As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from earth to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down on it. Gen 28: 12
What about angels? Are they real? Are they doing anything right now? Are they involved in our lives at all?
In Genesis 28 Jacob has a dream about a staircase where he sees angels going up and down from heaven to earth and back. I don’t necessarily believe that there is a literal staircase from earth to heaven, but I believe that it is symbolic of what kind of activity is happening between heaven and earth. God wants Jacob to understand that His agents (the angels) are busy at work; working to accomplish the promise that was made to Jacob’s father Abraham, that is, that their descendants would inherit the land.
When I think about angels, the scripture that sticks out in my mind the most is what Jesus says in this passage:
Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. Mt 18:10
I’ve always understood this verse to mean that the angel(s) of the little children are always before God, pleading their case to the father. Which means if you despise or do evil against them, then that angel is going to be sure to report it to the Father.
This same verse also implies that each child has an angel assigned to them. This is the where we get the idea of a guardian angel. So, according to this scripture I believe its safe to say that we do all have a guardian angel. At least one, maybe two or more.
Angels are mentioned many times in the bible. I think a lot of people have a fairy tale idea about them. They aren’t little fat babies with wings, nor are they wimpy, skinny hippy-looking people with wings. Nor are the necessarily ‘perfect little angels.’ Satan is, technically, an angel. And apparently angels also have the ability to disobey God and sin, like we do. The bible says that 1/3 of all the angels chose to follow in Satan’s rebellion. (Rev 12:4) These fallen angels are probably demons, as we know it, but I’m not 100% sure. The bible also talks about the ‘sons of God’ coming down and seeing the beautiful daughters of men and having intercourse with them. The bible says that as a result mighty men where born to them who were giants. (Gen 6:2-4) These ‘sons of god’ seems to be angels. (Compare with Job 1:6)
So what do angels do?
– Angels protect – Ps 91:11-12
– Angels deliver messages – Lk 1:28-29
– Angels fight with demonic powers – Daniel 10:3 (notice that Micheal was called a prince and so was the being that he was fighting with. This could help indicate that demons are fallen angels)
– Angels minister (or work) for believers – Hebrews 1:14
– Angels praise the Lord – Ps 148:2
They probably do other stuff to, but I can’t think of any other scriptures right now.
I think some people have the false notion that angels are perfect, and hence, they can never make a mistake or mess up. I don’t think that’s true. I think angels are more like we are when it comes to that kind of stuff. Some angel may be better than others. Some angels may be good at this and others at that. Some angels may get lazy. Who knows for sure. They obviously are this way at least somewhat, because we are going to judge them one day. (1 Cor 6:3) How could we judge them if they were perfect in every way?
We need to rethink this subject. We’ve all been so religiously brainwashed about this stuff, so we just assume things. We need to know what the word says.
Maybe I’ll write more about this more later.
Hal Chaffee 