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2011-08-18T13:24:00.002-04:00

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Religiously Incorrect

Huh?

2010-11-20T07:04:00.002-05:00

From The Guardian in Trinidad and Tobago:

Panic broke out at the Moruga Composite School yesterday as 17 female students fell mysteriously ill and began rolling on the ground, hissing and blabbering in a strange tongue, after suffering bouts of nausea and headaches. Two of the students reportedly tried to throw themselves off a railing and had to be physically restrained, triggering fears of a possible demon attack. The drama started during the lunch hour in the Form One block and quickly spread to other areas. Form Five student Kern Mollineau, who attends the Lighthouse Tabernacle Church, said he got worried when the girls’ eyes began rolling up in their heads and they began beating up on the ground.
With the assistance of several other students and teachers, the pupils were taken to the multi-purpose hall where some of them fell into a semi-conscious state. Mollineau recalled: “One girl was blabbering as if in a strange language. I could not understand what she was saying. “It was sounding like ‘shebbaberbebeb shhhhee.’ The girls were unusually strong. We had to hold them down so that they will not hurt themselves. “The teachers were right there. I get a kick in my face when one of the girls started beating up on the floor. Many of them had bruises.” Mollineau claimed he actually communicated with the “devil which had possessed the girl. “I asked the Devil what he wanted with the girls and the voice said he wanted a life. He kept saying to send the girls in the toilet and to leave them alone,” Mollineau claimed.

Roman Catholic priests, as well as pastors from nearby churches, including Josephine Charles, Deborah Charles and Pastor Gordon, visited the school and began showering the children with holy water and prayers. Two more students, Kriston Mollineau and Kishon Bethel, said they too were called by teachers to assist the ill girls. Kriston said the girls complained of headaches and some of them wanted to go to the toilet. Six ambulances arrived at the school accompanied by police teams from the Moruga and St Mary’s Police Post. A party of fire officers from the Princes Town Fire Station, led by acting Assistant Divisional Fire Officer Ramdeo Boodoo visited the school and began conducting several tests on the surroundings to determine the cause of the problem.

Boodoo said there was nothing in the environment to trigger fainting spells, nausea and headaches. A teacher, who requested anonymity, said two weeks ago an Orisha woman came to the school and had a dispute with a member of staff. He said following the dispute, the woman threatened to deal with the school administration. Another teacher said the school was built on a burial site, but neighbours who live around the school denied that was so. A source at the school confirmed that all 17 pupils were taken to the Princes Town Health Facility where they were medically examined. The other students were sent home at 2 pm.

Responding yesterday, Minister in the Ministry of Education Clifton de Coteau said he was aware that pupils had to be taken for medical attention. De Coteau said Student Support Service officials were sent to the school and students were expected to receive counselling. A statement from the Ministry of Education said the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) made maxi taxis available to the school to assist the Office for Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) which provided additional ambulances.

Matthew Cochrane, Guest Blog: Book Review: Fingerprints of the Gods

2010-02-15T18:49:00.022-05:00

Fingerprints of the Gods

By Graham Hancock/Three Rivers Press

In his fascinating book, Fingerprints of the Gods, Graham Hancock details his travels around the world studying ancient civilizations, focusing primarily on Central and South America and Egypt. Approaching mankind’s history like a giant jigsaw puzzle, Hancock makes, what seems at first glance, two seemingly outrageous claims: 1) A civilization much more advanced technologically and culturally than our own existed thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, years ago before perishing in a series of cataclysmic natural disasters; and 2) This civilization left warning signs around the world to prepare us for more forthcoming disasters.

To support his first claim, Hancock makes a compelling case. He uses, in turn, archeological, historical, and scientific evidence, forcing readers to challenge their preconceived notions of history and the evolution of human civilization. This premise takes up the vast majority of Hancock’s massive tome, as he slowly and carefully reveals the evidence for his bold assertion. Unfortunately, Hancock makes the case for his second claim much more boldly and sloppily, resorting to a foundation built on more opinion and speculation than facts and evidence.

Hancock begins the book a bit oddly. Without any introduction whatsoever, he begins discussing the Piri Reis Map, a map made in Constantinople in 1513 derived from other, earlier, sources. Hancock quickly notes several peculiarities about this early map, not the least of which is that the Piri Reis Map accurately depicts the coastline of Antarctica more than 300 years before the frozen continent was allegedly discovered. He also explains that part of the coastline illustrated in the map had not been in an ice-free condition since approximately 4000 BC according to the all of the geological evidence. Hancock writes:

In other words, the true enigma of this 1513 map is not so much its inclusion of a continent not discovered until 1818 but its portrayal of part of the coastline of that continent under ice-free conditions which came to an end 6000 years ago and have not since recurred.

It is here Hancock first introduces us to Professor Hapgood’s “earth crust displacement” theory. Endorsed by Albert Einstein, Hapgood was a professor at Keene College and believed the whole outer crust of the earth can undergo massive shifts around the earth’s core “much as the skin of an orange, if it were loose, might shift over the inner part of the orange all in one piece.” I can neither competently endorse nor criticize this geological theory but the fact Einstein endorsed it seems to lend it some credence. Hancock then proposes that Antarctica’s coastlines might not have been covered by ice thousands of years ago, when the sources of the Piri Reis Map were originally made because it might not have sat on the earth’s South Pole. This would account for the coastlines being ice-free, allowing the cartographers to accurate map the continent’s geological coastline.

After a few brief chapters on Hapgood’s earth crust displacement theory and Antarctica, Hancock largely ignores both subjects for four hundred pages before picking them up again near the book’s conclusion. While he does eventually tie everything together, this originally leaves the reader confused as to why he began his book this way.

It is after these chapters, however, that Hancock assumes the first-person narrative style of his travels and the pace of the book picks up and goes from interesting to fascinating. Beginning in South America, Hancock explores archeological artifacts that seem to point to one conclusion: ancient civilizations, of which we know little to nothing about, possessed vast and sophisticated scientific knowledge.

The first of these phenomena Hancock explores are the famous Nazca lines. The Nazca plateau in southern Peru is a desolate, unwelcoming place. The only thing making this plateau memorable is a series of drawings – on a massive, epic scale. How large are they? Hancock answers:

None of the designs is small enough to be seen from ground level, where they appear merely as a series of ruts in the desert. They show their true form only when seen from an altitude of several hundred feet. There is no elevation nearby that provides such a vantage point.

The drawings include geometrical shapes (where some of the lines extend for miles) and pictures of animals and humans. In fact, some of the drawings are more remarkable for their precision and attention to detail than they are for their sheer size. Hancock writes:

…let us note that the Nazca spider also accurately depicts a member of a known spider genus – Rinuculei. This, as it happens, is one of the rarest spider genera in the world, so rare indeed that it has only been found in remote and inaccessible parts of the Amazon rainforest. How did the supposedly primitive Nazcan artists travel so far from their homeland, crossing the formidable barrier of the Andes, to obtain a specimen? More to the point, why should they have wanted to do such a thing and how were they able to duplicate minute details of Ricinuclei’s anatomy normally visible only under a microscope…?

Hancock relates several other places of interest in the lower American continent. For instance, a sculpture from the Olmec site of La Venta very clearly shows a man seated and driving what can only be described as some sort of vehicular or mechanical device. Through it all, Hancock points to what might be deemed clues, but not cold hard proof, that a great civilization was lost deep in the annals of history.

The best part of the book, however, deals with Egypt and the great pyramids. Personally, I always imagined the pyramids were such a big deal because of their sheer size. Other than that, I never gave them much thought. After reading Fingerprints, though, I now realize that their size is just about their least significant characteristic. As he does with most of his subject matter, Hancock questions the conventional wisdom concerning the pyramids. He questions who built them, how they were built, how long it took to build them, how old they were, and even why they were originally built. Explaining some of these issues, Hancock writes:

It wasn’t just the tens of thousands of blocks weighing 15 tons or more that the builders would have had to worry about. Year in, year out, the real crises would have been caused by the millions of “average-sized” blocks, weighing say 2.5 tons, that also had to be brought to the working plane. The Pyramid has been reliably estimated to consist of a total of 2.3 million blocks. Assuming that the masons worked ten hours a day, 365 days a year, the mathematics indicate that they would have needed to place 31 blocks in position every hour (about one block every two minutes) to complete the Pyramid in twenty years. Assuming that construction work had been confined to the annual three-month lay-off, the problems multiplied: four blocks a minute would have to be delivered, about 240 every hour.

It is impossible to comment on all the mysteries Hancock reveals to his readers in the space provided here. Needless to say, I have whole new respect for the precision and scope of the pyramids then I ever had before. Throughout his book, Hancock also compares remarkably similar legends shared by different cultures he encountered throughout his journey. He believes (as do I) the similarities of these legends points to one common civilization all cultures share in their history. Some of these legends are familiar to all, like ancient accounts of a worldwide flood made famous in Genesis.

Something also needs to be said, here, of Hancock’s writing style, which, I suspect, most readers will either love or hate. For most of the book Hancock resorts to a first-person narrative, describing his clues for an advanced ancient civilization as he travels to and explores the pertinent locales. At some points, this sort of narrative soars. For instance, while Hancock illegally scaled the exterior of the Great Pyramid in Egypt, he simultaneously talks about the Pyramid’s stones. His first-person narrative of scaling these same stones added a lot of perspective and detail to the text. At other points, this writing style seemingly falls flat. For example, in another place in the book, he attempts to tell a humorous anecdote of being discovered by Japanese tourists as he climbed into a coffin to gain a different perspective. While this might have been amusing in a shorter book, in this 500+ page tome, it feels more tedious than anything else.

Hancock also displays a maddening habit of leaving his readers with more questions than answers. For instance, while discussing the complex Mayan calendar produced, by all other standards, a rather crude and simple civilization he writes:

So how come the Maya got handy with big periods like hundreds of millions of years? Was it a freak of cultural development? Or did they inherit the calendrical and mathematical tools which facilitated, and enabled them to develop, this sophisticated understanding? If an inheritance was involved, it is legitimate to ask what the original inventors of the Mayan calendar’s computerlike circuitry had intended it to do. What was it designed for? Had they simply conceived of all its complexities to concoct “a challenge to the intellect, a sort of tremendous anagram,” as one authority claimed? Or could they have had a more pragmatic and important objective in mind?

This might be inevitable considering the subject matter but I found myself constantly wishing for more concrete answers than Hancock provides.

Indeed, for such a long book most of my criticism centers on it not being long enough. Hancock ambitiously bites off a lot and sometimes fails to thoroughly cover all of his bases. When questioning orthodox scholarship on any particular question he usually handles the argument well, explaining why mainstream scholarship accepts a certain position and why he disagrees. In these instances, Hancock rarely fails to make a compelling case. In more than a few instances, however, Hancock states what orthodox scholarship believes on a certain topic but fails to disclose why they believe this. In these cases, it is impossible to judge Hancock’s arguments based on the merits of the case.

Hancock concludes his book by coming full circle. He reveals his belief that an ancient civilization existed on the continent of Antarctica and that it was essentially destroyed when the earth’s crust shifted and placed the continent on the earth’s South Pole. There were a few survivors, however, who managed to pass on their knowledge to other civilizations, like Egypt and places in Central and South America. Hancock believes this explains why these cultures have so many common traditions and legends (e.g. a cataclysmic worldwide flood).

Furthermore, Hancock believes that within the Pyramids and other devices (e.g. the Mayan calendar), are complex codes meant to be deciphered by future advanced civilizations such as ourselves. These codes, Hancock believes, spell out when the next great crust displacement is to take place, giving us warning. Most of these conclusions are based on bold speculations, not facts, so I don’t want to criticize Hancock too much for thinking outside of the box. These warnings don’t seem to do us much good, however, as Hancock proposes we do little more than set up safe havens that would hopefully survive the next great crust displacement.

Overall, Hancock’s book is fascinating. He explores several ancient cultures and civilizations, opening up a world previously unknown to millions of readers (myself included). While the book is initially hard to get into and hits a few tedious spots along the way, for the most part, Hancock holds the reader’s attention while relating fascinating mysteries of the ancient world.

Matthew Cochrane works in law enforcement in South Florida. He blogs regularly at Not Conformed Thoughts where, according to his legions of admiring fans, he keeps busy making up a “bunch of bull crap rules.” He then uses those rules as “excuses” to delete comments he doesn’t like. Those who don’t know him say he is a weak person who “probably” has got some “real issues.” He is also widely known by those who have never met him to be immature with no sense of humor. In his spare time he is a contributing editor at Conservative 21, a website dedicate to defending conservative ideals and principles.

Halloween and Reformation Day Special: Summoning the Spirits of Reformed Theology

2009-10-31T17:15:00.009-04:00

As the manager of a blog that looks at paranormal phenomena from a reformed theological point of view, October 31 is an especially exciting day because, not only is today Halloween, it is also Reformation Day!

To celebrate the conglomeration of these two great holidays I have decided to fuse these two events in a way that only this blog can do. Every year I am going to conjure the great spirits of reformed theology.

This year I have summoned the spirit of B. B. Warfield. Warfield was a few hundred years too late to be considered a reformer, but he was definitely a giant of reformed theology in his time. In 1887 Warfield was appointed to the Charles Hodge Chair at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he succeeded Hodge's son A. A. Hodge. Warfield remained there until his death in 1921. As the last conservative successor to Hodge to live prior to the re-organization of Princeton Seminary, Warfield is often regarded as the last of the Princeton Theologians. On a personal note, B. B. Warfield is also in my family tree - my great, great, great-grandfather's cousin - or something like that.

The following is his essay The Angels of Christ's Little Ones and can be found in his Selected Shorter Writings:

In the midst of one of our Lord's most significant discourses, there occurs, as recorded by Matthew, this warning: “See and despise not one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in the heavens look ever on the face of my Father who is in the heavens.” So, at least, Mr. James Moffatt renders it, with perhaps unnecessary literality, in his Historical New Testament. The authors of the Twentieth Century New Testament present it in this form: “Beware of despising one of these lowly ones, for in Heaven, I tell you, their angels always see the face of my heavenly Father.” Perhaps the emphases of the saying may be brought out by some such rendering as this: “See that ye despise not a single one of these little ones; for I say unto you that it is the angels that belong to them, which in the heavens continually behold the face of my Father which is in the heavens.” It is a passage, which, in the familiar form given it in our common version, is much upon our lips. But it is one of those passages which it is easier to repeat as a whole than to explain in detail. And it may be doubted whether we always pause before we make use of it, to ask whether we are employing it in the exact sense our Lord intended to be put upon it. Certainly there are puzzling questions that emerge as soon as we scrutinize it with care, on the answers to be returned to which serious students are by no means agreed. Who are these “little ones,” not a single one of whom we ought to dare to despise? What is meant by their angels – their own special angels as emphatically as the combined employment of the definite article and the possessive pronoun can mark them out? What is implied by the continual looking upon the heavenly Father's face in heaven by these angels? And how does the fact that their angels continually behold the Father's face in heaven give support to the warning that we must not despise a single one of these “little ones” on earth? Every one of these questions, at least, must receive a distinct reply before we can attach a definite meaning to the passage. Let us make a beginning by looking somewhat closely at one of them. What is meant by “the angels of these little ones?”

The answer that has been most commonly given, at least from Origen's day, has been that “guardian” or “tutelary” angels are meant. Origen himself seems to have no doubt of it. Speaking of God's goodness to those that approach him in prayer, he remarks that not only may the angels in general be employed for their aid, “but also the angel of each, even of those who are little in the Church, always beholding the face of the Father that is in the heavens and gazing on the Godhead of him that created us, prays with us and works with us, as far as possible, for the things for which we pray.” Elsewhere he tells us that not only has each church an angel, as we are told in the Apocalypse, but each of us, down to the least in the Church of God, has his own angel, who for our support and gain continually beholds the face of the Father who is in Heaven. To the later fathers this has become an axiom. “Each one of us,” insists Chrysostom, “has an angel.” “All Christians,” declares Macarius, “at the moment of baptism, receive each, an angel from God.” The idea has become an article of faith in the Church of Rome. And it seems to be little less than an article of faith to many Protestant commentators, if we may judge by the dogmatism of their assertion of it. “The belief that every individual has a guardian angel – which is a post-Babylonian development of the Old Testament view that God exercised his care over his people through angelic instrumentality – is here confirmed by Jesus (Acts 12:15) – a point which is to be simply admitted,” and not softened by an “as it were,” as Bleek seeks to do, or the like. That is the decisive way in which Meyer expresses himself. And he has a great host in his company.

Nevertheless, this confidently held opinion is by no means free from difficulty. Certainly, for one thing, the Bible knows nothing elsewhere of this doctrine of “guardian angels.” Unless it is alluded to here and in the parallel passage (Acts 12:15) there is not a word in the whole Bible that in the remotest way suggests it. Indeed, it is not unusual for the commentators to claim a Biblical basis for it. They rather suppose our Lord here, and the early Christians reported in Acts, to adduce a popular Jewish belief, which had grown up since the close of the Old Testament canon, and the only clear traces of which in the New Testament are discoverable in just these two passages. Thus Page, commenting on the passage in Acts, remarks that “It was a popular belief among the Jews that each man had a guardian angel”; and Knowling a bit more unguardedly asserts that “According to Jewish ideas they would believe that Peter's guardian angel had assumed his form and voice and stood before the door.” It certainly is, however, on the face of it, rash to assume that our Lord took up into his teaching a popular piece of Jewish angelology like this. It is quite contrary to the general fact regarding the general relation of his teaching to such Jewish notions. Edersheim closes his interesting account of Jewish angelology in the appendix to his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, with this striking judgment: “One thing, at least, must be evident. . . . The contention of certain modern writers that the teaching about angels in the New Testament is derived from and represents Jewish notions, must be perceived to be absolutely groundless and contrary to fact. In truth, the teaching of the New Testament on the subject of angels represents, as compared with that of the rabbis, not only a return to the purity of the Old Testament teaching, but we might almost say, a new revelation.”

But beyond this, it seems exceedingly rash to assume the existence of such a popular Jewish belief in our Lord's day. There exists no proof of it. The commentators give us references enough, it is true, in support of their assumption; but the references, when turned up, do not support it. They tell us a good deal about a Jewish belief in “ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation”; but they tell us nothing of the permanent attachment of a given definite angel to a given definite individual, to be his life-long guardian. Even the classic instance – the narrative of Tobit – does not go beyond a temporary mission of ministry. The impression that this is the essence of Jewish teaching grows so strong that even when we read in Weber's excellent account of Jewish beliefs as to the personal ministry of angels, the single sentence relevant to our present investigation, that tells us that in the late rabbinical collection called the Jalkut Shimeoni, at Bereschith, 119, it is affirmed that “all Israelites have angels as companions, and that in foreign countries, as well as in the land of Israel,” we feel like suspending judgment until we can see the passage referred to. It would be very difficult for our Lord to take up into his teaching a popular Jewish notion that did not exist.

But the real difficulty of explaining these passages by the aid of the notion of “guardian angels” is that this notion does not in the least fit their requirements. Where should a “guardian angel” be, except with his ward? That is the essential idea of a “guardian angel”; he is supposed to be in the unbroken attendance upon the saint committed to his charge. But neither in Matt. 18:10, nor in Acts 12:15 are the angels spoken of found with their wards; but distinctly elsewhere. Our Lord says that the angels of the little ones of which he speaks, are not on earth with their charges, but “in heaven, constantly beholding the face of my Father who is in heaven.” It was because the Christians gathered in Mary's house could not believe it was the imprisoned Peter who was at the door, that they supposed it must be his angel. It is thus characteristic of these angels mentioned in the New Testament that they are not constantly with those whose angels they are. If “guardian angels” are intended, one wonders how it gives force to the warning that we would do well not to despise a single one of these “little ones,” to be told that their “guardian angels” are not with them but are “always in heaven, beholding the face of my Father which is in heaven.” And one wonders if Peter had a guardian angel at all, it would not be just the time when he would be supposed to be with him, when he lay languishing in prison, expectant of the worst on the morrow. Nay, one knows that God's angel – which seems something better than Peter's angel – was actually with Peter, ministering to his needs at this exact time. Mr. John Hay expresses himself with almost incredible coarseness, when he gives us to understand, in the closing lines of his pathetic ballad of “Little Breeches,” that in the view of the commonalty, angels would be in considerably “better busines” saving little children and “bringing them to their own,” than )as he phrases it) “loafing around the throne.” If we may be permitted to confine the remark specifically to “guardian angels,” whose particular function is to guide and guard the individuals whose “guardian angels” they are, it does not appear, however, but that in the essence of the matter he may be fairly right.

All these circumstances being taken into consideration, we cannot wonder that many commentators refuse to call in the notion of “guardian angels” properly so-called, and fall back on the undoubtedly Scriptural doctrine of the general employment of angels in ministering to the heirs of salvation, the great warrant for which in the New Testament is Heb. 1:14. Kubel is a good example of commentators of this class, and it may be interesting to have before us the essence of his polemic note. The definite article, along with the possessive pronoun attached to the word “angels,” he says, shows “certainly that Jesus here speaks of definite angels as charged with the care of the interests of the children of God. But,” he adds, “it does not follow from this that there are definite angels universally and permanently distributed to definite persons, especially to children, as is assumed by the theory of guardian angels. . . . Even Tobit 12:14, 15, does not go beyond the conception that one or another angel (who may be interchanged) have specially committed to them particular interests. Schanz allows that our passage does not of itself prove that 'every man has his angel,' but appeals to other indications and the teaching of many fathers. He does not say what passages gives these indications. . . . 'Their angels,' accordingly, are angels in general (certainly definite angels for definite cases) as watching our children. These, just as generally all angels, 'always behold,' etc. (cf. Luke 1:19).” With Kubel, Nosgen fully agrees, and, to go no further, our own American commentator , Dr. Broadus, argues strongly for the same general position.

Attractive as this explanation is, and plausibly argued as it has been by numerous commentators of the first rank, it nevertheless seems burdened with serious difficulties. The individualization of the angels spoken of in both passages, certainly is sufficiently emphatic to bid us pause before we neglect it. The definition of the angels of “these little ones,” in Matt. 18:10, by means of both the definite article and the possessive pronoun, is very pointed. We should scarcely misrepresent it if we translated, “The specific angels belonging to them .” And in Acts 12:15, similarly, it is specifically “Peter's angel” that is brought before us. The interpretation now under consideration does not seem to do justice to this individualization. Moreover, what, on this theory, shall we say of the implication in the passage in Acts that “Peter's angel” was recognized by the maid by his voice? “She knew Peter's voice.” Apparently the visitation was pronounced to be Peter's angel only because it seemed to be Peter. This fact presents a great difficulty even when we think of Peter's special “guardian angel”; for why should one's guardian angel be like him? Surely this necessity, if it be a necessity, must introduce searchings of heart among “guardian angels”! And if we are to think not of a “guardian angel” but only of one of God's angels sent on a special ministry of succor to Peter, the difficulty becomes insuperable. The commentators jauntily tell us, to be sure, that it was “in accordance with Jewish ideas” that it was believed that the angel had assumed Peter's form and voice; but they have neglected to quote the evidence that the Jews of that day – or of any day – had any notions of the sort. The fact assumed seems to be inferred from this passage only, supported by nothing more germane to it than the Jewish (and Biblical) teaching that angels when they appear to men assume visible forms, at their will. There is nothing in Jewish literature, so far as has appeared, to support the notion that angels on special service, look or speak like their charges. Neither does the argument in the passage in Matthew seem to be satisfied if we assume that angels in general are meant. For how is the warning for us not to despise a single one of these little ones supported by the remark that the angels which have been from time to time employed in ministering to them – as to others – along with all other angels, constantly see the face of the Father in heaven? Surely we expect something more specific to give point to so specific a caution.

This failure of what must be recognized as the simplest and most natural explanation of the phrase “their angels,” to fulfill the conditions of its use, predisposes us to hospitality towards other suggestions, even though we may have to go far afield for them. Olshausen hinted at such an explanation, when he suggested that the underlying conception is that “there lives in the world of spirit the archetype of every individual, to be realized in the course of his development,” and that “the higher consciousness which dwells in man here below, therefore, stands in living connection with the kindred phenomena of the spirit world.” Something of the same kind is suggested also by F. D. Maurice in his Unity of the New Testament. He supposes that the “angels” of little children, that is, as he explains, “are ever present with God, ever looking up into his face.” Obviously, here are reflections of the Platonic doctrine of “ideas,” which there is little in the Scriptural doctrine of angels to justify. The same general notion has, however, been taken up and given precision and unexpected attractiveness by Dr. James Hope Moulton in an interesting article in the July number of The Journal of Theological Studies. Dr. Moulton does not go to Plato for the origin of the conception which he thinks underlies our passages, but to the Persians and ultimately the Magians. The later Parsees, it seems, supposed man to be made up of no less than five elements: body, life, soul, form or image, and the fravashi. The fravashi is, it is explained, the part that abides in the presence of Ahura; it is, in a word, as Darmesteter remarks, the divine element in man, the only immortal element in his nature, by union with which alone the “soul” escapes perishing with the “body.” In the Avestan stage of Parsism, however, the fravashis appear not so much as an “inseparable part of man, the part which is hidden with God,” as angelic representatives or “doubles” of good men and perhaps of communities. Dr. Moulton supposes that the Jews picked up this notion during the exile and worked it into the complex of their own angelology. He thinks it already appears as the “princes,” representatives of the nations, in the latter part of Daniel; and again in the “angels” of the churches in Revelation. And he proposes to interpret Matt. 18:10 and Acts 12:15 out of this conception. The essence of the idea is that “the angel” is not the guardian but the representative, the “double” of the person with whom he is associated. These “representative angels” are to be conceived “as spiritual counterparts of human individuals or communities, dwelling in heaven, but subject to changes depending on the good and evil behavior of their complimentary beings on earth.”

The attractiveness of Dr. Moulton’s suggestion grows out of two circumstances. First, he is able to point to an actually existing conception, into contact with which the Jews may have come and which they may really have assimilated. And secondly, this conception does yield a fair account of the chief phenomenon of our passages, before which the common assumption that “guardian angels” are meant is helpless. If by Peter’s “angel” is meant Peter’s “double,” it is not so difficult to understand how it could have been supposed to be mistaken for himself. If by the “angels of these little ones” is meant their heavenly representatives, hidden with God, it is not difficult to understand how due reverence for these little ones could be inculcated by the revelation that just their representatives stood especially close around the Father’s throne.

Nevertheless, this new explanation seems to us beset with difficulties of its own. Primarily there is the very serious difficulty of finding traces of the Zoroastrian notion adduced in the Biblical text at all. In order to do so, Dr. Moulton sweeps together passages which on the surface appear sufficiently incongruous. The “princes” of Daniel and the “angels of the churches” in the apocalypse – what, on the face of it, have they in common with the “angels of these little ones” of Matthew and “Peter’s angel” of Acts? Assuredly, very different conceptions underlie these two pairs of passages. And these two pairs of passages are all the passages that Dr. Moulton can find to which to make appeal with any confidence. Next, Dr. Moulton has not, as yet at least, been able to adduce any direct or even plausible evidence of the intrusion of this Zoroastrian conception into Jewish or early Christian thought. The only two Christian passages he has quoted which seem possibly to show the influence of this circle of ideas, come from somewhat late Syriac documents – the Testament of the Lord and the Hymn of the Soul – in which they do not seem to represent primitive Christian ideas. Lastly, the conception proposed does not after all meet all the requirements of the passages themselves. Surely, in neither of our passages is there talk of a heavenly counterpart hidden with God, whose fortunes and destiny are determined by the conduct and issues of the earthly life of its “principal.” Rather, if we should enter this circle of ideas at all, in Matt. 18:10, it might seem to be the precise opposite that is assumed; the high state of the “angels” in heaven is the prius to which the fortunes of the “little ones” on earth shall be conformed. And why, on this theory, should Peter’s heavenly counterpart, and not rather his earthly soul, be found, clothed in his earthly semblance, knocking at an earthly door? The appearance is very strong that the only point at which Dr. Moulton’s theory fits into the requirements of the passages is the single point which the theory of “guardian angels” failed to fit – viz. It gives us “angels” who may be supposed to be in heaven and not on earth, and who may be supposed to have some resemblance (though surely not external) to their clients. Are we prepared to purchase this bit of adjustment at the cost of everything else?

There is yet another explanation which has sometimes been suggested, but which has been received with very little consideration by scholars. This is the very simple one that by “angel” in these passages is meant just “the disembodied soul. Webster and Wilkinson explain Matt. 18:10 thus. The souls of these little ones, they say in effect, when they go to heaven, stand peculiarly near the throne. Subsequent commentators have for the most part treated the suggestion with silent contempt or, if they mention it, with a contempt that is not silent. “Not their own ‘spirits after death,’ as Webster and Wilkinson strangely suppose,” is Morrison’s comment. “There have been many opinions” on this verse, says Alford, “some of which (e.g. that given by Webster and Wilkinson, ‘angels, their spirits after death’: a meaning which the word never bore – see Suicer sub voce – and one respecting which our Lord never could have spoken in the present tense, with ‘constantly’) have been broached merely to evade the plain sense of the words.” Ah! if there only were a “plain sense of the words!” Webster and Wilkinson cannot, it must be admitted, be numbered among expositors of the first rank. But possibly few will deny that position to Reuss. And he, though willing to admit the idea of tutelary angels in this passage, broaches something very like Webster and Wilkinson’s idea at Acts 12:15; only to receive, to be sure, from the hands of Barde something like the same contemptuous treatment, and from the hands of Gloag a somewhat more serious but scarcely more deferential refutation. It may be worth our while, nevertheless, to hear what Reuss has to say. “A great difficulty,” he says, “attaches to the phrase we have rendered by the words, ‘It is his spirit.’ Ordinarily, it is translated, ‘his angel.’ But that does not seem to us to yield a plausible sense. The angel of Peter should be strictly his tutelary angel, an idea not foreign to his epoch (Tobit; Matt. 18:10); but we must observe that the servant professes to have recognized Peter by his voice, and nobody has ever said that the tutelary angels imitate the voice of their clients. On the other hand, it is clear that the intention is to designate something superior to this material world, to our mode of existence, since it could not be Peter himself (in the opinion of the people present), while yet it was his voice, something that could come only from him. It is not strange, at bottom, that the same word should be employed for angel and spirit (ghost), the latter word having with us both usages.”

Assuredly, if we could dare take the word “angel” in these passages in the sense of disembodied spirit, the requirements of both passages would be satisfied. What more natural than that the Christian brethren assembled in Mary's house, when assured by the maid that Peter stood at the door, speaking with Peter's voice – though they knew him to be closely guarded in prison, or perhaps already in worse case than even this – should have sprung to the only other possible explanation of the phenomenon: “It is his spirit!” Dr. Moulton remarks, it is true: “The incredulous Christians, if they meant Peter’s ghost, must have thought of a ‘phantasm of the living,’ for there is no suggestion that they supposed he was dead without their having heard it.” But this does not seem convincing. There is every suggestion that they knew he was destined for death and feared the worst; and there is no reason why they may not have jumped to the conclusion that the worst had come and they were being only now and thus advertised of it. Many others, in every age of the world, have done this very thing. The only difficulty derived from the passage itself, that strikes us, is the occurance in the immediate contect (vs. 7 and 9) of the same word “angel” in a different sense, to wit, in the sense of “:the angel of the Lord” sent to minister to this saint. It would be ordinarily more natural to understand “It is his angel,” in verse 15, as referring to the same angel whose transactions with Peter are recorded in verses 7-10. But this consideration is weakened by the fact that the words in verse 15 are quoted words, and the scene there depicted does not presuppose in the minds of the actors in it the previous scene, but derives its whole force from the contrary assumption. In these circumstances the use of “angel” in its ordinary sense in verses 7-10 can scarcely be treated as a bar to its employment in a secondary and derived sense in verse 15.

In the passage in Matthew, nothing could seem more appropriate than the sense of “disembodied spirits.” What could so enhance the reverence with which “these little ones” - especially if literal children are meant – should be treated here than the assurance that it is specifically their souls which in heaven stand closest to the Father's throne? Alford, indeed, tells us that this sense is rendered impossible by the use of the present tense and the qualifying word “continually.” But neither does this seem convincing. We must remember that it is a class that is here spoken of: a class, some members of which are safely gathered into the heavens though others still abide on earth. Of this class it is stated that their souls find in the heavens their due station close to the Father's throne; “they continually look on the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Surely nothing could so heighten the sense of the real dignity that belongs to these little ones, whether the specially humble or the specially young be intended, than such a declaration. They may be lowly on earth; in the heavens they are lifted up.

Is it so impossible, then, that the term “angel” could come to be occasionally employed of disembodied spirits? From the general philological point of view the legitimacy of such an extension of its meaning is, of course, indisputable. Indeed, we may say such an extension was inevitable. That the term should come to be applied not only to angels properly so called, but to “persons who resemble angels either in attributes or actions,” was as certain as that it should continue in use at all. Consider what a multitude of applications it has received in English, for example. When Scott tells us that Marmion, on crossing the court, “scattered angels 'round,” it is not of “heavenly messengers” he is speaking. The specific extension we are concerned with here has also, as was inevitable, been made in our current English speech. Who of us has not been taught as a child to sing: “I want to be an angel, and with the angels stand?” Some of the elders may have shaken their heads and spoken severely of corrupting the meaning of sacred words. But the song has raised little consciousness of incongruity in the minds of the congregation. An extension so simple as the application of a term, designating spiritual beings, blessed in the heavens, enjoying close communion with God, to all beings sharing these fundamental characteristics, was sure to take place. The only question of interest is whether it can be shown actually to have taken place as early as the first Christian century. And the existence of two passages, best explained by the assumption that it had already taken place in our Lord's day, goes far to give reply to this question in the affirmative. Just on the basis of Matt. 18:10 and Acts 12:15 we might almost affirm the existence of this meaning.

Additional likelihood is given to this assumption by the existence of a natural point of departure for such an extension of the meaning for the word. Replying to an entangling question of the Saducees, our Lord declared that God's people in the resurrection “shall be as God's angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). The primary reference here is to marriage; but that the resemblance is not to be confined to this is evident from the parallel passage in Luke (20:36). There it is said that “they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage; for neither can they die anymore; for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” Here the emphasis seems to be on immortality. This revelation of the similarity of our glorified state to the state of angels supplies a very distinct point of departure for the employment of the term “angels” to designate our future condition. We cannot be surprised, therefore, to find this step actually taken in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, where we read, “Blessed are they that fear God, for they shall become angels of God.” Here there is, moreover, no direct reference to the resurrection, though naturally it is the fruition of the Messianic blessings that is in mind. The main point, however, is that the blessed estate of the children of God is no longer conceived merely as like that of angels, but as the angelic state itself. Nor do we lack further proof that this mode of thought and speech was current in the days of our Lord. Both in the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, coming from pre-Christian Jewish hands, and in the Apocalypse of Baruch, coming from post-Christian Jewish hands, we meet essentially the same conception. In Enoch we read that the righteous are all “to become angels in heaven”; and in the Apocalypse of Baruch that they shall be “transformed into the splendor of angels,” and even (li. 12) shall “surpass the excellency of angels.” On the passage in Enoch Charles comments: “This is not to be weakened down into a mere likeness to the angels. At least it denotes an equality with them.” His whole note should be read. It is not quite exact to say with Alford, then, that to attribute to the word “angels” the sense of “spirits of righteous men after death” is to give it “a meaning which the word never bore.” The righteous in their eternal state are spoken of as “angels” in both Jewish and early Christian documents. And it is not the least of the circumstances commending this interpretation of our passages to our best consideration that it proposes to explain them out of a conception demonstrably current in the days of our Lord.

It is perhaps unwise to draw conclusions too definite from such a survey. There has been suggested no explanation of these two unique phrases - “the angels of these little ones” and “Peter's angel” - which has not difficulties in its way. Possibly it may be found, however, that the interpretation which sees in them designations of disembodied spirits, despite the scorn with which this suggestion has ordinarily been treated, has more to say for itself and fewer difficulties to face than any other. It satisfies all the conditions of the passages themselves – which cannot be said of any of its rivals. It is rooted in a natural extension of the common meaning of the term employed. And it presupposes no conceptions which cannot be shown to have existed in the circles out of which Christianity arose – which again cannot be said of its chief rivals. Perhaps that is as much as we should ask before we give it our preference.

"The Angels of Christ's Little Ones" by B. B. Warfield

2009-10-31T16:15:00.002-04:00

In 1887 B. B. Warfield was appointed to the Charles Hodge Chair at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he succeeded Hodge's son A. A. Hodge. Warfield remained there until his death in 1921. As the last conservative successor to Hodge to live prior to the re-organization of Princeton Seminary, Warfield is often regarded as the last of the Princeton Theologians. Born too late to be one of the church's great reformers, Warfield is a giant in reformed theology and his works have influenced millions.

The following is his essay The Angels of Christ's Little Ones and can be found in his Selected Shorter Writings:

In the midst of one of our Lord's most significant discourses, there occurs, as recorded by Matthew, this warning: “See and despise not one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in the heavens look ever on the face of my Father who is in the heavens.” So, at least, Mr. James Moffatt renders it, with perhaps unnecessary literality, in his Historical New Testament. The authors of the Twentieth Century New Testament present it in this form: “Beware of despising one of these lowly ones, for in Heaven, I tell you, their angels always see the face of my heavenly Father.” Perhaps the emphases of the saying may be brought out by some such rendering as this: “See that ye despise not a single one of these little ones; for I say unto you that it is the angels that belong to them, which in the heavens continually behold the face of my Father which is in the heavens.” It is a passage, which, in the familiar form given it in our common version, is much upon our lips. But it is one of those passages which it is easier to repeat as a whole than to explain in detail. And it may be doubted whether we always pause before we make use of it, to ask whether we are employing it in the exact sense our Lord intended to be put upon it. Certainly there are puzzling questions that emerge as soon as we scrutinize it with care, on the answers to be returned to which serious students are by no means agreed. Who are these “little ones,” not a single one of whom we ought to dare to despise? What is meant by their angels – their own special angels as emphatically as the combined employment of the definite article and the possessive pronoun can mark them out? What is implied by the continual looking upon the heavenly Father's face in heaven by these angels? And how does the fact that their angels continually behold the Father's face in heaven give support to the warning that we must not despise a single one of these “little ones” on earth? Every one of these questions, at least, must receive a distinct reply before we can attach a definite meaning to the passage. Let us make a beginning by looking somewhat closely at one of them. What is meant by “the angels of these little ones?”

The answer that has been most commonly given, at least from Origen's day, has been that “guardian” or “tutelary” angels are meant. Origen himself seems to have no doubt of it. Speaking of God's goodness to those that approach him in prayer, he remarks that not only may the angels in general be employed for their aid, “but also the angel of each, even of those who are little in the Church, always beholding the face of the Father that is in the heavens and gazing on the Godhead of him that created us, prays with us and works with us, as far as possible, for the things for which we pray.” Elsewhere he tells us that not only has each church an angel, as we are told in the Apocalypse, but each of us, down to the least in the Church of God, has his own angel, who for our support and gain continually beholds the face of the Father who is in Heaven. To the later fathers this has become an axiom. “Each one of us,” insists Chrysostom, “has an angel.” “All Christians,” declares Macarius, “at the moment of baptism, receive each, an angel from God.” The idea has become an article of faith in the Church of Rome. And it seems to be little less than an article of faith to many Protestant commentators, if we may judge by the dogmatism of their assertion of it. “The belief that every individual has a guardian angel – which is a post-Babylonian development of the Old Testament view that God exercised his care over his people through angelic instrumentality – is here confirmed by Jesus (Acts 12:15) – a point which is to be simply admitted,” and not softened by an “as it were,” as Bleek seeks to do, or the like. That is the decisive way in which Meyer expresses himself. And he has a great host in his company.

Nevertheless, this confidently held opinion is by no means free from difficulty. Certainly, for one thing, the Bible knows nothing elsewhere of this doctrine of “guardian angels.” Unless it is alluded to here and in the parallel passage (Acts 12:15) there is not a word in the whole Bible that in the remotest way suggests it. Indeed, it is not unusual for the commentators to claim a Biblical basis for it. They rather suppose our Lord here, and the early Christians reported in Acts, to adduce a popular Jewish belief, which had grown up since the close of the Old Testament canon, and the only clear traces of which in the New Testament are discoverable in just these two passages. Thus Page, commenting on the passage in Acts, remarks that “It was a popular belief among the Jews that each man had a guardian angel”; and Knowling a bit more unguardedly asserts that “According to Jewish ideas they would believe that Peter's guardian angel had assumed his form and voice and stood before the door.” It certainly is, however, on the face of it, rash to assume that our Lord took up into his teaching a popular piece of Jewish angelology like this. It is quite contrary to the general fact regarding the general relation of his teaching to such Jewish notions. Edersheim closes his interesting account of Jewish angelology in the appendix to his Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, with this striking judgment: “One thing, at least, must be evident. . . . The contention of certain modern writers that the teaching about angels in the New Testament is derived from and represents Jewish notions, must be perceived to be absolutely groundless and contrary to fact. In truth, the teaching of the New Testament on the subject of angels represents, as compared with that of the rabbis, not only a return to the purity of the Old Testament teaching, but we might almost say, a new revelation.”

But beyond this, it seems exceedingly rash to assume the existence of such a popular Jewish belief in our Lord's day. There exists no proof of it. The commentators give us references enough, it is true, in support of their assumption; but the references, when turned up, do not support it. They tell us a good deal about a Jewish belief in “ministering spirits sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation”; but they tell us nothing of the permanent attachment of a given definite angel to a given definite individual, to be his life-long guardian. Even the classic instance – the narrative of Tobit – does not go beyond a temporary mission of ministry. The impression that this is the essence of Jewish teaching grows so strong that even when we read in Weber's excellent account of Jewish beliefs as to the personal ministry of angels, the single sentence relevant to our present investigation, that tells us that in the late rabbinical collection called the Jalkut Shimeoni, at Bereschith, 119, it is affirmed that “all Israelites have angels as companions, and that in foreign countries, as well as in the land of Israel,” we feel like suspending judgment until we can see the passage referred to. It would be very difficult for our Lord to take up into his teaching a popular Jewish notion that did not exist.

But the real difficulty of explaining these passages by the aid of the notion of “guardian angels” is that this notion does not in the least fit their requirements. Where should a “guardian angel” be, except with his ward? That is the essential idea of a “guardian angel”; he is supposed to be in the unbroken attendance upon the saint committed to his charge. But neither in Matt. 18:10, nor in Acts 12:15 are the angels spoken of found with their wards; but distinctly elsewhere. Our Lord says that the angels of the little ones of which he speaks, are not on earth with their charges, but “in heaven, constantly beholding the face of my Father who is in heaven.” It was because the Christians gathered in Mary's house could not believe it was the imprisoned Peter who was at the door, that they supposed it must be his angel. It is thus characteristic of these angels mentioned in the New Testament that they are not constantly with those whose angels they are. If “guardian angels” are intended, one wonders how it gives force to the warning that we would do well not to despise a single one of these “little ones,” to be told that their “guardian angels” are not with them but are “always in heaven, beholding the face of my Father which is in heaven.” And one wonders if Peter had a guardian angel at all, it would not be just the time when he would be supposed to be with him, when he lay languishing in prison, expectant of the worst on the morrow. Nay, one knows that God's angel – which seems something better than Peter's angel – was actually with Peter, ministering to his needs at this exact time. Mr. John Hay expresses himself with almost incredible coarseness, when he gives us to understand, in the closing lines of his pathetic ballad of “Little Breeches,” that in the view of the commonalty, angels would be in considerably “better busines” saving little children and “bringing them to their own,” than )as he phrases it) “loafing around the throne.” If we may be permitted to confine the remark specifically to “guardian angels,” whose particular function is to guide and guard the individuals whose “guardian angels” they are, it does not appear, however, but that in the essence of the matter he may be fairly right.

All these circumstances being taken into consideration, we cannot wonder that many commentators refuse to call in the notion of “guardian angels” properly so-called, and fall back on the undoubtedly Scriptural doctrine of the general employment of angels in ministering to the heirs of salvation, the great warrant for which in the New Testament is Heb. 1:14. Kubel is a good example of commentators of this class, and it may be interesting to have before us the essence of his polemic note. The definite article, along with the possessive pronoun attached to the word “angels,” he says, shows “certainly that Jesus here speaks of definite angels as charged with the care of the interests of the children of God. But,” he adds, “it does not follow from this that there are definite angels universally and permanently distributed to definite persons, especially to children, as is assumed by the theory of guardian angels. . . . Even Tobit 12:14, 15, does not go beyond the conception that one or another angel (who may be interchanged) have specially committed to them particular interests. Schanz allows that our passage does not of itself prove that 'every man has his angel,' but appeals to other indications and the teaching of many fathers. He does not say what passages gives these indications. . . . 'Their angels,' accordingly, are angels in general (certainly definite angels for definite cases) as watching our children. These, just as generally all angels, 'always behold,' etc. (cf. Luke 1:19).” With Kubel, Nosgen fully agrees, and, to go no further, our own American commentator , Dr. Broadus, argues strongly for the same general position.

Attractive as this explanation is, and plausibly argued as it has been by numerous commentators of the first rank, it nevertheless seems burdened with serious difficulties. The individualization of the angels spoken of in both passages, certainly is sufficiently emphatic to bid us pause before we neglect it. The definition of the angels of “these little ones,” in Matt. 18:10, by means of both the definite article and the possessive pronoun, is very pointed. We should scarcely misrepresent it if we translated, “The specific angels belonging to them .” And in Acts 12:15, similarly, it is specifically “Peter's angel” that is brought before us. The interpretation now under consideration does not seem to do justice to this individualization. Moreover, what, on this theory, shall we say of the implication in the passage in Acts that “Peter's angel” was recognized by the maid by his voice? “She knew Peter's voice.” Apparently the visitation was pronounced to be Peter's angel only because it seemed to be Peter. This fact presents a great difficulty even when we think of Peter's special “guardian angel”; for why should one's guardian angel be like him? Surely this necessity, if it be a necessity, must introduce searchings of heart among “guardian angels”! And if we are to think not of a “guardian angel” but only of one of God's angels sent on a special ministry of succor to Peter, the difficulty becomes insuperable. The commentators jauntily tell us, to be sure, that it was “in accordance with Jewish ideas” that it was believed that the angel had assumed Peter's form and voice; but they have neglected to quote the evidence that the Jews of that day – or of any day – had any notions of the sort. The fact assumed seems to be inferred from this passage only, supported by nothing more germane to it than the Jewish (and Biblical) teaching that angels when they appear to men assume visible forms, at their will. There is nothing in Jewish literature, so far as has appeared, to support the notion that angels on special service, look or speak like their charges. Neither does the argument in the passage in Matthew seem to be satisfied if we assume that angels in general are meant. For how is the warning for us not to despise a single one of these little ones supported by the remark that the angels which have been from time to time employed in ministering to them – as to others – along with all other angels, constantly see the face of the Father in heaven? Surely we expect something more specific to give point to so specific a caution.

This failure of what must be recognized as the simplest and most natural explanation of the phrase “their angels,” to fulfill the conditions of its use, predisposes us to hospitality towards other suggestions, even though we may have to go far afield for them. Olshausen hinted at such an explanation, when he suggested that the underlying conception is that “there lives in the world of spirit the archetype of every individual, to be realized in the course of his development,” and that “the higher consciousness which dwells in man here below, therefore, stands in living connection with the kindred phenomena of the spirit world.” Something of the same kind is suggested also by F. D. Maurice in his Unity of the New Testament. He supposes that the “angels” of little children, that is, as he explains, “are ever present with God, ever looking up into his face.” Obviously, here are reflections of the Platonic doctrine of “ideas,” which there is little in the Scriptural doctrine of angels to justify. The same general notion has, however, been taken up and given precision and unexpected attractiveness by Dr. James Hope Moulton in an interesting article in the July number of The Journal of Theological Studies. Dr. Moulton does not go to Plato for the origin of the conception which he thinks underlies our passages, but to the Persians and ultimately the Magians. The later Parsees, it seems, supposed man to be made up of no less than five elements: body, life, soul, form or image, and the fravashi. The fravashi is, it is explained, the part that abides in the presence of Ahura; it is, in a word, as Darmesteter remarks, the divine element in man, the only immortal element in his nature, by union with which alone the “soul” escapes perishing with the “body.” In the Avestan stage of Parsism, however, the fravashis appear not so much as an “inseparable part of man, the part which is hidden with God,” as angelic representatives or “doubles” of good men and perhaps of communities. Dr. Moulton supposes that the Jews picked up this notion during the exile and worked it into the complex of their own angelology. He thinks it already appears as the “princes,” representatives of the nations, in the latter part of Daniel; and again in the “angels” of the churches in Revelation. And he proposes to interpret Matt. 18:10 and Acts 12:15 out of this conception. The essence of the idea is that “the angel” is not the guardian but the representative, the “double” of the person with whom he is associated. These “representative angels” are to be conceived “as spiritual counterparts of human individuals or communities, dwelling in heaven, but subject to changes depending on the good and evil behavior of their complimentary beings on earth.”

The attractiveness of Dr. Moulton’s suggestion grows out of two circumstances. First, he is able to point to an actually existing conception, into contact with which the Jews may have come and which they may really have assimilated. And secondly, this conception does yield a fair account of the chief phenomenon of our passages, before which the common assumption that “guardian angels” are meant is helpless. If by Peter’s “angel” is meant Peter’s “double,” it is not so difficult to understand how it could have been supposed to be mistaken for himself. If by the “angels of these little ones” is meant their heavenly representatives, hidden with God, it is not difficult to understand how due reverence for these little ones could be inculcated by the revelation that just their representatives stood especially close around the Father’s throne.

Nevertheless, this new explanation seems to us beset with difficulties of its own. Primarily there is the very serious difficulty of finding traces of the Zoroastrian notion adduced in the Biblical text at all. In order to do so, Dr. Moulton sweeps together passages which on the surface appear sufficiently incongruous. The “princes” of Daniel and the “angels of the churches” in the apocalypse – what, on the face of it, have they in common with the “angels of these little ones” of Matthew and “Peter’s angel” of Acts? Assuredly, very different conceptions underlie these two pairs of passages. And these two pairs of passages are all the passages that Dr. Moulton can find to which to make appeal with any confidence. Next, Dr. Moulton has not, as yet at least, been able to adduce any direct or even plausible evidence of the intrusion of this Zoroastrian conception into Jewish or early Christian thought. The only two Christian passages he has quoted which seem possibly to show the influence of this circle of ideas, come from somewhat late Syriac documents – the Testament of the Lord and the Hymn of the Soul – in which they do not seem to represent primitive Christian ideas. Lastly, the conception proposed does not after all meet all the requirements of the passages themselves. Surely, in neither of our passages is there talk of a heavenly counterpart hidden with God, whose fortunes and destiny are determined by the conduct and issues of the earthly life of its “principal.” Rather, if we should enter this circle of ideas at all, in Matt. 18:10, it might seem to be the precise opposite that is assumed; the high state of the “angels” in heaven is the prius to which the fortunes of the “little ones” on earth shall be conformed. And why, on this theory, should Peter’s heavenly counterpart, and not rather his earthly soul, be found, clothed in his earthly semblance, knocking at an earthly door? The appearance is very strong that the only point at which Dr. Moulton’s theory fits into the requirements of the passages is the single point which the theory of “guardian angels” failed to fit – viz. It gives us “angels” who may be supposed to be in heaven and not on earth, and who may be supposed to have some resemblance (though surely not external) to their clients. Are we prepared to purchase this bit of adjustment at the cost of everything else?

There is yet another explanation which has sometimes been suggested, but which has been received with very little consideration by scholars. This is the very simple one that by “angel” in these passages is meant just “the disembodied soul. Webster and Wilkinson explain Matt. 18:10 thus. The souls of these little ones, they say in effect, when they go to heaven, stand peculiarly near the throne. Subsequent commentators have for the most part treated the suggestion with silent contempt or, if they mention it, with a contempt that is not silent. “Not their own ‘spirits after death,’ as Webster and Wilkinson strangely suppose,” is Morrison’s comment. “There have been many opinions” on this verse, says Alford, “some of which (e.g. that given by Webster and Wilkinson, ‘angels, their spirits after death’: a meaning which the word never bore – see Suicer sub voce – and one respecting which our Lord never could have spoken in the present tense, with ‘constantly’) have been broached merely to evade the plain sense of the words.” Ah! if there only were a “plain sense of the words!” Webster and Wilkinson cannot, it must be admitted, be numbered among expositors of the first rank. But possibly few will deny that position to Reuss. And he, though willing to admit the idea of tutelary angels in this passage, broaches something very like Webster and Wilkinson’s idea at Acts 12:15; only to receive, to be sure, from the hands of Barde something like the same contemptuous treatment, and from the hands of Gloag a somewhat more serious but scarcely more deferential refutation. It may be worth our while, nevertheless, to hear what Reuss has to say. “A great difficulty,” he says, “attaches to the phrase we have rendered by the words, ‘It is his spirit.’ Ordinarily, it is translated, ‘his angel.’ But that does not seem to us to yield a plausible sense. The angel of Peter should be strictly his tutelary angel, an idea not foreign to his epoch (Tobit; Matt. 18:10); but we must observe that the servant professes to have recognized Peter by his voice, and nobody has ever said that the tutelary angels imitate the voice of their clients. On the other hand, it is clear that the intention is to designate something superior to this material world, to our mode of existence, since it could not be Peter himself (in the opinion of the people present), while yet it was his voice, something that could come only from him. It is not strange, at bottom, that the same word should be employed for angel and spirit (ghost), the latter word having with us both usages.”

Assuredly, if we could dare take the word “angel” in these passages in the sense of disembodied spirit, the requirements of both passages would be satisfied. What more natural than that the Christian brethren assembled in Mary's house, when assured by the maid that Peter stood at the door, speaking with Peter's voice – though they knew him to be closely guarded in prison, or perhaps already in worse case than even this – should have sprung to the only other possible explanation of the phenomenon: “It is his spirit!” Dr. Moulton remarks, it is true: “The incredulous Christians, if they meant Peter’s ghost, must have thought of a ‘phantasm of the living,’ for there is no suggestion that they supposed he was dead without their having heard it.” But this does not seem convincing. There is every suggestion that they knew he was destined for death and feared the worst; and there is no reason why they may not have jumped to the conclusion that the worst had come and they were being only now and thus advertised of it. Many others, in every age of the world, have done this very thing. The only difficulty derived from the passage itself, that strikes us, is the occurance in the immediate contect (vs. 7 and 9) of the same word “angel” in a different sense, to wit, in the sense of “:the angel of the Lord” sent to minister to this saint. It would be ordinarily more natural to understand “It is his angel,” in verse 15, as referring to the same angel whose transactions with Peter are recorded in verses 7-10. But this consideration is weakened by the fact that the words in verse 15 are quoted words, and the scene there depicted does not presuppose in the minds of the actors in it the previous scene, but derives its whole force from the contrary assumption. In these circumstances the use of “angel” in its ordinary sense in verses 7-10 can scarcely be treated as a bar to its employment in a secondary and derived sense in verse 15.

In the passage in Matthew, nothing could seem more appropriate than the sense of “disembodied spirits.” What could so enhance the reverence with which “these little ones” - especially if literal children are meant – should be treated here than the assurance that it is specifically their souls which in heaven stand closest to the Father's throne? Alford, indeed, tells us that this sense is rendered impossible by the use of the present tense and the qualifying word “continually.” But neither does this seem convincing. We must remember that it is a class that is here spoken of: a class, some members of which are safely gathered into the heavens though others still abide on earth. Of this class it is stated that their souls find in the heavens their due station close to the Father's throne; “they continually look on the face of my Father which is in heaven.” Surely nothing could so heighten the sense of the real dignity that belongs to these little ones, whether the specially humble or the specially young be intended, than such a declaration. They may be lowly on earth; in the heavens they are lifted up.

Is it so impossible, then, that the term “angel” could come to be occasionally employed of disembodied spirits? From the general philological point of view the legitimacy of such an extension of its meaning is, of course, indisputable. Indeed, we may say such an extension was inevitable. That the term should come to be applied not only to angels properly so called, but to “persons who resemble angels either in attributes or actions,” was as certain as that it should continue in use at all. Consider what a multitude of applications it has received in English, for example. When Scott tells us that Marmion, on crossing the court, “scattered angels 'round,” it is not of “heavenly messengers” he is speaking. The specific extension we are concerned with here has also, as was inevitable, been made in our current English speech. Who of us has not been taught as a child to sing: “I want to be an angel, and with the angels stand?” Some of the elders may have shaken their heads and spoken severely of corrupting the meaning of sacred words. But the song has raised little consciousness of incongruity in the minds of the congregation. An extension so simple as the application of a term, designating spiritual beings, blessed in the heavens, enjoying close communion with God, to all beings sharing these fundamental characteristics, was sure to take place. The only question of interest is whether it can be shown actually to have taken place as early as the first Christian century. And the existence of two passages, best explained by the assumption that it had already taken place in our Lord's day, goes far to give reply to this question in the affirmative. Just on the basis of Matt. 18:10 and Acts 12:15 we might almost affirm the existence of this meaning.

Additional likelihood is given to this assumption by the existence of a natural point of departure for such an extension of the meaning for the word. Replying to an entangling question of the Saducees, our Lord declared that God's people in the resurrection “shall be as God's angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). The primary reference here is to marriage; but that the resemblance is not to be confined to this is evident from the parallel passage in Luke (20:36). There it is said that “they that are accounted worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage; for neither can they die anymore; for they are equal unto the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” Here the emphasis seems to be on immortality. This revelation of the similarity of our glorified state to the state of angels supplies a very distinct point of departure for the employment of the term “angels” to designate our future condition. We cannot be surprised, therefore, to find this step actually taken in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, where we read, “Blessed are they that fear God, for they shall become angels of God.” Here there is, moreover, no direct reference to the resurrection, though naturally it is the fruition of the Messianic blessings that is in mind. The main point, however, is that the blessed estate of the children of God is no longer conceived merely as like that of angels, but as the angelic state itself. Nor do we lack further proof that this mode of thought and speech was current in the days of our Lord. Both in the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, coming from pre-Christian Jewish hands, and in the Apocalypse of Baruch, coming from post-Christian Jewish hands, we meet essentially the same conception. In Enoch we read that the righteous are all “to become angels in heaven”; and in the Apocalypse of Baruch that they shall be “transformed into the splendor of angels,” and even (li. 12) shall “surpass the excellency of angels.” On the passage in Enoch Charles comments: “This is not to be weakened down into a mere likeness to the angels. At least it denotes an equality with them.” His whole note should be read. It is not quite exact to say with Alford, then, that to attribute to the word “angels” the sense of “spirits of righteous men after death” is to give it “a meaning which the word never bore.” The righteous in their eternal state are spoken of as “angels” in both Jewish and early Christian documents. And it is not the least of the circumstances commending this interpretation of our passages to our best consideration that it proposes to explain them out of a conception demonstrably current in the days of our Lord.

It is perhaps unwise to draw conclusions too definite from such a survey. There has been suggested no explanation of these two unique phrases - “the angels of these little ones” and “Peter's angel” - which has not difficulties in its way. Possibly it may be found, however, that the interpretation which sees in them designations of disembodied spirits, despite the scorn with which this suggestion has ordinarily been treated, has more to say for itself and fewer difficulties to face than any other. It satisfies all the conditions of the passages themselves – which cannot be said of any of its rivals. It is rooted in a natural extension of the common meaning of the term employed. And it presupposes no conceptions which cannot be shown to have existed in the circles out of which Christianity arose – which again cannot be said of its chief rivals. Perhaps that is as much as we should ask before we give it our preference.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view my series on Angels.

Angels, Part 12: Do People Become Angels When They Die?

2009-10-29T06:40:00.007-04:00

Even though the belief that people become angels in the afterlife is a popular theme in movies and cartoons, very few theologians are willing to give this doctrine an equal spot at the theological dinner table of ideas. Billy Graham, the world-famous evangelist, says on his website:

I know it's often said that someone becomes an angel when they die and go to heaven . . . However, this isn't exactly what the Bible teaches.

It says instead that after we enter heaven we become even greater than the angels. One reason is because God will give us (and not the angels) the authority to rule over His creation—something we can only barely imagine right now. The Bible says, "It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come" (Hebrews 2:5). It also says, "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?" (1 Corinthians 6:2).

Some people also argue that since neither Moses nor Elijah are described as looking like angels during the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-8), despite being dead for hundreds of years, this must mean they still had human appearances (though really it is just an argument from silence).

If it's alright with everyone else, I think I'd like to pull up a chair and serve a dish that's slowly been cooking in the back of my brain for a while now. In my post about guardian angels, we discussed in-depth two main passages:

See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
- Matthew 18:10

and

Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!" "You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."
- Acts 12:13-15

We have discussed what these posts do not mean, but we have not yet delved into their correct interpretation. According to B. B. Warfield, in his The Angels of Christ's Little Ones:

There is yet another explanation which has sometimes been suggested, but which has been received with very little consideration by scholars. This is the very simple one that by “angel” in these passages is meant just “the disembodied soul.

. . .

Assuredly, if we could dare take the word “angel” in these passages in the sense of disembodied spirit, the requirements of both passages would be satisfied. What more natural than that the Christian brethren assembled in Mary's house, when assured by the maid that Peter stood at the door, speaking with Peter's voice – though they knew him to be closely guarded in prison, or perhaps already in worse case than even this – should have sprung to the only other possible explanation of the phenomenon: “It is his spirit!” . . . There is every suggestion that they knew he was destined for death and feared the worst; and there is no reason why they may not have jumped to the conclusion that the worst had come and they were being only now and thus advertised of it.

. . .

In the passage in Matthew, nothing could seem more appropriate than the sense of “disembodied spirits.” What could so enhance the reverence with which “these little ones” - especially if literal children are meant – should be treated here than the assurance that it is specifically their souls which in heaven stand closest to the Father's throne?

In his commentary on Matthew, D. A. Carson agrees:

The most likely explanation is the one Warfield defends. The “angels” of the “little ones” are their spirits after death and they always see the heavenly Father's face. Do not despise these little ones, Jesus says, for their destiny is the unshielded glory of the Father's presence. The present tense (they “always see”) raises no difficulty because Jesus is dealing with a class, not individuals. The same interpretation admirably suits Acts 12:15: what the assembled group thinks is standing outside is Peter's “spirit” (angel), which accounts for Rhoda's recognition of his voice.

But can the word “angel” be pressed into this interpretation? Certainly Jesus teaches that God's people in the Resurrection “will be like the angels in heaven” as to marriage (22:30) and immortality (Luke 20:36). Similar language is also used in 2 Baruch 51:5, 12 (cf. also 1 Enoch 51:4): the righteous will become angels in heaven, will be transformed into the splendor of angels, and will even surpass the excellency of angels. The evidence, though not overwhelming, is substantial enough to suppose that “their angels” simply refers to their continued existence in the heavenly Father's presence.

I know it leaves a bad taste in most theologians' mouths, but I cannot help but be persuaded by this evidence. It does not mean that all angels in all of existence were once humans. Nor does it mean that, once dead, humans join the angelic ranks assuming their daily tasks of ministering to us (Heb. 1:14), guarding us (Ps. 91:11), and gathering with us (Heb. 12:22). It just means that, at death (at the resurrection), our glorified bodies will be composed of the same substance that angels are also made of. Martin Lloyd-Jones solidified my belief in the angelic after-life for humanity when he said in God the Father, God the Son:

[Angels] seem to stand for and to typify redeemed and glorified mankind. They seem to be symbolic of the highest properties of created life, and there can be little doubt but that their main function is to minister to us. And it is a most glorious thought that human nature, eventually, when salvation is completed, is to be so exalted that we shall dwell in the presence of the Godhead itself! If you keep your eye on every reference to the cherubim and the seraphim and these beasts or living creatures, you will find that they always dwell right in the presence of the Godhead; and the biblical teaching is that that is the future for which you and I are destined. They are symbolic of our ultimate salvation and glorification, and of our eternal existence in the immediate presence of the glorious God.

Now I believe, therefore, that there is a very real significance in the statement which we are given in the third chapter of Genesis. We are told that when the man and his wife had been turned out of the Garden, cherubim were placed there at the east end of the Garden of Eden – cherubim and a flaming sword. I think that there is a profound significance in that; the flaming sword is to prevent man from entering back again into paradise. He can never go back on his own. There is only one way back, and it is the way that has been opened by the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes; but we should thank God that in addition to the flaming sword there were the cherubim, as if to say, at one and the same time, “You shall not come back; you shall come back. You shall not come back on your own, but you will come back – it is by another way, but you will return.” The presence of the cherubim indicates to me that those who have been thrown out shall also be brought back again. Let us leave it at that.

I believe there is more evidence in the Bible that we become angels after we die. But let's just chew on this for a few days.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 10: Who is the Angel of the Lord?

2009-10-24T22:13:00.015-04:00

Angels are mentioned hundreds of times throughout almost every single book of the Bible. More mysterious, however, are the ambiguous references to “the angel of the Lord,” only occasionally mentioned. Who is this “angel of the Lord?”

The angel of the Lord is none other than the second member of the triune God, the pre-incarnation of Jesus Christ. When we see “the angel of the Lord,” mentioned in the Bible, it is God (Jesus) taking form to do something on earth.

Confusion. The confusion comes because most people don't understand, if the angel of the Lord is, indeed, the son of God, why is he apparently demoted to being called an “angel.” The confusion is further compounded because this “angel of the Lord” is often doing things we don't normally picture Jesus doing, nor do we want to. In 1 Chronicles 12, for instance, the angel of the Lord is ravaging every part of Israel and, in 2 Kings 19:35, the angel of the Lord slaughters 185,000 men in one night!

Another problem is many times the angel of the Lord is not doing anything that any of God's other angels couldn't have done themselves. In 1 Kings 19:7, Elijah's enemies were after him and he wanted to die. The angel of the Lord gave him food and encouraged him to continue on his journey. Could not this task have been carried out by one of God's other angels? Why invoke Jesus? Did God also have to take form to block Balaam's path (Num. 22:22-27) or inspire Gideon to save Israel from the hand of Midian (Judg. 6:11-16)? Again, this kind of work seems more adapted to somebody lower than the God of the universe.

Jesus as “messenger.” The most important thing to understand is why Jesus would be called an “angel” in the first place. First, we must realize that the Bible does not use this term as a demotion or insult; it simply states a fact. If you recall the definition of angel, the English word for angel translated from both Hebrew (malak) and Greek (angelos) means, “messenger.” As the Word of God (John 1:1), Jesus is the ultimate messenger sent from the Father with the message of the good news of God's loving covenant with sinful man. That Jesus was sent by God the Father is not disputed.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
- John 5:23, 24 (ESV)

Thus, technically, Jesus is the messenger (angel) of God the Father (the Lord).

Angel of the Lord equated to God. Apart from semantics, Scripture gives us many reasons to believe that the “angel of the Lord” refers to a pre-incarnate Christ. In Genesis 16:10 the angel of the Lord tells Hagar something that only God, Himself, could tell her. Not only does he deliver the news that she is going to have a son but the angel of the Lord tells her he is the one that will bless her by multiplying her offspring, something only a member of the Godhead would have the power to promise. Hagar knew she had just had a conversation with God, which is why “she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, 'You are a God of seeing,'" (Gen. 16:13). The angel of the Lord is again equated to God Himself in Genesis 31:11-13:

"Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob,' and I said, 'Here I am!' "And he said, 'Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. 'I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and made a vow to me. Now arise, go out from this land and return to the land of your kindred.'"

Another telling passage is Genesis 32:24-30:

And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day has broken." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered."

Genesis calls this entity a “man”, but Hosea 12:4 refers to the entity that wrestled with Jacob as an angel. As for Jacob himself, he thought the man was God, which the man confirmed by saying, “you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” It is worthy to note that the Bible uses all of these differing terms, and it uses them correctly. There is no contradiction in using these different terms to refer to the same being.

The face of God. Why did Jacob say in 32:30, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered?"

Exodus 33 gives us a clue. Verse 11 states:

Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

In the same chapter, just a few verses later (33:20), we come face to face with a paradox:

And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The Lord .' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live."

How do we square with this seeming contradiction? In one verse we see that Moses talks to God face to face. In another, we see that seeing God's face means certain death.

Clearly this passage is referring to different members of the Godhead. When Moses talks to God “face to face , as a man speaks to his friend,” he is speaking to the second member of the trinity. When Moses comes down from the mountain with a veil on because his face is shining from seeing God's backside (Ex. 33:23), he has just had a close encounter with God the Father.

Moses' first meeting with the pre-incarnate Christ was in the burning bush:

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.
- Exodus 3:2 (ESV)

And when the angel of the Lord spoke to Moses he identified himself:

I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
- Exodus 3:6 (ESV)

Again, one can only wonder how God can “appear” to Moses if seeing God is a death sentence or how the angel of the Lord can identify himself as God if he were not actually God.

The angel of the Lord also appeared to Manoah and his wife to announce they were going to give birth to Samson (Judg. 13). Instead of answering them when they asked him what his name was, the angel of the Lord simply answered by saying his name was "wonderful" (Judg. 13:18). Manoah, himself, might have been confused over which member of the trinity he had met. In Judges 13:22 he is so scared he turns to his wife and says, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”

Jesus as Minister. As to why Jesus would be sent in the Old Testament to minister to Elijah, I can't say for sure. What I can tell you with all confidence, however, is that this really is Jesus. I can be certain of this because a similar situation occurs in the New Testament after Jesus' death and ascension. The apostle Paul was nearing the end of his life when he was encouraged by an angel of God:

Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.' So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.
- Acts 27:23-25 (NIV)

Apparently, Paul thought this angel of God that told him he and his sailing companions would live was also God Himself or he would not have said, “for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.” Notice he believed it was God who told him. According to Psalm 34:7:

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

In no other place in the Bible does an angel deliver anyone, let alone for fearing him. Normally, angels instruct those they're sent to, to have no fear. I can only conclude from this evidence that the angel of the Lord is not an angel in the general sense of the word, but a theophany not unlike Adam and Eve hearing “the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8). It is none other than God expressing Himself in physical form for man's sake.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 11: Do People Have Guardian Angels?

2009-10-20T04:22:00.011-04:00

It has been said that, at birth, every human being is assigned one or more guardian angels. The question of whether each individual has a guardian angel is the most common misconception in angelology, and possibly in all of theology as well since the concept is assumed by believers and non-believers alike.

What is the origin of this belief in guardian angels and is any supporting evidence found in the Bible?

Perhaps the earliest non-Biblical reference to a belief in guardian angels can be found in The Book of Jubilees 35:17, “And fear thou not on account of Jacob; for the guardian of Jacob is great and powerful and honoured, and praised more than the guardian of Esau.” The Talmud speaks of every Jew being protected throughout his life by 11,000 guardian angels. Even according to Roman Catholic observance, the liturgical feast of the Holy Guardian Angels occurs on October 2.

Scripture clearly tells us that God sends angels for the general protection of His people. In the Old Testament, God sent an angel ahead to protect the wandering Israelites (Ex. 32:34), and it was an angel who shut the lions' mouths when Daniel was thrown in their den (Dan. 6:22). In the New Testament, Jesus Himself states that the angels can save him from crucifixion (Matt. 26:53) and, on more than one occasion, angels help the apostles escape from prison (Acts 12:11).

That angels minister to and guard God's chosen people, collectively rather than particularly, is crucial to this study. “To use an athletic analogy,” as Wayne Grudem puts it, “the angels may be playing 'zone' rather than 'man-on-man' defense.” Daniel 10:12-13 suggests angels may even be assigned to certain nations. Unfortunately, however, some people have gone beyond this idea of general protection and wondered if God gives a specific guardian angel for everyone in the world, or at least for each Christian. There seems to be very little support for this idea in the text of Scripture.

Some turn to Matthew 18:10 to substantiate their claims:

See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. (ESV)

It's argued that these angels are pictured as “always” watching the face of God so as to hear His command to them to help a believer when it is needed. Another passage often cited to validate the doctrine of guardian angels is Acts 12:13-15:

And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, "You are out of your mind." But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, "It is his angel!" (ESV)

Since Rhoda heard Peter's voice even though he was supposed to be in prison, the argument goes, the others assumed it was really his guardian angel knocking at the gate.

On the surface it looks as though these two passages help define a doctrine for guardian angels. But when one starts poking around long enough, holes begin developing. D. A. Carson pokes at this theory in his commentary on Matthew:

Jesus says that the “little ones” - believers in him – must be treated with respect because “their angels in heaven” always see the face of the heavenly Father. Many believe this supports the idea of a guardian angel for each “little one.” That these angels are “in heaven” is thought to mean that they are of highest rank and that their seeing the Father's face means they always have access to his presence. This is based largely on Jewish sources (cf. SBK, 1:781ff., 3:48ff., 437ff., TDNT, 1:82, 86; see esp. Tobit 12:14-15). Yet the idea will not bear close scrutiny.

It is true that angels are sent to minister to those who will inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14). But nowhere in Scripture or Jewish tradition of the NT period is there any suggestion there is one angel for one person. Daniel and Zechariah imply one angel for one nation. Appeal to Acts 12:15 does not help. Why should Peter's supposed guardian angel sound like Peter? And if ministering angels are sent to help believers, what are the angels in Matthew 18:10 doing around the divine throne, instead of guarding those people to whom they are assigned? References in the DSS to angels who share in the community's worship (1QSa 2:9-10) or minister to the Lord (1QH 5:20-22) are even less relevant, for this context does not deal with corporate worship.

B. B. Warfield poked his own holes in this position over 100 years ago in his The Angels of Christ's Little Ones:

But the real difficulty of explaining these passages by the aid of the notion of “guardian angels” is that this notion does not in the least fit their requirements. Where should a “guardian angel” be, except with his ward? That is the essential idea of a “guardian angel”; he is supposed to be in the unbroken attendance upon the saint committed to his charge. But neither in Matt. 18:10, nor in Acts 12:15 are the angels spoken of found with their wards; but distinctly elsewhere. Our Lord says that the angels of the little ones of which he speaks, are not on earth with their charges, but “in heaven, constantly beholding the face of my Father who is in heaven.” It was because the Christians gathered in Mary's house could not believe it was the imprisoned Peter who was at the door, that they supposed it must be his angel. It is thus characteristic of these angels mentioned in the New Testament that they are not constantly with those whose angels they are. If “guardian angels” are intended, one wonders how it gives force to the warning that we would do well not to despise a single one of these “little ones,” to be told that their “guardian angels” are not with them but are “always in heaven, beholding the face of my Father which is in heaven.” And one wonders if Peter had a guardian angel at all, it would not be just the time when he would be supposed to be with him, when he lay languishing in prison, expectant of the worst on the morrow.

DELETE THIS!

2009-10-03T23:33:00.037-04:00

The Phantom Comments. If you look at the bottom of this blog post you will see this paragraph:

There were also a few questions regarding some comments that were deleted. All deleted comments violated one of the rules or guidelines set forth for comments on this site a few weeks ago. Please review the rules before posting if you are worried about any of your comments being deleted. If you have specific questions feel free to contact me using the “Contact” link at the top of this page. I will be happy to answer all questions.

What you won't see is a conversation that took place in the comments section below, because it has since been deleted:

Me: I didn't really think my comment violated any of the rules or guidelines that you set forth and my comment still got deleted. Almost two whole weeks ago I used the “Contact” link at the top of your page just like you said to do and I have yet to receive a response.

Matthew Cochrane: Stephen, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we just discuss this earlier today?

Me: No. I discussed the question and again you dodged answering it.

Why was a conversation containing no profanity, no sexual content, and no violence deleted from this post, you ask. Which one of the supposed “rules” did it break? I was a little confused myself. Since the contact button at the top of Matthew Cochrane's blog seemed to be broken I took the liberty of e-mailing the blogger directly and asking him why he felt such a lame conversation needed to be removed. The answer he gave me – “Off topic.”

But that was the second time Matthew recently deleted a comment of mine. Ironically, my comments about my comment getting deleted were themselves deleted. We had been e-mailing each other all day about the first comment of mine he deleted. I wouldn't want to post those e-mails on here without his permission or anything, but let's just say they were a far cry from him being “happy to answer all questions.” I really just wanted to know why my first comment was deleted.

If “all deleted comments violated one of the rules or guidelines set forth for comments,” which rule had my comment broken? We have already established that my second comments were deleted because somehow me responding directly to Matthew's own words and asking about a topic that he himself started was off topic.

But what about my original comment that got deleted? Why?

The e-mails were hard to decipher but apparently my first comment was deleted for being “rude” and "mocking." Actually, I admit it wasn't the greatest comment ever, just my sorry attempt at trying to be funny. I accepted a long time ago that being funny is something I desperately need to work on and may never successfully fine-tune. But can every comment that is satire in its nature and made in a spirit of jest really call for immediate removal?

Of course, Matthew's language is confusing because his own blog is littered with identical tactics and, on one occasion, he even admitted to insulting one of his own commenters (see last comment). By his own admission his comments should qualify for deletion. And you want to see comments that are off topic? Matthew engaged in a lengthy debate about whether or not America was founded as a Christian nation in a recent blog post comprised entirely of children's cartoons. Ever heard of pulling out the plank of wood in your own eye before worrying about the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye (Matt. 7:5)? This would be where that lesson becomes applicable.

Do blogs even need official rules for comments? No. I will admit that I have deleted comments off of this blog before. It's my blog and I can do what I want with it. Bloggers don't need to establish rules because they don't owe their readers an explanation for any actions they decide to take on their own blog. Though I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason I choose, if I delete a comment, it's probably spam. But one thing you'll never see me do is make a bunch of bull crap rules and use those “rules” as excuses to delete comments I don't like, that prove I'm wrong, or that I don't personally agree with.

Why do I care? I have been a faithful reader of Not Conformed Thoughts for three and a half years. I've spent countless hours commenting, leaving little golden nuggets of wisdom everywhere I engage in conversation. I have also participated as a guest blogger and as a field correspondent, not to mention I am consistently a major source of support, contributing to much of Not Conformed Thoughts' recent notoriety on Facebook. Over all, it's a great blog. Why do I care about these new rules or if a comment of mine gets deleted? Rule #8 says:

8. Break these rules three times and the moderators will automatically delete any further comments you post.

Three strikes and you're outta there! I'm already down two! The next time a blog moderator decides I'm off topic (even though I'm not and even though they're allowed to be) or the next time I make a sarcastic comment (even though they're allowed to), they will automatically delete any further comments I make. The very thought of such a thing makes my whole stomach turn. One can only ponder what the purpose might be for having such a strong presence of censorship.

What can we do about it? At first, I thought the best idea was to not comment on Not Conformed Thoughts anymore. At least choosing to walk away would be easier than being forced to leave. Besides, why waste time writing a comment if a blog moderator is just going to delete it for being “off topic?” Discontinuing my commenting relationship with Not Conformed Thoughts seemed like a good idea. However, I have now switched gears and am going in a different direction.

I know for a fact I'm not the only one whose comments Matthew and his team of blog moderators are deleting from the site. So any time you make a comment on Not Conformed Thoughts or any other blog with bull crap “rules,” I want you to save it. If a moderator decides to delete it for bogus reasons, email me:

mrandmrscochrane@gmail.com

I will paste your deleted comment and make it into its own post right here on my own site. Just remember to save your comments. If you can get a screen shot (print screen) of your comment posted on the blog that would be even better (we'll have proof your comment was deleted and that you said what you say you said). I'll make a post on this site for the set purpose of discussing why we think your comment was deleted and to offer alternative views to those expressed on the blog your comment was deleted from. It doesn't mean I'll agree with your comment, but at least we'll have a place where we can engage in honest debate over it.

Seriously consider saving all your comments in a word document or keeping a collection of screen shots in a separate folder. That is what I plan on doing from now on. Even if you make a comment about a comment that was deleted, and then that comment is itself deleted, send it to me.

Another thing you can do is consider spending more time at The Lizard Master. Lizard Master is far and away the coolest blog on the web right now. I don't agree with him on many political or religious issues, but it's an honest blog where you're not likely to be censored for speaking your mind. I remember the time when Todd was at the library and desperately needed a place to stash some information. He knew he could count on Lizard Master to not delete his comments, even though they were completely off topic. If he had left all three of those comments on Not Conformed Thoughts that would have been all three strikes right there! Not Conformed Thoughts would have permanently banned him from the site, deleting any further attempts to engage in thoughtful conversation. Fortunately, for Todd's sake, Lizard Master provides an atmosphere safe from the threat of deletion.

Conclusion. If you've never been to Not Conformed Thoughts, I do strongly recommend checking it out. Matthew Cochrane is a talented writer and his razor-sharp analysis is almost always spot-on. And I'm not just saying that because he has a great last name. He really is second to none! Be cautious if you plan on commenting, but go check it out. If you're a Not Conformed Thoughts veteran, go about business as usual. Now that he knows we'll be holding him accountable over here, he'll probably behave. If he doesn't, you know what to do.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Hey Matthew, DELETE THIS!

Angels, Part 14: Ordo Salutis

2009-09-29T10:26:00.010-04:00

Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. Indeed, Adam's sin would have affected all of creation — both the physical and the spiritual realms. Also, Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an angel. Since angels are not blood relatives of Jesus, Christ's blood cannot pay for their sin. How, then, do Angels fit into God's plan of salvation?

There are two types of angels: those who have remained faithful to God and those who have rebelled. Augustine stressed the fact that the good angels were rewarded for their obedience by the gift of perseverance, meaning that their reward for being obedient was that they would continue to be obedient and, thus, never fall from Gods grace. In The Reformed Faith, Loraine Boettner writes:

Angels were created before man, and each angel was placed on test as an individual, personal, moral being. This apparently was a pure test of obedience, as was that of Adam. Some of the angels stood their test, for reasons only fully known to God, and, as a result, were then confirmed in a state of perfect angelic holiness, and are now the elect angels in heaven (I Tim. 5:21).

In A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, reformed theologian Robert Reymond compares God's retribution with fallen man to that of fallen angels:

It is clear that the Triune God's redemptive love is not unlimited or universal from the undeniable fact that it does not embrace fallen angels (Heb. 2:16). There are "elect angels" (I Tim. 5:21) who clearly were elected on supralapsarian grounds since they were not chosen from a mass of angels viewed as fallen, and accordingly there are fallen angels concerning whose redemption no divine efforts have been or will be expended, although they are creatures as much in need of redemption as are fallen men (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). It is freely granted that the fallen angels belong to a different creation order from that of humankind and that God has sovereignly determined to deal with (at least some) fallen people differently from the manner in which he has dealt with fallen angels. But the nonredemptive nature of his dealings with fallen angels raises the possibility at least that God's redemptive love for fallen humanity may not necessarily be unlimited and universal either.

God looks at us fallen human beings and has mercy on some of us, a luxury not afforded to the reprobate angels.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 13: Where Do Angels Live?

2009-09-22T16:22:00.005-04:00

Where do angels live? Obviously there are angels on earth (Heb. 13:2) and in heaven (Matt. 18:10). We know where earth is. But where is heaven?

We know that after His death and resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples for an additional forty days before going to Heaven (Acts 1:3). When Jesus went into heaven, where did he go?

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
- Acts 1:9-11 (ESV)

Jesus was taken “up” into “heaven.” Thus, heaven is up. Up where?

Look at this answer from Bibleline Ministries:

Whenever you ask a child, "Where is heaven?" they will usually point straight up. Twelve hours later if they were still pointing upward, they would be pointing in a totally different direction. Because the earth is turning on its axis constantly, the direction (when you point upward) is constantly changing. So then, where is heaven? Doesn't the Bible give us some more specific clues?

It appears from a study of the Scriptures that heaven is located in the North in our universe. When they would offer the sacrifices in the Old Testament they would offer them northward toward the Lord. Notice what Moses said in Leviticus 1:11, "And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar." The implication is clear that the Lord is in the north. "Northward before the Lord," says God's Word.

North is always the same direction from this planet no matter what time of day. If you were to point to the north in the morning, twelve hours later you would still be pointing in the same direction. No matter where the earth is in its orbit about the sun, north is always the same direction in relationship to the earth. So no matter what time of day or what time of year, north is always the same direction.

The Bible also implies that salvation comes from the north. In Psalms75:6 we read, "For promotion (salvation) cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south." Therefore, we conclude that salvation comes from the north since it is the only choice left. God and heaven must be located in the north of our universe.

Thirty-five hundred years ago in the book of Job in the Old Testament, God gave us two amazing scientific facts in one verse. Job 26:7 says, "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." One scientific fact is that the earth is hung in space upon nothing. History tells us that man did not know this, but what man did believe about the earth was scientifically in error. The Egyptians, for example, believed that the earth was a saucer held up by four pillars with a ring of mountains around the edge to keep the water from running off. The Greeks believed that the earth rested upon the back of Atlas. Because this theory was so popular and widespread, we still see its effects today. For example, when you obtain a book of maps it is called an Atlas. The Hindus believed that the earth was carried on an elephant's back and that the elephant was standing on a turtle swimming in a cosmic sea.
Amazingly the Bible did not include any of these myths and fairy tales, but simply stated that the earth was hung upon nothing. Science cannot give us a better description than this. If you ask a scientist what holds the earth in place, he will say "gravity". If you ask him what "gravity" is, he will answer "that which holds the earth in place." Actually, they have no better answer than the one God gave us 3,500 years ago in the book of Job.

Job 26:7 also says, "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place." Here is another amazing scientific fact. There is an empty place or void in the north of our universe. It was first discovered with the 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar, California, and is now being studied by three separate observatories across the country. This empty place has been found to be so large that it could contain 2,000 milky ways. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. That would mean that light traveling at 186,000 miles per second would take 100,000 years to travel from one end of the Milky Way to the other.

We believe that heaven is located in that void in the north of our universe.

Lucifer (Satan) in his rebellion (when he tried to overthrow God) spoke of this void in the north. Isaiah 14:13 tells us, "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the side of the north." This must refer to this empty corridor in the north where there are no stars. Heaven is said to be there.

One fascinating passage is found in Psalms 48:1-2. "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King." Without a doubt, this is a reference to the New Jerusalem and not to the earthly Jerusalem. "But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to our innumerable company of angels (Hebrew 12:22)."

When the Bible says, "Beautiful for situation," as the verse continues to explain, it is a reference to the fact that the city is located in the north of our universe. From "the sides of the north" God has a beautiful overview of the entire universe and of the whole earth.

I believe heaven is in this area in the north, and that it is a physical place with many spiritual elements.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 9: Can Animals See Angels?

2009-09-18T23:24:00.008-04:00

Can animals see angels? I first started wondering about this when I came across a daring blog post suggesting to ghost hunters that they bring their dogs to work. Autumnforest, one of the classiest bloggers on the web, says dogs are quite useful on ghost hunts because of their ability to sense things we can’t:

When I was growing up at Aspen Grove, our family dogs were the first warning sign when something was in the room with us. Their reactions were amazing, from hair standing up down their backs, tail between their legs, growling and barking at the unseen, to rushing from the room and hiding under beds. One time, they were so upset, they appeared to try to lunge and grab at something, one of them suddenly squealing as if he were kicked. He rushed out of the house with the other dog and cowered under the barn for several days!

If a dog won’t venture into a space, I know it’s a hot spot. If a dog stares at the unseen, I know it’s telling. If the dog refuses to enter, I know it’s bad.

Right away I went to the Bible to see if I could find evidence of pets being able to sense (see?) the spiritual realms. What I found was astounding!

We all know the story of Moses leading Israelites’ out of Egypt. Pharaoh wouldn’t let the Israelites leave so God sent down the 10 plagues on Egypt. The tenth plague on Egypt was the death of every first-born son. The Jews, in order to escape God's wrath, had to spread the blood of a lamb on their doors. The angel of death, seeing the blood on the doors, would know to skip over those houses. What I found particularly interesting is when God is talking to Moses about the plague:

But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
- Exodus 11:7 (ESV)

So where the angel of death passed through Egypt all the dogs growled. But where the angel of death passed over Israel, because of the blood on their doors, the dogs didn't growl. That's the distinction this verse is talking about.

Is it possible that animals can see with their natural eyes what humans can only see with their spiritual eyes?

In the case of Balaam, an angel stood on the road with its sword drawn and was about to slay him. Balaam's donkey saw the angel and stopped going forward, saving his master's life. Numbers 22:22-27 recalls:

Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. And the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field. And Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall. So he struck her again. Then the angel of the Lord went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam. And Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. (ESV)

Over and over again the donkey tried to avoid the angel standing in the path with a sword in his hand. The donkey could see what Balaam could not.

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face. And the angel of the Lord said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live."
- Numbers 22:28-33 (ESV)

Angels

2009-09-04T00:03:00.023-04:00

Introduction. The point of this series is to bring us back to a purer understanding of what angels are and remove some common misconceptions. Years of art and pop culture have only diluted these concepts and, unfortunately, most theology has offered us little more than further confusion to this subject.

I'm sure there are many extra-biblical sources that share lots of fine ideas about angels, but since the Bible gives us the only infallible account, that is where we will begin and what we will use to measure any other accounts.

Definition. In today's pop-culture the word angel usually denotes a supernatural intermediate between God and man. The term “angel,” however, is derived from the Greek word angelos which means “messenger.” Angelos and the Hebrew equivalent, malak (which also means “messenger”), are the two most common terms used to describe this class of beings in the Bible. Together they appear almost 300 times from Genesis to Revelation because, in general, when angels appeared their task was to deliver a message.

There are other Greek and Hebrew words for the English "angel." We will get to those all in good time.

Created beings. Angels have not always existed; in distinction from God they are part of the universe that God created. The creation of the angels has been denied by some throughout history, but it is clearly taught in Scripture. It's unclear whether those passages which speak of the creation of the host of heaven (Genesis 2:1 and Psalm 33:6) refer to the creation of the angels rather than to the creation of the starry host; but in Colossians 1:16 Paul tells us that God created all things “visible and invisible” through Christ and for him, and then specifically includes the angelic world with the phrase “whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities.”

Other Bible verses addressing the creation of angels include Nehemiah 9:6:

You are the Lord , you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

And Psalm 148:2, 5:

Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! . . . Let them praise the name of the Lord ! For he commanded and they were created.

The Bible's position should be clear! God alone is eternal from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2) and all things were made through him (John 1:3).

When were angels created? The Bible tells us that "the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them" all in six literal days (Exodus 20:11). Therefore, like every other created creature, angels were created some time within the six days of creation. Some scholars have expressed doubt, however, suggesting the creation story in Genesis was not meant to serve as a technical record for spiritual entities and allow the possibility that angels predate the Genesis account. They offer verses like Job 38:4-7, which states:

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth . . . or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (ESV)

The "Sons of God" used here is another term for angel. The Hebrew ("bene haelohim") is also used in Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Psalm 29:1 and Psalm 89:6, and each time synonymously with the English word "angel." The question remains whether this verse is sufficient for arguing the presence of angels before creation. As Louis Berkhof, the great theologian who taught for almost four decades at Calvin Theological Seminary writes in his Systematic Theology:

The time of their creation cannot be fixed definitely. The opinion of some, based on Job 38:7, that they were created before all other things, really finds no support in Scripture. As far as we know, no creative work preceded the creation of heaven and earth. The passage in the book of Job (38:7) teaches, indeed, in a poetic vein that they were present at the founding of the world just as the stars were, but not that they existed before the primary creation of heaven and earth. The idea that the creation of the heavens was completed on the first day, and that the creation of the angels was simply a part of the day's work, is also an unproved assumption, though the fact that the statement in Gen. 1:2 applies to the earth only would seem to favor it. Possibly the creation of the heavens was not completed in a single moment any more than that of the earth. The only safe statement seems to be that they were created before the seventh day. This at least follows from such passages as Gen. 1:2; Ex. 20:11; Job 38:7; Neh. 9:6.

Wayne Grudem, the Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary, agrees. He writes in his Systematic Theology:

There may be a hint at the creation of angelic beings on the first day of creation when we read that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1), and then immediately after we read that "the earth was without form and void" (Gen 1:2), but with no mention of the heavens in this second verse. This may suggest that the uninhabitable state of the earth is contrasted with the heavens where, perhaps, God had already created angelic beings and assigned them various roles and orders. This idea is made more plausible when we read that "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" at the time when God laid the "cornerstone" of the earth and sunk its "bases" in the process of forming or founding it (Job 38:6-7). If the angels ("the sons of God") shouted for joy when God was making the earth inhabitable, this could imply that God created the angelic beings early on the first day.

The main objection I've seen raised most often against the date for the creation of angels is not Job 38, but the date of when the angels fell. Satan must already have been a fallen angel when he tempted Eve to eat the fruit. Most people think God rested on the seventh day and then Satan was there to tempt Eve into sin on the eighth day. That seems like an extraordinarily short amount of time for Satan and his rebellion to occur! But that's not quite how it happened. We really don't know how much time had passed between the seventh day and the Fall in the Garden of Eden. The only insight I have into this issue is that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3). After we subtract the minimum amount of time it took for Eve to give birth to Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1, 2), and the minimum amount of time it took them to grow up and be old enough for Cain to murder his brother (Genesis 4:8), and the minimum amount of time it took for Eve to conceive Seth, there still remains plenty of time (though certainly an unknown quantity) for Satan to have launched his rebellion between day seven and the fall.

The angelic rebellion against God is definitely something we'll discuss in further detail in future posts. What I want my readers to take away from this post is the point that angels were created in the same 6-day period as everything else in creation and, in that regard, are no different from any other creature.

Are there different types of angels? We have not yet discussed whether angels are all alike or whether there are different kinds of angels. Some theologians believe the Bible has different terms (Cherubim, Seraphim, living creatures, etc.) for angels because, even though they are all rightly called "angels", they possess different attributes. This is difficult to grasp. If I could make a comparison: Think of angels like cats. Some believe there are different breeds (like the African Lion, Mountain Lion, Bob-Cat, house cat), but they are still all cats (or angels). Others, however, believe that the Bible has different names for angels and that, even though each one possesses their own unique characters and personalities, each one shares the same kind of essence. In other words, they believe angels are all alike, having the same essence.

Because there are theologically sound scholars on both sides of this debate, it's good to remember not to become too dogmatic on this issue. The Bible may not be as clear in this case as most of us would like it to be, so there's plenty of room for honest disagreement. In his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem states his case:

There are three other specific types of heavenly beings named in Scripture. Whether we think of these as special types of "angels" (in a broad sense of the term), or whether we think of them as heavenly beings distinct from angels, they are nonetheless created spiritual beings who serve and worship God.

a. The "Cherubim": The cherubim were given the task of guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24), and God himself is frequently said to be enthroned on the cherubim or to travel with the cherubim as his chariot (Ps. 18:10; Ezek. 10:1-22). Over the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament were two golden figures of cherubim with their wings stretched out above the ark, and it was there that God promised to come to dwell among his people: "There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel" (Ex. 25:22; cf. vv. 18-21).
b. The "Seraphim": Another group of heavenly beings, the seraphim, are mentioned only in Isaiah 6:2-7, where they continually worship the Lord and call to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isa. 6:3).

c. The Living Creatures: Both Ezekiel and Revelation tell us of yet other kinds of heavenly beings known as "living creatures" around God's throne (Ezek. 1:5-14; Rev. 4:6-8). With their appearances like a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle, they are the mightiest representatives of various parts of God's entire creation (wild beasts, domesticated animals, human beings, and birds), and they worship God continually: "Day and night they never cease to sing, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'" (Rev. 4:8)

Representing the other view, Martin Lloyd-Jones, minister of Westminster Chapel in London for almost 30 years, states in God the Father, God the Son:

Now as we are dealing with this question of the names and designations we must, of course, refer to those beings who are described as 'cherubim' (e. g. Ps. 99:1; Ezek. 10:1-22) or 'seraphim' (Isa. 6:2), and, also, we must consider those that are described in Revelation 4 as the 'living creatures' or 'the beasts'. We cannot now go into all the evidence, but I think we can take it that these terms are synonymous, and all these names probably refer to the same beings. We speak with comparative ignorance; we are told very little about them. But we are told that they have the appearance of different animals, though generally the face of a man. They seem to be composite beings, at any rate in their representation.

Another remote possibility is that the terms in question (Cherubim, Seraphim, etc.) may refer to different ranks and orders (gradations) of angels, even though they're all the same kind of being. This makes sense when one considers that Christ himself claimed to have twelve legions of angels at his disposal (Matt. 26:53) and that the Bible refers to Michael as an archangel (Jude 1:9).

Whichever one of these views you end up subscribing to, hopefully this post has been helpful in helping to define the terms we’re going to be dealing with as we progress in this series.

Spiritual Beings. It has always been disputed whether angels are primarily spiritual or physical beings. The Bible spells out in so many words that angels, at least some angels, are primarily spiritual beings. Hebrews 1:13-14, for example, refers to angels as spirits:

And to which of the angels has he ever said, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

This passage calls angels ministering spirits, which is interesting because when Jesus was on earth He told his disciples that “a spirit does not have flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39). I don't want to take the Lord's words out of context. When He said that spirits do not have flesh and bones he was not at that moment specifically referring to angels. But it does make sense that if angels are spirits, and spirits do not have flesh and bones, then angels (who are spirits) do not have flesh and bones. This is consistent with what we know about evil, fallen angels:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
- Ephesians 6:12

Spiritual Eyes. The message seems clear. Some angels are spiritual beings, not physical. That is to say, when angels are ministering to us (Heb. 1:14), protecting us (Ps. 34:7), guarding us (Ps. 91:11), and gathering with us (Heb. 12:22) they are completely invisible to the naked eye. In order to account for those rare occasions when people have actually seen these spiritual creatures (in both Biblical and extra-Biblical examples) I submit that God gave these people a special ability to see them.

In Numbers 22 Balak, the king of Moab, summons Balaam, a great magician, to put a curse on the people of Israel. When Balaam finally agrees to go and starts on his way his donkey sees an angel blocking the road ahead with a drawn sword and decides against taking Balaam any further. Oblivious to the angel's presence, Balaam starts hitting his donkey and even converses with it attempting to get the beast moving:

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face.
- Numbers 22:31

Elisha was a prophet of God during a time when Syria and Israel were at war. On more than one occasion Elisha was able to inform the king of Israel what the king of Syria's next strategic move was going to be. Eventually, the king of Syria got fed up with Elisha and sent a small army to surround Dothan, the city where Elisha was living. Elisha's servant was the first to wake up and notice that they were surrounded by Syrian soldiers and chariots. He was very afraid and rushed to awake his master. He cried to Elisha, “what shall we do?”

He said, "Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord , please open his eyes that he may see." So 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.
- 2 Kings 6:16, 17

This verse further indicates that the horses and chariots of fire were there the entire time if only they had the ability to see them. The Lord opened the eyes of Elisha's servant just as He had opened the eyes of Balaam. I'm assuming that their two physical eyes were already opened and the eyes that God opened were spiritual. You can call them spiritual eyes, the third eye, the inner eye or whatever you want to call it but, in both cases, when God enabled them, the men could see a realm, a spiritual realm of some sort, that cannot ordinarily be seen . . . and with eyes not ordinarily used.

Physical Beings. The most striking passage in the Bible concerning the physical essence of angels is found in Genesis 19, when Lot is visited by two angels in the city of Sodom. God sent two angels to Sodom to warn Lot that He was going to destroy the entire city so that Lot and his family could escape. On arrival, Lot opened his house to his guests and treated them to a big feast:

"My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way." They said, "No; we will spend the night in the town square." But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
- Genesis 19:2, 3

The Bible says that Lot made them a great feast, and they ate. I correlate this with the story in Luke 24:36-43. After Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, he appeared to some of his disciples who were walking down the road. When they saw him, they were scared because they thought that he was a ghost:

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace to you!" But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

It is unclear if Lot was aware at this time that these men were angels (Heb. 13:2). What we do know is that Sodom was full of evil people and they didn't like visitors. When they heard that Lot had visitors, all the men in the city surrounded the house and demanded that Lot allow them to rape his guests. Lot went outside to try to reason with the men of the city, but the mob only grew angrier with Lot:

Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great.

- Genesis 19:9-11

The next morning the angels urged Lot to leave the city quickly.

But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
- Genesis 19:16

This is a remarkable story on many levels but for the scope of this post we will only concentrate on what this story tells us about the physical nature of Lot's visitors. Note that on two different occasions they use their strength to physically move people. First they pull Lot inside the house to rescue him from an angry mob (Gen. 19:10) then, when Lot lingered in the city, the angels “seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand” and placed them outside the city themselves (Gen. 19:16). As John Milor writes in Aliens in the Bible, “In order to talk with Lot like a normal person, eat food, and grab and pull Lot's arm on two occasions, they had to be physical entities.”

Distinguishing Between Spiritual and Physical Angels. Try to refrain from making the mistake of believing that spiritual angels and physical angels are one and the same. Instead of believing that some angels are spiritual and other angels are physical beings, some people believe that they're all the same creature and that all angels are able to take on whatever form needed in a given situation, sometimes taking on a physical form and sometimes remaining unseen in the spiritual realm.

But we know from my last two posts that this isn't the case. If the angels that surrounded Dothan in 2 Kings 6:17 had been able to manifest themselves physically they could have calmed the fears of Elisha's servant right away. Instead, we read that the Lord had to first open his spiritual eyes so they could be seen. Also, if the angel in Numbers 22 could have exhibited a physical essence, the Lord would not have needed to open Balaam's spiritual eyes because he would've been able to see the angel's physical nature with his own physical eyes. But that's not how it happened. We can only extrapolate from the text that God provided for Balaam what the angel could not. The angel only appeared to Balaam after “the Lord opened” his spiritual eyes.

Can animals see angels? I first started wondering about this when I came across a daring blog post suggesting to ghost hunters that they bring their dogs to work. Autumnforest, one of the classiest bloggers on the web, says dogs are quite useful on ghost hunts because of their ability to sense things we can’t:

When I was growing up at Aspen Grove, our family dogs were the first warning sign when something was in the room with us. Their reactions were amazing, from hair standing up down their backs, tail between their legs, growling and barking at the unseen, to rushing from the room and hiding under beds. One time, they were so upset, they appeared to try to lunge and grab at something, one of them suddenly squealing as if he were kicked. He rushed out of the house with the other dog and cowered under the barn for several days!

If a dog won’t venture into a space, I know it’s a hot spot. If a dog stares at the unseen, I know it’s telling. If the dog refuses to enter, I know it’s bad.

But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.
- Exodus 11:7 (ESV)

So where the angel of death passed through Egypt all the dogs growled. But when the angel of death passed over Israel, because of the blood on their doors, the dogs didn't growl. That's the distinction this verse is talking about.

Is it possible that animals can see with their natural eyes what humans can only see with their spiritual eyes?

In the case of Balaam, an angel stood on the road with its sword drawn and was about to slay him. Balaam's donkey saw the angel and stopped going forward, saving his master's life. Numbers 22:22-27 recalls:

Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. And the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand. And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field. And Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall. So he struck her again. Then the angel of the Lord went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam. And Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. (ESV)

Over and over again the donkey tried to avoid the angel standing in the path with a sword in his hand. The donkey could see what Balaam could not.

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face. And the angel of the Lord said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live."
- Numbers 22:28-33 (ESV)

In distinction from Balaam, whose spiritual eyes the Lord had to open so he could see the angel, the angel states the donkey could see him before and “turned aside.”

I conclude that animals can definitely see things in the spiritual realm that we can't. I once served with a pastor who whole-heartedly believed his dog saved his life. One day, when he was walking his dog, it tugged hard on the leash and pulled my pastor several feet away from where they were standing. Just then a car sped around the corner and slammed into a tree where they had just been standing. To this day this pastor believes his dog was warned by an angel to get out of there. I don't doubt it. I'm not a ghost hunter but, if I were, I would find a dog most helpful.

Who is the angel of the Lord? Angels are mentioned hundreds of times throughout almost every single book of the Bible. More mysterious, however, are the ambiguous references to “the angel of the Lord,” only occasionally mentioned. Who is this “angel of the Lord?”

The angel of the Lord is none other than the second member of the triune God, the pre-incarnation of Jesus Christ. When we see “the angel of the Lord,” mentioned in the Bible, it is God (Jesus) taking form to do something on earth.

Confusion. The confusion comes because most people don't understand, if the angel of the Lord is, indeed, the son of God, why is he apparently demoted to being called an “angel.” The confusion is further compounded because this “angel of the Lord” is often doing things we don't normally picture Jesus doing, nor do we want to. In 1 Chronicles 12, for instance, the angel of the Lord is ravaging every part of Israel and, in 2 Kings 19:35, the angel of the Lord slaughters 185,000 men in one night!

Another problem is many times the angel of the Lord is not doing anything that any of God's other angels couldn't have done themselves. In 1 Kings 19:7, Elijah's enemies were after him and he wanted to die. The angel of the Lord gave him food and encouraged him to continue on his journey. Could not this task have been carried out by one of God's other angels? Why invoke Jesus? Did God also have to take form to block Balaam's path (Num. 22:22-27) or inspire Gideon to save Israel from the hand of Midian (Judg. 6:11-16)? Again, this kind of work seems more adapted to somebody lower than the God of the universe.

Jesus as “messenger.” The most important thing to understand is why Jesus would be called an “angel” in the first place. First, we must realize that the Bible does not use this term as a demotion or insult; it simply states a fact. If you recall the definition of angel, the English word for angel translated from both Hebrew (malak) and Greek (angelos) means, “messenger.” As the Word of God (John 1:1), Jesus is the ultimate messenger sent from the Father with the message of the good news of God's loving covenant with sinful man. That Jesus was sent by God the Father is not disputed.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
- John 5:23, 24 (ESV)

Another telling passage is Genesis 32:24-30:

Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

In the same chapter, just a few verses later (33:20), we come face to face with a paradox:

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.
- Exodus 3:2 (ESV)

And when the angel of the Lord spoke to Moses he identified himself:

I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob- Exodus 3:6

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Do People Have Guardian Angels? It has been said that, at birth, every human being is assigned one or more guardian angels. The question of whether each individual has a guardian angel is the most common misconception in angelology, and possibly in all of theology as well since the concept is assumed by believers and non-believers alike.

What is the origin of this belief in guardian angels and is any supporting evidence found in the Bible?

Perhaps the earliest non-Biblical reference to a belief in guardian angels can be found in The Book of Jubilees 35:17, “And fear thou not on account of Jacob; for the guardian of Jacob is great and powerful and honoured, and praised more than the guardian of Esau.” The Talmud speaks of every Jew being protected throughout his life by 11,000 guardian angels. Even according to Roman Catholic observance, the liturgical feast of the Holy Guardian Angels occurs on October 2.

Scripture clearly tells us that God sends angels for the general protection of His people. In the Old Testament, God sent an angel ahead to protect the wandering Israelites (Ex. 32:34), and it was an angel who shut the lions' mouths when Daniel was thrown in their den (Dan. 6:22). In the New Testament, Jesus Himself states that the angels can save him from crucifixion (Matt. 26:53) and, on more than one occasion, angels help the apostles escape from prison (Acts 12:11).

That angels minister to and guard God's chosen people, collectively rather than particularly, is crucial to this study. “To use an athletic analogy,” as Wayne Grudem puts it, “the angels may be playing 'zone' rather than 'man-on-man' defense.” Daniel 10:12-13 suggests angels may even be assigned to certain nations. Unfortunately, however, some people have gone beyond this idea of general protection and wondered if God gives a specific guardian angel for everyone in the world, or at least for each Christian. There seems to be very little support for this idea in the text of Scripture.

Some turn to Matthew 18:10 to substantiate their claims:

See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. (ESV)

And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy she did not open the gate but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, "You are out of your mind." But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, "It is his angel!" (ESV)

Jesus says that the “little ones” - believers in him – must be treated with respect because “their angels in heaven” always see the face of the heavenly Father. Many believe this supports the idea of a guardian angel for each “little one.” That these angels are “in heaven” is thought to mean that they are of highest rank and that their seeing the Father's face means they always have access to his presence. This is based largely on Jewish sources (cf. SBK, 1:781ff., 3:48ff., 437ff., TDNT, 1:82, 86; see esp. Tobit 12:14-15). Yet the idea will not bear close scrutiny.

It is true that angels are sent to minister to those who will inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14). But nowhere in Scripture or Jewish tradition of the NT period is there any suggestion there is one angel for one person. Daniel and Zechariah imply one angel for one nation. Appeal to Acts 12:15 does not help. Why should Peter's supposed guardian angel sound like Peter? And if ministering angels are sent to help believers, what are the angels in Matthew 18:10 doing around the divine throne, instead of guarding those people to whom they are assigned? References in the DSS to angels who share in the community's worship (1QSa 2:9-10) or minister to the Lord (1QH 5:20-22) are even less relevant, for this context does not deal with corporate worship.

B. B. Warfield poked his own holes in this position over 100 years ago in his The Angels of Christ's Little Ones:

But the real difficulty of explaining these passages by the aid of the notion of “guardian angels” is that this notion does not in the least fit their requirements. Where should a “guardian angel” be, except with his ward? That is the essential idea of a “guardian angel”; he is supposed to be in the unbroken attendance upon the saint committed to his charge. But neither in Matt. 18:10, nor in Acts 12:15 are the angels spoken of found with their wards; but distinctly elsewhere. Our Lord says that the angels of the little ones of which he speaks, are not on earth with their charges, but “in heaven, constantly beholding the face of my Father who is in heaven.” It was because the Christians gathered in Mary's house could not believe it was the imprisoned Peter who was at the door, that they supposed it must be his angel. It is thus characteristic of these angels mentioned in the New Testament that they are not constantly with those whose angels they are. If “guardian angels” are intended, one wonders how it gives force to the warning that we would do well not to despise a single one of these “little ones,” to be told that their “guardian angels” are not with them but are “always in heaven, beholding the face of my Father which is in heaven.” And one wonders if Peter had a guardian angel at all, it would not be just the time when he would be supposed to be with him, when he lay languishing in prison, expectant of the worst on the morrow.

To be fair, the Bible doesn't specifically say that humans don't have guardian angels. Just nowhere does it say we do. It is a stretch to assume each individual is protected by a particular angel around the clock simply because of the few times protection was granted to God's people. Also, as was shown, the two most common verses used to support this theory actually have nothing to do with angels guarding or protecting anyone. I'm convinced that D. A. Carson and B. B. Warfield got this one right.

Do People Become Angels When They Die? Even though the belief that people become angels in the afterlife is a popular theme in movies and cartoons, very few theologians are willing to give this doctrine an equal spot at the theological dinner table of ideas. Billy Graham, the world-famous evangelist, says on his website:

I know it's often said that someone becomes an angel when they die and go to heaven . . . However, this isn't exactly what the Bible teaches.

It says instead that after we enter heaven we become even greater than the angels. One reason is because God will give us (and not the angels) the authority to rule over His creation—something we can only barely imagine right now. The Bible says, "It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come" (Hebrews 2:5). It also says, "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?" (1 Corinthians 6:2).

See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
- Matthew 18:10

and

Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!" "You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."
- Acts 12:13-15

We have discussed what these posts do not mean, but we have not yet delved into their correct interpretation. According to B. B. Warfield, in his The Angels of Christ's Little Ones:

There is yet another explanation which has sometimes been suggested, but which has been received with very little consideration by scholars. This is the very simple one that by “angel” in these passages is meant just “the disembodied soul.

. . .

Assuredly, if we could dare take the word “angel” in these passages in the sense of disembodied spirit, the requirements of both passages would be satisfied. What more natural than that the Christian brethren assembled in Mary's house, when assured by the maid that Peter stood at the door, speaking with Peter's voice – though they knew him to be closely guarded in prison, or perhaps already in worse case than even this – should have sprung to the only other possible explanation of the phenomenon: “It is his spirit!” . . . There is every suggestion that they knew he was destined for death and feared the worst; and there is no reason why they may not have jumped to the conclusion that the worst had come and they were being only now and thus advertised of it.

. . .

In the passage in Matthew, nothing could seem more appropriate than the sense of “disembodied spirits.” What could so enhance the reverence with which “these little ones” - especially if literal children are meant – should be treated here than the assurance that it is specifically their souls which in heaven stand closest to the Father's throne?

In his commentary on Matthew, D. A. Carson agrees:

The most likely explanation is the one Warfield defends. The “angels” of the “little ones” are their spirits after death and they always see the heavenly Father's face. Do not despise these little ones, Jesus says, for their destiny is the unshielded glory of the Father's presence. The present tense (they “always see”) raises no difficulty because Jesus is dealing with a class, not individuals. The same interpretation admirably suits Acts 12:15: what the assembled group thinks is standing outside is Peter's “spirit” (angel), which accounts for Rhoda's recognition of his voice.

But can the word “angel” be pressed into this interpretation? Certainly Jesus teaches that God's people in the Resurrection “will be like the angels in heaven” as to marriage (22:30) and immortality (Luke 20:36). Similar language is also used in 2 Baruch 51:5, 12 (cf. also 1 Enoch 51:4): the righteous will become angels in heaven, will be transformed into the splendor of angels, and will even surpass the excellency of angels. The evidence, though not overwhelming, is substantial enough to suppose that “their angels” simply refers to their continued existence in the heavenly Father's presence.

[Angels] seem to stand for and to typify redeemed and glorified mankind. They seem to be symbolic of the highest properties of created life, and there can be little doubt but that their main function is to minister to us. And it is a most glorious thought that human nature, eventually, when salvation is completed, is to be so exalted that we shall dwell in the presence of the Godhead itself! If you keep your eye on every reference to the cherubim and the seraphim and these beasts or living creatures, you will find that they always dwell right in the presence of the Godhead; and the biblical teaching is that that is the future for which you and I are destined. They are symbolic of our ultimate salvation and glorification, and of our eternal existence in the immediate presence of the glorious God.

Now I believe, therefore, that there is a very real significance in the statement which we are given in the third chapter of Genesis. We are told that when the man and his wife had been turned out of the Garden, cherubim were placed there at the east end of the Garden of Eden – cherubim and a flaming sword. I think that there is a profound significance in that; the flaming sword is to prevent man from entering back again into paradise. He can never go back on his own. There is only one way back, and it is the way that has been opened by the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes; but we should thank God that in addition to the flaming sword there were the cherubim, as if to say, at one and the same time, “You shall not come back; you shall come back. You shall not come back on your own, but you will come back – it is by another way, but you will return.” The presence of the cherubim indicates to me that those who have been thrown out shall also be brought back again. Let us leave it at that.

And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
- Acts 1:9-11 (ESV)

Jesus was taken “up” into “heaven.” Thus, heaven is up. Up where?

Look at this answer from Bibleline Ministries:

Whenever you ask a child, "Where is heaven?" they will usually point straight up. Twelve hours later if they were still pointing upward, they would be pointing in a totally different direction. Because the earth is turning on its axis constantly, the direction (when you point upward) is constantly changing. So then, where is heaven? Doesn't the Bible give us some more specific clues?

It appears from a study of the Scriptures that heaven is located in the North in our universe. When they would offer the sacrifices in the Old Testament they would offer them northward toward the Lord. Notice what Moses said in Leviticus 1:11, "And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar." The implication is clear that the Lord is in the north. "Northward before the Lord," says God's Word.

North is always the same direction from this planet no matter what time of day. If you were to point to the north in the morning, twelve hours later you would still be pointing in the same direction. No matter where the earth is in its orbit about the sun, north is always the same direction in relationship to the earth. So no matter what time of day or what time of year, north is always the same direction.

The Bible also implies that salvation comes from the north. In Psalms75:6 we read, "For promotion (salvation) cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south." Therefore, we conclude that salvation comes from the north since it is the only choice left. God and heaven must be located in the north of our universe.

Thirty-five hundred years ago in the book of Job in the Old Testament, God gave us two amazing scientific facts in one verse. Job 26:7 says, "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." One scientific fact is that the earth is hung in space upon nothing. History tells us that man did not know this, but what man did believe about the earth was scientifically in error. The Egyptians, for example, believed that the earth was a saucer held up by four pillars with a ring of mountains around the edge to keep the water from running off. The Greeks believed that the earth rested upon the back of Atlas. Because this theory was so popular and widespread, we still see its effects today. For example, when you obtain a book of maps it is called an Atlas. The Hindus believed that the earth was carried on an elephant's back and that the elephant was standing on a turtle swimming in a cosmic sea.
Amazingly the Bible did not include any of these myths and fairy tales, but simply stated that the earth was hung upon nothing. Science cannot give us a better description than this. If you ask a scientist what holds the earth in place, he will say "gravity". If you ask him what "gravity" is, he will answer "that which holds the earth in place." Actually, they have no better answer than the one God gave us 3,500 years ago in the book of Job.

Job 26:7 also says, "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place." Here is another amazing scientific fact. There is an empty place or void in the north of our universe. It was first discovered with the 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar, California, and is now being studied by three separate observatories across the country. This empty place has been found to be so large that it could contain 2,000 milky ways. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. That would mean that light traveling at 186,000 miles per second would take 100,000 years to travel from one end of the Milky Way to the other.

We believe that heaven is located in that void in the north of our universe.

Lucifer (Satan) in his rebellion (when he tried to overthrow God) spoke of this void in the north. Isaiah 14:13 tells us, "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the side of the north." This must refer to this empty corridor in the north where there are no stars. Heaven is said to be there.

One fascinating passage is found in Psalms 48:1-2. "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King." Without a doubt, this is a reference to the New Jerusalem and not to the earthly Jerusalem. "But you are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to our innumerable company of angels (Hebrew 12:22)."

When the Bible says, "Beautiful for situation," as the verse continues to explain, it is a reference to the fact that the city is located in the north of our universe. From "the sides of the north" God has a beautiful overview of the entire universe and of the whole earth.

I believe heaven is in this area in the north, and that it is a physical place with many spiritual elements.

Ordo Salutis. Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. Indeed, Adam's sin would have affected all of creation — both the physical and the spiritual realms. Also, Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an angel. Since angels are not blood relatives of Jesus, Christ's blood cannot pay for their sin. How, then, do Angels fit into God's plan of salvation?

There are two types of angels: those who have remained faithful to God and those who have rebelled. Augustine stressed the fact that the good angels were rewarded for their obedience by the gift of perseverance, meaning that their reward for being obedient was that they would continue to be obedient and, thus, never fall from Gods grace. In The Reformed Faith, Loraine Boettner writes:

Angels were created before man, and each angel was placed on test as an individual, personal, moral being. This apparently was a pure test of obedience, as was that of Adam. Some of the angels stood their test, for reasons only fully known to God, and, as a result, were then confirmed in a state of perfect angelic holiness, and are now the elect angels in heaven (I Tim. 5:21).

In A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, reformed theologian Robert Reymond compares God's retribution with fallen man to that of fallen angels:

It is clear that the Triune God's redemptive love is not unlimited or universal from the undeniable fact that it does not embrace fallen angels (Heb. 2:16). There are "elect angels" (I Tim. 5:21) who clearly were elected on supralapsarian grounds since they were not chosen from a mass of angels viewed as fallen, and accordingly there are fallen angels concerning whose redemption no divine efforts have been or will be expended, although they are creatures as much in need of redemption as are fallen men (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). It is freely granted that the fallen angels belong to a different creation order from that of humankind and that God has sovereignly determined to deal with (at least some) fallen people differently from the manner in which he has dealt with fallen angels. But the nonredemptive nature of his dealings with fallen angels raises the possibility at least that God's redemptive love for fallen humanity may not necessarily be unlimited and universal either.

God looks at us fallen human beings and has mercy on some of us, a luxury not afforded to the reprobate angels.

Angels, Part 8: Distinguishing Between Spiritual and Physical Angels

2009-08-21T00:02:00.005-04:00

In Part 5 we discussed whether all angels are possibly the same kind of being or if there are different kinds of angelic creatures. I used Part 6 and Part 7 to explain how there are, indeed, different types of angels. In Part 6 we discussed that some angels are definitely spiritual in nature. They don't have flesh and bones and people need to have a special ability in order to see them. In Part 7 we saw that some angels are definitely physical beings and do possess flesh and bones. With these angelic creatures, no special ability is needed to see them – they appear as men.

Try to refrain from making the mistake of believing that spiritual angels and physical angels are one and the same. Instead of believing that some angels are spiritual and other angels are physical beings, some people believe that they're all the same creature and that all angels are able to take on whatever form needed in a given situation, sometimes taking on a physical form and sometimes remaining unseen in the spiritual realm.

But we know from my last two posts that this isn't the case. If the angels that surrounded Dothan in 2 Kings 6:17 had been able to manifest themselves physically they could have calmed the fears of Elisha's servant right away. Instead, we read that the Lord had to first open his spiritual eyes so they could be seen. Also, if the angel in Numbers 22 could have exhibited a physical essence, the Lord would not have needed to open Balaam's spiritual eyes because he would've been able to see the angel's physical nature with his own physical eyes. But that's not how it happened. We can only extrapolate from the text that God provided for Balaam what the angel could not. The angel only appeared to Balaam after “the Lord opened” his spiritual eyes.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 7: Physical Beings

2009-08-18T11:37:00.011-04:00

The most striking passage in the Bible concerning the physical essence of angels is found in Genesis 19, when Lot is visited by two angels in the city of Sodom. God sent two angels to Sodom to warn Lot that He was going to destroy the entire city so that Lot and his family could escape. On arrival, Lot opened his house to his guests and treated them to a big feast:

"My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way." They said, "No; we will spend the night in the town square." But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
- Genesis 19:2, 3

In my last post I used this passage to prove that some angels, being spirits, do not have flesh and bones. As we can see, these verses also prove that by eating food, Lot's visitors were physical beings even though they were angelic beings. Instead of pulling out the scrolls and teaching his disciples that spirits don't exist or that spirits can't appear to the living, Jesus taught them “a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Then he proved that he himself wasn't a spirit by eating the meat they had with them. Regarding this passage Matthew Henry says, “He eats with them, to show that he had a real and true body.” If Jesus can prove to his disciples by eating “before them” that he has a physical body, then surely the angels in Genesis 19 are proving the same thing by eating with Lot and his family.

It is unclear if Lot was aware at this time that these men were angels (Heb. 13:2). What we do know is that Sodom was full of evil people and they didn't like visitors. When they heard that Lot had visitors, all the men in the city surrounded the house and demanded that Lot allow them to rape his guests. Lot went outside to try to reason with the men of the city, but the mob only grew angrier with Lot:

The next morning the angels urged Lot to leave the city quickly.

But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
- Genesis 19:16

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 6: Spiritual Beings and Spiritual Eyes

2009-08-13T01:46:00.011-04:00

Working, being a full-time student, raising two children and blogging is not always as easy as I make it look. Still, things have been especially slow around here for the last couple weeks and for that I apologize. Now that summer semester finals are finally over, blogging should resume at its regular pace.

We've been learning about angels.

Spiritual Beings. It has always been disputed whether angels are primarily spiritual or physical beings. The Bible spells out in so many words that angels, at least some angels, are primarily spiritual beings. Hebrews 1:13-14, for example, refers to angels as spirits:

And to which of the angels has he ever said, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
- Ephesians 6:12

Spiritual Eyes. The message seems clear. Angels are spiritual beings, not physical. That is to say, when angels are ministering to us (Heb. 1:14), protecting us (Ps. 34:7), guarding us (Ps. 91:11), and gathering with us (Heb. 12:22) they are completely invisible to the naked eye. In order to account for those rare occasions when people have actually seen these spiritual creatures (in both Biblical and extra-Biblical examples) I submit that God gave these people a special ability to see them.

In Numbers 22 Balak, the king of Moab, summons Balaam, a great magician, to put a curse on the people of Israel. When Balaam finally agrees to go and starts on his way his donkey sees an angel blocking the road ahead with a drawn sword and decides against taking Balaam any further. Oblivious to the angel's presence, Balaam starts hitting his donkey and even converses with it attempting to get the beast moving:

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand. And he bowed down and fell on his face.
- Numbers 22:31

The angel was there the whole time, but it wasn't until the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam that he became able to see the angel there. In 2 Kings 6 the Bible gives another example I believe illustrates this point.

Elisha was a prophet of God during a time when Syria and Israel were at war. On more than one occasion Elisha was able to inform the king of Israel what the king of Syria's next strategic move was going to be. Eventually, the king of Syria got fed up with Elisha and sent a small army to surround Dothan, the city where Elisha was living. Elisha's servant was the first to wake up and notice that they were surrounded by Syrian soldiers and chariots. He was very afraid and rushed to awake his master. He cried to Elisha, “what shall we do?”

He said, "Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord , please open his eyes that he may see." So 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.
- 2 Kings 6:16, 17

Angels, Part 5: Are There Different Types of Angels?

2009-07-27T05:58:00.005-04:00

We have not yet discussed whether angels are all alike or whether there are different kinds of angels. Some theologians believe the Bible has different terms (Cherubim, Seraphim, living creatures, etc.) for angels because, even though they are all rightly called "angels", they possess different attributes. This is difficult to grasp. If I could make a comparison: Think of angels like cats. Some believe there are different breeds (like the African Lion, Mountain Lion, Bob-Cat, house cat), but they are still all cats (or angels). Others, however, believe that the Bible has different names for angels and that, even though each one possesses their own unique characters and personalities, each one shares the same kind of essence. In other words, they believe angels are all alike, having the same essence.

Because there are theologically sound scholars on both sides of this debate, it's good to remember not to become too dogmatic on this issue. The Bible may not be as clear in this case as most of us would like it to be, so there's plenty of room for honest disagreement. In his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem states his case:

There are three other specific types of heavenly beings named in Scripture. Whether we think of these as special types of "angels" (in a broad sense of the term), or whether we think of them as heavenly beings distinct from angels, they are nonetheless created spiritual beings who serve and worship God.

a. The "Cherubim": The cherubim were given the task of guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:24), and God himself is frequently said to be enthroned on the cherubim or to travel with the cherubim as his chariot (Ps. 18:10; Ezek. 10:1-22). Over the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament were two golden figures of cherubim with their wings stretched out above the ark, and it was there that God promised to come to dwell among his people: "There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel" (Ex. 25:22; cf. vv. 18-21).
b. The "Seraphim": Another group of heavenly beings, the seraphim, are mentioned only in Isaiah 6:2-7, where they continually worship the Lord and call to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isa. 6:3).

c. The Living Creatures: Both Ezekiel and Revelation tell us of yet other kinds of heavenly beings known as "living creatures" around God's throne (Ezek. 1:5-14; Rev. 4:6-8). With their appearances like a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle, they are the mightiest representatives of various parts of God's entire creation (wild beasts, domesticated animals, human beings, and birds), and they worship God continually: "Day and night they never cease to sing, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'" (Rev. 4:8)

Representing the other view, Martin Lloyd-Jones, minister of Westminster Chapel in London for almost 30 years, states in God the Father, God the Son:

Now as we are dealing with this question of the names and designations we must, of course, refer to those beings who are described as 'cherubim' (e. g. Ps. 99:1; Ezek. 10:1-22) or 'seraphim' (Isa. 6:2), and, also, we must consider those that are described in Revelation 4 as the 'living creatures' or 'the beasts'. We cannot now go into all the evidence, but I think we can take it that these terms are synonymous, and all these names probably refer to the same beings. We speak with comparative ignorance; we are told very little about them. But we are told that they have the appearance of different animals, though generally the face of a man. They seem to be composite beings, at any rate in their representation.

I know what you are thinking and, believe me, if Martin Lloyd-Jones weren’t such a theological heavyweight his disagreement would hardly be worth mentioning here, especially since he offers us no support to back his views. That being said, I think Lloyd-Jones' view is completely valid. I see no problem with believing that these different terms for angels are synonymous just as Scripture sometimes uses other synonyms for angels such as "sons of God" (Job 1:6; 2:1), "holy ones" (Ps. 89:5, 7), "spirits" (Heb. 1:14), "watchers" (Dan. 4:13, 17, 23), "thrones," "dominions," "principalities," and "authorities" (Col. 1:16).

Another remote possibility is that the terms in question (Cherubim, Seraphim, etc.) may refer to different ranks and orders (gradations) of angels, even though they're all the same kind of being. This makes sense when one considers that Christ himself claimed to have twelve legions of angels at his disposal (Matt. 26:53) and that the Bible refers to Michael as an archangel (Jude 1:9).

Whichever one of these views you end up subscribing to, hopefully this post has been helpful in helping to define the terms we’re going to be dealing with as we progress in this series.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 4: When Were Angels Created?

2009-07-21T14:19:00.015-04:00

In Part 3 of this series I concluded that angels, although spiritual beings, are nevertheless created beings. They have not existed from eternity as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have existed. Now we come to the question of when these angelic beings were created.

The Bible tells us that "the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them" all in six literal days (Exodus 20:11). Therefore, like every other created creature, angels were created some time within the six days of creation. Some scholars have expressed doubt, however, suggesting the creation story in Genesis was not meant to serve as a technical record for spiritual entities and allow the possibility that angels predate the Genesis account. They offer verses like Job 38:4-7, which states:

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth . . . or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (ESV)

The "Sons of God" used here is another term for angel. The Hebrew ("bene haelohim") is also used in Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Psalm 29:1 and Psalm 89:6, and each time synonymously with the English word "angel." The question remains whether this verse is sufficient for arguing the presence of angels before creation. As Louis Berkhof, the great theologian who taught for almost four decades at Calvin Theological Seminary writes in his Systematic Theology:

The time of their creation cannot be fixed definitely. The opinion of some, based on Job 38:7, that they were created before all other things, really finds no support in Scripture. As far as we know, no creative work preceded the creation of heaven and earth. The passage in the book of Job (38:7) teaches, indeed, in a poetic vein that they were present at the founding of the world just as the stars were, but not that they existed before the primary creation of heaven and earth. The idea that the creation of the heavens was completed on the first day, and that the creation of the angels was simply a part of the day's work, is also an unproved assumption, though the fact that the statement in Gen. 1:2 applies to the earth only would seem to favor it. Possibly the creation of the heavens was not completed in a single moment any more than that of the earth. The only safe statement seems to be that they were created before the seventh day. This at least follows from such passages as Gen. 1:2; Ex. 20:11; Job 38:7; Neh. 9:6.

Wayne Grudem, the Research Professor of Bible and Theology at Phoenix Seminary, agrees. He writes in his Systematic Theology:

There may be a hint at the creation of angelic beings on the first day of creation when we read that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1), and then immediately after we read that "the earth was without form and void" (Gen 1:2), but with no mention of the heavens in this second verse. This may suggest that the uninhabitable state of the earth is contrasted with the heavens where, perhaps, God had already created angelic beings and assigned them various roles and orders. This idea is made more plausible when we read that "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" at the time when God laid the "cornerstone" of the earth and sunk its "bases" in the process of forming or founding it (Job 38:6-7). If the angels ("the sons of God") shouted for joy when God was making the earth inhabitable, this could imply that God created the angelic beings early on the first day.

Angels, Part 3: Created Beings

2009-07-17T01:47:00.012-04:00

Angels have not always existed; in distinction from God they are part of the universe that God created. The creation of the angels has been denied by some throughout history, but it is clearly taught in Scripture. It's unclear whether those passages which speak of the creation of the host of heaven (Genesis 2:1 and Psalm 33:6) refer to the creation of the angels rather than to the creation of the starry host; but in Colossians 1:16 Paul tells us that God created all things “visible and invisible” through Christ and for him, and then specifically includes the angelic world with the phrase “whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities.”

Other Bible verses addressing the creation of angels include Nehemiah 9:6:

You are the Lord , you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

And Psalm 148:2, 5:

Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! . . . Let them praise the name of the Lord ! For he commanded and they were created.

The Bible's position should be clear! God alone is eternal from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:2) and all things were made through him (John 1:3).

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Blogging Anniversary

2009-07-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

1 year and running . . .

Angels, Part 2: Definition

2009-07-11T09:07:00.002-04:00

In today's pop-culture the word angel usually denotes a supernatural intermediate between God and man. The term “angel,” however, is derived from the Greek word angelos which means “messenger.” Angelos and the Hebrew equivalent, malak (which also means “messenger”), are the two most common terms used to describe this class of beings in the Bible. Together they appear almost 300 times from Genesis to Revelation because, in general, when angels appeared their task was to deliver a message.

There are other Greek and Hebrew words for the English "angel." We will get to those all in good time.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Angels, Part 1: Introduction

2009-07-02T13:10:00.002-04:00

The point of this series is to bring us back to a purer understanding of what angels are and remove some common misconceptions. Years of art and pop culture have only diluted these concepts and, unfortunately, most theology has offered us little more than further confusion to this subject.

I'm sure there are many extra-biblical sources that share lots of fine ideas about angels, but since the Bible gives us the only infallible account, that is where we will begin and what we will use to measure any other accounts.

Editor's Note: Click Here to view this entire series.

Saturday Matinee, June 2009

2009-06-27T03:21:00.000-04:00

For this month's Saturday Matinee edition I thought I would go ahead and get out all this stuff that's been hidden deep inside me for too long! There are some great science-fiction movies that have recently come out or that will come out in the near future. Make sure you check out these trailers:

Star Trek: This is Star Trek like never seen before. If you haven't seen it yet I strongly recommend it.

Transformers II, Revenge of the Fallen:

Aliens in the Attic:

2012:

Twilight, New Moon:

Alice in Wonderland: This isn't really sci-fi (nor is it a trailer) but one can't help being excited about it. Tim Burton directing a big-budget production of Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Anne Hathaway as the Queen!?

CTD Introduction: Semper Reformanda!

2009-06-21T02:36:00.001-04:00

Scripture and Plain Reason. A controversy of major proportions is spreading through the church. It began when Erich von Däniken wrote Chariots of the Gods over 40 years ago but exploded when the internet entered the scene and changed the way millions of people around the world receive their information. Since then, an avalanche of paranormal literature has argued that extraterrestrial beings first visited earth millions of years ago and that they were even responsible for the creation of human life itself. Aliens put us on this planet, gave us life, and have “assisted” us in our evolution by giving us religion and manipulating our DNA for hundreds of thousands of years, supposedly making us stronger and more intelligent. Aliens, they say, is just another name for God.

Many Christians have defended this position in writing. Yet these authors differ from secular ufologists because they do not reject the Bible's authority or truthfulness, but rather offer new interpretations of the Bible to support their claims. We may even call them “evangelical ufologists” because by personal commitment to Jesus Christ and by profession of belief in the total truthfulness of Scripture, they still identify themselves very clearly with evangelicalism. If this seems far-fetched, then just consider the seriousness of this debate.

What has been the result?

On the one hand, many liberal interpretations have been applied to passages where said interpretations have no business being in the first place. Too often people are willing to accept a newer, more liberal interpretation of the Bible, not because the logic is sound, but because they have never done their own research to understand the traditional views and why people have clung to them for so long. Sometimes a simple glance in an old commentary can go a long way in enlightening one to the real meaning of a Biblical passage. And while a more recent interpretation might look pretty with all the shiny bells and whistles that make a theory attractive, we know that a theory that does not hold up to the standards set forth in the Bible is no more valuable than a handful of cow dung painted gold.

On the other hand, this process has brought many legitimate questions to the table and in some cases has very seriously challenged (crippled?) traditional explanations. In other words, it has altogether brought much confusion and uncertainty. Although the vast majority of evangelicals have not endorsed the evangelical ufologist position, sensing it does not really reflect the pattern of Biblical truth, traditional positions have not been totally satisfactory because they have not fully answered the recent evangelical ufologists' arguments.

I started this website in the hope that it might lead to constructive solutions to this controversy. In the life of this blog I'm going to re-evaluate many long-held traditional beliefs for the purpose of convincing, “by Scripture and plain reason,” reformed Christians of the extraterrestrial and paranormal realities, while simultaneously holding recent evangelical ufologists' theories under the microscope for the purpose of exposing their weaknesses and persuading them the reformed interpretations of these Biblical events are correct.

In doing so, I'll also make every effort not to care if the theological argument in question is new or traditional, liberal or reformed. To these labels I'll show no partiality. My bias is toward the Holy Word of God alone. All I care about is the truth. Not what the truth means to me. Not what the truth means to you. But truth. Pure unadulterated truth - the only truth there is. My only agenda here is to follow the facts where they lead. To this end I'm willing to pursue almost any means because the success of this blog can only be determined by whether or not the truth wins at the end of each and every day.

Semper Reformanda! One of the battle cries of the protestant reformation was Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda, i.e. “The Church reformed and always to be reformed.” The Reformers believed the church was corrupt and change was desperately needed. But it was a change in the interest of preservation and restoration of more authentic faith and life—a church reformed and always to be reformed according to the Word of God. The reformed motto challenges both the conservative and the liberal impulses that characterize our diverse church today. It does not bless either tradition for tradition's sake or change for change's sake. Some understand Semper Reformanda to mean "always reforming," tasking each generation to reassess the firmness of their doctrine. Presbyterian Today contributor, Anna Case-Winters, comments on this mantra:

In the 16th-century context the impulse it reflected was neither liberal nor conservative, but radical, in the sense of returning to the "root." . . . The cultural assumption of the Reformers' day was that what is older is better. This is strange to our contemporary ears. We do not share this assumption; if anything, we applaud the new and "innovative."

But one of the serious charges church authorities hurled at the Reformers was that they were "innovating." John Calvin responded to this and other charges in his treatise "The Necessity of Reforming the Church." As he put it, "We are accused of rash and impious innovation for having ventured to propose any change at all [in] the former state of the Church." He then goes on to counter that they were not "innovating," but restoring the church to its true nature, purified from the "innovations" that riddled the church through centuries of inattention to Scripture and theological laxity.

The appeal was to a more ancient source, Scripture—"sola scriptura" (Scripture alone). According to church historian David Steinmetz, by submitting themselves to Scripture, the churches of the Reformation movement were purging themselves of these unwanted "innovations" and returning to a more ancient and therefore purer form of church life.

We could use our own reformation today! Some churches have already held long discussions and debates over whether or not the Bible discusses the presence of extraterrestrials, and still the controversy shows signs of intensifying, not subsiding. It's my belief that before the struggle ends, probably no Christian family and no evangelical church will remain untouched by it. Therefore, let us become the reformers of the 21^st century, not demanding change for change's sake or tradition for tradition's sake but, instead, that our churches and leaders appeal solely to scripture for their beliefs and teachings. By re-examining the scriptures in question, we may find that we also return to a more ancient and therefore purer form of church life and Biblical truth.

The Christian Answer to the Alien Problem

2009-06-18T21:06:00.001-04:00

Introduction. Is Christianity at odds with belief in extraterrestrials? Does belief in UFOs and ETs contradict biblical teachings? Or can belief in aliens be compatible with the Bible?

Vatican officials made headlines last year after releasing a statement saying that belief in aliens does not contradict God. Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Vatican's chief astronomer, said that ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom:

In my opinion this possibility exists . . . Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis . . . Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom . . . Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation . . . As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us.

The Vatican's statement came as a shock to the public since this is the first time a major Christian denomination as a whole has condoned the belief in extraterrestrial life. Most of Christendom is still cautious about endorsing such ideas, and not without good reason. Christians have been wise to approach the issue of alien life with both care and timidity. Since the presence of alien beings in the universe would be no small matter, surely it seems strange, then, that a superficial reading of the holy scriptures Christians hold dear, the Bible, would not reveal that God ever included aliens in His plan, either in creation or redemption.

Still, the evidence keeps piling up. AOL recently conducted a poll asking their audience if they believe extraterrestrial beings have visited earth, if the government is trying to cover up extraterrestrial life, and whether or not they have seen a UFO. While the majority (75%) admitted to never actually seeing a UFO, 73% of those polled truly believe that extraterrestrials have visited earth and 76% believe the government is trying to cover up their existence. On the other side, only 17% don't believe we have been visited and only 15% don't believe in a government cover-up. Clearly, more and more people are seeing evidence indicating that the UFO/ET phenomenon is real and it only stands to reason that a good number of these people are also Christians. They want to know what the Bible says about life on other planets and why their churches insist on treating the topic like the plague.

To be fair, there are still many Christians, very smart Christians, who hold to the traditional view because of strong convictions that the Bible doesn't permit extraterrestrial life. They may not know what to make of all the UFO reports, but they know in their minds it can't be of extraterrestrial origin – the Bible tells them so.

In this series I'm going to reveal why Christian churches have traditionally rejected the idea that life could exist elsewhere in the universe. I'll do my best to state their cases accurately and fairly and, then, I will attempt to expose the weaknesses and fallacies in their biblical arguments.

Before we look at these commonly held arguments objecting to extraterrestrial life, I just want to make it clear that the reasons I give for debunking these objections are not why I believe in aliens. In future posts I will carefully explain my reasoning for this. Now I am merely attempting to communicate why the following arguments (supposedly based on Biblical principles) are not nearly enough to persuade me to believe otherwise.

The Geocentric Model (AKA an argument from silence). Jason Lisle writes this article, from Answers in Genesis, in which he argues that life couldn't exist on other planets because God had special plans when He created Earth, plans He did not have for the other planets:

The notion of alien life does not square well with Scripture. The earth is unique. God designed the earth for life (Isaiah 45:18). The other planets have an entirely different purpose than does the earth, and thus, they are designed differently. In Genesis 1 we read that God created plants on the earth on Day 3, birds to fly in the atmosphere and marine life to swim in the ocean on Day 5, and animals to inhabit the land on Day 6. Human beings were also made on Day 6 and were given dominion over the animals. But where does the Bible discuss the creation of life on the “lights in the expanse of the heavens”? There is no such description because the lights in the expanse were not designed to accommodate life. God gave care of the earth to man, but the heavens are the Lord’s (Psalm 115:16). From a biblical perspective, extraterrestrial life does not seem reasonable.

I'm sorry, but asking, “Where does the Bible discuss the creation of life on the lights in the expanse of the heavens,” is not a real argument to dismiss life on other planets. It is an argument from silence! Nothing can be deduced from an argument of silence. It's true, the Bible never explicitly states that there is life on other planets, nor does it state that God had life on other planets in mind in the creation order. Using this same logic, however, one could also say there's nothing in the Bible to the contrary. That is, the Bible never states life isn't on other planets. The Bible doesn't say God's only intention for life was exclusively for Earth. Though an argument from silence can, at times be a valid and convincing form of abductive reasoning at times, in this case it is clearly fallible. As the saying goes, "Absence of proof is not proof of absence."

In the article God and the Extraterrestrials, Werner Gitt has this to say:

The Bible, the revealed written Word of God, teaches that life is only possible through a process of creation. Even if there were other galaxies with planets very similar to earth, life could only be there if the Creator had fashioned it. If God had done that, and if these beings were going to visit us one day, then He would surely not have left us unenlightened about this.

Notice, again, the argument from silence. Gitt seems to believe that God, the infinite author and ruler of the entire universe, would be obligated to enlighten us, His finite, subservient creatures, if He wanted to create extraterrestrial life. The intent of the Bible, however, was never to explain everything, but to bring people to God. It states:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” - Deuteronomy 29:29

“Do you listen in on God's council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?” - Job 15:8

Gitt continues:

The reasons stars were made are given to us in several places in the Bible, not only in the well-known Psalm 19 but especially in the Creation account. In Genesis 1:14 we read: ‘And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.’

We see from this that stars are there for mankind on earth. Add to this the sequence of creation (on the first day the earth, and only on the fourth day all of the stars), and it is easy to see the thrust of the biblical testimony, that the purpose of creation is uniquely centred on this earth.

Yes, the creation account tells us the purpose of stars. For all intents and purposes this has always been mankind's primary practical use for stars - signs, seasons, days and years. As I'm sure the Answers in Genesis team would agree, there's much more information about the stars (and planets) than what is found in Genesis 1 and Psalm 14. Indeed, much of what we know about the planets could not have been known before their discovery. Is it heresy to believe Uranus orbits on its side at 97 degrees or that Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit because such information is omitted from scripture? Absolutely not.

While I have found everything the Bible says about our universe to be accurate, the canon just doesn't tell us everything there is to know about it.

As often as it makes its rounds, this is by far the weakest biblical argument opposing extraterrestrial life. In the next few posts we will examine much stronger arguments than this one.

Believing in aliens is believing in evolution. Before I begin to answer this objection, it's only fair to point out that there are many sincere Christians on both sides of the evolution debate. As this graph shows, mainline protestants are divided right down the middle when it comes to believing in evolution as a valid explanation for the origins of human life on earth. Roman Catholics tend to believe in it a little bit more, but evangelical numbers are way down in this arena. I've found this trend even more so in theologically reformed circles, which are more fundamental in their hermeneutical approach.

Those who consider themselves to be theistic evolutionists as well as Christians who feel the concept of evolution does not contradict their Biblical worldview will neither be swayed by this objection or my answer to it. Rather, this article is written for those Christians, like myself, who do not believe in evolution.

As this objection suggests, many Christians conjecture that the belief in life on other planets stems from an evolutionary ideology and must, therefore, be rejected. In Are ETs and UFOs Real? Jason Lisle argues:

The idea of extraterrestrial life stems largely from a belief in evolution. Recall that in the evolutionary view, the earth is “just another planet”—one where the conditions just happened to be right for life to form and evolve. If there are countless billions of other planets in our galaxy, then surely at least a handful of these worlds have also had the right conditions. Extraterrestrial life is almost inevitable in an evolutionary worldview.

David Laughlin also weighs in with this:

The idea that other civilizations exist in outer space is based on evolutionary assumptions. Since, it is reasoned, life evolved on earth, it must have evolved in other regions of the universe as well, because the universe is so large. Such reasoning is faulty, though, because evolution does not have any biblical or true scientific basis to begin with.

In fact, there is a message from a higher intelligence that has been given to us on earth, and it tells us the real solution to life's basic problems:

'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John 3:16).

Many Christians refuse to believe in aliens because, to them, it means embracing a faulty evolutionist worldview. Since science has never offered evidence to support the evolution theory and since a literal reading of the Bible does not support an evolutionary worldview, Christians have little to no incentive to believe in it. Such theories, we believe, are better left in the hands of those in great psychological need of a substitute worldview – one where there is no God and, therefore, no judgment or consequences for behavior. For us, the creationists, we sleep soundly at night knowing our lives have a purpose and knowing there is a God who is literally in control of everything.

Despite what you may or may not have seen in the news recently, the young-earth, creationist theories are starting to gain traction in the scientific community and intelligent design (as a whole) has literally taken off in recent years. Gone are the days when people viewed “creation science” as an oxymoron. Now, many are seeing a correlation between faith and science. As Sam Brownback once stated:

The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God . . . Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

Since most creation scientists openly refute the possibility of alien life, it's easy to see why so many Christians can't find a place for ET in their theology. But is there really no chink in the creationists' logic? Look again at this argument, to which they continually turn to “debunk” aliens. Since many proponents for extraterrestrial life believe that aliens evolved through the process of natural selection, it's automatically assumed by many creationist Christians that life can't exist elsewhere. While whimsically dismissing the idea that maybe since God made such an enormous universe He might have put life on other planets as well, creationists arrogantly put limits on what God was capable of in the creation process. Some will contend that the Bible never mentions God putting life on other planets during the creation process but we have already seen (In Part 2) that this is an argument from silence, and thus invalid.

I don't remember seeing the creation of angels anywhere in the creation narrative. Is the AIG team ready to write them off too?

ET's Salvation. I now come to the final (some would say “main”) point Christians raise in objection to belief in aliens. This is the hardest of the three arguments to refute, and complicating the issue is that this is the argument that holds a lot of Christians back from believing in extraterrestrial life, myself included for many years. In Are ETs and UFOs Real? Jason Lisle protests:

When we consider how the salvation plan might apply to any hypothetical extraterrestrial (but otherwise human-like) beings, we are presented with a problem. If there were Vulcans or Klingons out there, how would they be saved? They are not blood relatives of Jesus, and so Christ’s shed blood cannot pay for their sin. One might at first suppose that Christ also visited their world, lived there, and died there as well, but this is antibiblical. Christ died once for all (1 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 9:27–28, Hebrews 10:10). Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an alien.

One might suppose that alien beings have never sinned, in which case they would not need to be redeemed. But then another problem emerges: they suffer the effects of sin, despite having never sinned. Adam’s sin has affected all of creation— not just mankind. Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. These kinds of issues highlight the problem of attempting to incorporate an antibiblical notion into the Christian worldview.

I find the above argument valid; just not complete. If there were a created race other than us humans, one would have to consider how they fit in with God's plan of redemption. Are they perfect beings living in a fallen world? Are they fallen beings with no chance of salvation?

The problem doesn't go away with aliens, though. If the above argument is indeed valid, there is at least one race of creatures that all Bible-believing Christians would never doubt exists but that also shouldn't exist if the logic above is correct. Any takers as to what creature that might be?

Angels!

Following the same logic as this objection, angels have no more possibility of existing than aliens do. Jesus is now and forever both God and man; but He is not an angel. Since angels are not blood relatives of Jesus, Christ's blood cannot pay for their sin. And, another problem emerges that was mentioned. Romans 8:20–22 makes it clear that the entirety of creation suffers under the bondage of corruption. Indeed, Adam's sin would have affected all of creation — both the physical and the spiritual realms. Does this mean angels don't exist? The Bible makes it clear that they do.

Now, try to resist the temptation of jumping ahead of me, folks. I'm still nowhere near concluding that aliens are actually angels or that angels are aliens. I'm not saying they're the same thing. Right now all I'm doing is drawing a connection. Belief in angels has the same theological implications as belief in aliens. Although I consider the above argument to be valid, it's not completely airtight because if we are forced to throw out the idea of aliens on those grounds alone then we must also throw out the idea of angels. It wavers at this point. If the existence of angels is possible, then isn't the existence of aliens also possible?

(Editor's Note: Click Here to learn how angels fit into God's plan of salvation.)

This should cover all the usual bases, but if anyone else has any other theological problems with aliens I will be happy to address those as well.

Alternative History

2009-06-18T00:27:00.000-04:00

Cargo Cults. We know from recent history how primitive people react to their first confrontation with modern technology. During World War II, American soldiers were sent to certain isolated islands all over the south Pacific to build airfields and military installations. The natives of these islands, isolated from the outside world, lived a virtual stone-age existence until the Americans came and went. The previously unknown strangers, the Americans, had brought fabulous treasures with them from the skies: tools, weapons, uniforms, and sky vehicles more spectacular than anything they had ever dreamed of. Who else but gods could possess such superior knowledge? The recent visitors didn't hunt or fish, yet they never lacked food. They came from the heavens; surely they had to be gods.

After the Americans left and returned home at the end of the war, a very curious thing happened. The natives began making straw and bamboo fetishes resembling airplanes and crude landing surfaces on their islands to tempt these visitors back. The natives offered fiery sacrifices. They constructed “airport towers” out of bamboo and “headphones” out of coconuts and waited for the airplanes to come with more cargo. They scanned the heavens day and night, watching and waiting. The islanders had a new religion. A new cult was born from an encounter between a primitive people and visitors from a technologically advanced, highly developed society.

There is a lesson, here, in the reaction of those south sea islanders to their first experience with white men and airplanes. If only they'd known how to write, their impressions would surely have made fantastic reading, so much so that maybe their readers would consider the whole account as mere fantasy written by a very imaginative, yet, very superstitious people. For this reason, we would be wise to discover what truths lie behind the legends and myths of ancient times. We would be wise to take them seriously.

Troy. One man did just that. In 1864, on the shores of Asia-minor, a man came searching for the legendary ancient city of Troy. He found it at Hisarlik, in what is now Turkey. Heinrich Schliemann had made up his mind to take the tales of Homer (ie, The Iliad and The Odyssey) literally. Many wise men in his day called it utter foolishness and nonsense. Homer's stories had been written 8 centuries before Christ and, charming as they were to Schliemann's peers, they knew the stories to be nothing more than well-written poetry. Their skepticism wasn't enough to deter Heinrich Schliemann who had faith in the factual historical side of the blind bard's accounts. At last, that faith was rewarded. Following the poet's lead, Schliemann found ancient Troy. Just imagine his satisfaction in locating Troy exactly where Homer said it was. In his own day, Schliemann was ridiculed and mocked for taking seriously what was supposed to be ancient mythology. Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest archaeologists of all time.

Alternative History. Alternative history, as defined by this site, is taking the myths, fables, tales, folklore, and legends of ancient civilizations and looking at them through the lens of possibility. In this series, we're going to look at ancient stories from around the globe usually disregarded as nothing more than mythology, and determine whether or not they hold any weight in the realm of possibility.

Throughout the world, people have fables, legends and even religions which center around visits from alien astronauts. In a similar fashion as the cargo cults, they didn't call them “astronauts,” of course, but “gods” who came to earth in miraculous sky vehicles. We could easily dismiss these tales as mere fantasy except ancient people have recorded them from every region in the world. Written accounts of godlike visitors literally abound.

And now for a clip from one of my favorite movies of all time beautifully illustrating the point I am trying to make:

A word about symbolism. Ancient accounts of godlike visitors pretty much go back to the beginning of recorded history. In every corner of the world, people have passed down fables, legends and religions all of which center around visits from alien astronauts. In a manner similar to the cargo cults, they didn't call them “astronauts,” of course, but “gods.” It's important to note that, since ancient civilizations had no practical way of archiving encounters with advanced technology, they were forced, out of necessity, to resort to symbolism. I can't stress too strongly just how important this symbolism is to the development of our discussion here.

Have you ever thought how a person who lived thousands of years ago would describe a UFO sighting to people who had no idea what a UFO or an airplane was? If ancient people living in tents and clay huts really did have such experiences, their method of articulating what they had witnessed would, of necessity, have been very limited. Birds ruled the sky thousands of years ago and man didn't even know what hot air balloons were until the 18th century. The only vehicles anyone was familiar with back then were chariots, carriages and boats since there were no trains, planes, automobiles and, especially, no spaceships. Therefore, we must consider what kind of symbolic references they would use to detail their encounters. We have to look at their stories and depictions through their eyes.

When UFO sightings started becoming more common in the late 1940s and 1950s, spectators had to find a way to describe what they had seen. They hadn't witnessed phenomena like this before, so it was difficult for them to portray any encounters they had. Thus, it became common to relate the sighting to objects everyone at that time would have been familiar with. They were “saucers” that flew or “flying saucers.” Now, we use the much more generic “UFO.” But even now, to be more specific, we will say it was a saucer-shaped UFO, a cigar-shaped UFO, a triangle UFO, etc.

All around the world we have ancient depictions of flight such as artifacts, wall carvings, and other depictions showing what man viewed as flight. Again, from the perspective of an ancient people living in clay huts and using stone tools, anything flying in the sky back then would have been “alive”, like a bird. So, when we examine these depictions of flight and, more specifically, depictions of people coming down with the power of flight it starts to raise the question, “What were they trying to tell us?”

Consider the picture on the right of the Sumerian winged disc god, Ashur. Were they trying to tell us they were looking at bird-men? No. Interestingly enough, though, when archaeologists first began excavating Iraq in the late 1800s and early 1900s, after retrieving all these wall reliefs of what the ancient Sumerians called their gods, the Annunaki (Lit. “those who from heaven come to Earth”), they had no idea what the term “Annunaki” could have meant.

They pulled out tablets accurately showing descriptions of the outer planets, even the relative distances between the outer planets. Remember, science didn't even discover Pluto until 1930. So, in the early 1900s, when archaeologists start pulling out all these relics of the Annunaki, they labeled them “bird-men”, and assumed it was a Sumerian legend; nothing more than their creation story to be told to young children about how we got here. Well, what if these stories are actually fact, based upon ancient man's references available at that time? Anything flying in the sky at that time wasn't something they could attribute with technological references so they would have had to have given it a spiritual reference that basically says "wings = power of flight."

If you think that Sumer was the only place in the ancient world where man used symbolism to depict flight, you would be wrong. The description by the Sumerians of a winged disk was carried over into the other cultures, such as the Egyptian and Acadian cultures as a symbol for some form of divine intervention coming down to Earth.

Another example of a flight symbol was found in a tomb in Saqqara, Egypt, dated around 200 BC (see picture on right). As airplanes were unknown in the days it was found, it was thrown into a box marked, “wooden bird model,” and stored in the basement of the Cairo Museum. When it was rediscovered later by Dr. Khalil Messiha, it was considered so important to the Egyptian government that a special committee of leading scientists was established to study the object.

As Lumir G. Janku notes:

To elucidate the reasons for the decision of the committee, almost unprecedented in the field of archeology, let's consider some aspects of the model. The model has the exact proportions of a very advanced form of "pusher-glider" that is still having "some bugs ironed out". This type of glider will stay in the air almost by itself—even a very small engine will keep it going at low speeds, as low as 45 to 65 mph., while it can carry an enormous payload. This ability is dependent on the curious shape of wings and their proportions. The tipping of wings downward, a reversedihedral wing as it is called, is the feature behind this capability. A similar type of curving wings are implemented on the Concorde airplane, giving the plane a maximum lift without detracting from its speed.In that context, it seems rather incredible that someone, more than 2,000 years ago, for any reason, devised a model of a flying device with such advanced features, requiring quite extensive knowledge of aerodynamics. There were no such things as airplanes in these times, we are told by archeologists and historians. But this case seems to be an exception, living in the midst of the rather unimaginative and rigid paradigm of contemporary science. It is also necessary to point out that Egyptians are known to have nearly always made scale-models of projects and objects which they planned to create or build.

Is the concept of ancient airplane depictions limited to Egypt? Lumir Janku continues:

Gold trinkets were found in an area covering Central America and coastal areas of South America, estimated to belong to a period between 500 and 800 CE, but since they are made from gold, accurate dating is impossible and based essentially on stratigraphy which may be deceptive. However, we can safely say that these gold objects are more than 1000 years old.

As seen from the pictures, the shape of the sample object is rather ambiguous. The archaeologists labelled these objects as zoomorphic, meaning, animal shaped objects. The question is, what animal do they represent? When we compare these with other objects from the same cultures depicting animals, a curious facet of the comparison would be obvious: the other objects are recognizable, rendered usually with a great accuracy and attention to realistic detail.

There are several types of animals that fly—birds, insects, and several mammals, such as bats and some gliders, for instance flying squirrels, opossums, and then there are some lizards; there are also some fish which for brief periods glide through the air. There are water animals which seem to fly through the water, such as rays, skates and some selachians. But how does the depicted object compare with these choices? All its features taken into a consideration, we have no match. Seen from above, the object obviously has no fish features, but seems to show rather explicitly mechanistic ones.

So, when we look at all this from a larger perspective, we start to see a surprising similarity shown by artifacts created by ancient people in diverse parts of the world. It's quite apparent that ancient man wasn’t personally flying these craft but, rather, was depicting in the best possible manner, something that was being observed, much in the manner of the Cargo cults of the South Pacific we have already discussed. But what they were witnessing could only be replicated and explained with the knowledge available to them at the time. They had no knowledge of technology and therefore made no technological references. They used only spiritual references or referenced things they could see in nature, such as wings, to articulate visitors that possessed the power of flight.

We do the exact same thing in our culture if we look at today's modern symbolic references for the power of flight. Here we have patch from Apollo 11, the first piloted landing on the moon, and it's an eagle. “Houston, the eagle has landed,” spoke Neil Armstrong as his craft settled on the lunar surface. If people 6,000 years from now could look at the Apollo 11 patch, I don't think they'd assume we were landing birds on the moon. No, they would recognize that we were just symbolically showing that we have the power of flight. It only makes sense that these ancient cultures weren't actively intending to depict that they knew men with wings. It was merely to say those men possessed the power of flight. They didn't have any reference for spacecraft or airplanes, because the only thing in the sky back then would have been something alive, like a bird.

Ancient Technology

2009-06-16T23:44:00.000-04:00

Since so much of what is termed "paranormal" still remains undiscovered, blogging about paranormal phenomena is not always as easy as I make it look. Someone recently told me that studying the paranormal was like putting together a 10,000 piece puzzle without looking at the box. That statement is true on so many levels. For me personally, the most difficult part of trying to connect everything is writing each part of the bigger picture in small increments, piece by piece. When everything is connected, it's hard to concentrate on just one piece of the puzzle within the narrow constraints of a single blog post. The task is necessary, though, because each piece has to be in its proper place in order for you to see the big picture.

The Antikythera Computer. In summation, the Antikythera mechanism is a complex, hand-held planetarium, composed of tiny gears and dials. Under radar, it appears to have somewhere between 39 and 70 cogs, gears, and wheels making it more complicated than a modern Swiss watch.

What makes this device so special? For starters, it is over 2,000 years old, probably crafted between 150 and 100 B. C. Technology this complex is considered to be several centuries before its time. Clocks and treadwheel cranes were not invented until the 13th century and even those devices were quite large and consisted of just a few parts.

For another thing, the Antikythera mechanism served 2 main purposes. First, and foremost, it worked as an astronomical device. The ancient Greeks may have used it to track their courses or, at any given moment, calculate the motion of certain stars and planets for the purposes of plotting their positions in relation to earth. Strikingly, the object's astronomy is very precise and accurate. Secondly, though, the Antikythera mechanism served as an astrological device. People could turn the dial back to the day they were born and see the arrangement of the heavens on that specific day. In other words, one could use this device to learn what their zodiac sign was. Such information, 2,000 years ago, was esoteric knowledge and considered sacred.

The Antikythera mechanism is said to be the first known computer. But no one knows who made it, when, or exactly where it came from. Since there are Greek inscriptions on the object, we at least know that this particular mechanism was made by the Greeks, possibly by Archimedes or one of his peers. The real mystery, however, is where the Greeks learned to make it and how. Due to the object's complexity, there should have been interim, more primitive, devices made prior to something this complicated and yet no evidence of this has ever been found. Therefore, the very existence of the Antikythera mechanism is a mystery, in and of itself.

No soot on the walls. It always happens to me in the winter time. Sometimes where I live in SC the temperature can drop to the low 20s, not including the wind chill that can go in effect. I mean, sure, there are holidays around every corner, hot cider, Charlie Brown specials and pleasant visits from family and friends. But what should be an otherwise enjoyable time of year is often quite uninspiring through the hassle of always trying to dress warm enough, always waiting for the car to heat up, not wanting to get out of bed until you can feel your toes and, of course, always trying to keep wood burning in the fireplace.

Being from south Florida, I didn't grow up always preparing for weather nor was I taught how to use a fireplace. That's probably why, when I spent my first winter here in Columbia, I created a disaster by trying to light the one in my apartment. From camping as a child I had learned how to build a strong fire, but I didn't know the anatomy of a fireplace. See, there's this little thing called a damper, a valve that closes the flue when the fireplace is not in use. I didn't know it was there so I didn't know I was supposed to open it before lighting the fire. Needless to say, as soon as my apartment began filling up with smoke I knew something wasn't right and was forced to extinguish the fire I made. And, even though it was only lit for a matter of seconds, it took me nearly an hour to air out the smoke that had intruded my living space. Unfortunately, though, even when all the smoke was gone there remained a thin film of dirty, black soot on my walls, doors, appliances, and practically everything I owned. The mess that took a minute to make took me and my wife days to completely wipe clean.

It would be easy to get mad at the fire itself, but this was human error. This was my error. The fire itself didn't do anything wrong. Maybe if I'd grown up with more experience around fires I would have known that the fire was behaving just as fire always has and always will behave. There is proof of this all around the world where primitive man lit torches to illuminate their inhabited caves and crypts. Usually, the longer a family or tribe dwelt in that cave, the longer they lit their torches to enable themselves to see, the thicker the layer of soot is that remains on the walls today. The soot left behind on the walls is data that, when analyzed, modern archaeologists can use to determine when a tribe lived there and how long they lived in that particular area.

Enter Egypt into the equation. Egypt is full of ancient caves, crypts, tunnels and temples. Hieroglyphs and inscriptions abound on the walls inside these dark passages. What's the problem, you ask? Well, there isn't any problem except in some of these places there is no soot to be found on the walls and the method employed by the ancient Egyptians to see while they painted their hieroglyphs in these dark places remains a great mystery. There are, however, two leading theories.

Traditional Egyptologists insist that ancient Egyptians arranged a complex system of shiny, large copper panels throughout the tunnels, which would reflect the sunlight needed to complete the drawings. This, they say, is the only possible way Egyptians could have been able to properly view the progress of their work without the aid of torches.
Some ufologists and historians, however, offer an alternative theory. Instead of copper mirrors, they propose that ancient Egypt was in possession of advanced technology allowing them to easily and efficiently illuminate their working space.

Unfortunately, neither view is completely satisfying. On the one hand, a complicated system of large copper panels seems an unlikely source of sufficient light, especially in some of the longer tunnels containing many bends and corners. On the other hand, though, aside from the megalithic statues and the existence of the pyramids themselves, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that ancient Egypt possessed any kind of advanced technology such as electricity or incandescent light bulbs . . . right?

The Dendera Light Bulb. The photographs shown here are of one of the most fascinating hieroglyphs comprising three stone reliefs - one double representation (left) and one single (below) - in the Hathor Temple at the Dendera Temple Complex located in Egypt.

Some ufologists and historians assert that this is a representation of an ancient light bulb, advanced technology that ancient Egypt possessed enabling them to see through the darkness and check the progress of their artwork without leaving behind the lampblack deposits.

All aspects of the Dendera reliefs correspond exactly to modern electrical specifications. The bulb size and shape, the position of the elements relative to each other, and even the wiring patterns and insulators all match their modern counterparts, the only major difference being the use of symbolic imagery, such as gods and animals, to communicate certain concepts. Go ahead; take a good look at it. It appears to have all the components of a modern day light bulb. It has a transparent encasing. It has a filament, represented by a snake, coming out of the socket, which is represented here by a lotus flower. If you look closely enough, it even seems as though it is plugged into some kind of box sitting to the right of it.

Is the Dendera image, indeed, a depiction of an ancient light bulb indicating the presence of advanced technology in what is widely assumed to have been a primitive, agrarian society? Although the drawing looks promising, some hard questions still remain. First, and foremost, is how the Egyptians could have acquired such a useful tool in the first place (which ufologists claim had to come from extraterrestrials).

Secondly, as many of the comments to my post point out, some aspects of the image represent a modern light bulb rather poorly. Most strikingly is its size. All the other hieroglyphs in Egypt represent the men and animals around them to scale with great fidelity to their shape and proportion. If this is an accurate depiction of a light bulb, why is it twice as long as the men standing next to it? My theory all along has been that it was built by ancient alien astronauts who passed it along to the Egyptians. If this is true, it begs the question, why couldn't they have at least built a smaller bulb, more or less like the ones we have today?

Finally, even after obtaining this tool, electrical energy to power it would have been essential and, as we all know, no such device to generate electricity has ever been found.

Or has it?

The Baghdad Battery. I now enter into evidence the Baghdad Battery.

From the same time period of the Egyptian culture, roughly 2500 B. C., we've also found another interesting artifact, which has come to be known as the Baghdad Battery. In that same era we have the Sumerian civilization in what is present day Iraq. And, in their own contribution to ancient technology, we've discovered over a dozen artifacts, which have collectively been termed the “Baghdad Batteries”, which are, to all intents and purposes, 4,500 year-old batteries. These “batteries” consist of a clay jar with a copper lining, from which protrudes an iron rod straight down the center. When the jar is filled with a weak acidic liquid such as grape juice, lemon juice or vinegar, and the copper and the iron are connected, a positive charge is produced. In this video Jason Martell, founder of Godtube and CEO of BooyaMedia.com, performs an on-camera experiment for the Discovery Channel where he is able to consistently generate a positive full 4 volts using a replica he made of the Baghdad battery.

What we have here is no doubt a primitive electric cell, yet the electric cell isn't even supposed to have been invented until the year 1800 by Alessandro Volta. Four volts from one of these batteries is more than enough to power common household items such as, say . . . a flashlight. Stack a few of these on top of each other and one could achieve even more power than that for other purposes. And, since both the Dendera light bulb and the Baghdad battery could come from approximately the same time period, many ufologists assert the answer to what could have been used to generate the power needed for the Dendera light bulb resides in the Baghdad Battery.

In many ways the Baghdad battery is quite an amazing feat and in many other ways one can't help but to remain unimpressed. What I mean is, the Baghdad battery is an excellent achievement for any civilization living 2,000-5,000 years ago. Still, if the technology came from an advanced alien race, then it seems big, clunky and, yes, even primitive. Clay jars are hardly what you'd expect from advanced beings from outer space in possession of cutting-edge weaponry and state of the art transportation. If aliens are so much more advanced than us, if their technology is light years ahead of our own, if these antique “batteries” are supposed to be clues of ancient man being visited by extraterrestrials then why does their technology seem so substandard?

Connecting the Dots. A couple months ago, my wife gave birth to our second child, Paul. Since I was going to be out of commission for a couple weeks, I asked John to write a book review of The Day After Roswell by retired Lt. Colonel Philip Corso so I could post it as a guest blog during my absence. In his review, John states:

Corso tells of his first day on the job at the Pentagon. He and General Trudeau are old friends and had grown to trust each other completely. Trudeau assigns Corso a filing cabinet that is filled with actual artifacts recovered from the Roswell crash site. Each artifact is to be carefully evaluated by Corso and a report made on how these artifacts can best be back-engineered to benefit the US Army.
According to Corso, that’s exactly what he did. Corso records how he studied each piece of the strange looking items and wrote up a report on each of them and how they might be of some use to the government. He isn’t vague about theses activities, either. He goes into great detail about each particular item and what he thought it might represent and how it could possibly be used. Then, Corso says, once a decision was made as to what a particular item might be, they literally gave it away – for free. These items were considered so valuable and so essential to the future of the American military that Corso and Trudeau decided that the best and most efficient way for them to be developed and put to use would be to give them away, for free, to American industries specializing in various fields. These industries would, in turn, back engineer them to see how they worked and then develop products for the Army to use.

John goes on to say:

So, what devices does Corso credit as having been developed in such a manner? The list is staggering in some ways as they have all had significant impact in one way or another. For instance, Corso says that lasers, integrated circuitry (IC computer chips), fiber optics, particle beam devices, Kevlar material, night vision scopes, and others all came from the Roswell crash site. In each case, Corso claims to have taken one of the Roswell artifacts, studied it, reported on it to his boss and then handed it over to an appropriate American defense contractor for development.

Incredible! The United States government was in possession of advanced alien technology, technology so evolved that no one in 1947 understood its characteristics or how it all worked, let alone how to reproduce it. So it became Corso's job to analyze the artifacts and determine how they could best be used in a process known as reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or system through the analysis of its structure, function and operation to try to make a new device or program that does the same thing. It's called reverse engineering because, unlike regular engineering where one either starts from scratch or tries to improve on a more basic concept, reverse engineering means starting off with a more complicated device and trying to produce the same thing with nothing else to work from except the device itself.

In Corso's case, the process of reverse engineering the extraterrestrials' technology did not happen over night. The first few technological leaps when engineering the first IC computer chips were considered to be marvelous breakthroughs for their time, but imagine how primitive they must have appeared when sitting next to the original alien artifacts. Imagine how primitive they would look compared to today's computer chips, just a few decades later. Do you see where I'm going with this?

The Baghdad battery is so advanced for an ancient society that it's ridiculously out of place, several thousand years out of place. However, to have come directly from aliens, it's not advanced enough. To solve this, I propose that ancient Sumerians did not inherit the Baghdad battery itself, but probably something much more advanced that they didn't fully understand. But, like The U. S. government, they tried to reproduce something like that of the extraterrestrial devices, and the Baghdad battery is just their sorry attempt at reverse engineering what they had received from the aliens.

This theory also solves the problems associated with other ancient devices. Earlier, we discussed the Antikythera computer and how there should have been interim or more primitive devices made prior to something this complicated even though no evidence of this has ever been found. In fact, the History Channel documentary I posted shows a much simpler device made many centuries later by the Greeks. Realistically, it should have been the other way around. The simpler device should have come first and the more complicated ones later. This tells me that the Greeks didn't really understand what they had and were only able to make simpler ones from the one original. It really appears to me that the Greeks didn't develop this device themselves but, rather, inherited it or received it fully developed from somebody else. Starting to sound familiar? Isn't the evolutionary process of moving from an elaborate device to one more elementary a basic characteristic of reverse engineering?

We've also been wondering, if the Dendera light bulb represents a real electric light bulb used by ancient Egyptians, why is it so big, clunky and awkward looking? The Egyptians had a civilization lasting thousands of years. They traded with many different societies including the Byblos, the Greeks and the Cretes among others. The nature of human history is to copy, borrow, buy or steal precious goods and technology . . . especially one as practical as having the 'magic' ability to illuminate dark places! It would seem the best kept secret of all time if the Egyptians possessed this and died with it, with nary a slave, trader, conqueror or spy or ally sneaking away with the device. This tells me, if it were a device invented or developed by their own, or a neighboring, civilization then it would have been passed down to other generations and improved. Since that obviously did not happen, I can only assume that, like the Antikythera Computer, the Egyptians didn't really understand what they had and were only able to make simpler ones from the one original. That might explain why the light bulb appears so big. It was a poor attempt to make something close to the original, without ever achieving that objective.

Is this pattern of duplicating alien technology for human use repetitious throughout all of human history?

Antique Clues

2009-06-16T01:50:00.000-04:00

"The people around here say that they were not the work of men, but of demigods."
- Graham Hancock

The most arduous part of trying to connect everything is writing each part of the bigger picture, piece by piece. When everything is connected, it's hard to concentrate on just one piece of the puzzle within the narrow constraints of a simple blog post. But in order to give a glimpse of what I'm really talking about I find it necessary to try. In this series I'll be highlighting a few ancient civilizations that I believe left behind clues of extraterrestrial visitations. It will not be an exhaustive study on ancient civilizations or how they relate to alien visitors, but I believe it will give us a good place to start until we can look further into this subject later on.

The Lines of Nazca. Who made them? How were they made? When were they made? What do they mean? The truth is no one knows the answer to these questions and, in fact, we may never be able to answer them. So what do we know about the grandest artwork in the world? For starters, they are located in Peru on a desert plateau, called the Pampa, which stretches from Ica in the north down to the town of Nazca, about 80 miles to the southeast. Ironically, the more we learn about these mysterious drawings, the more questions continue to push the outer fringes of our curiosity.

First, there are so many of them; literally hundreds of different figures. There are geometric shapes such as trapezoids, rectangles, triangles, and miles and miles of straight lines. Then there are the animal depictions; dozens of pictures of monkeys, birds, a spider, a whale, a dog, a weird looking man, and many other zoological figures with enough precise detail to identify each specific species.

For instance, there are over eighteen different types of birds, ranging from the humming bird to the heron and the condor as well as many others. Another astonishing example of just how meticulous some of these pictures are is the image of the spider, a known genus called Ricinulei. This is one of the rarest spider genera in the whole world. In fact, it's so rare, it can only be found in the deepest parts of the Amazon rainforest, over 1,000 miles from Nazca. In order to obtain a specimen, the primitive Nazcan tribe would have had to travel far from home and cross the Andes Mountains, no small feat, itself. One not only wonders why they would do such a thing but, even if they could, how were they able to trace the minute details of Ricinulei's anatomy? Worthy of particular notice is the spider's reproductive organ positioned on the end of its right leg, normally seen only under a microscope. Furthermore, an astronomer with the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Dr. Phillis Pitluga, has concluded that the perfectly straight lines linked to the figure appear to have been set out to track, through the ages, the changing declinations of the three stars of Orion's Belt.

As fantastic as all this sounds on the surface, even more amazing to me is that, at ground level, these pictures are not even visible. Since a person standing next to these shapes is able to see only small parts of the conglomeration of criss-crossing lines, the images, as such, were not discovered until relatively modern times. As Graham Hancock notes in The Fingerprints of the Gods (page 41):

I also remember it is no accident that the Nazca lines were only properly identified in the twentieth century, after the era of flight had begun. In the late sixteenth century a magistrate named Luis de Monzon was the first Spanish traveller to bring back eyewitness reports concerning these mysterious 'marks on the desert' and to collect the strange local traditions that linked them to the Viracochas. However, until commercial airlines began to operate regularly between Lima and Arequipa in the 1930s no one seems to have grasped that the largest piece of graphic art in the world lay here in Southern Peru. It was the development of aviation that made the difference, giving men and women the godlike ability to take to the skies and see beautiful and puzzling things that had hitherto been hidden from them.

The obvious question is, why would an ancient civilization go through all the trouble of making a bunch of images in the ground that no one can see? In Chariots of the Gods, Erich Von Daniken theorized that maybe these lines were used in antiquity as airstrips for extraterrestrial space craft. This theory makes sense when one looks at the similarities between the Nazcan lines and modern airfields, but it's enough to make one wonder how an alien civilization advanced enough to travel through hundreds of light-years of space wasn't advanced enough to land their flying vehicles vertically. Basically, why would such an advanced race need an airfield at all?

Although I'm not sold on Daniken's theory about the lines being airstrips for alien visitors to land their craft, I'm also not willing to throw out the possibility that aliens are nevertheless somehow involved. I can't even begin to explain how or why, but these lines were there for hundreds, maybe thousands of years before the Wright brothers took their first flight in 1903. I have a hard time understanding how an ancient human civilization could design such perfect shapes without an aircraft to view the progress of their work. For many of these images there is no nearby mountain or hill providing the vantage point one would need to properly view the images' true form; form that only becomes visible at an altitude of several hundred feet.

Japanese teams have very recently taken interest in these geoglyphs, and have even found a new one. Sadly, though, no long-term, in-depth studies have taken place that would pinpoint, once and for all, the exact nature of the drawings at Nazca and time may be running out. Several factors have converged that, in the last few decades have seriously degraded the drawings. The Pan American Highway was constructed right through the drawings and that has attracted many tourists and further development as well. All of this activity has come at a serious cost in terms of preserving these pictures. Also, for many years sportsmen on motorcycles and ATVs drove their vehicles all through some of the pictures. Hopefully, recent efforts to preserve what is left of them will have an impact so that future generations can study and admire them. For now, though, until more thorough analysis becomes available about all we can do with this mystery is openly speculate as to who created these magnificent drawings and for what purpose. Your comments here are more than welcome.

The Val Camonica Astronauts. Ancient rock art, also known as petroglyphs, have been discovered across a wide range of cultures and ages, recording historical events, telling stories, marking territory or, possibly, depicting spiritual rituals. Archaeologists have long used them to gain insight into our ancestors' way of life.

Perhaps no place on earth has such a vast collection of images (altogether over 350,000) spanning such an enormous amount of time as does Val Camonica, Italy. Most archaeologists date the pictures from about 3,500 B.C. until about 12 B.C. when Roman Emperor Augustus forced the Camunni people to relocate to neighboring towns.

The Camunni have given us many different pictures to look at including a dog that appears to be chasing a deer (left) and a man on a horse (right):

And then there's this picture:

Notice how these two men are standing: knees slightly bent as if weightless, holding unidentifiable objects in their hands, and wearing what appears to be protective suits of some kind and see-through helmets on their heads (are those antennas I see sticking out of the helmets?). Do our modern astronauts really look any different? Isn't it possible, then, these artists of antiquity were trying to leave behind clues revealing their encounters with ancient visitors to earth?

I admit that this picture doesn't suggest much in and of itself. But when combined with multiple other ancient rock images, the imagination can only wonder what these artists were trying to depict.

Wondjina. Who created the universe? Who created all living things on the land and in the sea? Who controls weather, the rain and flooding, the thunder and lightning? Who arranged the stars in their constellations and put the planets in orbit? Some of you may remember from your catechism classes that "the work of creation is, God's making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, [24] in the space of six days, and all very good.[25] " and that, “God created man male and female, after his own image,[26] in knowledge,[27] righteousness, and holiness,[28] with dominion over the creatures[29].”

If you are an Australian Aborigine, however, the traditional answer to who made all things is not a holy and triune God, but rather a race of spiritual beings called the Wondjina.

Most archaeologists consider these petroglyphs in Kimberly, Australia to be over 5,000 years old. To this day, some Aboriginal people still believe the Wondjina painted their alien-looking faces on the walls inside these caves in prehistoric times. Even if the Wondjina didn't paint these pictures themselves, one has to wonder why these creatures are portrayed as mouthless beings with elongated eyes; features which carry an eerie resemblance to every modern report of a grey alien.

To me, however, the most captivating element to the Aborigines' mythology isn't the pictures per se, but that this whole scenario follows my hypothesis to the tee; that one day spiritual beings will come to the earth, claiming they created us.

So, then, wouldn't it be just a little too easy for the extraterrestrials to use evidence such as these petroglyphs to "prove" their claims?

Art in the Tassili Plateau. The Sahara was once a fertile and productive area and thousands of years ago it was probably one of the most densely populated corners of the world. In 1933 Lieutenant Brenans, a French soldier, ventured into a deep wadi in the Tassili Plateau in southeastern Algeria. By Brenans' time, Tassili-n-Ajjer was barren and devoid of large animals. The faces of the mountain had long ago been eroded away by natural forces as icy northern winds lashed through the canyons 6,500 feet above the scorching desert floor. Nevertheless, there, upon the sandstone cliffs, he saw rock paintings and engravings of elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses.
Henri Lhote, a French ethnologist and explorer as well as an expert in the artwork of ancient people, was in Algeria at the time and heard about the discovery. He learned everything he could from the soldier at Djanet and then mounted an expedition to investigate it. Lhote later wrote that he had never seen anything "so extraordinary, so original, so beautiful." Working with little support, Lhote's party discovered nearly 800 paintings.

Today, over 15,000 wall drawings have been found in Tassili. The artists were hunters and farmers. Their themes, logically enough, are almost always the same – animals and hunters.

Taking the pictures as a whole, I am reminded of an old Sesame Street game called, "One of These Things is not Like the Other Things," where you had to look at a group of items and try to guess which one of them didn't belong in that group. Such is the case, I'm afraid, with the Petroglyphs of Tassili.
There are figures with large, bulbous, 'round-heads.' Some, depicted horizontally, seem to be floating effortlessly through the air (space?). Some appear to have modern accessories such as zippers, belts, wristbands, backpacks, antennae, etc. Henri Lhote found an 18 foot high giant(right), which he named, "Great God Mars." Notice there are two disc shaped objects over his shoulders.
What puzzles me here is that these prehistoric artists represented the men and animals around them with great fidelity to their shape and proportion. These balloon headed creatures are the only ones that seem to be disproportionate. But why? Could it be the artists didn't see them clearly or long enough? Or, maybe they had plenty of time to see these beings clearly, and the implication here is that their bodies are not like ours. I honestly don't know.
But there's one thing I do know:

Military Members' Testimonies

2009-06-15T01:47:00.000-04:00

On October 30, 1938, the world was coming to an end - or so thought millions of listeners tuned in to their radios. Over six million people were listening that night to Orson Welles' dramatization of the War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and over 1 million of them believed they were actually hearing news reports about a real Martian invasion. The broadcast resulted in nationwide panic. Switchboards were jammed, twenty families from a single block in Newark fled the city with towels over their faces to escape the poisonous gas as countless others were frantically grabbing spare clothes, food, and ammunition for their fire arms. Needless to say, Welles had some explaining to do the following day.

As we all know now, Orson Welles' War of the Worlds was nothing other than a big Halloween prank. Through this prank, though, the country showed its vulnerability to certain fears and the havoc that a real-life scenario could bring if the American people ever felt threatened by an invasion of extraterrestrials. In a real life incident, it was felt, even more people would panic, lives would be lost and and the resulting hysteria would be catastrophic.

This is in part why, when an extraterrestrial disc dropped out of the New Mexico sky in 1947 and crashed in Roswell, the military deemed it best for our country to impose a complete and total cover up. But something real did happen; something that changed our history forever.

Since it is the incident in Roswell that has caused the most controversy and the most disinformation mixed with just enough truth to permanently blur the lines between what some people claim really happened and what other people apparently want us to think really happened, I prefer to stick to the most reputable sources for the facts. In part 1 of my Credible Testimonies series I highlighted the testimonies of astronauts who have come forward over the years to relate knowledge of government involvement in the cover up of alien contact. In part 2, we looked at the amazing first-hand accounts of pilots and politicians who have recently testified that they, too, have seen UFOs. In this edition of Credible Testimonies, I want to share with you the two testimonies I find the most convincing. Colonel Philip J. Corso and Lieutenant Walter Haut; two men whose lives were drastically altered because of the Roswell incident.

Philip J. Corso. Lt. Colonel Corso was nowhere near Roswell in 1947. He did not personally see a crashed disc in the desert and he was not a part of the original cover up. Instead, Corso was working as the head of foreign technology at the Pentagon in the Army's Research and Development program in the 1960's when his boss, Lt. General Arthur Trudeau, brought a filing cabinet up to his office. Inside the cabinet were various artifacts Corso claimed were from the crashed saucer in New Mexico. Corso's job - out source these products to American engineering companies to have them find out how they worked and have the product reverse engineered for military use. According to his book, The Day After Roswell, Corso was already experienced at performing this task with foreign technology. Military intelligence would capture technology from Germany or Russia and give it to engineers to reproduce. The engineers could reproduce the products and even patent the devices with their own names. This, thought Corso, is what ought to be done with the devices recovered from Roswell.

If Philip Corso was telling the truth, and I believe he was, then much of what we think we know about the last sixty years of American history is not true. His book goes into great detail about government black ops, secret wars and, especially, how technology advanced so quickly in the last half century. According to Corso, lasers, fiber optics, computer chips and a whole host of other technologies that we take for granted today came into our possession via EBE's (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities).

There are a lot of topics I'd like to cover concerning Corso's testimony (like the time he saw an alien body in 1947 at Fort Riley, Kansas) but those things are outside the scope of this post. I will be addressing those issues in depth later on. For now, I just want to put his name on the table and marvel at what an awesome testimony he has given us. To date, he's the highest ranking military official ever to come forward about the military's involvement with extraterrestrials. His book was published when he was 82 years old so I think it's safe to rule out the possibility that he fabricated this story to get attention or to make money. Yes, the man was older then than John McCain is now when he told his story, but his credentials check out and it can be verified he was always at the places he said he was at and with the people he claimed to be with, making it hard to believe he suffered from dementia or senility. You can discern by reading his book or listening to an interview he had with radio legend Art Bell that his story is consistent, not embellished, and that these are the real memories of an honorable patriot.

Walter G. Haut. Unlike Corso, 1st Lieutenant Haut was at Roswell, serving as the public information officer (PIO) at the 509th Bomb Group based in Roswell, NM during the incident in 1947. Originally, Haut was ordered to release a statement to the press announcing that the U. S. Army Air Force had recovered a crashed flying disc from a nearby ranch. He did. Later that very same day, though, the Army Air Force recanted, saying they had really recovered a weather balloon instead.

All his life Haut always denied seeing anything extraterrestrial at Roswell. Finally, at the age of 78, Haut admitted during an interview with Dennis Balthauser that while in Roswell he witnessed an alien craft and a body in a base hangar and that he was present at a senior staff meeting where a cover-up of events was being discussed. And, in 2002, he signed a sealed affidavit in which he went into more details about the craft, debris, bodies, and cover-up. So why do I consider Lieutenant Haut's testimony the smoking gun of a massive government cover-up? Both the interview and the signed affidavit were to be released only after his death. That's huge! Talk about not looking for publicity or to make money off of his claims. Besides that, it's clear he kept the secret as long as he did because of certain oaths he had taken or something he was afraid of happening if he came out with his story.

I've now given you the testimonies of reputable astronauts, politicians, pilots, and retired military personnel. Is it possible one of them could be lying or that one of them could be crazy? Yes, it's possible. But ask yourself if every one of them can be crazy or lying at the same time and still give different versions of the same story. If even one of them is telling the truth, we enter a new era in history.

Former RAF Chief Radar Operator, Alan Turner. About two weeks ago Alan Turner, a former Wing Commander for the RAF, claimed that UFOs are real and that he has tracked them on military radar units. Turner, who was a chief operator of the RAF’s radar system for 29 years, stated that in the summer of 1971 he was Duty Military Supervisor at RAF Sopley Base, Dorset on the southwest coast of England. In this capacity he had the responsibility of monitoring the skies on radar screens for potential Soviet incursions. On the night in question, 35 super-fast vessels appeared on their screens equally spaced. Radar monitored the UFOs as they shot from 3,000ft to 60,000ft at almost 300mph.

Turner filed the proper documentation to his superiors, also informing them that every few seconds one of the UFOs would suddenly vanish from radar and be replaced by an identical vessel moments later. Three days later, Ministry of Defence officials visited the RAF and instructed staff to “never speak about the incident again.” According to Philip Mantle at the American Chronicle, this is Turner’s full account of what he personally observed at RAF Sopley in the summer of l971:

In the summer of 1971 I was the Duty Military Supervisor at RAF Sopley, which was a joint military/civil Air Traffic Control Radar Unit (ATCRU). It was a Tuesday afternoon but I cannot remember the exact date. The Duty Civil Supervisor drew my attention to a situation on radar the likes of which neither of us had ever encountered.

Emanating from a point some twenty nautical miles east of the eastern extremity of the Salisbury Plain Danger Area were a series of six or seven blips moving on a south-easterly track each being separated from the other by about six miles. At about forty miles from the point they appeared on radar they disappeared to be followed almost immediately by a replacement at the point of origin.

I put the FPS 6 Height Finder onto some returns to discover that they were about 3000 feet when they came into radar cover and climbing extremely rapidly so that, by the time they disappeared from radar, they were in excess of 60,000 feet. To climb to such a height in only forty miles was beyond the ability of any fighter aircraft at the time.

The phenomenon was witnessed by four civil and six military controllers on duty at the time. I called Heathrow Radar to discover that they, also, were seeing a similar picture. The same situation prevailed in the Fighter Control Operations Rooms at RAF Neatishead. The three units involved operated different radars from each other thus different frequencies were in use. The weather forecast from the south of England was calm and sunny. I called the Met Office to confirm the strength of the upper winds to find that they were also relatively calm and were about fifty degrees off the southeasterly track of the blips; they also confirmed that there were not Met balloons/probes airborne at the time.

The winds were not strong enough, nor in the right direction, to cause the blips to travel on their observed track especially at the speed they were traveling. It was estimated that they were doing around 250 knots, but it must be borne in mind that this was a lateral speed as seen on radar – they must have been traveling very much faster to climb over 50,000 feet in less than forty miles. Equally the weather was such that there were no ´angels´ to affect the radar picture. "Angels" was a euphemism for, what were believed to be, ionozed pockets of air which, under very specific atmospheric conditions, were often seen on radar screens in those days: when seen, these ´angels´ traveled extremely slowly simply drifting along haphazard tracks. In those days all radars were ´raw´. That is to say that, whatever was within the coverage of the radar envelope and capable of bouncing (returning) the radar pulse back to the receiver, would be seen on the radar tube. Today´s radars are computerised thus such interference is processed out so as not to affect the picture.

Looking around for some other method of checking what was going on, I discovered that a controller had two Canberras on frequency returning from Germany. One of the pilots agreed to investigate so I assumed control of his aircraft and, having confirmed he was in good visual met conditions, I vectored him on to the blips keeping him regularly updated on their position relative to the Canberra. The aircraft was flying at around nineteen thousand feel and when it got within a mile or so of one particular blip, the pilot reported, in a very agitated voice, that his radar had picked something up heading down his port side by about a quarter of a mile and ´climbing like the clappers´, it was on a reciprocal heading to the Canberra. The pilot admitted that neither he nor his navigator made any visual contact and confirmed that the weather conditions were such that they would have had no difficultly seeing something that close.

The whole episode lasted for twenty minutes or more before the blips stopped appearing. I impounded the R/T tapes and the Radar Video film and made appropriate entries in the log. Each person in the Ops Room who witnessed the incident was required to write a report. The Squadron Leader in charge of Operations collated the reports and informed higher authority. Within a couple of days I was interviewed in the Squadron Leader´s office by two men who were not identified to me. I, along with all the others in the Ops Room on the day in question, were told in no uncertain terms not to relate what we had seen until cleared to do so. About four years later I was serving at RAF Wattisham when the Station Commander asked to see me. I was told that he had a communication from the MoD about the incident at Sopley and that as ´nothing could be confirmed´ the situation was such that doubt would be cast on anything I said about it. I took this to mean that I was no longer to remain silent.

I am at a loss to explain what I, and many other people, saw. In those days aircraft could not climb at such a rate. To be seen on displays by three different ground radars, plus the airborne radar in the Canberra, is also a mystery. The weather conditions were very definitely VMC or Visual Met Conditions; the aircraft was clear of cloud by at least a thousand feet vertically and with a forward visibility of at least five nautical miles.

Retired Air Force Pilot Milton Torres. U. S. fighter pilot Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, was ordered to shoot down a UFO hovering above the English countryside in Norfolk in 1957. According to Torres:

I shall never forget it . . . On that night I was ordered to open fire even before I had taken off. That had never happened before . . . The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets . . . I had a lock-on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier. The larger the airplane, the easier the lock-on. This blip almost locked itself . . . I was smoking, as fast as I could go. This thing had a different propulsion system. It was not an airplane . . . All of a sudden as it was coming in, it decided to take off and leave me behind. The next thing I know it was gone . . . It was some kind of space alien craft. It was so fast, it was so incredible . . . it was absolutely death-defying.

Milton Torres never caught up with the UFO. Before he could catch it to shoot it down, it disappeared off his radar at 10,000 miles per hour. The following day a mysterious man approached Torres and warned him to never talk about this incident ever again. Milton has only now come forward with his story because the British government recently published it as part of the UFO document declassification project which began earlier this year.

This will not be my last post in the Credible Testimonies Series, as I am confident there will be more such stories in the future. The real question is, how many reputable eye-witness testimonies are needed to please the skeptics?