Who are the Angels? by Sarah J. Wakeling

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 13, 1866

Who are the Angels?

By Sarah J. Wakeling

ARE those dear friends of ours who have closed their eyes in death, those who loved the Saviour and died happy, trusting in him, are they the ministering spirits spoken of by the apostle? Is it not a beautiful thought that those loved ones for whom we mourn, come back to earth to hover around us and to minister unto us? Orthodoxy answers, "Beautiful."

A few nights since, a Methodist minister, who is holding a protracted meeting, while urging sinners to repent, made the following appeal to their sympathies. He spoke to them of all that had been done for man, all that God had done. He has offered man salvation, full and free. Given his own dearly beloved Son to die. Then he spoke of what Jesus had done, how he had suffered and died. Then passed on to speak of all the angels had done. "Those angels who are ever hovering about us. And who knows that it is not that sainted mother or father, the spirit of that dear brother or sister, husband or wife, that is now looking down on you in tenderness, ready to carry home to Heaven the news of your penitence. There is an angel always near me. It is that little infant daughter whose home is now in Heaven above."

I could but exclaim in my heart, "Surely ye err, not knowing the Scriptures." To the law and to the testimony. If we speak not according to the word of God, then however beautiful it may appear to us, it is a false hope. If there are no angels except those who have died here, and their spirits gone to Heaven, then who were those "Morning Stars" who sang together, and those "Sons of God" who shouted for joy at the Creation, before death had entered the world?

But are our departed friends in Heaven? If they are not, then certainly the angels are other beings than departed spirits. First then, let us prove that man is not immortal. "God only hath immortality." I Tim. vi, 16. Now let us see if Job, that patient man of God, expected to be an angel in Heaven at death. Was this his hope, that at death he would go to Heaven, and be one of the bright angels there? Hear him: "Before I go whence I shall not return; even to the land of darkness and to the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." Job x, 21, 22.

Again, "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not. Till the heaven be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." But did Job never expect to go to, or to see, God? Listen to him still further. "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another."

We see by the above testimony that he looked forward to the time spoken of by Paul, "When the Lord himself shall descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God," and "the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." I Thess. iv, 16; I Cor. xv, 52. He did not expect to see God until the first resurrection. So we must conclude, from Bible testimony, that the angels are other beings than the disembodied spirits of departed saints.

They were created of God, before the creation of man. Man was made a little lower than the angels. Psa. viii, 5; Heb. ii, 7, 9. There is a great multitude of angels, "even thousands of angels," or as the margin reads, "many thousands." Psa. lxviii, 17. "But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels." Heb. xii, 22. They are ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. Heb. i, 4. In the great harvest time of this world, "reapers are the angels, who are sent forth to gather the elect from the four winds." Matt. xxiv, 31.

They will accompany the Son of man when he cometh with clouds. "For the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the angels with him." In connection with this, let us read Rev. viii, 1. "There was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour." While Jesus and the angels come to earth to gather the saints, and to raise the sleeping just, there is silence in Heaven. Those heavenly ministrels will then be absent on their holy mission to earth. None will be left there. Each golden harp will be hushed and still. But great will be the joy and soul-enrapturing the music, as they return to those heavenly gates, with all the saints redeemed from earth. May we, dear brethren and sisters, be there to join with all those heavenly beings in the hymn of praise, in the city of God.