Angels were integral to the cultural, spiritual, and religious milieu of the ancient world, both before and after the birth of monotheism. In the Bible, some angels served as harbingers of death and destruction while others aided humans during times of great stress. Angels provided solace, announced news, brought good tidings, offered warnings, sang celestial hymns, and delivered God’s wisdom to His people. The following traditional beliefs and stories about angels are included to provide a perspective of angel beliefs in a Judeo-Christian context.
Angels In Hebrew Scripture
The Old Testament contains several stories about the ancient Hebrews’ contact with angels. In some cases, angels revealed themselves; at other times, they remained unseen. Whether they provided protection, counsel, succor, or the means of redemption—according to the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews—they were fulfilling divine purpose. The stories about Hagar, Jacob, Abraham and Isaac, and Moses, and their contact with angels, remain important threads in the tapestry that began the Jewish story.
Hagar And Ishmael
Perhaps you have read the Bible, and will recall that in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, angels contacted the young Egyptian handmaiden Hagar. Hagar had become pregnant by Abraham, the Hebrew tribal leader. Abraham’s wife Sarah was barren and Hagar’s attitude, as the “second wife” to Abraham, troubled Sarah. When Hagar could take no more conflict with Sarah, Hagar fled into the desert. On the road to the city called Shur, she approached a spring. There, while Hagar rested, the angel of God told her to return home to bear her son and to call him Ishmael. Later, through God’s grace, the aged Sarah bears Isaac, whom she sees as Abraham’s true heir. The relationship between Sarah and Hagar again became so contentious that at Sarah’s behest, Abraham exiles Hagar and Ishmael to the desert. Lacking the protection of Abraham and the tribe, and dying of thirst with no spring or well in sight, Hagar put her child in the shade of a bush, begging God not to let her see her child’s death. Then she wept and prayed. An angel of God called to Hagar from heaven asking, “What aileth, thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is” (Genesis 21:16). The angel’s purpose surely was to comfort and guide Hagar, for the scripture states, “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink. And God was with the lad” (Genesis 21:19-20).
Jacob
Elsewhere in Genesis are accounts of angel encounters with Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. Jacob had a shaded history of bad choices; he cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance, he tricked his uncle Laban out of all his wealth and possessions, he married twice and he had illegitimate children. Later in his life Jacob feared death at the hands of Esau even as he desired forgiveness. One night, Jacob wrestled with an angel until dawn until Jacob finally won the struggle and demanded a boon (blessing). Jacob deduced that since he had emerged victorious over the supernatural being, all would be well with his brother; because the angel had understood Jacob’s desire to make peace with Esau, it was. Jacob remained deeply involved with angelic presences all through his life.
Abraham And Isaac
One of the most famous biblical stories of angels is found in Genesis 22:11. The narrative features Hebrew patriarch Abraham, and his son Isaac. One day, Abraham heard the voice of God, spoken through an angel, calling out to him. The voice instructed the old man to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. Abraham was to take the boy to a remote mountain and slit his throat in the manner of the usual sacrificial lamb and to let his blood run out as an offering, to prove to God that he would surrender to his will. The obedient Abraham took his son to the top of the mountain, laid him across an altar, and raised the knife to sacrifice his beloved son. Then an angel appeared. The angel commanded him to stop, “Lay not thy hand upon the lad.” Abraham obeyed. At that moment, he spotted a sheep with its woolly fleece entangled in the thorns of a bush. He caught it and sacrificed it, offering it to God in place of his son Isaac.
Moses
A protective angel helped Moses, and the Jewish people, as they searched for the promised land after their forty-year enslavement by the Egyptian pharaoh. A biblical passage in the Book of Numbers reveals, “But when we cried out to the Lord, He heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt” (Numbers 20:16). The angel not only oversaw the exodus of the Israelites led by Moses, he also parted the waters of the Red Sea, making crossing possible. Then when the powerful Egyptian army approached, the “Angel of God” who had been moving ahead of the camp of Israel went behind it, creating a cloud that separated Moses and his people from the Egyptians pursuing them.
Angels In The New Testament
As religious beliefs transformed, so did people’s views of the angels, as evidenced by angel imagery in the New Testament. Gone are the Old Testament angels, who performed heroic deeds and brought death, destruction, and vengeance. In the New Testament, angels are personified through power. They are no longer abstract extensions of God, devoid of personality, but rather “friends” to humans, to be called upon in times of stress or need. The archangels now possess names. They, and the other angels, serve important roles in the stories of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, entombment, and resurrection. As you read and reflect upon the following New Testament stories about angels, perhaps there will be one or more angels to whom you feel an attraction, and you’ll desire to make a personal connection.
Angels Of Annunciation
The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to announce that she would bear the Son of God. This event, known as the Annunciation, is a central tenet of Christian belief. During the visitation, the angel told her not to be afraid, and explained that she had found favor with God. “And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus” (Luke 1:31). When Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary, felt embarrassed by her obvious pregnancy, an angel appeared to him in a dream saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid … for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” After the birth of Jesus, the angel continued to look after the holy family and appeared twice to Joseph, giving him instructions on where to go to keep his family safe. Prior to his appearance before the Virgin Mary, Gabriel had also appeared to Zacharias, a priest who was married to Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary. The angel visited Zacharias when he was burning incense in a temple. Gabriel announced Elizabeth’s pregnancy to her husband there. Since Zacharias did not believe the angel, the angel struck the priest mute until his son John, later to be known as John the Baptist, was born.
Angel Appearances After The Crucifixion Of Christ
Angel sightings and visitations are important aspects of the stories belonging to the New Testament Apocrypha (sacred texts excluded from the Bible for various reasons, including disputed authenticity), such as The Vision of Paul and The Ascension of Isaiah. In the case of Paul, an angel guided him through various realms of heaven and hell, and about 3,000 angels sang a hymn before him as he approached the city of Christ. Later, Paul witnessed 200 singing angels preceding Mary, and after entering the gates of Paradise, she explained to him that he had been granted the unusual favor of coming to that place before he had finished his earthly life. After entering the gates of Paradise, Paul encounters the ancient prophet Enoch in the third heaven, who issues a warning to Paul not to reveal what he has seen. Then the angel descends with Paul to the second heaven, and thence to the earthly paradise, where the souls of those deemed righteous await the resurrection.
The Angel At Jesus’ Tomb
The four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John include stories about the Resurrection, when Jesus rose from death. In Matthew, an angel sits on the stone that covered the mouth of His tomb, and Mary Magdalene and (the other) Mary see the angel when they arrive to anoint the body of Jesus (Matthew 28:2 ). Mark’s gospel reveals two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome, arriving at the tomb with sweet spices to anoint the body of Jesus. Finding the stone rolled away, they entered and saw “a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment” (Mark 16:5). The Gospel of Luke states that there were two men in shining garments who told the women Jesus had risen (Luke 24: 4-6). The Gospel of John notes that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb in the darkness before daybreak, saw that the stone covering the sepulcher had been taken away, and ran to fetch Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved (John 20:1-4). The two disciples ran to the tomb, looked inside, and saw nothing but the linen that had been used to wrap Jesus’ body. The men returned home, leaving Mary Magdalene, who stayed at the tomb and wept. At last, peering inside, she saw two angels in white, “sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain” (John 20:12).
Angel Worship Posed Issues For The Early Church
During the early Christian era, many people believed in and even worshipped the angels despite the apostle Paul’s stance against angel worship. The presbyters and bishops of the early church believed a clear distinction had to be made between the angels and Christ. They taught that only God and His son were to be worshipped, Christ was the communicator closest to the Heavenly Father, and the angels served as lesser intermediaries between God and His people. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 a.d. proclaimed angel worship in keeping with other beliefs that the church held as true (dogma) but another council reversed that decision in 343 a.d. Finally the controversy ended in 787 a.d. when the second Council of Nicaea declared a limited dogma of the archangels which included their names, specific functions, and legitimacy of their images in art.