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Brief Reflections on Our Statement of Faith: #5 Angels

Article 5. – Angels.

We believe that God created a company of sinless, spiritual beings, known as angels. These angels are involved in various ministries. (Genesis 3:22-24; Daniel 12:1; Isaiah 6:1-3; Matthew 4:11; 18:10; 26:53; 28:2,6; Luke 15:10; 16:22; Acts 8:26; 1 Corinthians 4:9; 1 Timothy 5:21; Hebrews 1:14; Jude 9).
We believe that “Lucifer, son of the morning,” the highest created angel, sinned through pride, thus becoming Satan; that a great number of angels rebelled against God with him in his moral fall, thereby becoming demons. Some demons are active as Satan’s agents and associated with him in the execution of his unholy purposes, while others are “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Isaiah 14:12-17; Ezekiel 28:11-19; 1 Timothy 3:6; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6).

Angels and demons are the topic of much of a lot of discussion. It is one of those areas of discussion which seems very prone to extremes, where some people are overly interested, obsessed maybe. But others (myself included) can often ignore the spiritual reality of this world we live in, including these beings known as angelic or demonic.

In 2 Kings chapter 6, the Syrian army has surrounded th prophet Elisha and his servant. The servant is understandably nervous and asks Elisha, "What shall we do?" The prophet replies that he need not worry, because there are more on their side than the Syrians-a curious statement considering there are but the two of them. But Elisha then prays for God to open the eyes of the servant. God responds, and allows the servant to see a mountainside full of horses and chariots of fire. There was a spiritual reality beyond what he could see with merely human vision.

Likewise in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul reminds us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). Which is to say, our spiritual battle isnt with other humans, it's with the spiritual forces that hate God. But, like in 2 Kings (and Luke 22:43), God also sends spiritual and unseen help in those times.

We don't want to obsess over the reality of an unseen realm: our focus is to be Jesus, and communicating his message to other people. But as we do this, we ought to proceed with eyes wide open to the spiritual nature of the world we inhabit.

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