When discussing a theology of angels we are met with a whole range of problems. Doesn’t the belief in angels belong to an older, more simple-minded time? What does it mean to believe in angels in a modern world of science and technology?

C.S. Lewis said there are two equal but opposite errors we make when it comes to angels and demons: we either make too much of them or we make too little of them. I think he’s generally right. But it might be a bit more complicated than that.

Belief in angels for most modern, western Christians amounts to nothing more than sentimentality (our feelings of tenderness and warmth regarding the idea of angels) or mythology (angels are tall, strong, white men with long blonde hair who show up to do what we want done, but can’t/won’t do for ourselves). Either way they are sort of pushed out of our “real” world into the world of our feelings or wild beliefs.

For the ancient church (and the medieval church) things were very different. The idea of angels slotted very nicely into their understanding of the world. Angels were an object of considerable interest. Questions were raised and answered concerning the nature of angels, the hierarchy of angels, the free will of angels, etc.

For us today we are often left with what Karl Barth calls “an angelology of the shrug of the shoulders.” But while the ancient Christians and modern Christians seem to be polar opposites, they both have the same underlying issue when it comes to thinking and talking about angels: both are primarily concerned with the nature of angels. In an ancient world, angelic nature fits in quite well with their picture of the world. In a modern, scientific world angelic nature doesn’t quite fit (and so usually retreats to sentimentality or mythology).

St. Augustine makes the decisive point regarding angels and I think it is where we must begin:

Angels are spirits; although they are spirits, they are not angels [until] they are sent, [then] they become angels. For “angel” is the name of an office, not of a nature. If you seek the name of this nature, it is spirit; it is “angel” from what it does.

The word “angel” means “messenger.” So, to use the word “angel” is not to name the nature of these heavenly beings. It names what they do. The word “angel” names an office not a nature. And this office of angels is what Scripture is primarily interested in. Scripture is not interested (so much!) in giving us instruction on the nature of heaven and the angels, but in the action of angels.

Hebrews 1:14 is the passage Augustine is drawing on: “Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

The angels have no world of their own. They were created (just as heaven was) for the sake of our world. They are ministering spirits that serve the purpose of the world’s salvation. They are witnesses. This is our calling, too. This is why we pray that God’s will be done on earth as it already is being done in heaven among the angels. Angels bear witness to the message of God. The “message of God” is another way of naming Jesus of Nazareth. He is God’s message.

In this way we can see that just as Jesus is the “chief apostle,” he is also the “chief angel.” He is the First and Primary Messenger who is himself the Message.

Heaven is not the world that angels are concerned with. Heaven is the place within creation that God has created from which he acts in and for the earth. Heaven is the place God comes from when he comes to the earth. As Isaiah prayed, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!”

When God acts in the world he always comes from heaven. And this is the beginning of a true theology of angels: whenever God is poised to act in the world from heaven, it is the angels who are there (here!) opening up space on earth for God’s will to be done just as it is in heaven.

And we can locate this action every Sunday. We can point to the bread and wine on the table, to the preacher’s lips proclaiming the gospel, to the open page of Scripture, to the baptismal font, and to the brothers and sisters gathered and locate heaven. Here is the place God has promised that he will “rend the heavens and come down” (Robert Jenson).

As Martin Luther put it:

Go to the place where the Word is spoken and the sacraments ministered, and there set up the title “The Gate of Heaven.”

This is what angels do.

Or in the language of the book of Hebrews, when we gather together as a very mundane and ordinary group of people and do these very mundane and ordinary things like preach the Word and consume bread and wine, we have not come to something that can be touched, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering…”

Amen.

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