Angelic visitations are prominent at the extremes of Jesus' life - at the time of his birth, and during the period of his death and resurrection. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe his birth from the points of view of Joseph and Mary respectively. In Matthew's account, Mary was found to be pregnant before her marriage, and Joseph, a kindly man, was set on dissolving the betrothal as quietly as possible to save his intended spouse from any scandal - betrothal being a state of being bound to another with a promise of marriage. However, an angel of God appeared to Joseph in a dream, assuring him that all was well, and that he should not flinch from accepting Mary as his lawful wife. It is of interest that the angel made itself and its message known while Joseph was asleep. The message proved authentic; and later, after the fleeing of the holy family to Egypt in order to escape King Herod's murderous intent, it was once more an angel of God who summoned them back to the land of Israel, where they eventually settled in Nazareth. Dreams play a part in deciding Joseph's journey, but an angel is not mentioned again (all this is described in chapter 2 of Matthew's Gospel).
In Luke's account, the story begins with Elizabeth and her husband, the priest Zechariah; as in a number of other biblical narratives, this couple were childless and getting on in years. Then suddenly, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah during his term of duty in the temple, and forecast that a son to be called John was soon to be born to them. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, Gabriel also visited the much younger Mary, who was betrothed to Joseph and still a virgin. She was told that she would conceive and give birth to a son, whom she was to name Jesus; he would be great and called Son of the Most High. When she protested that she was still a virgin, the angel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High overshadow her; for this reason, the holy child to be born would be called Son of God. When her kinswoman Elizabeth's pregnancy was also revealed to Mary by the angel, she hurried at once to Elizabeth's home to greet her joyfully. We are told that Elizabeth's six-month-old foetus at once stirred in her womb, a memorable illustration of the way in which the Holy Spirit operates in our lives, stirring us up for some action.
All this and much more is recounted in the first chapter of Luke's Gospel, while in the second chapter, the birth narrative of Jesus is recorded. An angel of the Lord appeared to some shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone round them. The shepherds were terrified, but the angel told them not to be afraid, for he brought good news: the Messiah had been born. The sign would be a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. All at once there was with the angel a great company of the heavenly host, singing praise to God: "Glory to God in highest heaven, and on earth peace to all in whom he delights." After the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds went straight to Bethlehem to see what had happened. The especially interesting feature of this chapter is the limited part played by the angels in the narrative, compared with the decidedly more important presence of the Holy Spirit who inspired a number of people to ecstatic prophetic utterance. It was, however, the angel that gave the name "Jesus" to Mary's baby before his conception (Luke 2.21).
At the end of Jesus' life, the angels once more make their appearance. During the ordeal attending the mighty conflict with the forces of evil that dominated the events witnessed at Gethsemane, an angel came from heaven to give Jesus strength (Luke 22.43), while Jesus in the anguish of spirit prayed the more urgently. In John's account of Jesus anguish, a kind of parallel to the Gethsemane episode recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, the crowd standing by heard a voice from heaven that sounded both like thunder and the voice of an angel (John 12.29). Jesus told them that this voice spoke for their benefit, not his. The hour of the world's judgement had arrived, and the prince of the world would be driven out. It must be admitted that this prince, who is the devil, is still very much with us, but I believe a higher wisdom to be at work, as I shall discuss in Chapter 7.
Much earlier on in Jesus' ministry, at the end of the temptations in the wilderness where he had been led quite deliberately by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the evil, after he had successfully resisted the diabolical challenge to self glorification, the devil departed for the time being, and angels came and attended to his needs (Matthew 4.11). Thus there was clearly a close relationship between Jesus and the angelic hierarchy.
After the crucifixion and subsequent burial, an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled away the stone from the tomb's entrance, then sat on it. This angel showed its typical appearance: face shining like lightning and garments white as snow. Its appearance filled the guards with dread, but to the women standing there (Mary of Magdala and Mary the mother of James and Joseph), it said, "You . . . have nothing to fear. I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; he has been raised, as he said he would be. Come and see the place where he was laid, and then go quickly and tell his disciples: "He has been raised from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee; there you will see him." That is what I came to tell you" (Matthew 28.5-7). A relatively similar report is described in Mark 16.4-7 and Luke 24.2-7.
In John's account, Mary of Magdala was first to discover the empty tomb, and she ran to tell Peter and John, who were amazed to confirm that it was so, and then returned home. Mary remained disconsolately:
And as she wept, she peered into the tomb, and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. They asked her, "Why are you weeping?" She answered, "They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have laid him." With these words she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him (John 20.11-14).
The last account of angels in Jesus' life story occurs at the time of the Ascension. When all the apostles (apart from Judas Iscariot) were together, he parried their simplistic questions about restoring sovereignty to Israel, but promised them rather mysteriously the advent of their baptism into the Holy Spirit. Then he was lifted up before their very eyes. While they were gazing into the sky as he went, all at once there stood beside them two men robed in white. These angels told them to stop looking up at the sky: Jesus, who had been taken from them up to heaven, would come in the same way as they had seen him go (Acts 1.6-9).
Jesus mentioned angels on a number of occasions in his teaching. In the parable of the darnel (translated "tares" in the Authorized Version) told in Matthew 13.24-30, Jesus identifies the reapers with angels; the Son of Man will send his angels, who will gather out of his Kingdom every cause of sin, and all those whose deeds are evil, all of which will be thrown into the burning furnace (Matthew 13.41-3). "This image may offend because of its irreversibility, but the call for immediate repentance is not to be lightly dismissed. In Matthew 18.10 we encounter a milder, but no less radical, teaching: "See that you do not despise one of these little ones; I tell you, they have their angels in heaven, who look continually on the face of my heavenly Father" These are the guardian angels whom we have; while the intellectually sophisticated are far too entranced with their own knowledge to accommodate any awareness of a power outside themselves that guards them and brings them everlastingly to the divine light, the simple ones of this world, who include children, are in much closer contact with spiritual reality. I believe that every living form has an angelic guide and protector; we shall think about this again in Chapter 4.
In Matthew 24.36, in the final part of the great eschatological discourse (on the last things before the coming of the Son in glory, which is called the parousia), Jesus reminded them all that no one knows the exact time of the coming, not even the angels in heaven (who have very close access to God). In the fine eschatological parable of Matthew 25.31-46, the parable of the sheep and the goats - which is also the parable of the Last Judgement - Jesus envisaged the Son of Man coming in all his glory and all the angels with him, sitting on his glorious throne with all the nations gathered before him. At Jesus' betrayal, when a supporter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant, Jesus immediately told him to put away his sword. Did he not suppose that his Father would send him twelve legions of angels if he appealed to him (Matthew 26.51-3)?
In Mark's Gospel we find two additional allusions to angels. "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this wicked and godless age, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8.38). The other one is as follows: "When they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; they are like angels in heaven" (Mark 12.25). This remark was said in reply to the Sadducees, who maintained that there was no resurrection (since it was not found in the teaching of Moses). A rather similar reply is found in Luke 20.34-6: "Jesus said to them, "The men and women of this world marry; but those who have been judged worthy of a place in the other world, and of the resurrection from the dead, do not marry, for they are no longer subject to death. They are like angels; they are children of God, because they share in the resurrection."" It is worthy of comment that the resurrected dead are not actually angelic, but merely resemble angels in their proximity to God. Unlike the angels, they have much work of character building to perform; this development of the full person by the process of growth is the special task set before humans, and it is the essential way towards glorification in the pattern of the supreme divine person, Jesus Christ.
In the parable of the rich man (often called Dives) and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31), it is angels who carry away the soul of Lazarus to be with Abraham. This parable is exceptional in Luke's collection for the unremittingly harsh treatment meted out to the selfish plutocrat, now in hell. Not even a return of Lazarus from the dead will redeem his five brothers from their fate, because Moses and the prophets have said it all; if they remain impervious to the teachings of these men, they will never be converted - even by a visitor from the country of the dead. One might add in parentheses that a certain Saul of Tarsus was well-schooled in the Scriptures, yet persisted in persecuting the earliest Christians until someone from the dead did indeed address him and set him on the right way. It goes to show how unwise it is ever to be dogmatic about anything in this world rather we should try to help our fellow creatures no matter how far astray they appear to be in the life they lead. The evil apparent in many of us is as much a reflection of the society in which we live as our own unworthiness; if we were open to the bright angels around us, we would go astray much less often.
The mention of angels is prominent in the Acts of the Apostles. In the interrogation and address of defence of the proto-martyr Stephen, all who were sitting in the Council fixed their eyes on him, and his face seemed to them like the face of an angel (Acts 6.25). In his defence in Acts 7.35, Stephen asserted that God spoke to Moses through an angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, while in Acts 7.53 he said that the Jews received the Law given by God's angels and yet had not kept it. In a concurrent passage a little earlier in this discourse, Stephen said, "It was he [Moses] who, in the assembly in the desert, kept company with the angel, who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our forefathers, and received the living utterances of God to pass on to us" (Acts 7.38). As we have previously noted, the angel of God is, in the earliest writings, identical with God manifesting himself. Later on, a distinction was made between God and his angel in order to emphasize the divine transcendence. And so it comes about that Moses was not in direct communication with God, but with one or several angels.
Angels play an important part in the conversion of the first Gentile to the Christian faith (Acts 1O). Cornelius, the centurion in the Italian Cohort and a great friend of the Jewish religion, was summoned to send to Joppa for Peter by direct angelic orders. He thereupon sent three of his personnel to Joppa, during which time Peter was being prepared spiritually for their arrival: he had a shattering vision in which he was taught that he should not consider anything God had made to be unclean. When the party arrived at Peter's door, the full import of the vision became clear to him: Cornelius, a devout man and a great sympathizer of Judaism, was now ready for reception into the Christian community. Peter invited the party into his lodging for the night, and the next day they all left Joppa and travelled to Caesarea, where Cornelius greeted Peter with great humility. Whereas Peter would previously have demurred from even sharing a meal with the gentile Cornelius (and the others), he now had no compunction in baptizing them all. That the decision was right was proved by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on them while Peter was still speaking, before the baptism itself. In this instance we see an interesting collaboration between the angels and the Holy Spirit: the angels do the preparatory work for the baptism, while the effulgence of the Holy Spirit embraces the men as they are about to enter fully into the Christian faith.
Angelic power was demonstrated in the miraculous release of Peter from prison, where he had been confined by the vindictive King Herod, fresh from beheading James, the brother of John. While Peter was languishing in prison and the whole community prayed for him, an angel of God appeared so that the cell was ablaze with light. The angel released him and opened all the prison doors, so that when he appeared at the door of Mary's house (the mother of John Mark), the maid-servant Rhoda was so overcome with amazement that she left Peter at the door and announced his presence to the party inside the house. He went on knocking until he was finally admitted, when he recounted his amazing story (Acts 12.4-17). Herod commanded the interrogation and execution of all the prison guards.
Angels are also mentioned in Acts 23.8-9 in respect of a dispute between Sadducees and Pharisees concerning the possible angelic interpretation of St Paul's vision on the road to Damascus, but confusion rather than light followed the futile debate. The final mention of angels is recorded in Acts 27.23, in which Paul recorded a vision of an angel of God who proceeded to tell him not to be afraid: it was ordained that Paul should appear before Caesar, and that he could rejoice in the fact that God had granted him the lives of all who were sailing with him.
The letters of Paul bear only scant reference to angels, sometimes with a distinctly pejorative odour. Good examples of this are: "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11.14); "But should anyone, even I myself or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel other than the gospel I preached to you, let him be banned" (Galatians 1.8); "For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers ... that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8.38-9); "Are you not aware that we are to judge angels, not to mention day by day affairs" (1 Corinthians 6.3); "Though I speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I have no love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal" (1 Corinthians 13.1); "You are not to be disqualified by the decision of people who go in for self mortification and angel-worship and access to some visionary world" (Colossians 2.18). More encouraging texts are: "It is just that God should balance the account by sending affliction to those who afflict you, and relief to you who are afflicted, and to us as well, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in blazing fire" (2 Thessalonians 1.6-8); "And great beyond all question is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels; he was proclaimed among the nations, believed in throughout the world, raised to heavenly glory" (1 Timothy 3.16). A Letter to Hebrews, of unknown authorship, has informative comments about angels: "[The Son] is raised as far above the angels as the title he has inherited is superior to theirs" (1.4), which is followed by a comparison that fills the remainder of the first chapter; "For if God's word spoken through angels had such force..." (2.2); "For it is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come.."(2.5); "Clearly they are not angels whom he helps, but the descendants of Abraham" (2.16); "No, you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels" (12.22); "Do not neglect to show hospitality; by doing this, some have entertained angels unawares" (13.2).
The First Letter of Peter contains two use comments about angels: "These are things that angels long to glimpse" (1.12) "Who [Jesus] is now at the right hand of God, having entered heaven and received the submission of angels, authorities, and powers" (3.22). The Second Letter of Peter also contains two allusions to angels: "God did not spare the angels who sinned, but consigned them to the dark pits of hell, where they are held for judgement" (2.4); "..... whereas angels, for all their superior strength and power, employ no insults in seeking judgement against them [lascivious humans] before the Lord" (2.11). The Letter of Jude contains a relevant reference: "Remember too those angels who were not content to maintain the dominion consigned to them, but abandoned their proper dwelling-place; God is holding them, bound in darkness with everlasting chains, for judgement on the great day" (verse 6). This intriguing argument depends on certain apocryphal Jewish writings. According to the Book of Enoch, the angels let themselves be seduced by the "daughters of men", as recounted in Genesis 6.1-4. In verse 9, the archangel Michael is mentioned simply to compare his mild expostulation with the devil in the matter of the possession of Moses' body with the abuse hurled by certain heretics who were troubling the young Church. The incident referred to appears to originate in another apocryphal text, the Assumption of Moses.
In the Book of Revelation (of John), a more extensive counterpart of the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, angels find their most striking role. John - almost certainly not the writer of the fourth Gospel, but probably a member of his circle of disciples - was imprisoned on the island of Patmos because of his Christian allegiance. There he had a profound spiritual experience in which the Holy Spirit revealed the risen Lord to him, who was commanded to write down all he saw and was shown about the future. Like the Book of Daniel, Revelation is primarily a message of hope for a group of believers severely ravaged by vicious adversaries who seemed to be succeeding without any restraint. First came a message of instruction and admonition to the seven churches of the Province of Asia (on the west coast of modern Turkey) at Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, and the message was addressed to the angel of the respective church. After this, the scene changed to visions of heaven: God was sitting on the throne, surrounded by twenty-four elders seated on their thrones. In God's hand there was a scroll sealed with seven seals. Then a powerful angel cried with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" (5.2) It was the Lamb who was alone eligible to receive the scroll, to the worship of the vast multitude which included the voices of many angels, thousands on thousands, myriads on myriads. There was the collective proclamation, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth, wisdom and might, honour and glory and praise!" (5.11-12); and so God entrusted the future oF the world to the Lamb.
When the seals were broken, the great punishment in store for the world was forecast, together with the consolation of the martyrs waiting for justice to be done in their cause. Chapter 7 describes four angels given the power to devastate the wicked earth, so that only the chosen few who were specially sealed on their foreheads were exempt from punishment. There then appeared a great multitude of risen martyrs robed in white and hoLding palm branches. All the angels who stood around the throne prostrated themselves before it and worshipped God crying, "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honour, power and might, be to our God for ever! Amen" (7.12). As the vision proceeded, the seven angels were each given a trumpet (8.2); and when these were blown, various cosmic disasters occurred. Chapter 12 is of great importance in describing the fall of Satan from heaven to the earth: "Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon with his angels fought back, but he was too weak, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who led the whole world astray, whose name is the Devil, or Satan; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels with him" (12.7-9).
In chapter 14 of Revelation the angels announce the advent of the Day of Judgement, while in chapter 16 the seven angels pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath upon the earth. In the following two chapters, the angels celebrate the fall of Babylon, which is usually identified with Rome. Then follows a magnificent vision of the marriage of the Lamb: "The angel said to me, "Write this: "Happy are those who are invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb!"" He added, "These are the very words of God." I prostrated myself to worship him, but he said, "You must not do that! I am a fellow-servant with you and your brothers who bear their witness to Jesus. It is God you must worship. For those who bear witness to Jesus have the spirit of prophecy"" (19.9-10). In the concluding chapters of this magnificent, often repetitive, confusing, and thoroughly inspiring book, the angels play a decisive part in the destruction of the devil from the earth, as the Day of Judgement draws near for all people to be assessed according to how they have lived on earth and the nature of their deeds. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city's street. On either side of the river stood a tree of life, which yields twelve crops of fruit, one for each month of the year The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations" (22.1 2). How great a part the angelic hierarchy play in this great vision of hope in the ultimate triumph of good over evil that characterizes the whole of John's Revelation!
I have compiled this list of angelic appearances in the Bible not in a spirit of pious literalism, usually called fundamentalism, but simply to show how extraterrestrial information and help have come to the aid of people, and have also been a means of instruction to leaders and prophets. Some accounts certainly have a legendary ring to them, but those appertaining to prophecy have, in my estimation, an immediacy that I associate with truth. In the angelology of the later prophets Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel, in which the angels interpret the vision of the prophet, I feel most at home. There is a veracity that speaks to my inner condition, and leads me forward in my own endeavours. By contrast, the various birth stories in both Testaments have a mythological flavour. This does not diminish their basic validity, so much as suggest that angels are being used as symbols to illustrate the inexplicable. Religion transcends the purely rational, hence it cannot be confined to rational categories. It extends our understanding through mystical encounter, which in turn may broaden our view of the process of life. True religion leads to a spiritual unfolding that culminates in the vision of God, whereas false religion usurps the function of God in its own institutions.
It is of interest that early on in the world's history of angels, a number of categories appeared: choirs of singers, a military presence (the Elisha apparition that rings profoundly true to my imagination), members of the heavenly court (as in the first two chapters oF the Book of Job), guardians, helpers, sustainers, protectors, and judges. Nowadays angels are present in the popular imagination in one predominant category, portrayed classically as the winged cherub that clearly functions as a messenger But in fact all these apparently distinct groups have a common gift endowed by God: they all in one way or another transmit his uncreated light to his many creatures, whether in body, mind, or soul. The light opens the mind to truth and the heart to compassion of a degree seen in the ministry of Jesus. The body begins to radiate a health that may affect many others in its vicinity.
I believe that we are encompassed in a blanket of angelic activity In the course of daily life, we (apart from a few profoundly mystical people) are closed to the presence of angels (except perhaps in a great crisis), for we tend to be very easily distracted by worldly matters. An open heart and a generous attitude to life are features that make us especially amenable to angelic communication; the closed mind and stony heart resist the ingress of angelic activity It is hardly surprising that academic theologians and scientific workers have great difficulty with the concept of angels.
It must be conceded that in the Middle Ages the angels were credited with such functions as the movement of the stars and the activity of the universe. St Paul writes of this in Ephesians 6.12: "For our struggle is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark age, against the superhuman forces of evil in the heavenly realms." In our scientifically oriented world, the movement of the planets and much else in our vast universe is quite satisfactorily explained in terms of natural function. It seems to me that the angels have much more subtle activity in moderating the spiritual understanding of people whose prayers may indeed have a cosmic influence far beyond anything that seems scientifically credible.