What are Angels?
or: “Mama, who is the big guy swinging the sword over there?”
You are sitting at a desk, touching it. Knock on it and you can hear your fist rapping the solid wood. Your hand will not pass through it without breaking it or your hand. Yet a physicist will tell you it is made up of tiny particles with a great deal of space between them. It is NOT solid but made up of mostly empty space.
We live in a world that has been created by a being so powerful, that He has to do is speak to create an entire universe of billions of stars like our sun and even greater. So vast that a beam of light would take untold eons to travel across. A being SO powerful and mighty as that we would be literally smaller than the smallest of sub-atomic particles in your desk comparatively. Yet as far as we know, humankind is the sole purpose for that creation.
I won’t limit God to my understanding, there might well be billions of worlds such as ours. The bible doesn’t say either way. But conscious little beings like us, with eternal souls are the reason why the entire universe was made.
Genisis 1:1 says “In the beginning, God…” we can assume by that there was a whole other mode of existence BEFORE the beginning. Since God Himself is eternal and the “beginning” talked about in Genisis is the beginning of our universe and not the beginning of God. A more solid, eternal realm.
Angels are inhabitants of that more solid realm. Created at the same time we were. When we were purposefully created, God knew that we would create an uncrossable gulf between Him and us. Uncrossable for us only, of course, but the very sight of the Holy God would destroy us utterly, so he created these beings we call “Angels” to cross it and communicate with us.
Angels are extremely powerful beings of high intelligence. Capable of independent thought and action and with free will. Their true form, as spiritual beings, is indescribable for us as flesh and blood humans, and attempts to describe them by Prophets such as Ezekiel and John who saw them are vague at best. However, they can and do appear to humans in any form, including that of a human being. Most often the form they choose is that of a large strong young man, sometimes armed with a sword and armored like a warrior.
Angels are servants and messengers of God. They are “Holy”, but only because of and contingent on their service to the Most High. They are “solid” beings, not disembodied spirits, in that they have a body, a mind and free will. Their bodies were created for the more solid spiritual realm, and do not pass into corruption like ours. They are eternal, cannot be killed, and do not die naturally. They do not breed, there was a set number of them created for the specific purpose they have been given, and since they never die, they don’t need to be replaced.
Angels cannot interbreed with humans. There are no and have never been any “angel/human hybrids”. Angels do not have sex. There are no male and female Angels. They are fundamentally different to human beings. They are made of a different “substance” altogether and the idea of an Angel breeding with a human being makes about as much sense as a ROCK breeding with a HORSE.
Less, actually, since a rock has an actual “physical” substance in the world of mankind, and an Angel is more solid than a rock could ever be.
The legend of the “Nephilim”
or: “Mama’s little angel!”
When God created the heavens and the earth, he also created the Angels. When He created them, he gave them the free will choice to serve their purpose or not. Since their sole reason for existing is that of a servant, messenger and protector of his human creations, He also gave them the same emotions as humans in order to empathize with them and understand their needs. Love, hate, anger, joy all the emotional baggage humans have to deal with.
Now I cannot begin to understand the emotions and motives of beings as intelligent and powerful as these. But I am sure that anger, pride, disappointment and despair at being glorified babysitters for God’s human children had a lot to do with one third of them following the Archangel Lucifer into rebellion.
Demons are the fallen Angels that follow Satan, and they HATE us. When I say HATE us, I mean ALL OF HUMANITY WITHOUT EXCEPTION. This is the undying, eternal hatred of the damned who cannot be forgiven. Their sole purpose is only to destroy us and to thwart God’s plan. The “Original Sin” was not Eve, then Adam, disobeying God’s order NOT TO EAT the fruit of knowledge. It was the open rebellion of the former Archangel Lucifer (now Satan), and his attempt to destroy Adam and Eve by tempting them.
The human followers of God are the CHILDREN of God, literally. God created mankind as an act of procreation. We are the reproduction of God, in His image and likeness. He loves us with the love of a father for his child. We are not “gods”, but right now we are just a little bit lower than the Angels (Psalm 8:5), and we are the potential heirs to the Kingdom of God.
Cain, Abel and Seth were the eldest male children of Adam and Eve. They were certainly not the only children by far. When Cain murdered Abel in a fit of jealousy and rage, he was disinherited and banished, and probably took a number of his family with him. In any case, he founded his own city in the land of “Nod” (Genisis 4:16), and likely still had interactions both violent and peaceful with the rest of his family.
Over time the two groups intermingled and likely as not intermarried. The passage in Genisis 6:1-4 most likely references a deliberate program of selective breeding started by the heirs of Seth and Abel (Sons of God) to breed for height, intelligence and strength. A “warrior class” in other words. God did not appreciate this in the least; hence they are called “Nephilim” which means “fallen ones”. This, and the previous and subsequent unending violence (Genisis 6:5-7) caused God to regret creating them and resolve to destroy all life utterly from the face of the earth…except for a remnant (Genisis 6:8-13).
So, no Angel/Human hybrids. I don’t see any granite ponies clomping around either, sorry.
I want to make a side note here: the lands of Nod, of the cities and regions of the time before the flood do not have anything to do with the lands and cities established by the sons of Noah after the flood. They were destroyed utterly by the flood, and their ruins, if any, could be anywhere in the world. Noah floated in the ark for more than a hundred and fifty days on waters that topped the highest mountains. It is unlikely that he was deposited anywhere near where he started when the flood receded. The idea that those lands are somewhere in Mesopotamia is simply naive and based on the assumption that the flood was NOT a worldwide flood that destroyed all living things on earth.
Demons are evil, nasty and disgusting little beggars.
or: “EWWW! Don’t put that in THERE!!”
So, in short, demons are no longer the mighty, glorious, intelligent and powerful beings they once were. They rejected that power and glory, because they rejected the source: God Almighty. They are shadows, wraiths, goblins steeped in every bit of nasty, evil, degenerate things that could be imagined, and some we could not imagine. Horribly filthy beyond belief, they may retain the power to appear to people in a seemingly normal or even beautiful form. But they utterly despise anything beautiful, wholesome, good and true, and keeping to such a form would cause them agony. Good Christians encountering such, even if initially fooled, would eventually get a good whiff and recoil in horror and disgust.
They tend to keep such manifestations only among the unsaved.
They do, definitely have the ability to spiritually possess living people, dominate their minds, and use their bodies as vehicles for their lusts. They can be exorcised from these poor souls, but there comes a time when the possession has progressed to the point of complete destruction of the mind, where the possessed becomes a mere skinsuit worn by a devil. Even such a one as that can be exorcised and saved by grace, but only barely (Mark 5:3).
The Angels’ full-time job now is to hoist these filthy demons off of Christians and smack them down when they appear.
I don’t want to go any farther into this subject, because in and of itself it is a danger. To talk about demons is to call attention to demons. They are whores for attention.
But I think there are “Only Fans” pages for a couple if you really want to know…
…please don’t visit them…
…really…
…it’s a joke not a recommendation.
Seeing visions, dreaming and prophetic giftings
or: “Nebuchadnezzar’s little trip to the woods”.
Visions and dreams and angelic visitations have been around since “The Beginning”. Joseph (Genisis 41) and Daniel (Daniel chap 2 and 4) interpreted the dreams of kings. Waking visions came to prophets like Ezekiel (chap 37), and Angels appeared to Lot (Genisis 19:15), Abraham (Genisis 18:2), and even Baalam (Numbers 22:21-35) (I bet he wished he had a granite donkey!).
Visions are a waking “dream” and are often confused with hallucinations. It doesn’t help that both often come after the same sort of physical or mental stresses. You may fast for a few days, on purpose with prayer, or because you can’t eat for whatever reason, and then you may experience such an event. Hallucinations often come after a traumatic event, or a psychotropic drug can be used to induce them.
The only difference between the two is that a vision is an answer to seeking.
A hallucination is an act of, or response to confusion.
If you are more confused after the event, it’s probably a hallucination.
Most everyone “dreams”. A dream can be a window into the mind. You often see things in dreams how you want them to be, or how they should be, or what may become. A dream should never be discounted, no matter how odd it may be. If it is a happy dream, that is a wholesome and wonderful gift. If it is a disturbing dream, then it could be a warning. If it is an erotic (wet) dream, well it happens to the best of us. Not so much after puberty and the teen years, unfortunately (?).
All dreams are messages. Either from your mind or your spirit. All the ones you remember should be prayed about.
Angelic visitations still happen. Since Jesus’ resurrection, the role of the Angel as a messenger has decreased. If you have Jesus as your Saviour, and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit you can communicate directly to God Almighty without a go between.
We do, however, have a certain stubbornness that blocks the answers we don’t want.
But that isn’t what would cause a visitation, normally.
All I can say, is an Angel can appear to you as anything or anyone. Some man, or woman, or child, or homeless person, or dog or cat or donkey or…God help you …a big burly guy in armor swinging a big honking sword!
But there is always a sense of peace, wholesomeness and goodness when you meet one of these guys. Even the sword guy.
They are a manifestation of God’s infinite love for his children.
He might be there just to visit, because he loves you. Love him back because he’s like your nanny.
The most important thing to remember: No Dream, no Vision, no Angelic visitation is as important as learning to listen to the still, small, quiet voice in your heart and mind.