IT is a striking fact, that neither in ancient nor modern
literature have we any work of precisely the same character
as that which I now undertake, a work dealing
exclusively with the authentic words addressed by angels
to men, and recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed no monograph even on the Biblical doctrine respecting
angels has ever come before me. We have
treatises and dissertations, it is true, but no exhaustive
book ; and even these are exceedingly meagre in their
notices of the intercourse of holy angels with the human
race. They are rather to be classed under the head of
demonology, and historiae didboli ; whereas, in the Scripture,
especially in the Old Testament, we have more told
us of good than of evil spirits. Indeed, to say nothing
of unbelieving and half-believing indifference, we constantly
find, even in orthodox believers, an actual ignoring,
as it were, of angelic agency. Now, we hold that it would
much add, both to the full understanding and joy of faith,
if the testimony of Scripture on the subject were properly
received. For throughout its pages the existence and
intervention of angels is dwelt upon with as much clearness
and precision as is compatible with the necessarily
mysterious nature of the subject.
Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, as we are well
aware, repeatedly brought the intervention of holy angels
before the minds of his hearers. In parables, the interpretation
of which must at all events point at realities, we
find angels described as the reapers at the last harvest, the
executors of the last sentence, the devoted servants of the
heavenly Master ; nay, in the latest prophecy (Matt, xxv.),
their accompanying the coming-in glory of the Judges
(ver. 31), can no more be understood as a metaphor than
the mention, in ver. 41, of the devil and his angels.
We may here quote with advantage a striking remark of
Nitzsch on the subject in question :If," writes he," we
consider the origin of the Old Testament representation of
angels, we shall certainly not be able to hold the opinion
that the angels were nothing more than the gods of Polytheism,
subordinated by the growth of Monotheism to this
inferior position. For if this were so, we should find the
angelic world most prominent at the time of transition
from the polytheistic to the monotheistic creed ; whereas
it is at a later period, just when Polytheism is completely
overcome, that we find the existence of angels
reduced to a dogma by the Jews, and their appearance
most frequently recorded." Most certainly this is the
case. The angels by no means recede into comparative
obscurity as clear light breaks in ; but on the contrary, it
is on the occasion of the full revelation of God in Christ,
that they appear with increased distinctness. And in the
same manner with regard to the objective, personal devil,
his image, instead of waxing fainter, is dwelt on and defined
far more than heretofore, both in the parables and the
doctrinal teaching of Christ.
No sooner, indeed, had our Lord appeared in his public
character of teacher, and gathered around him his earliest
disciples, than we find him spontaneously alluding to the
far-off vision of the patriarch Jacob (John i. 51), and
personally applying it. He points to his own Divine
Humanity as the centre of this spiritual intercourse continually
carried on between earth and heaven ; and on one
occasion, previous to his last prophecy (Matt. xxiv. 30 ;
xxv. 31), speaks openly of the coming of the Son of man
with his angels (Matt. xvi. 27 ; Mark viii. 38).
In short, neither the inquiries of science, nor the inductions
of reason, tend to disprove the great fact, equally
transcending the telescope of the one, and the speculations
of the other, the fact of the universe being peopled with
intermediate spirits between God and man. It is only a
meagre pseudo-philosophical Pantheism, which would contract
the starry heaven to a great light-eruption (according
to Hegel's notorious words, Licht Anschlag], and render
God conscious only in man ! which must needs protest
against a doctrine so essentially conservative of Monotheism
as this of worshipping and ministering angels.
Even in Von Meyer's works we meet with a most inaccurate
observation on this subject, i.e., that no time is
assigned in Scripture to the creation of angels, which
leaves it to be inferred that they have existed from the
beginning. Now, that, in the beginning, God, together
with heaven itself, created the whole of the host of heaven,
is most clearly stated, Gen. i. 1, ii. 1, compared with Ps.
xxxiii. 6 ; Neh. ix. 6.
But the manner of creation of the invisible world (Col.
i. 16), must remain hidden from us, because we are not at
present capable of understanding any revelation of it. One
bright glance, indeed, is allowed us of the singing and
shouting for joy of the earliest existing sons of God, the
morning stars of primeval creation, over the laying the
foundations of this present world of ours (Job xxxviii. 7).
Again, In Gen. vi. 1-4, we have a most mysterious yet,
no doubt, literally true account given us of a second fall in
the world of angels ; of which, however, we will not speak
any further here, since it is with the holy angels that we
have to do, and with their sayings to men. which sayings
are far more rare in Scripture than the general mention of
their existence and services. Now, human tradition and
human poetry would have reversed this.
The primal belief that angels were wont to help and
serve mankind, and to do so, be it well observed, by the
command and the sending of God, we find in Gen. xxiv. 7,
40, simply alluded to by Abraham as a self-evident fact ;
and in like manner in the. book of Tobit we see that the
popular belief among the Jews lies at the foundation
of that Apocryphal narrative. Again, Jacob beholds the
heavenly company at the beginning of his pilgrimage, and
at the end of his exile, both dreaming at Bethel and waking
at Mahanaim (Gen. xxviii. 12; xxxii. 1, 2). That
the angels of the Lord encamp around them that fear him,
to keep them in all their ways, seems to be a well-known
truth, not taught as anything new, but comfortingly alluded
to as a certain fact (Ps. xxxiv. 8 ; xci. 11). The watchers
around the lofty throne of the Divine Governor, who receive
and execute his behests, as Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream
(Dan. iv. 13-17), are not merely a specimen of Chaldean
imagery, incorporated in holy writ, but are akin to those
chariots of God before mentioned (Ps. Ixviii. 17). Micaiah
the Bon of Imlah (1 Kings xxii. 19), sees just the same
vision of the Lord on his throne, surrounded by the hosts
of heaven, that Daniel beheld at a later period (Dan. vii. 10).
The saints in Dan. viii. 13 (Zech. xiv. 5 compared with
Deut. xxxiii. 2) we find spoken of in the same way in
Ps. Ixxxix. 5, 7 and Job xv. 15, v. 1 ; in which last place
we have a very significant allusion to the prohibited invocation
of angels as being idolatrous and useless. If sometimes
these angels are called Elohim, or children of God,
that is, according to the Hebrew idiom, God-like ; this is
intended to express their exalted dignity as the official
representatives of God, certainly not to attribute to them
a share in the divine nature or independent power. Such
a misunderstanding as this is guarded against by the name
most generally applied to them, Angels, i.e., messengers
and ministers, or in their oldest and most comprehensive
designation, God's army, God's hosts (Gen. xxxii. 2 ;
Ps. ciii. 20, 21 ; cxlviii. 2). And even God the Lord adds
to his name this most solemn and impressive title of
Sabaoth, in other words, the God and Governor of these
hosts of heaven. Finally, we have the definition of the
name of angel given to us in Heb. i. 14, with reference
to their especial work as messengers from heaven to
earth.
Now, we must be careful to distinguish between these
commissioned and also created spirits and the Angel of the
Lord, whom we find in the Old Testament appearing as the
personal manifestation of the Triune God, the God of God,
the visible image of the Invisible, the Captain of the Lord's
host (Josh. v. 14), and thus himself the God of Sabaoth.
That this Angel of the Lord is no created angel, remains
an incontrovertible truth, although, strange to say, even
believers have sometimes questioned it. To insist upon
the word angel in this case, overlooking the divine element,
to see here only a created representative of the
Deity, appears to me unauthorized, such an interpretation
entirely doing away with the partition-wall between the
created and the Creator. Again, Heb. i. 1,2, by no means
authorizes the belief held by some that God did not, in the
Old Testament, speak by his Son as well as by angels. In
the first place, he can speak in no other way than through
the eternal Word; and next, we have apostolic expressions
like those in John xii. 41 (his glory, Christ's, ver. 42) ;
and 1 Cor. x. 4, 9, which prove that He did. From
Gen. xvi. and Job down to Malachi, we find scattered
throughout the whole Old Testament isolated yet harmonizing
descriptions, which, at once in their mystery and
their clearness, testify of Him who condescended indeed
to appear in the form of an angel, and to be called one, yet
who was no angel, but God himself sent, proceeding from
God concealed. Let the following passages be read very
attentively : Gen. xvi. 13 ; xxii. 12 ; Ex. iii. 6, 7 ; and let
Ex. xiii. 21 be compared with xiv. 19 ; xxiii. 21. Remark
also how the prophet Hosea (xii. 5, 6) names Jehovah the
God of Sabaoth, him whom we find (Gen. xxxii.) spoken
of as a man (ver. 24), and again as God (ver. 30) ; how in
Hosea (xii. 5) the expression is the (well-known, so called)
Angel (again, see how the two expressions stand side by
side in Gen. xlviii. 15, 16 ; the God before whom my
fathers did walk, the Angel who redeemed me from evil),
the angel, namely, in whom God's name is (Ex. xxiii. 21) ;
the Angel of God's presence (Isa. Ixiii. 9), i.e., God's own
presence (Ex. xxxiii. 14). We can now understand the
majestic tone in which the Angel of the Lord speaks on
the occasion of his very remarkable appearance recorded
in Judges ii. 1," /made you to go up out of Egypt!"
And we have similar instances in the history of Gideon
and Manoah, as also in that of Elijah (2 Kings i. 3-15).
The Angel of the Lord referred to in all these cases is
spoken of in Job as the mediating angel (in the English
Bible, a messenger, an interpreter) who has found a ransom.
Finally, in Mai. iii. 1, he is spoken of as the Angel
of the covenant, one with the Lord himself, who is to come
to his temple.
Thus the sayings of this Angel of the Lord have no
place in our present book. In many passages of Scripture
it seems somewhat doubtful at the first glance whether he,
or a created angel be alluded to, but, on reflection, the
context or parallel passages will enable us to decide, as,
for example, in Gen. xxi. 17, compared with xxxi. 11, 13.
In Numb, xxii., let especial attention be paid to the use
of the word /, in ver. 32, 33, 35.
According to the repeated and unvarying testimony of
Scripture, numbers of created angels are busily employed
in the affairs of humanity, not only in the lifetime of
our Lord (the centre of the history of salvation, but also
before and after). The Old Testament appears, indeed,
in a special manner the dispensation of angels, as we have
three times stated in Gral. iii. 19 ; Acts vii. 53 ; Heb.
ii. 2. But this intervention of theirs, this their character
of servants, appointed to execute the divine will and plans,
is taught us alike in the oldest and latest of the sacred
writings in their own characteristic way ; not, indeed, by
positive doctrinal statement, so much as by illustration and
context. Thus we learn that the whole of nature is not
merely governed by natural forces and laws, but that the
immanent Creator acts upon all these by intermediate
agents. It is in this especial sense that these spirits who
direct the course of nature receive the appellation of
powers. The angel at the pool of Bethesda is no myth,
for, in Rev. xvi. 5. we have the positive mention of an angel
of the water, as well as angels of the wind (vii. 1, compared
with ix. 14). Lastly, in Dan. x. 18, 20, 21, xii. 1,
we read of other angels who are commissioned to guide
the affairs of individual nations, for whom they fight, a fact
which, unintelligible as it is to us, we are bound to receive
together with all other words of inspiration respecting the
mysteries of God's wonderfully ordered creation.
That in this great world of spirits there should be degrees,
differences of rank, as well as of administration, we
might naturally have concluded, even if the Scriptures had
not revealed it, not, indeed, by laying it down as a fact, in so
many words, but by numerous allusions and slight touches
which it is our part to search out diligently, and draw our
own inferences from ; but yet with caution and humility, lest
we intrude into those things that we have not seen (CoL
ii. 18). The clearest allusions that we find are in the passages
that simply enumerate thrones, principalities, powers,
dominions (Eph. i. 21 ; iii. 10 ; Col. i. 16 ; ii. 10 ; of authorities
and powers, 1 Pet. iii. 22 ; Dan. iv. 32). As to
the comparative nature and rank of archangels (1 Thess.
iv. 16 ; Jude 9), and that of the seven in Rev. viii. 2,
it is not easy to decide, though, with respect to the latter,
a careful comparing with Tob. xii. 15, may teach us some
respect for apocryphal tradition. Some recent commentators
have, on very doubtful authority, sought to distinguish
between the strong angels and the ministering angels (Ps.
ciii. 20, 21), as though they were two separate classes, but
in Ps. Ixxviii. 25 (in the original), all angels are alike designated
as strong. "We may here take occasion to protest
against the popular error, which would divide the whole
angelic world into the two orders of cherubim and seraphim,
for which there is no authority in holy writ ; as well
as against the unworthy idea put forth by some, that the
cherubim are mere creatures of the imagination, intended
to convey a figurative impression of the greatness and
majesty of God. We hope to present to our readers a
more true y*.d lofty theory than this.
Others would have us distinguish between angels of
might and angels of knowledge, but it is by no means easy
to lay down any positive line of demarcation between these.
For in several passages we find that a knowledge far exceeding
the present knowledge or wisdom of men, is attributed
to all angels whatsoever (2 Sam. xiv. 17, 20 ; xix.
27 ; 1 Sam. xxix. 9). Indeed this had become an expression
proverbial in Israel, and we find it confirmed, while
also limited in the New Testament. Our Lord himself in
Matt. xxiv. 36 ; Mark xiii. 32, confirms the general presupposition
of the angels in heaven having a widely
extended knowledge, yet adds this limitation, that they do
not know the day nor the hour of judgment. And again,
both Paul and Peter agree in giving us to understand that
the angels, holy and wise though they be, have not so deep
an insight into the mysteries of salvation as those children
of men whose destiny these more especially concern ; that
the less complex existence of the former continually finds
an interest in watching the history of the church on earth;
and that they worship before the throne of grace with something
of an unappeased thirst for more intimate knowledge
(Eph. iii. 10 ; 1 Peter i. 12). Amongst their orders there
is very possibly an ascending scale from those, who although
happy, and after their kind perfect spirits, are yet simply
serving agencies or powers, to those who are called to and
fitted for the deepest insight and the fullest knowledge.
Thus perhaps, for it does not become us to speak positively
here, thefour living creatures whose spirit was in the
ivheels (Ezek. i.), really denote four primal forces of created
life, nature- spirits in creation, free, personal, self-conscious
intermediate agents, to whom the divine power was
delegated for the government of the material world. If so,
these may certainly be divided into angels of grace and
angels of truth, of mercy, and of judgment ; that is, they
may be viewed as representatives in action of ail these
alike (Ps. Ixxxix. 15), though it is no less true that angels
of evil (Ps. Ixxviii. 49), must in wrath remember mercy,
while, on the other hand, the messengers of grace and
peace are conversant with the stern exercise of justice, as
we see from the story of Mamre and Sodom.
But how little of all the treasures of this angelic world
is revealed in Scripture history. How seldom, if we
consider it as a whole, have we any details afforded us of
angel nature or angel work. How few angel words are
recorded. "We are told indeed in Luke xv. 7, 10, by our
Lord himself, that the angels rejoice in each sinner's repentance,
feel a sympathizing delight in the recovery of
every single human soul : this great truth flashes out in
these words ; is apparent nowhere else. In Matt, xviii.
10, we are positively told that the children of Adam have
guardian angels specially appointed, but in no other passage
of Scripture have we any further allusion to this most
comforting, most edifying mystery. (For Acts xii. 15
is to be differently understood.) The seer of Patmos beheld
indeed the prayers of the saints being presented
by an angel ; but we only once read elsewhere of this interposition,
in Dan. ix. 23 ; x. 12, though we find an
allusion made to the universal belief in the fact, in the
apocryphal story of Tobit (Tob. xii. 12). That angels
have their appointed offices, both at the death of the righteous
and the ungodly, we learn from Luke xvi. 22, taken
in connexion with chap. xii. 20, where the literal meaning
is, "they shall require thy soul;" but it is only in the
case of Herod (Acts xii. 23), in that of the Assyrian host
(2 Kings xix. 35), in the plagues of Egypt, Ex. xii. 23
(Heb. xi. 28), and story of the pestilence in Israel (2 Sam.
xxiv. 1G, 17), that we read expressly of their being the
executioners of the divine judgment. And it is Jude alone
who gives us any hint of the contention of Michael with
Satan for the body of Moses.
Again, it was long after Mahanaim that the camping of
the heavenly hosts, under the aspect of horses and chariots
of fire, was once more revealed to one of the young men of
the prophets (2 Kings vi. 17). It is only in Dan. iii. 25,
that the son ofthe gods shows himself in the furnace with
the faithful three, to which cases may be added the two instances
of celestial intervention of liberation from prison
by angelic agency in the Acts of the Apostles. What a
reticence, what a paucity in Holy Scripture of what scepticism
would ascribe merely to human imagination. Had
the angels indeed been mere myths, forms originating
in poetry and preserved by tradition, why was there not
in the Bible the same prominence given to them that
we find in apocryphal literature ; for example, in the
book of Tobit and the fourth book of Ezra. The book of
Tobit is full of beauty and significance, but the episode of
the angel who makes journeys here and there, and utters
lengthy discourses, at once proves its apocryphal origin.
In our own days, when fictitious spirits are so singularly
garrulous, we cannot lay too much stress upon biblical
reserve.
And, lastly, when we consider the words of angels, how
short they are, how adapted to human comprehension in
their simplicity, and yet always with a deeper meaning
concealed beneath the primary one. Alas ! commentators
for the most part have passed over these words very lightly,
noticing them merely as angelic words, not pausing to
weigh their inherent value, so that our exposition has had
the benefit of very little previous labour in this department.
Again, all the accounts given of the appearance of
angels, are characterized by the same directness and simplicity.
It is only in the matter of dreams and visions that
we meet with apocalyptic imagery ; as, for instance, in the
accounts of the seraphim and cherubim, as well as in that
of Jacob's ladder ; but where angels are introduced to the
normal, waking consciousness of men, we do not find that
they are seen flying down from heaven, or that there is
anything marvellous in their deportment. It is true that
before the eyes of Manoah and his wife, the angel ascended
in the flame of the altar, but then this was the uncreated
angel of the Lord, and his doing wondrously was necessary
to bring about their entire conviction of the truth of his
message. Compare with this the sublime Christmas celebration
recorded in Luke ii.; the beginning in ver. 9, with
its conclusion, ver. 15. Again, we usually read of a man,
two men, of a young man (Mark xvi.); we hear nothing
of wings, or of flying, or of any of the adjuncts by which
the imagination of artists is wont to mar the simple Bible
narratives.
If it be inquired whether angels have a corporeal nature,
we may reply that it is almost certain that no created and
finite being (including those intelligences that in contradistinction
to our humanity we call purely spiritual) can exist
without some material substance, which, indeed, is the condition
ofform, and form is implied in the words,"their own
habitation" (see Jude 6). The often misunderstood passage
in Ps. civ. 4, is peculiarly fraught with veiled meaning.
In the first place, it speaks of actual wmd and flame
as ministers of the Lord ; thus illustrating the angelic
power and swiftness, and also mysteriously conveying by
these types some idea of the higher corporeal nature of
these exalted angelic beings. That they are not created out
of the dust, like the children of Adam, we read, moreover,
in Job iv. 18, 19. But how are they created and formed?
Here all our knowledge is at fault ; only there are two
hints in God's word which lead us to suppose that the
human shape, as the form of forms, the original type of
the rational creation, may be peculiar to the angels also.
We read of the children of the resurrection being made
like unto the angels, Luke xx. 36 ; (Matt. xxii. 30 ; Mark
xii. 25), and this, from the nature of the context, evidently
refers to the body ; while Rev. xxi. 17 harmonizes therewith,
it being there said of" the measure of a man (a
risen, glorified man), that is, of the angel."
It is also noticeable that in the Old Testament, angels,
if they do not simply reveal themselves in the human form,
have afiery appearance, while in the New Testament, on the
contrary, from the scene of the resurrection of the Saviour
(for in Luke ii. 9 there is a verbal difference in the description)
they appear in shining raiment, or in bright light
(Acts xii. 7). And this may have some connexion with
the reconciling of all things through Christ, both things in
earth and things in heaven (Col. i. 20).
That angels actually spoke to men, we find to have been
a popular belief in Christ's time, recognised in John xii. 29,
as also in Acts xxiii. 9, with which we may compare
1 Kings xiii. 18, and in a manner Gal. i. 8 as well. It is
evident that, in order to have been understood by men, they
must necessarily have used human language, and not spoken
in their own peculiar tongues, which we find alluded to
(1 Cor. xiii. 1). This remark applies also to the two angelic
names, translated for our comprehension into those of Gabriel
and Michael, to which the Apocrypha adds the two
other names, formed on the same plan, of Raphael and
Uriel. But, once more, let us ask where, throughout the
mythology and poetry of Paganism, Judaism, or Christendom,
we find anything comparable in simplicity and dignity
to the Bible narratives of the appearance and sayings
of angels ? Poets and Painters have indeed their artisticright
to idealize and adorn, but they ought only to fill up
the Bible outline, instead of, as is too often the case, altogether
departing from it.
Our purpose, in the work we now lay before our readers,
is to bring to light the deep meaning which we believe the
simplest angelic sayings to contain, the treasures that lie
beneath the seeming commonplace surface. In order to
do this, we shall sometimes have to rectify the common
version of the sacred text. We hope thus to be able to
present the collective words of the angels under a new
aspect, and to afford another proof that the Holy Scriptures,
despite the variety of their inspired writers, are iu
point of fact one organic whole, one Revelation.
