Search this book
One of my favorite angel narratives in all of Scripture is found in the second book of Kings, and I enjoy this particular narrative because it reveals, directly and indirectly, many important things about the nature and function of angels. It is a narrative that takes place during the life of the prophet Elisha. It begins this way: "Now the king of Syria was making war against Israel; and he consulted with his servants, saying, 'My camp will be in such and such a place.' And the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, 'Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down there.' Then the king of Israel sent someone to the place of which the man of God had told him. Thus he warned him, and he was watchful there, not just once or twice" (6:8-10).
The king of Syria is trying to plan an ambush against the king of Israel.
Somehow, all of the secret plans that the king of Syria is making are told to the king of Israel, so he avoids the trap. Then we read, "Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, 'Will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?'" (v. 11). He automatically assumes that he has a spy in the camp, so he inquires about it. "And one of his servants said, 'None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.' So he said, 'Go and see where he is, that I may send and get him.' And it was told him, saying, 'Surely he is in Dothan'" (vv. 12-13).
You get the picture. The king of Syria is told that it's not one of his men who are betraying him, but that his plans are being communicated supernaturally by the prophet Elisha to the king of Israel. So, the king of Syria changes his plan. He thinks, "If I'm ever going to capture the king of Israel, the first thing I must do is get rid of Elisha." He inquires as to where Elisha is staying, and he's told that Elisha is in Dothan. So he sets about to execute his plan to capture Elisha.
The narrative continues: "Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with the horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, 'Alas, my master! What shall we do?'" (vv. 14-15). Elisha goes to sleep in Dothan. His servant gets up first thing in the morning, goes outside, and sees all the chariots and soldiers of the Syrians. Then he goes to the other side of the house, but he still sees nothing but chariots. He goes to the front and he goes to the back, but there are chariots everywhere. So he runs and wakes Elisha, and he tells him of the predicament. He says: "We're surrounded by chariots and armies. What are we going to do?"
Listen to Elisha's response. "So he answered, 'Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them'" (v. 16). I can only imagine that Elisha's servant is completely flabbergasted by Elisha's words. "You don't get it," he probably says. "I just told you there are countless soldiers and chariots around us, but here there's only you and me. What do you mean that those who are with us are more than those who are with them?"
Then we read: "And Elisha prayed, and said, 'LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.' Then the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, 'Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.' And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha" (vv. 17-18).
There are so many things that we can learn from this passage. One has to do with an ongoing controversy among theologians in the history of the church over the idea of guardian angels. In the New Testament, Jesus tells His disciples not to forbid little children to come to Him, "for of such is the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16b). Elsewhere He says, "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 18:10).
The idea that was extrapolated from that statement of our Lord was that every person in the kingdom—every Christian—has a guardian angel assigned to take care of him or her. As we will see a bit later, the author of Hebrews tells us that the primary function of angels, in terms of this world, is to minister to God's people. So there is a strong tradition in church history that every person has a particular angel assigned to him. But what
we find in this story of Elisha is that there is not just one angel watching out for him, but the whole heavenly host is mobilized to defend him in his critical hour of need.
In chapter 9, I related the story of a pair of miners who were trapped underground for several days and how they testified that they had been ministered to by angels. That was how they explained their survival. The news media automatically assumed that they were hallucinating, and the assumption in the secular world in which we live is that anyone who claims to see an angel must be suffering hallucinations, for a hallucination occurs, by definition, when someone sees things that aren't really there. I also mentioned how Rudolf Bultmann said we can't live in our sophisticated society and still believe in ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night, or in invisible realities such as angels.
But at the heart of the Judeo-Christian worldview is an uncompromised supernaturalism that says that there is much more to reality than meets the eye. God Himself is invisible, and yet there's nothing more central to Christianity than the reality of the existence of God. The thing that makes it so difficult for us to be faithful to God, I believe, is that He's invisible, and it's hard to worship that which you do not see and to obey One you've never heard speak, and so on. But the same thing may be true of angels.
They're invisible most of the time. There are times throughout biblical history, as we read in the case of the visitors to Sodom and elsewhere, when the angels manifest themselves, usually in human garb, but under ordinary circumstances, they conceal themselves. They're real; they're creatures; but they're also spirit beings who are invisible. If we really do believe in the message of the Christian faith, we have to understand that the reality in which we live contains much more than meets the eye.
Now, that should not be too much of a stretch for us, living on this side of the Enlightenment, on this side of the invention of the telescope, on this side of the invention of the microscope, because the scientific revolution of the modern era has increased and enhanced our perception of reality by means of instruments that enable us to see things that cannot be seen with the naked eye. One of the crises in the time of Galileo was that the scientists of his day, as well as the bishop of his city, refused to put their eyes on his telescope because they didn't want to believe the evidence that the telescope was revealing about how the heavens really are structured and how the planets travel in their orbits. The Copernican revolution was a
revolution in science that was provoked by a sudden ability to see what previously was unseen. If that revolution took place with the invention of the telescope, how much greater is the revolution that has taken place in our lifetimes with the microscope. There are millions of real entities in the air around each of us, and if we could see them with the naked eye, the sight would probably strike terror into our souls. But fortunately for us, we go along our merry ways, completely oblivious to the myriads of microbes that have the capacity to kill us.
So, we have learned through modern science that there are realities out there beyond the scope of our ability to perceive them. Why is it that we believe that germs that we can't see are out there, but we have a bias that says there cannot be supernatural, heavenly beings—spirit beings—like angels, even though the Scripture texts are full of them? That's one of the things that I love about this story: the servant couldn't see what was really there until Elisha prayed and said, "Please, Lord, open his eyes, let him see what's really out there." When God opened his eyes, the servant saw that the assembled host of angels was vastly superior in number and power to all of the chariots and armies of the king of Syria.
A similar incident is recorded in the New Testament during the account of the temptation of Jesus. Immediately after Jesus' baptism, the Spirit leads Him into the Judean wilderness to be tempted of Satan. The Devil suggests that Jesus isn't really the Son of God, even though the last words that Jesus had heard before going into the wilderness were those of the Father speaking from heaven: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). Satan says, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread" (4:3). That is the first temptation, to which Jesus responds by saying, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'" (v. 4). He was saying: "I am involved in a fast here. I'm involved in a test. I'm sorry, Satan, but I'm not going to turn those stones into bread. I can do it, but I don't have the permission of My Father to do it; so get away from Me."
Then He quotes Scripture to Satan.
In the midst of this temptation, Satan quotes Scripture back to Jesus.
When he takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and urges Him to throw Himself down, he says, "It is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone" (v. 6b). Jesus had to correct the Devil's hermeneutic and
say, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God" (v. 7).
He's saying: "Yes, the Bible says that, but you have to interpret Scripture by Scripture. You can't set Scripture against Scripture, and the Bible also says, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.' So I'm not going to do what you suggest."
When the temptations are finished and Satan has departed, we are told, almost as a footnote, that angels come and minister to Jesus (v. 11). They were there all the time. It makes you wonder whether He could see them, as Elisha could. But God had given His angels charge over Him, and the angels came to Him in the midst of that crisis in His life. Immediately after the fallen angel departs, the heavenly host comes, and they minister to Jesus.
It's significant that this host of angels attends Jesus again and again throughout His lifetime, not only at the announcement of His birth, which we will look at separately, but also at the time of His resurrection. When the disciples come to the tomb, angels are there, in the garden or in the tomb itself, according to the various accounts. They say to the women who come to anoint Jesus' body: "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!" (Luke 24:5b-6a). These angels are the escorts of Christ when He ascends into heaven, when He goes to His enthronement for His coronation as the King of kings.
When I think of the events that transpired during the life of Jesus, I ask myself, "If I could have been an eyewitness of any event in the life of Jesus, which one would I choose?" That's really a hard question for me.
Obviously, I would have been delighted to witness the resurrection. Who wouldn't? That would have been fantastic. But it's hard for me to choose between the resurrection and the transfiguration. To have seen that bursting forth of the glory of Christ through the veil of His humanity, where His countenance was changed, would have been incredible.
But there is another event that I really savor, because I've been to the Holy Land. I remember the time we went to Bethlehem, and we went to the Church of the Nativity and took the guided tour, and I was not really engaged by that. I left the company of those who were taking the tour and walked out by myself to the edge of the church. There was a primitive stone wall, and I went out and sat on that stone wall. It looks out onto a vast plain, the fields of Bethlehem, and I just let my imagination run wild. I sat there and imagined that night, pitch dark, maybe a little campfire bursting
through the darkness, peasants sitting around, trying to keep warm, trying to watch over their flocks. Suddenly, all heaven breaks loose with the glory of God shining around as the heavenly hosts begin to sing of the birth of Christ. Oh, if I had seen that, I would have said like Simeon, "Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace" (Luke 2:29), for I would have seen all I ever needed to see.
The angels attend our Lord in the manifestation of His glory. But when the glory of God is eclipsed in a culture and in the church, as it is in our day, angels are dismissed as insignificant. When the glory of God is honored and the exaltation of Christ is upheld, we see attending those moments the heavenly host, who serve as an escort for the King.