p. 133 | Are Angels Spirits? by R. M. Kilgore

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 9, 1872

Are Angels Spirits?

By R. M. Kilgore

ALL the knowledge we have concerning them we have received from the word of God, which represents them as corporeal beings, and not as mere phantoms or apparitions.

We are informed that, when the foundations of the earth were laid, “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Job 38:7. As Abraham sat in the door of his tent on the plains of Mamre, he lifted “up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men [angels] stood by him,” who ate of the food prepared for them, and with whom Abraham walked as they went toward Sodom. Gen. 18. “And there came two angels to Sodom at even” for whom Lot made a “feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.” These “men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness.” And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, “Arise.” “And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him. And they brought him forth, and set him without the city.” Gen. 19.

Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face,” when he was left alone “and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” Gen. 32:24, 30.

When the “angel of the Lord appeared” unto the wife of Manoah, she came and told her husband, saying, “A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name: but said unto me.” &c. Judg. 13:3, 6.

The strength and power of one single angel is shown in answer to the prayer of the prophet Isaiah, and Hezekiah the king, by the destruction of Sennacherib’s army; “And the Lord sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria;” “an hundred fourscore and five thousand” in one night. 2 Kings 19:35; 2 Chron. 32:20.

The glory and the light which enshrouds these angelic beings is very clearly described by the prophet Daniel: “I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz; his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.” Chap. 10:5, 6. Matthew, speaking of the angel at the resurrection of Christ, says: “His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow.” Chap. 28:3.

Their number is beyond computation. Says the prophet Daniel, speaking of the Ancient of days sitting in judgment, “Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.” Chap. 7:10. And John says, “I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” Rev. 5:11.

Because of their number and the exceeding brightness with which they are clothed they are represented as the “clouds of Heaven.” Says the prophet, “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they [the clouds, angels] brought him near before him.” Dan. 7:13. John says, “Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him.” Rev. 1:7. Enoch prophesied, saying, “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints” (holy ones). Jude 14. Again, in Rev. 14:14: “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like the Son of Man.” Our Lord also said, “The Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him.” Matt. 25:31.

Against the view that these beings are material, Ps. 104:4, quoted by the apostle Paul in Heb. 1:7, is brought forward to prove the opposite. In a note under “Faculties of Superior Beings,” Thos. Dick, the Christian philosopher, answers this objection in the following manner: “It will doubtless be objected, ‘that these intelligences are pure spirits, and assume corporeal forms only on particular occasions.’ This is an opinion almost universally prevalent; but it is a mere assumption, destitute of any rational or scriptural argument to substantiate its truth. There is no passage in Scripture, with which I am acquainted, that makes such an assertion. The passage in Psalm 104:4, ‘Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire,’ has frequently been quoted for this purpose; but it has no reference to any opinion that may be formed on this point; as the passage should be rendered, ‘Who maketh the winds his messengers, and a flaming fire his ministers.’ Even although the passage were taken as it stands in our translation, and considered as referring to the angels, it would not prove that they are pure immaterial substances; for, while they are designated spirits, which is equally applicable to men as well as to angels, they are also said to be ‘a flaming fire,’ which is a material substance.

“This passage seems to have no particular reference to either opinion; but, if considered as expressing the attributes of angels, its meaning plainly is—that they are endowed with wonderful activity—that they move with the swiftness of the winds, and operate with the force and energy of flaming fire;—or in other words, that He, in whose service they are, and who directs their movements, employs them ‘with the strength of winds, and the rapidity of lightning.’”—Phil. Future State, Part 3.

R. M. KILGORE.

Bell Creek, Neb., Feb. 27, 1872.