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What the Bible says about Angels as Ministering Spirits
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 6:1-4

An often overlooked fact that precludes angels from being the fathers of these men of renown is that angels cannot reproduce. Jesus tells us in Mark 12:25 that in the resurrection, human beings will be like the angels in heaven, who “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” His statement very clearly contradicts the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6:2, which states that the “sons of God” (benē hā'ĕlōhīm) married the “daughters of men” (benôt hā'ādām).

In Genesis, a principle that surfaces early is that a created kind only reproduces after its own kind. This physical law means that one class of creature can mate and reproduce among its own class: Cats can only mate with other cats and produce kittens; dogs can only mate with other dogs and produce puppies—but cats and dogs cannot produce a strange hybrid of their very different species. This principle is established scientific fact.

That humans are fleshly, physical beings is evident in Genesis 2. In Genesis 2:7, Moses writes, “The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Later, when God formed Eve out of Adam's rib (verse 21), Adam exclaimed about her, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” The carnality or fleshiness of humanity is made countless times throughout Scripture.

Yet, Psalm 104:4 confirms that God “makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire,” and Hebrews 1:14 confirms this fact: “Are [angels] not all ministering spirits . . .?” (emphasis ours throughout). Since human beings are composed of flesh and angels of spirit, they cannot be of the same kind. Angels cannot impregnate mortal women and produce anything. It is not possible for two distinct kinds to mate and reproduce.

Further, were angels and human females able to reproduce, their children would not be human but some weird hybrid, half-angel/half-human. God, however, tells us that the progeny of the “sons of God” and “daughters of men” were human. Where is this? In the very context!

Notice verse 1: “Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth . . .” and also verse 3: “And the LORD said, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.” And Moses writes plainly in verse 4 of the children who were born to them, these “giants”: “Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” The children of these unions were not angels, not hybrids, but men.

Genesis 6:4 points out that these giants were the result “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.” A phrase like this is a common term in the Old Testament for sexual intercourse (Genesis 16:4; 29:23, 30; 30:4; 38:2, 9; 38:18; etc.). Such a description of the process of human insemination eliminates any so-called spiritual—or even “magical”—conception that would supersede the normal human method of impregnation.

“Giants” is the translation of the Hebrew word nephilim. The Greek translation is gigantes, from which we derive the English word, “giants.” However, the Hebrew word seems to have its roots in naphal, which means “to fall,” and some translations render it “fallen ones.” The sense may be that such “men of renown” fell in battle or fell upon their enemies. Another sense is that they were a “fallen” form of humanity, that is, they had declined far from what God wanted men to be.

Verse 4 is not the only place where the word nephilim appears in the Bible. The same author, Moses, recording the words of the spies he had sent out, writes in Numbers 13:33: “And there we saw the giants [nephilim], the sons of Anak, which come of the giants [nephilim], and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

These Nephilim were the sons of Anak, son of Arba (see Joshua 15:13-14; 21:11). Easton's Bible Dictionary identifies the Anakim as “probably a remnant of the original inhabitants of Palestine before the Canaanites, a Cushite tribe from Babel, and of the same race as the Phoenicians and the Egyptian shepherd kings.” If this is so, the giants in Moses' day were descended from Cush, not fallen angels. The Nephilim were human.

John Reiss
Can Angels Marry Women?

Genesis 19:1

These angels are the other two who were with the Lord when He was entertained by Abraham. The other two "men" are identified conclusively as angels. It is interesting that the story begins in Genesis 18:1 as though these three spirit beings just suddenly appeared, as if one moment Abraham could not see them, and the next moment three people were suddenly there. Apparently, Abraham was of such experience that he recognized immediately who they were. He certainly was not nonplussed because he immediately bowed down and worshipped one of them, recognizing that One as the Lord.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part Three)

Daniel 6:22

Daniel indicates two reasons why God sends his angels to protect and deliver His people: He was innocent of breaking God's law, and he respected the leadership God had placed over him (Romans 13:1-5). God uses His angels to keep His faithful servants from harm.

Martin G. Collins
The Ministry of Angels

Daniel 10:8-13

This was an awesome being of power, so great that ordinarily strong, valiant men were so frightened that they ran. Yet something withstood this great being to his face and kept him from getting to Daniel for three full weeks. We cannot even begin to imagine the titanic struggle that went on between, say, Gabriel and this other being. There must have been such an awesome wrestling match as men have never been witness to.

Whatever it was that withheld Gabriel from getting to Daniel must have been awfully powerful. Notice too that this great struggle was going on without Daniel even being aware of it. Somehow a malignant demon tried to thwart Daniel's prayer from being answered.

But it was answered because, in verse 13, "Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia." It was not until two of them ganged up on this other being—two great, mighty archangels to subdue the other. The logical conclusion would almost have to be that the king of Persia mentioned here was none other than Satan.

This section in Daniel 10 really contains a great deal of encouragement. We can understand why the apostle Paul and the psalmist wrote that the angels are ministering spirits. They are ministering to the heirs of salvation. They are protecting us! They are standing between us and possible annihilation! We do not know how many times an angel has intervened to save our lives, to deflect the power of these malignant beings from us. It has happened repeatedly in some cases, not just in dramatic interventions, but where an intervention took place of which we were not even aware.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 1)

Daniel 12:1

God has delegated responsibility to angelic beings. Do we understand the significance of this? He has not scripted everything out, and every one of these angelic beings is required to report to God from time to time about what is happening in his area of responsibility.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part Five)

Matthew 18:10-11

Notice that it says angels—plural—who report to God, which is what "see the face of God" means: They stand before Him, are in communication with Him, give reports to Him, analyze and give evaluations to Him. They are telling Him what our needs are. What is the purpose of these angels? They ensure that we have every opportunity to grow to the greatest extent possible that God might save us and reward us to our highest potential.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part Five)

Hebrews 1:4-9

Overall, the Jews generally had high regard for angels, and well they might. Part of the reason is contained in the word translated “direction” in Acts 7:53, at the end of Stephen's speech to the Sanhedrin: “. . . who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” The underlying term in Greek is diatage, which is capable of wide usage, suggesting “put into order,” “delivered,” “given,” or “put into effect.” The King James Version translates it elsewhere as “delivered,” “given,” “put into effect,” and “through.” The Key Word Study Bible suggests, however, that since the Old Testament says nothing of angels doing anything significant except being present when the law was given, the most suitable translation would be “instrumentality” (as The Amplified Bible does).

Stephen undoubtedly refers to Deuteronomy 33:1-2:

Now this is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before His death. And he said:

The LORD came from Sinai,
And dawned on them from Seir;
He shone forth from Mount Paran,
And He came with ten thousands of saints;
From His right hand
Came a fiery law for them.

Moses speaks of the giving of the law and the making of the Old Covenant. The term “saints” in this context is literally “holy ones.” In this circumstance, it could only be angels.

Psalm 68:17 also mentions the attendance of angels on this occasion: “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of thousands; the LORD is among them as in Sinai, in the Holy Place.” The chariots of God, to put it in human terms, refer to angels being the chariots' drivers, manning the vehicles of God's military might.

The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:19:

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

The Amplified Bible (1987 version) translates this final phrase as “arranged and ordained and appointed through the instrumentality of angels.” Remember that the holy angels were and still are sinless. In this way, we can grasp the biblical reasons why the Jews had so much respect for them.

Thus, the apostle Paul confirms that God did indeed use angels to some extent at Sinai when He gave the law, but he gives no specific details. The author of Hebrews shows that even though the Old Testament does not detail the part angels played in the giving of the law and the Old Covenant, the Old Testament does show that angels were strongly represented. Overall, angels played a prominent role in a wide variety of situations.

From these mentions and many more, the Jews esteemed angels more highly than men. This is a natural reaction to biblical revelation and a good one, yet they attracted the admiration of the Jews for other reasons too, like what Psalm 103:20 says of them: “Bless the LORD, you His angels, who excel in strength, who do His word, heeding the voice of His word.” “Strength” represents enhanced traits such as intelligence, wisdom, and the obedience that is specifically mentioned. They are not merely spiritual robots.

Psalm 104:4, quoted in Hebrews 1:7, adds, “. . . Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.” They are God's ministers, who serve Him as He sees fit. They are of such quality that they occupy positions at the top of the divine, governmental hierarchy. We can easily conclude that God carries on much of the administration of the creation through them.

But as elevated as angels are in God's placement of them within His governance of creation, and as glorious as they are in their innate powers, they are nevertheless subject to the Lord Jesus, even as humans are. One who was made a little lower than angels, however, has ascended to heaven to the right hand of God the Father. There is now a glorified Man in heaven, who has attained a station exceedingly higher than any angels' position. In the end, angels are still mere created creatures, as we are, and thus He, Jesus Christ, their Creator and God, is immeasurably higher than they.

For the Jews to be told that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate—that is, God made flesh—and the Messiah, yet He suffered death despite possessing glory and dignity far exceeding that of anyone on earth, excelling even that of heavenly angels, was something beyond their ability to accept readily. One of the points the author of Hebrews makes, although he never states it directly, is that the Old Covenant, in reality, achieved no higher than angelic mediation, though that in itself is impressive. In the making of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ, their Creator, replaced the angels in all their covenantal activities. God Himself mediates the New Covenant, putting it on an exceedingly higher level than the Old Covenant.

Knocking down the angelic argument proved to be an excellent place for the author of Hebrews to begin. Why? Because He establishes Christ's superiority above all who might be considered in His place, including even those the Jews respected most highly, angels.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Nine)

Hebrews 1:6-14

We should understand Hebrews 1:6-14 as comparisons made by the author to heap praise on Jesus Christ of Nazareth in contrast to any angel whom one might consider as being on the same level or even above Him.

In this first chapter, the apostle reveals the main line of his approach to the subject of who is qualified to be High Priest to the children of God under the New Covenant. He does so by using an irrefutable argument based in Scripture: that Jesus of Nazareth is far superior even to those whom some acknowledge to be primary contenders from the created world, particularly those from the angelic realm. However, Jesus is as much superior to any angel as any creator is superior even to the absolute best of his creations. The pre-incarnate Jesus, the Word, is the Creator (Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:16), and He created the angels and gave them life just as He did to all living things in this creation.

Our Creator and Savior has made His decision regarding the order among His created beings quite clear. Angels are valuable and highly qualified servants who are far more intelligent, powerful, and morally pure in the roles they currently fill in His purpose than human beings are. Even so, they are not created for the more exalted offices He is creating us to occupy. Therefore, we should clearly understand He created them to serve under us in the positions for which He is preparing us. This truth is both awesome and humbling at the same time.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Twelve): The Son's Superiority Over Angels

Hebrews 1:7-9

The statement in verse 7 puzzles us because it is a figurative expression capable of a couple of interpretations. It is a near-quotation of Psalm 104:4, “Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire,” which does nothing to help our understanding. It may help to recall that angels can rightly be understood as messengers. The verse can thus be translated into a more understandable statement, that God “makes winds His messengers, flames of fire His servants.” The New International Version and other modern Bibles render it similarly.

Most expositors resolve the issue in this manner. They believe that, since the chapter's purpose is to expound and glorify Jesus as immeasurably superior to angels, the “messengers” and “servants” should both be identified as angels, not different kinds of created things. Therefore, they are both angelic creations though pictured as little more than elemental spirits that do their Creator's bidding. The Son, however, remains exceedingly higher and greater than they, for He is the One who created them and sends them on their errands.

This solution to verse 7 fits hand-in-glove with verse 8, which presents Jesus as possessing a throne and a kingdom: “But to the Son, He says: ‛Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.'” Compared to the Son's throne, kingdom, and status as Creator, the angels are doing relatively minor work, being sent by the Son to do various chores. Jesus continues to be exalted, and the angels, though honored for faithfulness, are shown in subservient positions.

Verse 9 carries the exultant praise yet further: “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.” Not only is righteousness the norm where He reigns, but He loves it, while at the same time hating sin. In terms of character, Christ is undivided. The Father then addresses His Son directly as God, stating that, because He has done this, He receives a superior anointing, marking Him as worthy of higher praise than others.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Eight): Hebrews 1

Hebrews 1:13-14

Verse 13 derives from Psalm 110:1, a psalm considered Messianic even by Jewish scholars. We can think of this quotation as a reverberation of verse 4, in that we need to consider it in the same way as what is written there of the eternal God, Jesus Christ: “. . . having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”

The interesting phrase here is “having become.” But how can the eternal, constant God—eternally superior—change or “become so much better”? Of course, the Son was always eternally superior to the angels. That, however, is not what is in play here. The writer refers to what the Son did in becoming human and putting away the sins of men. Because He had paid the penalty for sins, He could sit down on God's throne in the place of the highest honor, and from this standpoint, He is deemed greater than any angel. No angel has ever come close to achieving that magnificent triumph.

Regarding angels, Hebrews 1:14 asks rhetorically, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” This conclusion to the chapter makes a definitive statement about angels as compared to Jesus Christ. They have a place of dignity and honor in the Kingdom of God, but they are servants. The term “all” applies to every one of the angels without distinction. Despite their uncommon excellence in many areas, they are set aside to serve, especially the saved among mankind.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Eight): Hebrews 1

Hebrews 1:13-14

While Paul is explaining Christ's superiority to angels, he also begins to describe their duties. Even though stating it as a question, he describes what they are, and more importantly, what they do: They are spirit beings, created as servants, whom God has sent out to serve.

A “minister” attends to the needs of others, and in the case of angels, they are servants of God sent to take care of certain people. Notice that it does not say that they are sent to take care of the world, the creation, a particular ethnic group, or a specific place on the earth. No, God sends them to care for “those who will inherit salvation.” While it may not be their only job, according to Paul, their primary focus is on those whom God calls and converts, the heirs of salvation.

Perhaps we take Paul's statement for granted. God has sent the greatest created beings with all their knowledge, power, and access to God's throne to do a job, and it is to watch over His elect. We can thank God that they are loyal to Him and happy to do it!

We find examples of their work throughout the Bible. In Daniel 6:22, Daniel says, “My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths, so that they have not hurt me.” Later, the prophet speaks with an angel who came to his aid, who refers to the archangel Michael being “your prince” (Daniel 10:21). Elisha understood that God's protection was all around him when he asked God to allow his servant to see the heavenly army watching over them (II Kings 6:15-17).

Another example appears in Job 1:8-10:

Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”

So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.”

It would appear here that Satan may have already tried to get to Job, but he could not because of the hedge God had placed around him and his family on all sides. Could this hedge have been an army of angels, as in Elisha's case? It may have been. God may have placed this same hedge around all those who will inherit salvation, and so Satan and his minions are kept at bay.

As the greatest created beings in God's Kingdom, they still are not even close to the greatness of Jesus Christ, as Hebrews 1:13 confirms. This verse repeats what the author presents in verses 1-2: Christ is the Heir of all things, and God the Father has placed Him at His right hand. Ultimately, governance comes from the throne where God is with Jesus Christ at His side, and God sends His loyal angels as servants from the seat of government to fulfill certain ministerial functions focused on His saints.

Ronny H. Graham
Heirs of Salvation

Hebrews 1:14

Angel literally means "messenger." Hebrews 1:14 calls them "ministering [or serving] spirits," sent by God to aid the heirs of salvation. A messenger is one dispatched to carry out a responsibility in service to the sender, and in this case, in service to the recipients as well. God has created beings greater than we are to serve us! A key to understand why He has done this is in recognizing God's sovereignty in the words "sent forth." The greater (God) rules and utilizes the lesser (angels). The Bible shows God actively commanding and managing them to perform functions in His governance of Project Earth.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Sovereignty of God: Part Five

Hebrews 1:14

The implications of this verse should restore our confidence about man's importance in God's purposes. In God's purpose for man, we witness man's dignity—his worth or value—from God's point of view. In His mind, man is worth so much that He has ordered angels to serve us. Depending on how much this world has influenced or jaded us, even this astounding revelation may not impress.

In this world, kings are served by a retinue of other, lesser men. However, in God's purpose, angels—beings of far greater powers and intellect than mere men—attend His children. What does this revelation suggest about the elect's value in our Creator's mind? These highly gifted and mighty beings wait on even the humblest of converted humanity, people who may suffer a wasting disease or may not have completed even an elementary-school education, assisting them in entering God's Kingdom. Their Creator has impressed upon them our importance to Him, so they serve us as though we are precious beyond all reason.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Ten): Christianity's Claims


 




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