What Does The Bible Say About Angels?

Well, that's an interesting question, isn't it? It's, quite a festive, Christmassy topic, too, because angels play a pretty big role in the Christmas story. And what do angels have to do with the Christmas story?

What Does The Bible Say About Angels And Christmas?

So I thought I'd begin this talk for all of you lovely people at CROWD church tuning in today with a Bible reading. So let me read to you from Luke 2:8-15.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.””

-- Luke 2:8-15

A great reading, a great part of the Christmas story. And undoubtedly the angels are significant characters in the whole Christmas story.

• An angel visits a man called Zachariah, Mary's brother in law, and announces to Zachariah that despite him and his wife, being old and childless, he and his wife Elizabeth will miraculously have a son, and they'll call him John (John the Baptist).

• An angel visits a young, engaged-to-be-married girl, probably no more than 15 years old. An angel appears to Mary and announces to Mary that she will become miraculously pregnant, and her child will be God on earth, God in human form.

• Well, an angel, not surprisingly, visits Joseph, Mary's fiance, you know, just to get Joseph up to speed with this unusual turn of events.

• Later on, angels will visit Joseph again and warn him of Herod's murderous plan to kill all the newborn babies in the region, and they'll tell him to go with the Holy Family to Egypt.

Here in our Bible reading today an Angel visits shepherds out in the fields, not just one angel, but a huge heavenly choir of angels. Actually, there are at least 113 instances in the Bible, when angels appear!

Well, What Do Angels Look Like?

Sometimes when angels appear in the Bible, they are in human form, like humans, indistinguishable from other ordinary people. Sometimes angels are invisible. It's just a presence is felt or their voice is heard. Other times in the Bible and like in our reading today, angels are bright, shiny, fiery beings. On those occasions, the angel usually greets a person with the words "fear not. Do not be afraid". Why does the angel say, do not be afraid? Simply because there's something so extraordinary, something so unexpected at being about your day to day business, like these shepherds out, washing their socks by night as the Carol goes, so unexpected from out of nowhere, this being of pure shining light appears, and these rough and ready shepherds, they were terrified.

What Is The Purpose Of Angels?

Well, in pretty much all of the cases where angels are mentioned in the Bible, angels are messengers, angels are heralds, like we sing, Hark the herald, angels sing. Angels bring news from God to the people. They are like God's megaphones, God's mouthpiece.

In fact, the New Testament, ancient Greek word for Angel, angelos, is the same word for messenger. Angels are God's messengers. And in today's reading, in Luke, these angels brought the single most important piece of news ever communicated from God, to man. The news they proclaimed was this, a saviour had been born for the whole world. Jesus, the Saviour, had come to earth. I mean, well, this was such good news. So extraordinary news that the angels didn't just announce it, they didn't just whisper, "hey shepherds, the Saviour has been born". No, this was such incredible good news that the whole of Heaven erupted into joyful song. The choir of Heaven announced the birth. This was sort of God's version of those big baby reveals, you know when a couple are just so excited about having their first baby that they do a confetti cannon gender reveal all over social media. Here is God the Father announcing the birth of his son, a saviour, with a multitude of shining heavenly hosts in four part gospel harmony.

I Believe In Angels

Now, let me say something I think is really important at this point in my talk. I do not believe that these Bible stories about angels are fairytales or fables. I do not believe that. And I'm not talking about angels like someone might talk about unicorns or fairies.

No, as a Christian, I believe that the shepherd's encounter with the angels was a real, historical event. As a Christian, I believe in angels. Not the Abba song, "I believe in angels". No, it's not like when someone makes you a nice cup of tea and and you go, "oh, bless you. You're an angel." No, I believe in angels as the angelic beings we see in the Bible.

I was chatting to a couple of friends a while back, one was a doctor and the other two were scientists with PhDs in science. I think one of them's done a CROWD talk. We were saying that generally when you say that you believe in God, people are okay with that. Oh, you believe in God? Good for you, great for you, each to their own. But as soon as you start to talk about something like a spiritual world, the human soul, spiritual places like heaven, and hell, spiritual beings, like angels, or demons, well some people just don't seem to be able to cope with those sorts of ideas. They feel that there's no place for those old-fashioned sorts of ideas in what they see as a modern scientific world.

Actually, as I was chatting to my friends, those super brainy scientificy type of mates, they were saying that for them, there was really no conflict between the supernatural world we see in the Bible, and their understanding of the physical material world that we experience. Actually the more that you study the physical world, the more you realise, just how unexplained it all is, how unexplainable it all is, a mystery beyond human understanding, beyond the measurability of science. That's what they were saying. If there is a supernatural world, and we've got no reason to believe there isn't, then such a world couldn't be measured through normal, scientific, empirical endeavour, could it? If you think about it, because it's not of that world.

Angelic Encounters

I remember my mum used to always tell me the story of how when she was a young girl, around 12 years old, shortly after the Second World War, she became a Christian. Someone told her about Jesus. She received Jesus as her saviour and she wanted to take the bus from the little mining town in which she lived, into the city to the church to get baptised in water. A six-mile journey, bad weather, dark nights. The only problem was she had no money. Not a penny. No one in that house had money. I mean, this was the end of the war, the 1940s, rationing was still in place. So you even bought your food, not with money, but with tokens, with stamps. There was no money anywhere in the house for a bus.

Anyway, there she was. A new Christian praying, telling God about how much she wanted to go to this baptismal service, to be baptised. And there in front of her in the bedroom was an angelic being! A being of pure light pointing down to the ground.

And the place where the angel pointed was the money for the bus. She was able to go and be baptised. Well, you wonder why I believe in angels!

The 19th-century Scottish missionary John Paton records in his journal the story of how he, his newlywed wife, their six-month-old child spent their first night on mission in a hut on one of the new Hebridean islands just off the coast of Papua New Guinea. He tells of how, all night their hut was surrounded by tribal cannibalistic headhunters. So they prayed all night long as you would in that sort of situation.

When daylight came, they were amazed to see all their attackers had left. About a year later, Paton records how the chief of the tribe became a Christian. Remembering what had happened on that first night Paton asked the chief what had kept him from burning down the hut and from killing him and his family. The chief replied, saying, well, they couldn't do it. They were afraid to attack because they had seen hundreds of men in shining garments with drawn swords surrounding that missionaries hut. Well, I believe in angels.

Entertaining angels unaware

Two quite dramatic stories of angelic visitations on Earth. Honestly, I reckon that sort of thing must happen all the time only without us knowing because we read stories in the Bible where people encountered angels, but they didn't realise they were angels. They weren't aware that they were angels. Like it says in Hebrews 13:2, “ entertaining angels unaware”.

That time you were walking on your own down a dark alley and a kindly couple turn up and walk past and you felt safe in that moment. That time maybe you were on the motorway, and had a flat tire or a blowout and someone pulled over to change your tire for you. I was once climbing Mt. Tryfan on the north side, and it got hit by unexpected snow and ice. A snow bomb they called it. I wasn't quite sure of the route up. There were steep drops on either side and out of nowhere, this guy caught up with me emerging out of nowhere, out of the white-out, and he guided me and my two friends to the top. We stopped at the top for a break. He just kept on going, never to see him again.

Of course, all of those things could be coincidences. Of course they could. They could totally have natural explanations and do you know what? I would be fine with that. But also, maybe we were entertaining angels unaware. Maybe we do that far more than we realise. The Bible is loaded with stories of angelic visitations. The Christmas story is loaded with angelic visitations. God's messengers bringing joyful news of salvation, pointing to Jesus, drawing attention to Jesus. They say to the shepherds, go and look and find Jesus.

When a person gets a bit obsessed with angels and guardian angels and supernatural forces in the world, and when that distracts them from focusing on Jesus, well, I don't think that matches up with the purpose of angels in the Bible or the story of angels in the Bible. I think that's when it all becomes a little bit unhealthy. The angels in our Christmas story, in our reading of the shepherds says they came from heaven to earth, and after they made the announcement the Bible says they went back up to heaven. I don't know if you noticed that. So there's a sense that angels bridge Heaven with Earth.

Jacob's Ladder

There's a story in the Old Testament about a man called Jacob, it's called Jacob's Ladder. Jacob falls asleep. He has a vision of a ladder and on that ladder, bridging Heaven to Earth, angels are ascending and descending on that ladder. This angelic encounter for the shepherds was a moment of Heaven invading Earth, a moment bridging heaven with Earth, a moment of Heaven drawing close to Earth. I believe that that is true for each one of us in this moment right now. This is a moment of Heaven drawing close to Earth, a holy moment, a moment that is an answer to that prayer that we pray as Christians all the time.

Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Heaven touching Earth. And as we've seen in the angel's story God is wanting to speak to us in this moment. Now, we probably won't see angels or be aware of the angelic hosts, but God is with you right now, as you watch this video, and He is speaking to you right now as you watch this video, He's always wanting to speak. He is always announcing the arrival of His Son, Jesus. A Saviour has been born.

In the words of that great carol,

Hark the Herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king,

Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.

Joyful, all the nations rise, join the triumph of the skies

With the angelic hosts proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king!