as to the Holy Spirit for always being there to prompt me to do the right thing when tempted. I expect that my guardian angel will be there to comfort me when my time is up here however that comes about. The assurance of rising up to meet Him from the grave at his 2nd coming if I’m not living when it happens is a source of great peace, calm, and comfort.
Is it true that you get to eat as much cream cheese as you want to up there, without ever getting a tummy ache?
In heaven? I don’t know. We will find out when we get there though being newly perfect then I don’t see why we would eat to excess there.
We? You mean you think I could go to heaven, an atheist? I don't see why that should disqualify me either. If I ever stand before God, I'll tell him exactly why I didn't think he existed and I don't think he will punish me for it.
Imagine the logic of a god who would damn you to eternal torment simply because you did not believe He existed. Maybe a little evidence ... throw us a bone?
I refuse to believe that an all-powerful supernatural entity that created the universe, would be so petty and insecure as to require mere humans to praise and honor it. That's even more ridiculous than the idea that such a being exists.
Thomas believed because he saw. “Blessed are those who having not seen, believe.”
He doesn’t require. We have free will to choose to believe or not to. Without free will we would all be obedient automatons compelled to obedience
Good line if your intent is to control people by getting them to believe you speak for the grandest possible entity who might toss you into Hell.
If there was a god, there would be no such thing as free will.
That's what god wanted originally.
Sounds like a psychological condition. Perhaps schizophrenia?
Or delusional!
Seed is from an unrated source and is proselytizing.
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