The Angels in the Plan of Salvation

Scripture focus

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Hebrews 1:14 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Though Edwards published almost nothing on angels, his private notebooks, the Miscellanies, contain roughly fifty entries that amount to an entire unwritten treatise. Unlike Thomas Aquinas, who probed the metaphysics of angelic minds, Edwards showed little interest in what angels are in themselves; his consistent question was what angels do within God's unfolding plan of redemption, so that, as McClymond and McDermott put it, “angelology, for Edwards, was a corollary of Christology.”

Edwards speculated boldly about episodes Scripture leaves undeveloped: that some angels first rebelled upon learning God's Son would become incarnate as a mere human, that Christ's ascension marked his formal “enthronization” as head of the angels in place of the fallen Lucifer, and that only at that point were the unfallen angels forever “confirmed” in holiness, secure from any future fall. Fallen human beings, in this scheme, are elect to fill the places the fallen angels vacated.

Edwards pictured angels and redeemed humanity as two branches of a single, growing “society” of intelligent creatures, capable of surprise, wonder, and increase, living together in a heaven he described as an eternally “progressive state” rather than a static reward — careful, though, to mark such proposals as probable inference from Scripture rather than settled doctrine.

Key points

• Edwards left no published treatise on angels, but roughly fifty entries in his private Miscellanies notebooks amount to an unwritten book on the subject.
• Unlike Aquinas, who focused on the intrinsic nature of angelic minds, Edwards's angelology is thoroughly Christ-centered, tracking angels through the story of redemption.
• Edwards speculated that Christ's ascension was his “enthronization” as head of the angels, the moment when unfallen angels were forever confirmed in holiness.
• He proposed that redeemed human beings take the place in heaven's society vacated by the angels who fell, tying angelology to the doctrine of election.
• Edwards consistently flagged these ideas with words like “probably,” confining his boldest speculation to private notebooks rather than his sermons or published works.

A line worth remembering

Angelology, for Edwards, was a corollary of Christology.

McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 18

Related Scripture

• Psalm 91:11
• Luke 2:13-14
• Colossians 1:16
• Revelation 12:7

For reflection and discussion

1. What does it mean to say that Edwards's angelology was 'a corollary of Christology' rather than a separate topic?
2. How does the idea that angels were 'confirmed' in holiness only after Christ's ascension change the way you think about their role in the drama of redemption?
3. Edwards distinguished his cautious public preaching from his freer private speculation about angels — where might that same distinction be wise in your own theological thinking?