This is the 9th of the 10 systems you will find in most systematic theology texts. Angelology is the study of angels and demons. There has been a big uptick and interest in the spiritual realm with the Charismatic movement and books like Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness and movies like The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Peretti had an influence on me as he indirectly was the one who got me interested in sword fighting as a whole. A mission group that I was part of was influenced by Peretti and did a spiritual warfare skit about what goes on behind the scenes in evangelism in a very Peretti-like manner. That skit had a profound influence on me, and I have been hooked on sword fights ever since. My book Call to Arms came out of all that.
To make it clear, angels and demons are real, but there are dangers as C.S. Lewis warned about in his Screwtape Letters. There are two equal and opposite dangers to dealing with angels and demons. One is to ignore them, and the other is to over-emphasize them. I will say that most demonic possessions do not do what “Emily Rose” deals with. About 15 years ago, I’d watch a show called “Haunted” and it primarily explored the ministry of Ed and Loraine Warren, who were controversial exorcists. Of course, this show rarely showed the true solutions to demonic activity, which is the Gospel of Christ, but as I have personally dealt with the demonic and heard many stories dealing with the demonic, I can state with high certainty that every person will confront them in some way. Some may not recognize it, but they will deal with it.
The Charismatics often go too far with their studies of the demonic and angelic realms. While there is a legitimate hierarchy of angels and demons, some take that to an extreme. Jim Osman is a Cessationist and the pastor over Justin Peters. On American Gospel TV, he did a series on spiritual warfare and showcased how some of the Charismatics go too far, going to climb mountains to renounce the “spirit of that region” and other strange things. However, I think he goes too far on the other side and denies the whole aspect of demons ruling over regions because of the extremes. He even makes a comment that our spiritual warfare is ultimately only against false teachings, not against demons, and in doing so he misses a big part of Ephesians 6:12, which explicitly marks the demonic realm as one of our enemies.
On the flip side, I sat through a sermon about 2 ½ years ago from the pastor’s wife about “angels” that she ultimately got while on the plane sitting next to another Charismatic preacher. The sermon started out with describing angels and their roles, but then it went downhill fast, basically having angels being our servants waiting for us to give the command to go serve them. It was borderline heresy. So, both extremes are seen today, and few know how to balance the right approach to the angelic and the demonic. I’m not about to say I have it figured out myself, but I’m at least going to try.
As with every other systematic theology theme, this one also ties back to origins. Job describes how the angels witnessed the creation of the universe. There are old earthers who use this verse to suggest that the earth had a long past and that Lucifer ruled over it until he rebelled. Then God destroyed the earth with water and started from scratch with the six days of creation. This is the “Gap/Ruination” theory. A variation of this is “Young Biosphere Creation,” which isn’t any better. Both of these theories put a massive time gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:3 all because the geology states “4.6 billion years.” Yet, within that geology are fossils of once-living things that completely refute the entire notion. And even under the Ruination theory, the “flood” that wiped out Lucifer’s reign left no evidence whatsoever, so there is no way to support it.
We don’t know when God created the angels, only that he created them prior to the physical universe according to Job. As Genesis marks the beginning of time, and considering that the angels are created beings that had a start time, I personally have good reason to suggest they were part of the creation of Day 1. On Day 1, we have water and light, but there is no mention of when angels were created. Some might make an argument that they were created on Day 4 because of how angels are often describes as stars such as in Revelation 12. The ultimate answer to when angels were created is that we don’t know.
What we do know, however, is that they had to be created sometime between the start of Day 1 and the end of Day 6. Only God existed prior to Day 1 and upon the completion of Day 6, everything was done and completed. We also know that Lucifer’s fall could not have happened prior to Day 6 because the creation was complete and God called it “very good.” But we know from Isaiah and Ezekiel that at some point, Lucifer, the brightest of the angels, known as the worship leader of heaven, got proud and thought he deserved worship himself. Personally, I think part of this came out of God creating man to be made in His image and being the focus of God’s grand plan. Lucifer was not going to be the center of attention; that puny human being was going to be. Somehow, angels had free will too. But unlike man, the angels who rebelled against God have no place for redemption. Jesus’ death was for men, not the angels. The ones who joined Lucifer in his rebellion will be cast into the judgment that they are all well aware of as noted when they tried to identify Jesus before He wanted to be known.
Jesus defeated Satan at the cross and crushed his power. He is a defeated foe, but that does not mean he is not still fighting. Many battles have been fought after the war formally ended because word did not get out. Likewise, Satan doesn’t acknowledge his defeat as long as we don’t acknowledge it. And he is not behind every temptation either. He is not God’s equal. He is a master plotter and strategist and a master observer, so he knows well how to get to us and what kind of lies we’ll believe and which ones we won’t. We will never outwit him. But if we trust in the Lord, God will outwit him, and we’ll get to watch him made the fool for trying to stop us.
The angels are God’s messengers and more. Some are warriors, some are messengers, some are worshipers and I’m not going to go into great detail on that. They long to see how God will deal with us and when one of us repents and comes into the Kingdom, they rejoice. And they outnumber the demons 2-1. So, we need not fear the demonic. We should not take them lightly, but we should not let them hinder us.
Next week, we’ll look at eschatology, the end times.
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