The Invisible Army of God
They are spiritual ministers of God who communicate His will to man. They can be referred to as the Invisible Army of God.
The study of Angels as messengers of God does not only examine Angels in its context but also we learn about God's love for us and always ready to send help to us no matter the situation especially when we have no one around to help us.
The study of Angels is also used to assure us God is always watching we are never alone.
"The angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear him, and delivers them." (Psalm 34:7)
It was an angel who found Agar in the wilderness (Genesis 16); angels drew Lot out of Sodom; an angel announces to Gideon that he is to save his people; an angel foretells the birth of Samson (Judges 13), and the angel Gabriel instructs Daniel (Daniel 8:16).
God loves us and sends Angels to help us.
Hebrews 2 sheds even more light on the relationship between angels and mankind: “For unto the angels has He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that You are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that You visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of Your hands: You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (vs. 5-9).
Some qualities of Angels include;
1. They are stronger than man, but not omnipotent (Psalm 103:20; 2 Peter 2:11).
2. They are greater than man in knowledge, but not omniscient (2 Samuel 14:20; Matthew 24:36).
3. They are more noble than man, but not omnipresent (Daniel 9:21-23, 10:10-14).
4. Angels can take on the appearance of men when the occasion demands. How else could some “entertain angels unaware” (Hebrews 13:2)? On the other hand, their appearance is sometimes in dazzling white and blazing glory (Matthew 28:2-4).
5. Angels do not marry or reproduce like humans (Matthew 22:30). Angels are a company or association, not a race descended from a common ancestor (Luke 20:34-36). We are called “sons of men,” but angels are never called “sons of angels.”
6. Angels are spirits (Hebrews 1:14), like the soul of man, but without a physical body.
7. There have some physical resemblance with the human race.
What is the job description for an angel?
a. Angels deliver divine messages: They serve as messengers to communicate God’s will to men. Angel Gabriel broke the news to Mary on the birth of Jesus Christ (Luke 1:26-38). An Angel at the tomb of Jesus told the women who came to His tomb that Christ has risen (Matthew 28:6).Angels gave instructions to Joseph about the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1-2), to Philip (Acts 8:26), and to Cornelius (Acts 10:1-8).
b. Worship and praise: The main activity of Angels is to worship and Praise God in heaven (Isaiah 6:1-3; Revelation 4-5).
c. Guide: Everyone has a guardian Angel, who looks after us against any danger. Many times humans fail to ask their guardian Angels to help them. Jacob, in Genesis 48:16 seems to recognise that an angel has been with him throughout his life since he refers to "... the Angel who has delivered me from harm."
Judith accounts for her heroic deed by saying: "As the Lord liveth, His angel hath been my keeper" (13:20).
St. Jerome in his commentary on the above words of our Lord says: "The dignity of a soul is so great, that each has a guardian angel from its birth."
d. Provide: God used angels to provide physical needs such as food for Hagar (Genesis 21:17-20), Elijah (1 Kings 19:6), and Christ after His temptation (Matthew 4:11).
e. Protect: Keeping God’s people out of physical danger, as in the cases of Daniel and the lions, and his three friends in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3 and 6). It can be recalled that in the Bible, King Nebuchadnezzar saw a fourth man with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God sent an Angel to prevent the fire from destroying the three friends.
f. Deliver: Angels also have the mission of getting God’s people out of danger once they’re in it. Angels released the apostles from prison in Acts 5, and repeated the process for Peter in Acts 12.
g. Strengthen and encourage: Angels also tends God's sheep. Angels strengthened Jesus after His temptation (Matt 4:11) (Luke 22:43), encouraged the apostles to keep preaching after releasing them from prison (Acts 5:19-20), and told Paul that everyone on his ship would survive the impending shipwreck (Acts 27:23-25).
h. Care for believers at the moment of death: In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, we read that angels carried Lazarus (Luke 16:22) "Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried".
i. Executioners: Angels are sometimes used by God to punish sin. An angel of the Lord went forth and smote an Assyrian camp (2 Kings 19:20-34)—“behold, they were all dead corpses.” The Assyrian army was annihilated. A destroying angel was sent, but later withheld, to punish David for his vanity in taking a census of the great number of his people. At the time of Moses and the Exodus, the Egyptian firstborn where killed by an angel of death.
j. Save: Angels when necessary can save people from death. A good example of this can be recalled when Peter was arrested, and was being threatened with death, but an angel enabled him to escape from the prison. (See Acts 12:6-11).
k. Destroying Angels: In the incident mentioned above, where Lot was rescued, we read how angels destroyed a whole town. Genesis 19:13 clearly states that angels would do the destroying. But then in verse 24 it says that the LORD did the destroying. We should understand this to mean that the LORD destroyed the city by His angels.
Again when the people of Israel were released from captivity in Egypt it was an angel, or angels, which struck the Egyptians with plagues - until the king of Egypt agreed to release the Israelites.
"He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, his indignation and hostility - a band of destroying angels" (Psalm 78:49)
l. Answering prayer: God often uses angels as His means of answering the prayers of His people (Daniel 9:20-24; 10:10-12; Acts 12:1-17).
"We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs". - Augustine
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