Angels– Part Three

The bulk, and real strength of this book is its review of all the main passages about angels in the OT and NT. This transpires between pp. 1-162 with copious notes. Disclaimer alert! This book does not discuss the Devil or demonology, it sticks with the good angels. I suspect his next book will be dealing with the Nefarious One and his minions. For now, I recommend reading Graham Twelftree on demons as they occur in the NT.

Here we must begin to deal with the big chapter on angels in the OT. I agree with Michael that there seems to be some hierarchial ranking of angels— archangels being above regular angels for example. And I like his taxonomy explaining that there is terminology that relates to the nature of these beings, the rank or status of these beings, and also the function of these beings. This is a helpful distinction. Firstly, Michael is right that these are all spirit beings, and so, do not by nature have a body, though they can assume a visible form when they are interacting with humans (we can discuss later whether this just means they ‘appear’ to have bodies, or actually temporarily do so). So one of the terms to describe these beings is ‘ruah’– spirits, but the term of course also means wind or even breath, like the Greek word pneuma.

I’m going to focus here briefly on the surprising use of 1 Kngs. 22.19-23 to make some points about this on pp. 3ff. I say surprising because it seems to reflect a lack of understanding of the concept of progressive revelation. What I mean by this is that on face value, this text says that God is fine with and endorses angels lying to achieve the end of deceiving a wicked ruler. Here’s the problem with this— when one compares later versions of these stories in Chronicles with these earlier versions in Samuel and Kings, what is predicated of God in these earlier texts is predicated of Satan in the later ones! This is because Samuel and Kings were written at a time before the writers had a good or clear sense of secondary causes— like the Devil. In fact, this is one of the reasons we should not see these texts as exilic or post-exilic in character. I don’t really think we want to suggest that God (including his Son who said he was THE TRUTH) is just fine with sending lying spirits to deceive wicked humans. I doubt this is true, or would be true to God’s character, and in fact later texts like Chronicles make clear we need to have a better understanding of secondary causes, both angelic and human before we make God the instigator of, or complicit in lies— this would be Satan’s role. He’s the Father of lies. Remember the reminder of Jesus’ brother James— God tempts no one, and he himself cannot be tempted to do wicked things by angels or anyone else (see James 1). Again, primitive OT texts must be read in the light of later, fuller, and clearer revelation— a sense of progressive revelation is important to getting biblical theology right.