By Elizabeth Prata
A reader asked about the spiritual realm. She wisely noticed that though the Bible is clear that there is a spiritual realm, she was hesitant to delve into its study because of all the wacky, outlandish and downright bizarre books and posts about it.
It is a huge subject! Angels are interesting, and I am like my reader, wondering why not many preachers preach on the subject. Though, if you are fortunate to be in a church that preaches expositionally (verse by verse through a book of the Bible), then perhaps the preacher will credibly address it when it naturally arises. It IS a legitimate feature of most Systematic Theology divisions, it’s called Angelology.
What ARE Angels?
Angels were created by God before He created the world. We know this from Job, because the angels shouted with joy when God did create the universe and worlds. (Job 38:6). In Genesis 1:31 by the end of creation week they had not fallen and were still holy, because God declared everything at that point, “very good”.
They are spirit beings, but they have a personality and a personal will. Some are named in the Bible- Michael and Gabriel for sure, probably Lucifer (Satan), and possibly Apollyon/Abaddon. The mentions of “The Angel of the LORD” are usually interpreted to be a pre-incarnate Jesus.
Then the 6-day creation happened, including earth and God making man. By the next verse after the 2 humans He made, Genesis 3:1 shows us a cunning serpent, which most take to be satan, questioning God’s goodness with the woman. So, by then, some angels had fallen into sin and rebelled. Satan visited the woman in the garden, and Adam was with her. We do not know exactly how long between the end of creation day 6 and the angels’ fall happened, just we know between Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 3:1 things were not ‘very good’ any more because the serpent duped the woman by questioning God’s standards. Satan (a title meaning Accuser or Adversary) was one of them who fell. Most theologians believe his name is Lucifer. According to most interpretations of Revelation 12:3–4, satan convinced about a third of the created holy angels to follow him into rebellion against God, now becoming unholy, AKA demons.
Lucifer was found to have sin in his heart. (Ezekiel 28:15). This is how we know angels have a personal will. He was discontent, and started up rumors doubting God’s goodness. He was internally filled with violence (Ezekiel v. 16). His desire and intent is mentioned in Isaiah, a section known as the “5 I Wills”. Isaiah 14:12-15 says-
Ezekiel 28:12-16 mentions satan as one of the highest cherubs who became proud and fell.
“How you have fallen from heaven,
You star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who defeated the nations!
13“But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
14‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
15“Nevertheless you will be brought down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit.”
Lucifer/Satan and his cohorts are now unholy angels, or better known as demons. The demons oppose God by attempting to thwart His plans. They incite sin, make war, lay traps for the unwary, foment chaos, hinder God’s holy angels as one of them did to Daniel in Daniel 10:13 by preventing the angel to reach Daniel in answer to Daniel’s prayer, and more. They also have the ability to possess an unsaved person’s body (they cannot possess a Christian, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, (Ephesians 1:13-14; 1 John 4:4).
What do angels do?
What do holy angels do? A LOT! I was surprised when I heard a sermon by John MacArthur and he outlined all the things angels do and I had not known how busy they are! Did you know they execute judgment? They brought the Law? They are priests to God, they minister to God’s people, they bring messages, comfort, and more. They worship God in the temple, they guard things, like the entrance to Eden. John MacArthur preached on what the angels do in a 3-part series I linked below. Once you listen to that and then see in the Bible how much angels do and how much they are around, you can’t unsee it!
Angels: God’s Invisible Army, Part 1 https://www.gty.org/sermons/1361/angels-gods-invisible-army-part-1
Angels: God’s Invisible Army, Part 2 https://www.gty.org/sermons/1362/angels-gods-invisible-army-part-2
Angels: God’s Invisible Army, Part 3 https://www.gty.org/sermons/1363/angels-gods-invisible-army-part-3
More resources:
Satan: What is he like? https://www.gty.org/sermons/1355/satan-what-is-he-like
Satan: How does he operate? https://www.gty.org/sermons/1356/satan-how-does-he-operate
Good Angels: https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/great-biblical-doctrines/good-angels/
“The Devil and the Fallen Angels”: transcript, audio was lost. follow up to Martyn Lloyd Jones’ first part called Good Angels, https://the-end-time.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/fallen-angels-sermon-transcription-lloyd-jones.pdf
Wackiness abounds
Angelology and Demonology are fascinating subjects, but a student of Jesus is wise to be cautious about what is real and what is not. Both those subjects, particularly demonology, have a LOT of crazies preaching wrong stuff. Those subjects seem to invite a lot of extra-biblical speculation, experiential anecdotes, and just plain weird doctrines that have no place in any serious discussion.
John MacArthur preached for nearly 60 years, actively. He said there were only two times he came across a demon-possessed person. John Piper preached for nearly that long, and encountered a demonic possession only once. We cannot see demons, they are spirit beings. If a ministering angel incarnates and walks among us, we most often are unaware of their presence (Hebrews 13:2), but there seem to be rare occasions that a person could detect him. If so, it’s most likely an unholy angel, since the holy angels obey God and as Hebrews says, we are unaware of entertaining them.
There seemed to be a lot of demonic possession in the Bible but you see that the demons intensify their activity when God’s plan is coming to fruition. For example, in Genesis 6, during the time of the Prophets, and especially during Jesus’ earthly ministry. They will again be given opportunity to do their worst during the Tribulation of the last of the last days. But demonic possession is not rampant and most Christians never encounter it.
Demons ONLY do as much, no more or less, than Jesus orders them to. When God told satan he could harass Job, satan was also told not to take Job’s life. Satan obeyed that command. When the legion of demons in Gadara met Jesus they begged Him not to send them into the pit (which they knew He could.) They didn’t demand, they begged. He sent them into the pigs instead. Demons only do what is in God’s plan. A few early on that disobeyed His orders were locked up in the abyss (Jude 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:4).
So demons are allowed by God to do certain things as part of His desire to push forward His redemptive plan, to test Christians, to sanctify us through trials, to hand over the sinning ungodly to His wrath, and so on.
Angels have incredible power
2 Thessalonians 2:9 says of the Antichrist, that “the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and false signs and wonders”
Satan has power to deceive the elect, if that is possible (Matthew 24:24), with his lying signs and wonders. Remember, the magicians of Pharaoh, named in the New Testament as Jannes and Jambres, kept pace with God’s signs done through Moses, until the plague of gnats. There, they failed, their power unable to match the increasing complexity of the signs. They eventually conceded that God is the greater power, but failed to convince Pharaoh.
Here is Randy Alcorn on the topic of why satan keeps opposing God when he obviously knows God’s word and the ending- https://www.epm.org/resources/2025/Jun/25/ultimate-outcome-oppose/
Do demons harass us?
Spiritual battles take place every day, but normally a battle is against our own sin and against the world that wants us to sin. We defeat sin by refusing to sin, praying, relying on the Holy Spirit, and staying in the word of God.
We may at times be influenced directly by a demon, but more likely they influence us in general by formulating false societal constructs (‘love is love’, feminism, liberal theology, etc.), tempting us with porn, putting ungodly television shows on, inserting ungodly ideas into books, and so on.
If someone says they have seen a demon, perhaps they are making it up. Or sometimes it can be seemingly real to the person but they are being influenced by books or movies, or dreams that seem real.
Occasionally we hear of outbreaks of alleged demonic possession. These are called “mass hysteria outbreaks”. They almost affect females of adolescent age. Malaysia is a Muslim country with Islam being the state religion. It’s called the mass hysteria capital of the world. The BBC wrote this article about demonic outbreaks:
An outbreak of mass hysteria usually begins with what experts call an “index case”, the first person to become affected. In this story, that is Siti. “It doesn’t happen overnight,” says Robert Bartholomew. “It starts with one child and then quickly spreads to others because of an exposure to a pressure-cooker environment of stress.” And all it takes is a major spike in anxiety in a group situation, like seeing a fellow classmate faint or have a fit – to trigger a reaction in another person.
In Salem, the location of the famous witch trials of the late 1600s, an indigenous slave who dabbled in sorcery had filled some adolescent girls’ heads heads with stories and showed them how to perform certain magic. One story goes of how the witch hysteria began was that several of the Puritan adolescent girls tried repeating what the slave, traditionally named Tituba, had shown them. When they were caught, they accused Tituba of bewitching them. The events ran from there. As it went along, the girls had to keep up the story and a mass hysteria event spread, all from the girls aged 9-20. They fell down, had fits, barked, and other displays of alleged demonic possession, whether real or imagined,
There are many reasons to be cautious about any tales of the demonic.
Conclusion
There are numerous holy angels and fallen angels. Myriads upon myriads, an uncountable number to the ancients, are said to have been created. The holy angels work for God diligently and worshipfully. The fallen angels will be cast into the lake of fire forever after being judged.
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? (1 Corinthians 6:3).
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary says of the verse: “judge angels—namely, bad angels. We who are now “a spectacle to angels” shall then “judge angels.” The saints shall join in approving the final sentence of the Judge on them.”
What a day that will be!
the-end-time.org 