The Angel of the Lord Appeared, Armed with a Smoking AR-15

OK. Work with me here.

As I was studying Scripture in preparation for a few posts on the hot topic of gun control, I began to come across quite a few verses that depicted the angel of the Lord as being armed and dangerous.

My basic thinking was that, of course, guns do not appear in the Bible. So there will be no proof-texting for either side. But weapons certainly do appear. Often. And often in the hands of angels.

No, not those Angels. Maybe we’ll get back to the 1980s later.

Cultural Equivalents

Just so we’re all clear on the basics, Biblical cultures did not have guns; but they did have swords as well as bows and arrows. Swords and such would have been the equivalent of military-grade armaments. These days, AR-15s are being called military-grade weapons. So it occurred to me to explore what, if anything, did God say about those weapons in those cultures.

I’ll share more of my findings in the coming days, but I quickly discovered that such weapons appear quite a bit, with their use often endorsed or commanded by God himself. But the one that really caught my eye was how often angels appeared armed with swords and even with swords often depicted as “flaming.”

A few examples from Scripture:

•  So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen 3:24)
• Now the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand, and the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field…. Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face.   (Number 22:23-31)
• And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped…. (Johua 5:13-14)

And then I thought, if an Angel of the Lord appeared today, would that angel still be sporting a sword or would he choose a weapon more fittting to the times. And if so, what would it be? An AR-15? Maybe not flaming, but smoking from frequent battle against the forces of darkness?

Hence my theory that we could safely adjust the above passages as follows and still be true to the teleos of the text:

• So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, armed with a smoking AR-15, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen 3:24)
• Now the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with an AR-15 locked and loaded in His hand, and the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field…. Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand; and he bowed his head and fell flat on his face.  (Number 22:23-31)
• And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him armed with an AR-15, with the safety off. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped…. (Johua 5:13-14)

If not, why not?

I confess that when I first played these passages in my mind, I found them a little shocking. I don’t naturally seem to picture angels looking like Stallone — but with more talent — eyes steeled and biceps bulging. Frankly, I don’t think that’s the image we need to have of them either, although encounters with armed angels seem to scare the living daylights out of everyone in Scripture.

Some skeptics might claim that a sword cannot kill as many as an AR-15 with a high capacity magazine. I urge them to read 2 Kings 19 where the Angel of the Lord wiped out 85,000 in one night. Way more than the highest capacity AR-15 mag could ever hold. If you want to do some more research on angels, may I suggest the excellent Lifted by Angels by Joel J. Miller.

I’m not trying to argue that because angels can use an AR-15, so should we. There are better arguments for such guns. Nor am I trying to seem intentionally uncaring about victims of criminals who wrongly use such weapons. I realize we are not all angels, not even close. Although if the good angels have and use such weapons in their fight against the dark forces, I’d say it’s a safe bet that the other side is comporably armed else there wouldn’t be much of a fight.

What I am saying is that this little linguistic switch points out how effectively the anti-gun lobby has portrayed guns as inherantly evil and, therefore, never something that God and his Precious Moments angels would ever have anything to do with. But I just don’t see that in Scripture.

Blame It on the Duct Tape

I blame it on MacGyver, getting back to the 1980s. One of my all-time favorite TV shows, he very nearly convinced me that guns were evil. After that first pilot episode in which he actually fired a gun– there’s some trivia for you — the character shifted to become a radical anti-gun preacher, even refusing to soil himself by touching the filthy things before reaching for a fresh roll of duct tape. (Somehow I just don’t see an angel being all that intimidating, ripping open a fresh role of tape. But I digress.)

Maybe Sen Feinstein is right. At her press conference today, she and the Dean of the National Cathedral Rev. Canon Gary Hall claimed that the “cross lobby is greater than the gun lobby.” After looking at Scripture though, I’m just not at all sure that the two are in opposition — or need to be.

I’ll need to think about it some more. Maybe you do, too. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to ponder that image of the angel of the Lord appearing to Balaam and his dumb ass, armed with a smoking AR-15!