3168.—The Angel Gabriel
By Editor
Please give us a little light on Dan. 8:15, 16; 9:21-23; Luke 1:19. A Bible study before me on the Personality of the Holy Spirit cites these texts as evidence that it is Gabriel who occupies the place from which Satan fell. Eze. 28:11-16. We do not know what the endeavor to prove that Gabriel occupies the place once occupied by Satan, has to do with the personality of the Holy Spirit. All that the passages in question reveal to us is that Gabriel was sent to Daniel with instructions from Christ, and to Zacharias with instructions concerning his son John. They teach us this and nothing more. The same angel appears to us in the Revelation, and is called Christ's angel, whom He sent unto John, a fellow servant with the prophets of the past. Rev. 1:1-3; 22:8, 9. We do not believe that the place occupied by Satan has yet been filled, and there seems every reason to believe that it will not be until the great problem of sin is settled and all strife is banished from God's universe; then the one to whom it belongs will be given the position. If it is designed to imply by this question that Gabriel is the Holy Spirit, we can only say this,—that God places His Spirit upon His angels as He does upon human beings, and the angels in that way become the bearers of the blessings of God's Spirit even as do human beings become the bearers of the blessings. The whole thing is expressed when Gabriel addressing John speaks of himself as a fellow servant with John.