It is amazing to me that books are written about angels based
more on lore and legend than facts. In actuality we know very little about them
from the Scriptures, the only true and reliable source of angelic knowledge
(cf. 2 Tim 3:16). I am not denying a person’s experience of being in contact
with angels. We just have to base it on what we know about them from Scripture
than declaring a thing true due to an experience that may prove to be
unreliable. I have said this and will continue to say that we look at life
and interpret it through the lens of Scripture, not the other way around. The
Word of God is the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith and
practice, not our experiences. I cannot stress the importance of this if you
claim to be a Biblicist.
When was the last time you saw an angel? You can’t see them or
sense their presence, but there have been times you dodged something that could
have turned ugly because something or someone intervened on your behalf (seen
or unseen). We all could probably relate to this. To always explain away things
like this as being very fortunate, just dumb-luck, chance, dodged a bullet,
destiny, kismet, fate, karma, or however you want to say it other than
providence for a believer is unsatisfactory. For a believer there is the
comforting truth of Rom 8:28. God is in control and on the throne. Nothing
enters our life without His permission or orchestration, absolutely nothing.
Moving on, there is a high possibility we might have even entertained an angel
without even knowing it (Heb 1:14; 13:2)?!
Good angels may even pose as a traveler or whatever, but will
never participate in ungodly behavior or act in any way with the intention of
misleading us to do something contrary to the Scriptures. Good angels are
messengers of God for good who execute God’s bidding (the why) for whoever,
whatever, whenever, wherever, down to the how of it in strict accordance with
God’s will, with no tolerance for deviation or variation to the Divine
objective. Violating God’s Word or failure is not an option. Their response to
God’s will is always immediate and complete.
I can figuratively say I married an angel (a sweetie pie), and
my wife would probably say, “Ah,” but in reality, she is not literally an angel,
the one with wings, nor a pie for that matter! Angels remain mysterious and
virtually unknown, and there is another class of angels that are anything but a
sweetie pie; you know them as demons. I envision all good angels to be very
tall in stature (8′+) and very powerful spiritual warriors either in real form
(cf. 2 Kgs 19:35) or transformed into normal human form (cf. Gn 19:11). We take
the scattered data concerning angels in the Scripture and piecemeal together
some kind of understanding about them. Thus, the time of their creation and
when a large portion of them fell are derived from inference based on scant
data.
All of these ghost stories you see on TV or read about of people
who are convinced it has to be the spirit of a deceased loved one because they
are persuaded that such intimate information could only have been derived from them
is some very evil stuff. This deception is coming from demonic mimicry; a lost
soul is entombed in hell; only demons reach out to ignorant and vulnerable
family members that the loved one’s spirit is alive and roaming. None of these
demons behind deceiving family members are up to any good for there is no good
in them. They are part of the fallen group of angels that followed Lucifer down
a dark and destructive path, and they are hell-bent on taking it out on humankind;
there are no nice bad angels!
This is Demonology 101. We as believers should not be ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor 2:11) and put on the whole armor of God to stand against the wiles of the devil (Eph 6:11). It is the Word of God that unmasks for us Satan’s schemes. Ignorance of Scripture veils a lot of evil leading to destruction through the deception of the gullible.
Though we can’t precisely pinpoint the creation and fall of
angels with certainty, we can get sort of a general idea of the when factor of
both. Angels had a beginning (Ezek 28:13) and are not eternal in the sense that God, who is without beginning, is eternal (Psa 90:2). When these creatures came into
existence is debated. The two main schools of thought on when the angels were
created are (1) sometime in eternity past before Day 1 of creation week, and
(2) during creation week itself. There are two interesting observations found
in Job 38:4-6, 7, particularly verse 7 that may offer us a clue to the origin
of angels and rule out a possibility of when they might have fallen,
“Where were you [Yahweh asking Job] when I laid the foundations
of the earth? [v4a]... And all the sons of God shouted for joy [v7b]?” (emphasis mine).
The phrase, “sons of God,” is referred to as angels in Job 1:6.
Angels were already in existence on Day 1 of creation week. Some even assert
that angels existed before creation going back even to “eons in eternity.” I
don’t know about that nor does anyone else on this side of eternity, but I am
of the opinion that their existence at least preceded creation week at some juncture, time
being irrelevant, of course, in eternity.
Whenever Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1),
His words did not indicate that the angels were created on Day 1. He only
mentioned their response in witnessing the incredible display of His power when
the foundations of the earth were laid. The presence of the angels strongly
suggests that all of the angels were in existence before
Day 1 of creation week. Again, just how long they have been in existence prior to
the Day 1 event is anybody’s guess.
Notice
the clause in Job 38:7, “All [emphasis mine] the sons of God
shouted for joy.” If the word all includes all of the angels, including Lucifer, how inclusive is all? It encompasses millions upon millions, perhaps billions of angels (Dan 7:10; Heb 12:22; Rev 5:11), “ten thousand times ten thousand,” or more literally, myriads of myriads, “and thousands of thousands.” The Greek word, murias, translated as “ten thousand" is also translated as “innumerable” (Lk 12:1; Heb 12:22). In other words, we are talking about a number beyond calculation, requiring more than taking off our shoes and socks to employ our toes calculator to figure it out!
Suffice it to say in succinct southern style, there were on Day 1 a bunch of angels watching Yahweh do some amazing things! It is natural to assume that all refer to the all-angelic jubilation during the inauguration of the earth. It would be artificial and forced to consider the word “all” as exclusive of good angels, suggesting that demons were already in existence prior to creation based on what we know, which admittedly is very little.
Lucifer and his winged followers had not rebelled since their unknown precise point of origin until after Day 6 of creation week sometime between Day 7 and before Gen 3:1 with the approach/attack of the serpent. Why do I say that the angels hadn't fallen before creation week? Look at Job 38:7 once again.
“All the sons of God shouted for joy” [emphasis mine].
Suffice it to say in succinct southern style, there were on Day 1 a bunch of angels watching Yahweh do some amazing things! It is natural to assume that all refer to the all-angelic jubilation during the inauguration of the earth. It would be artificial and forced to consider the word “all” as exclusive of good angels, suggesting that demons were already in existence prior to creation based on what we know, which admittedly is very little.
Lucifer and his winged followers had not rebelled since their unknown precise point of origin until after Day 6 of creation week sometime between Day 7 and before Gen 3:1 with the approach/attack of the serpent. Why do I say that the angels hadn't fallen before creation week? Look at Job 38:7 once again.
“All the sons of God shouted for joy” [emphasis mine].
How did the sons
of God (angels) shout? For joy when the foundation of the earth was
being laid! This intimates all of the angels were on board
with God’s will! Where do we ever read anywhere in Scripture of demons (fallen
angels) expressing joy over God’s will?! Demons (never referred to as sons of God) are all about doing just the
exact opposite, diminishing God’s glory as much as possible, enticing man to do
something contrary to God’s Word: questioning, ignoring, denying, rejecting, or
rebelling. It is an attack on getting people to disagree (sin against God) with God (cf. 1 Jn
1:9, confess = agree).
Now I realize this is a main argument from some conservatives
who believe angels were created during creation week. How could God say,
“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gn 1:31) if a supposed third of an
innumerable amount of angels had fallen already? This seems reasonable to me if the angels were created during creation week, but we are talking about
a lot of angels here. And a third of this countless host of angels fell in a couple
of days or weeks since their creation? Hmm. One other thing is that the
phrase “very good” has a reference to creation week. If angels existed prior
to that event then technically the assessment of “very good”
by Yahweh had nothing to do with angelic beings at all.
What made Lucifer go insanely rogue on Yahweh is conjecture. Apparently, he had a problem with pride (1 Tim 3:6) and self-ambition, “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa 14:14). What was Lucifer thinking?? God is all-knowing!! What is interesting is that after unrighteousness was detected in Lucifer (Ezek 28:15), from what I can gather, we see him next going after Eve (Gn 3:1). Clearly, things are about to hit the fan, and the world will never be the same. <><
What made Lucifer go insanely rogue on Yahweh is conjecture. Apparently, he had a problem with pride (1 Tim 3:6) and self-ambition, “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa 14:14). What was Lucifer thinking?? God is all-knowing!! What is interesting is that after unrighteousness was detected in Lucifer (Ezek 28:15), from what I can gather, we see him next going after Eve (Gn 3:1). Clearly, things are about to hit the fan, and the world will never be the same. <><
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