05-01-18 - OUR GREAT COMMISSION

TO THE ANGELS - Five Part series

Part One

By John Aldworth

    Col. 2: 15: And having spoiled principalities and powers He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it (or, in Himself).

    Col. 2:18-23: Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things he has not seen, vainly     puffed up by his fleshly mind. And not holding the Head, from all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth     with the increase of God.

    2 Cor. 11:13-14:  For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is         transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be         according to their works.

The defeated empire strikes back

The dark powers that rule this world are not ones to take defeat lying down. Disarmed, humbled and humiliated by Christ when he ascended in glory to triumph over them (Col. 2:15), they nevertheless rule the world today.

And grace-saved believers looking for ‘the blessed hope’ - the imminent appearing of the Lord and his kingdom - are their especial target. They seek to isolate, undermine and attack us. Not for nothing the Apostle Paul in Eph. 6: 10-12 urges believers to ‘be strong in the Lord and power of his might’ and to ‘put on the whole armour of God that ye might withstand the wiles of the devil … For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’.  

Nor is he wasting words when he speaks of ‘we all’ having been ‘children of wrath even as others’, walking ‘according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience’ (Eph. 2:1-2).

The reality today is that the world is run by ‘the rulers of darkness', and they are angelic powers intent on blinding men and women to the very truths of grace that would deliver them from evil. That being so it is vital to stand against the wiles of the devil. And, mark well, nowhere is he more wily and powerful in deception than in the world of religion whether it be pagan or supposedly Christian.

The religion of angels

Contrary to popular belief the devil is actually a very religious person. He loves worship in all its forms. It’s just he wants to be the object of worship himself rather than give an iota of praise to God - even if he has to disguise himself as a ‘goody’ in order to receive it.

So in love with himself is the devil that once upon a time he seriously tried to get the Son of God to worship him (Matt. 4:9, Luke 4:7): The devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time… ‘If thou therefore wilt worship me all shall be thine’.

What’s more, as the former conductor of the heavenly orchestra and choirs, the devil is expert at devising forms of musical worship that to men seem high and holy but in fact are not of God nor based on the Bible. Indeed, masquerading as ‘an angel of light’ (2 Cor. 11:14) he often succeeds in getting himself worshipped as an angel in disguise in churches.

However, according to Paul, it is the devil’s ministers, rather than Satan per se,  who are most likely to deceive Bible believers. In the second chapter of Colossians the apostle four times warns the saved against being ‘beguiled’, ‘spoiled’, ‘judged’ or ‘beguiled of your reward’ - not by the devil as such - but by his disciples, that is men who do his will, often ministers of churches.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works (2 Cor. 11:13-15).

What’s more most of Christendom, contrary to apostolic instruction, adheres to beliefs and practices that are actually ‘the religion of angels’.  By that I mean the devil and his cohorts actually persuade sincere Christians to adopt forms of worship that angels, and fallen angels at that, practice themselves.

I get that from the words ‘worshipping of angels’ in Col. 2: 18. Bear in mind that Paul warns that this form of religion when indulged in by believers can rob them of their reward which is to ‘win Christ’ and to attain to the ‘(out) resurrection’ (Phil. 3:9-11), that is to one day be with Him in glory.

Now the ‘worshipping of angels’ can be read two ways and, in the context, I submit that both are right. In scripture God can and does use carefully chosen words to convey two meanings for the price of one. For example, in Phil: 1:9-10 we read:

And this I pray, that love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. That ye may approve the things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence until the day of Christ.

The margin note in the King James Bible say that approve also means to try and that the phrase the things that are excellent can also mean the things that differ. After all some things are better than others are they not and therefore 'excell' them and thus are excellent. What's more they also differ from other things.

What's being cited here is a twofold application of the 2 Tim. 2:15 principle of Bible study – ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’. First then, the verse should be divided by noting the things that are better or more excellent – being under grace, for example, (Rom. 6:14) as opposed to law ‘which made nothing perfect’. Then, secondly by observing the things that differ. Grace also differs markedly from law in that grace saves (Eph. 2:5) but the law brings about sin and condemns.

Back to ‘worshipping of angels’ in Col. 2: 18. The first meaning of these words then, is that believers should let no man beguile them of their reward in a ‘voluntary humility and worshipping of angels’. Voluntary humility means acts of outward submission such as bowing, kneeling and falling on one’s face. These physical demonstrations are carried out repeatedly in the rituals of all major world religions, both pagan and supposedly Christian and, as the apostle warns, can lead to direct worshipping of angels rather than God.

Believers, it seems, are particularly prone to being deceived into submission to and adoration of angels.  Indeed twice in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 19:10 and 22:8-9) the Apostle John fell at the feet of an angel who had revealed truth about the fulfilment of prophecy to him, only to be told:

See thou do it not; for I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Now if an apostle could so easily be led into angel worship, it should come as no surprise that the pagan world and most of Christendom is similarly deceived too. Consider: without exception every pagan religion has its ‘messengers’ or angels. They may be devils, demons, supposed spirits of dead ancestors, demi gods or Lucifer himself but to these benighted worshippers they are ‘angels’, messengers.

Angels, including Gabriel, it is said, revealed the precepts of Islam to Mohammed. Whirling dervishes whirl when devils tell them to. Voodoo practitioners swoon as dark angels take hold of them. New Age followers are obsessed with angel visitation while theosophists believe true wisdom comes from Lucifer, the light bearer. Buddhists pray to Buddha as a still living being, although their own history records that his body was burnt and his ashes distributed to pagodas in several lands. He too is an ‘angel’ worshipped in place of God.

Then there are the cults. Joseph Smith received the precepts of Mormonism courtesy of the angel Moroni, even though, when compared to scripture one might think his teachings a lot of baloney. Nevertheless a huge golden statue of Moroni stands outside the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.

Angel visitations also prompted the thoughts of Mary Baker Eddy the founder of so-called Christian Science while the self-proclaimed Seventh Day Adventist prophetess Ellen G. White again got her Bible wrenching precepts from angels. Yet God has commanded us to hear and heed His Son and the apostles He has sent forth – not to listen to angels. In fact Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews largely to dissuade Jews from clinging to the ministrations of angels instead of trusting solely in the Lord their Messiah and his atoning sacrifice on their behalf.

As to the world at large, angels, mostly bad, run riot in the fields of film and pulp fiction and get a press mention far beyond what they deserve in the media. And statues of them are prayed to and worshipped in Roman Catholic churches around the globe.

Aas explained earlier, worshipping of angels in Col. 2:18 has a double meaning. The first is that we should never do it. The second is that it means the angels' own form of worship, that is their own religion. Angels in fact seek to infiltrate Christian worship, rituals and services with their own form of religion which, in one way or another, worships the devil., albeit under one of his many disguises. Supporting the view that is one meaning of 'worshipping angels' is the Jubilee Bible 2000, which translates Col. 2:18 as:

Let no one govern you according to their own will under pretext of humility and religion of angels, intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind.

The Douay-Rheims Bible also translates ‘worshipping of angels’ as ‘the religion of angels’.

In the Roman Catholic Church angel worship is openly encouraged and practiced. Each person is held to have their own guardian angel. Thus in the 4^th century Basil wrote: ‘Everyone of the faithful has an angel at his side as educator and guide, directing his life’. Pope Gregory the Great noted that every country, city, town, village and even family has its own special guardian angel. Unwittingly, perhaps, he was describing operations of the very ‘principalities and powers’ Paul warned against in Eph. 6:12.

Paul taught us to pray to the Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ, but Catholics are told to pray:

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day [or night] be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide.

Statues and pictures of angels are found in many Catholic churches. And these are worshipped and prayed to; worn away toes pointing to how often devotees kiss the feet of such graven images.

And when it comes to Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement angels have had an absolute field day. Both Aimee Semple McPherson and Kathryn Kuhlman said they got their ‘healing ministries’ from angels and false prophet William Branham could not utter his astonishingly accurate ‘words of knowledge’ over audience members until his angel showed up. ‘I always know when he’s come because my hand gets hot’, he would say. To cap it all Branham became an angel himself – the seventh angel of Revelation 11:15 no less. He was buried under a pyramid-shaped tombstone depicting the seven angels with Paul denoted as the first and Branham as the seventh.

Fake healer Benny Hinn entertains angels like little boys in his bedroom but people have been known to die in his healing meetings. And in New Zealand almost every major healing evangelist and big time movement builder has been exposed as an adulterer, paedophile or both, including Graham Capill, erstwhile Presbyterian minister, police prosecutor and leader of the disbanded Christian Heritage Party. 

Neville Johnson, founder of the country’s biggest Pentecostal Church, now Auckland’s AOG Victory Centre, received anointings from angels and fornicated with women in his pastor’s office. Exposed he fled to Perth, Western Australia, where he still ministers but has been lately accused of running huge Ponzi schemes to fleece his worshippers.

I personally met and interviewed Frank Houston (now deceased), father of Brian Houston of Hillsong fame, who as an AOG minister in New Zealand claimed healing powers via an angel and seduced a series of young boys on both sides of the Tasman. Fact is every major Pentecostal stream in New Zealand has produced big time ministries who heard from angels and then committed sexual sin. Could it be that the angels they entertained were like those of Gen. 6:4 who went in unto the daughters of men and defiled them, or those of Sodom and Gomorrah in encouraging their devotees to give themselves over to homosexual fornication and thus go after ‘strange flesh’ (Jude 7)?

To this day in Pentecostal circles, as in other churches, the presence of angels is sought and worshipped. Back in my New Life days I remember singing choruses about ‘feeling the brush of angels’ wings’ only to later see major leaders in the movement be exposed for adultery.

Now all this trafficking with heavenly beings, be they bad or good, is being done in defiance of the Apostle Paul’s clear commandment not to worship angels. However, it must be said that often angelic influence is subtle. A sure sign of angelic religion seeping into churches and denominations are rules forbidding the consumption of certain foods, the wearing or prescribing of certain clothes, forbidding singing minor key songs and forbidding marriage. Examples abound in many churches.

These strictures Paul describes as ‘…ordinances (touch not, taste not, handle not, which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men’ (Col. 2:20-23). Believers, he says, should be dead to such ‘rudiments of the world’. And ‘rudiments’ here means primitive and perverted forms of early religion, religion imposed by angels.

Examples include not eating shellfish (Seventh Day Adventists), not eating pork (Judaism and Islam), rejecting tea and coffee (Mormons), abstaining from certain foods in Lent (Anglicans) and consuming fish not meat on Fridays (Roman Catholicism); the latter introduced because one pope had a monopoly on Rome’s fish shops. Then there is the matter of keeping certain days (either Saturday or Sunday (nearly all religions and many churches) when the apostle says:

Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbaths (Col. 2:16).

Please note again the ‘therefore’ in the above verse. We are not to let men impose their strictures on eating, drinking or keeping holydays and Sabbaths on us because (verse 15) Christ has spoiled (i.e. stripped of their power and authority) the principalities and powers (i.e. angels), and ‘made a shew of them openly triumphing over them in it (or, in Himself).

This means that it is precisely because the angels have been put out of a job that we should neither heed them nor have traffic with them and their intrusive persuasions today. Indeed what were once the commandments of the law, such as not eating shellfish or pork, have become ‘doctrines of devils’ (1 Tim. 4:1-3) in the dispensation of grace and are clearly condemned as such.

Such angelic prohibitions have, as the apostle admits, ‘a shew of wisdom in will worship and humility and neglecting of the body’. But, he continues, they are ‘… not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh’. In other words they are worthless attempts to ritually and outwardly make an exhibition of acts of self-righteousness that actually only increase bodily appetites rather than diminish them. And we’ve already seen the sort of appetites such fasting or neglecting of the body produce in men masquerading as ministers of righteousness but in fact giving heed to ‘seducing spirits’, with emphasis on ‘seducing’.

Fact is only the righteousness of Christ and that received by faith will suffice for entry into the Lord’s heavenly kingdom. Bowing and scraping, kneeling and only eating certain foods don’t cut it.

For every creature (created thing) of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving 1 Tim. 4:4).

To be continued

Part Two

Published 16-01-18

Why angels aren’t man’s best friends

By John Aldworth

    Behold He put no trust in his servants and his angels He charged with folly (Job 4:18).

It is passing strange that after suffering evil at the hands of heavenly beings for over 6,000 years – that is from the Garden of Eden until now – most people still think of angels as good and have warm fuzzies about them. They ignore the truth that while the Bible speaks only occasionally of elect (good) angels, it repeatedly warns against attack and destruction from the (angelic) powers of darkness.

Fact is there were no warm fuzzies after Eve fell for Satan’s fib – that neither she nor Adam would die from eating the forbidden fruit – because die they did. And mankind has been dying ever since as the result of that sin.

Now it’s fair to say that while dog may be man’s best friend, angels often aren’t. Adam and Eve learned that the hard way as they were driven out of Eden. Far from helping them, angelic beings appeared as heavies that sword in hand now blocked the way to the tree of life. And, for the most part, angels have been unfriendly ever since.

Indeed, as time went on men and women even came to know angels as their executioners. Though no ‘angel of death’ is named as such in the Bible, there is the ‘destroyer’, the angel that slew all the first born of Egypt (Ex. 12:23). And an ‘angel of the Lord’ slew 70,000 Israelites in David’s time (2 Sam. 24:15-16). Again the ‘angel of the Lord’ slew 185,000 Assyrians in one night (2 Ki. 19:35). And one has to ask, are angels being referred to when Job 33:22 states that man’s ‘soul draweth near unto the grave and his life unto the destroyers’?

Police, judge and jury to mankind?

Clearly, angels can play both beneficial and punitive roles toward mankind.  For example, the ‘angel of the Lord’ delivered the Apostle Peter from prison (Acts 12:7 and 21-23), but he also ‘immediately ... smote’ Herod - who would have killed Peter. This when the king was told by flatterers that he spoke like a god and ‘… gave not the glory to God’. Herod was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost.

It also appears that angels also have been the legislators, the armed ‘policemen’, ‘court prosecutors’ and even the ‘jailers’ of the human race. They have kept us ‘locked up to the law’, for example, and - as executioners - for thousands of years have kept the human race in bondage to death.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He (Jesus) also Himself took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death that is the devil. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. 2:14-15).

Didn’t Jesus speak of angels when He referred to the ‘tormentors’ (Matt. 18:34-35) God would send on those who would not ‘from the heart forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses’?

Dictators of a fiery law

And then there’s the law. Believe it or not, it was angels who formulated, laid down, regulated, dictated and, at Sinai, promulgated the body of laws.

[But I thought it was Moses, I hear you say. Well, Moses was the mediator of the law – he had to be. You see angels don’t mediate; they can’t; it isn’t in their nature. When David saw the destroying ‘angel of the Lord’ poised with sword in hand to kill all in Jerusalem he knew this heavenly warrior wasn’t a mediator. Already the angel had slain 70,000 men. He stopped only when God, in response to David’s prayer, said ‘Enough already’ (2 Sam. 24:16). Had God not spoken undoubtedly the angel would have destroyed all Israel. Angels as mediators, I don’t think so.]

Moses was the mediator of the law, in the sense that he interceded with God to show mercy and spare Israel from the full penalty of the law when they repeatedly broke it. However, it was by angels that the law was given at Sinai, as six separate scriptures attest. Let’s study them. They are:

Deut. 33:2,

Psalm 68:17

Acts 7:53

Gal. 3:19

Heb. 2:2

Jude 14

First Deut. 33: 1-2. In his final blessing of Israel before his death Moses said:

The Lord came from Sinai and rose up from Seir unto them; He shined forth from mount Paran, and He came with 10,000 of his saints; from his right hand went a fiery law for them.

Here Moses recounts how, 38 years before hand he saw angels on mount Sinai (saints, i.e. ones separated to God’s service, hence angels).   Ellicott’s translation renders part of this verse as:

…And there came from the ten thousands of holiness, from his right hand, a fire of law for them.

Grammar here dictates that that the ‘them’ refers not only to the Israelites but also to the ‘saints’ themselves. Thus the ‘fiery law’, accompanied thunder and lightning, was both for men and angels. Barnes in his Notes confirms that ‘saints’ means ‘angels’ as does Matthew Poole who comments: ‘Ten thousands of saints, i.e. with a great company of holy angels’.

This confirmed by Psalm 68:17 where David refers to angels at the giving of the law:

The chariots of God are twenty thousands, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.

Before considering further proof that angels gave the law, note that the Sinai issuing of commandments as recalled by Moses was the fulfilment of a prophecy by Enoch spoken before the Flood. This prophecy is recorded in Jude 14:

And Enoch also the seventh from Adam prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

Though Enoch lived before the Flood, and doubtless foreknew God would destroy all mankind bar eight people in the deluge, his prophecy here relates to God’s judgement of people after the Flood, including the Israelites, for their wickedness. Angels were the instrument God used to bring in the whole Mosaic law as a punishment for men. Thus in Gal. 3:19 the Apostle Paul plainly says:

(The law) was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator (Moses).

The disposition of angels

In Acts 7:53 Stephen, on trial for his life, charges the Israelite leaders with being ‘… the betrayers and murderers of the Just One, who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it’.

The word disposition here means much more than simply being ‘disposed’, or ‘inclined’ to give the law. It means the angels were given authority and power to pronounce, mandate and enforce it. The Greek word translated disposition is diatage. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says it means an ordinance and derives from diatesso meaning to ‘appoint’ or ‘ordain’. Hence the Revised Version in Acts 7:53 says, ‘as it (the law) was ordained by angels’. In Romans 13:2 diatage is translated as the ‘ordinance’ of God. Collins Dictionary defines ‘ordinance’ as ‘an established rule, religious rite’. The Apostle Paul wrote:

… the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive unto themselves damnation (Rom. 13:1-2).

Interestingly, ‘disposition’ in English is not far removed from ‘dispensation’. However, the ‘disposition’ or ‘dispensation’ of the law was abolished for believers at the cross (Col. 2:14). It remains in force, though, for those who reject God (1 Tim. 1:9).  As to the ‘dispensation’ of the angels in ruling the world, that will continue until the end of the current dispensation of the grace of God (Eph. 3:1-3). Then it will stop:

                For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come …’ (Heb. 2:5).

So, looking at the big picture we see that angels not only spoke the law to mankind, but administered its many regulations. They were also the ‘policemen’ who arrested and punished those who disobeyed any part of it.

Angels, it seems, were highly suited to be both police and prosecutors to mankind, since, it seems, they themselves live under very strict rules of obedience and laws of prohibition. Consider the following:

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day (Jude 6).

Actually, there is good reason to be believe the law was originally designed by God as a system of rules and penalties for regulating the life and obedience of angels, not men  Man was a separate creation intended from the first to live by the life of God, his goodness and by his grace. However, when man persisted in willful disobedience the law was ‘added because of transgressions’ (Gal. 3:19). I would submit therefore that man was never intended to live by law in the first place. The law’s proper place in God’s economy then is as a regulatory system imposed on angels in heaven. Indeed, as such it is the angels’ religion.

Hebrews 1 stresses that ‘all’ angels are ‘… ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be the heirs of salvation’ (Heb. 1:14). They are not heirs themselves. Rather, in spiritual terms angels are powerful military grunts organized in legions (regiments) under rigid hierarchies. Unmoved by feelings of tenderness or mercy they simply destroy and kill when told to do so and under the law condemn human beings for the slightest infraction of a system of rules they themselves are governed by.  Thus Heb. 2:2 says:

For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast (i.e. inflexible), and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense (i.e. penalty) of reward … how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which was first spoken by the Lord.

How indeed? For whether whether Jew or Gentile we all need deliverance from the penalty of having disobeyed the law. Just such deliverance was offered Israelites through the Person of their Messiah and Saviour Jesus Christ under the New Covenant. And salvation from all penalty for sinning was offered Gentiles through the gospel of the grace of God (Eph. 3:1-4).

You see, while some think otherwise, the giving of the law at Sinai was not good news. The mount might not be touched on pain of death, it burned with fire and was beset by tempest, blackness and darkness. Those that heard the law - spoken by angels evidently (Heb. 2:2) - begged that they should hear it no more, ‘for they could not endure what was commanded’.

And if so much as a beast touch the mountain it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake (Heb. 12:18-21).

In light of the above it is astounding that today so many preachers, churches and denominations preach the law and insist it be obeyed, despite clear apostolic instructions to not do so.  Judaism, Islam and other religions also insist laws and regulations must be obeyed, often on pain of death for failing to do so.  

Earlier in this study series we learned that in his death, resurrection and ascension the Lord ‘spoiled’ the principalities and powers (Col. 2:15). He stripped these angelic forces of their power and authority and triumphed over them. He has already decided that in the world to come – that is the Day of Christ when the Lord will inaugurate his pre-millennium kingdom by ruling from heaven – they will have no part in his government. In fact they won’t be ruling anything or anyone at all.

For unto the angels He hath He not put in subjection the world to come of which we speak (Heb.2:5).

The Bible student needs to clearly understand, as mentioned earlier in these studies, that as a punishment for man’s increasing wickedness after the Flood, and Israel’s sins in particular, God brought in the law, and that He did so by the ‘disposition of angels’ (Acts 7:53). In other words angels were sent in rather like an armed police attack squad to deal with a recalcitrant Israel and a rebellious mankind that refused to obey God and worshipped idols instead.

Thankfully, since then the devil and his angels have been given notice that soon they will be out of a job. Simply put, they have been served with ‘redundancy notices’. Why? Because, like the law they brought in and the Old Covenant God made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, their ministry proved a flop. Their brute force tactics did not bring in righteousness, nor did the law did not cause Israel to welcome their Messiah when he came. God found fault with the Old Covenant and made it old (Heb. 8:13). The Spirit of truth deemed it decaying, waxing old and ‘ready to vanish away’.

    Behold He put no trust in his servants and his angels He charged with folly (Job 4:18).

Also ready to vanish away, I suggest, is the empire and religion of the angels along with any claim they have to authority and say so over mankind. As to the law brought in by angels Jesus has already blotted it out and nailed it in its entirety to the cross (Col. 2: 14). And as to the Old Covenant God has made a new one (Heb. 8:7-9).

In the case of angels it would seem their dismissal is the result of their ‘over stepping the mark’ in laying down harsh rules then punishing people for disobeying them. They also ‘went too far’ in taking authority unto themselves that belongs to the Lord and to Him alone. This is why Paul sets out the Lord’s credentials as much better than those of angels in Heb. 1:4-6:

Being made so better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father and He shall be to Me a Son? And again when He bringeth the First Begotten in to the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him.

The challenge today for grace saved bible believers is to experience for themselves, through practical personal application, that the principalities and powers are indeed a defeated foe and that, dispensationally speaking, the angelic empire is doomed because God has weighed it and found it wanting. The verses they need to be convinced this is so are found in Col. 1:12-14:

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

Simply put, God has already taken us out of the realm of the dark angelic rule over this world, where evil can continually attack us. In a miracle of ‘time travel’, He has fast-forwarded us into the Lord’s heavenly kingdom even though it is yet to be inaugurated in a time to come (2 Tim. 4:1). By his grace we can enjoy the benefits of it now, even though now living in a world ruled by the angelic 'powers of darkness' .

To be continued

Part Three

By John Aldworth

Made equal to the angels

And Jesus answering Jesus said unto them, The children (i.e., sons) of this world marry and are given in marriage: But they which shall be counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children (i.e., sons) of God, being children (i.e., sons) of the resurrection (Luke 20:35-36).

In this passage the Lord contrasts the marital state in ‘this world’ with the lack of it in those who are resurrected to live in ‘that world’, i.e. ‘the world to come’ and compares their marital state or rather, lack of it, to that of the angels. 

Put ‘angels’ and ‘the next world together’ and almost everybody assumed the Lord was talking about heaven. But He was not.  Sadly, his reference to ‘that world’ is taken to mean being in heaven but that is not what Jesus meant. Margin notes confirm He was contrasting the ‘sons of this age’ who marry with the sons of the ‘age to come’, i.e. ‘that world’, age being the true meaning of aion, the Greek word often translated ‘world’ in the King James Bible.

Fact is Jesus never spoke of anyone going to heaven. Indeed He said no man had ascended up there (John 3: 13). Nor was ‘going to heaven’ the hope of the Acts period ‘Church of God’. No, indeed. Their goal was the same as that proffered by Jesus when on earth - to be precise, that of entering the kingdom. And the kingdom is actually the age to come when Christ will reign over earth from heaven. Seven times it is called the ‘Day of Christ’ in Paul’s epistles.

Actually, the hope of going to heaven is only proclaimed, for the first time in scripture in Eph. 1:5-6 where believers saved by grace are told they have been raised up together with Christ to sit in heavenly places with Him. Clearly then, the way to heaven is now by way of, first, a spiritual resurrection followed by actual bodily resurrection at the dawn of the age to come, i.e. the Day of Christ. The teaching that at the death of our body our soul goes to straight to heaven is a lie of the devil, one he first told Eve in the Garden of Eden. It doesn’t. Along with our body the soul dies and goes into the grave, from whence only Christ can resurrect us.

In previous studies we learned that, while this ‘present evil age’ is ruled by the ‘powers of darkness’, the age to come will not be controlled by them.

More than conquerors

We also learned that we, as grace-saved believers, have already been delivered ‘from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son. Meaning that even in this life God has already broken the hold of dark spiritual forces upon us. Indeed, when this is understood and believed by us we can join Paul and say, ‘… God will deliver me from every evil work’ and ‘He will ‘preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom’ (2 Tim. 4:18).

This is the starting point in our experientially realising the truth that Christ has already defeated the enemy and now has ‘all things’ under his feet. The previous two verses tell us that these ‘all things’ include ‘… all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come’. Indeed through Christ as our Head we are ‘more than conquerors’ of the heavenly rulers who hold ‘this present evil world’ (Gal. 1:4) in their thrall.

Now, in this latest study, we look further into the Lord’s clear statement that ‘those counted worthy to obtain that world, i.e. the world to come, the Day of Christ’ will be ‘equal to the angels’ (Luke 20:35-36). Does that mean that we too, in our resurrection or change (Phil. 3:20-21) will be made equal to the angels, not only not marrying in the new resurrection state, but also in might, power and authority? I believe that it does. And, of course, this has an important bearing on the on the theme of this study series, ‘Our great commission to the angels’.

For more needs to be said about how we shall be changed and equipped for this incredibly challenging role. Let’s be realistic. Who are we as feeble, sinning human beings, reconciled to God only through the blood of Christ, to think ourselves able to teach, let alone judge, angels? As the scripture says, ‘What is man that Thou art mindful of him?’ (Heb. 2:6).

Yet the previous verse (Heb. 2:5) clearly says angels will not rule the next age: ‘For unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world to come’ (Heb. 2:5). And Eph. 3:8-11 makes plain that very purpose of our calling in grace and the mystery is that we, as the many-membered Church over which He is Head, should make known unto the heavenly powers and authorities what we have learned of the ‘unsearchable riches of Christ’. Verses 10 and 11 cut to the heart of the matter:

To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. According to the eternal purpose which He purposes in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Seated among the angels

Personally I am grateful that the word might is inserted in that sentence. For might means meeting this challenge set before us is conditional. Conditional, that is, upon on us being changed to be like Christ in spirit and body before we undertake such a task. Positionally, of course, we have already been placed ‘in Christ’ and ‘together with Christ’ (Eph. 2:6) in ‘heavenly places’ and there is no doubt that the Lord Himself is seated far above all principality and power (Eph. 1:20-21) and we in Him.

But this is something we must grasp by faith and have tested in the buffetings of this ‘present evil world’ as we still ‘wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Eph. 6:12).

The discerning student will have noted that in both Eph. 1:20 and 6:12 the word places is in italics in the King James Bible. That is because actually there is no such word in the original Greek. Epourianos, ‘heavenlies’, is an adjective, and the question is: What does it describe? The answer, according to the margin note for Eph. 6:12 is that describes hosts of spirit beings.

Thus in Eph. 6:12 the phrase ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’ should be rendered ‘spiritual hosts of wickedness’. The thought is not so much that they are ‘high’ or ‘heavenly’ in terms of location, i.e. ‘above’ but that they are spiritual, as opposed to being earthly and housed in physical bodies and, therefore, ‘superior’ to us in terms of power and authority. However, Eph. 2:5-6 makes it plain that, spiritually speaking, and if we belieive it, already we are 'seated among the angels', in that we are sitting together with Christ in the heavenly abode. Imagine. We are already counted as of authority in the ranks of the heavenly host.

Of course, angels come with a clout we don't yet possess. This is confirmed in 2 Pet. 2:11 where the Apostle Peter says that angels ‘are greater in power and might’. But that will not always be the case because, as the Lord said, those He will resurrect in the age to come will be ‘equal to the angels … being children of the resurrection’ (Luke 20:35-36). One day then we will rule with Christ fromn heaven with as much as the angels now have.

And, as grace-saved believers who join Paul in the ‘upward climb’ of the ‘high call’, or ‘calling on high’, we look heavenwards, seeking to be included with the Apostle Paul in the ex-anastasis, the ‘out resurrection’. This will occur at the Lord’s appearing, which begins rule from heaven kingdom (2 Tim. 4:1), ushering in the ‘that world’ to come’ that Jesus spoke of in Luke 20:35-36.

And what a different world it will be! No longer run by Satan, nor held in darkness by evil powers; in fact it will not be subject to angels at all, but. For the first time since Adam’s fall, will be ruled by Christ the Lord reigning from heaven. And the most exciting thought for those who have believed the latest word from God, given to us through the Apostle Paul, is that we will rule and reign with Him, having been made fit to do so.

This will be because in being resurrected or changed to have a body ‘fashioned like unto his glorious body [i.e. body of glory, or body in glory] (Phil. 3:21), we shall also be ‘equal to the angels’.

The going may be rough now but ‘if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him’ (2 Tim. 2:12).  In our next and last study we will study what scripture tells us about the nature and origin of angels.

To be continued.

Part Four