Ministry of Angels.
I. The angels are ministering, i.e.worshipping, spirits; beings engaged in the perpetual liturgy of the glorious temple above. That temple has never wanted its worshippers. The solemn anthem of praise has never been silent there. It has not been broken and marred by sin. But in the next place, as there is a worship of angels above, so there is a ministry of angels in the world. Cardinal Newman has gone so far as to suppose that the whole visible creation is carried on in its minutest details by their agency. He would have us believe that there is not a flower, nor a ray of light, but conceals some spirit form, which gives it its lustre and its beauty. Every breath of air, and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect is, as it were, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God in heaven.
We need not, however, accept such a hypothesis as this. It is too fanciful, and it is not really supported by Scripture; for the representation of the Psalmist, "Who maketh His angels winds," etc., does not really amount to more than this, that God gives His angels the swiftness, and the strength, and the invisibility of the winds, that He clothes His ministers with the all-pervading subtlety of fire. He thus employs them as His agents in carrying out His purposes in the world.
II. And what are these purposes? What has Holy Scripture taught us concerning the offices of angels? (1) First of all, they are represented as deeply interested in the work of human salvation. The mystery of redeeming love fixes their entranced and ardent gaze. They stoop down, as it were, from the golden battlements of heaven, seeking, if it may be, to fathom that love, "the length and breadth, the depth and height of the love that passeth knowledge." The angels, though of spiritual and not of fleshly nature, can sympathise with our low estate, can rejoice in God's good will towards us. And hence, no doubt, it is that He declares those who confess Him before men, He will confess before the angels of God. (2) And we see a further proof of this, their relation to us, in their attendance upon our Lord in His earthly life. They came to Him as comforters and helpers of His human nature. When He died angels guarded His tomb, and were witnesses of His resurrection. And we know that when He comes again He will come in the glory of His Father and of the holy angels, and that the trumpet of the archangel shall awake the dead. (3) As it was with His human life so it is with ours. The example of the angels teaches us (a) the blessedness of a willing obedience, (b) a lesson of sympathy for those beneath us. Do not let us plead any difference of rank, or knowledge or power, in excuse of our neglect of one of the least of our brethen made like us in the image of God.
Bishop Perowne, Sermons,p. 224.
Angelic Ministry.
The oblivion of great truths is sometimes the reaction of grievous errors. The man-worship of the Church of Rome has nearly obliterated from our calendar the name most conspicuous in New Testament female biography; and in the same way, in our protest against the angel-intercessors of angelic idols of popery, we are in danger of forgetting the existence or denying the ministry of angels altogether. Now creature-worship is bad, whether that creature be a man or an angel. But although, like all loyal subjects, angels desire to concentrate on their eternal King the worship of the universe, and although they refuse to usurp the place of the one Mediator, in their nature, their functions and their history, there is much to elevate our thoughts, and to reward our affectionate contemplation.
II. It is pleasant to think that there are beings created and intelligent, who have kept their first state amidst the decay of earthly beauty and of earthly goodness; it is a joy to remember that there is a created beauty which has never dimmed; a created love which has never known a chill; a created loyalty which has never received a shock, or been seen to falter. Amidst our slowness and stupidity it is pleasant to remember that God has servants who understand all His will, and who can execute each fiat; angels who fly swift as wind, and who, for ready apprehension and ever-burning ardour, are flames of fire. With our felt weakness and unworthiness, it is affecting to know that these angels, so swift, so strong, so holy, minister to the heirs of salvation. Nor is it without solemnity to remember that much, if not all, of our conduct is open to the observation of angels. And although it might well be restraint of the incentive sufficient to remember, "Thou God seest me," we may find an occasional restorative to our sinking spirits, and a useful proof to our faltering resolution, in remembering that we are seen of angels also.
J.Hamilton, Works,vol. vi., p. 311.
References: Hebrews 1:14. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 277; R. L. Browne, Sussex Sermons,p. 255; Homilist,.vol. iv., p. 165; Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiv., p. 255.
The Ministry of Angels.
I. As to the existence of angels, the fact confronts us that there are such beings, above man in gradation, superior to man in mental and moral endowments, waiting upon God in the upper sanctuary, and obedient to His will. The belief in such existences can claim the highest antiquity. A few cavilling Sadducees raised a doubt about it; but as to others, the Jews believed it, Gentiles believed it, and in the sense of some tutelar genius over particular localities and provinces, the notion had a place in the creed of the whole heathen world.
II. What is our revealed knowledge concerning the angels? (1) Of the dignities and capacities of angels, Scripture gives us everywhere the most exalted ideas. (2) Their wisdom also is great. (3) They have made mighty advances in the sanctity and purity of the heavenly state. They are the elect, the everlasting chosen ones of God, confirmed in their state of blessedness in heaven, to go no more out, but ever loving and ever delighting to exalt His name.
III. What is the source of the interest which the angels take in us? (1) One reason is to be found in their general sympathy with Christ's work, and with the success of His mission in the hearts of men, as that which was to bring an access of numbers to their own blessed society, and magnify the power and grace of Him who was at once their Lord and ours. (2) Again, this pleasure of angels in ministering to us may arise in some degree from their superior knowledge of what man's place in the universe of God is, and how he ranks in the varied orders of created existence. (3) Know that Christ makes all things one. All diverging lines, whether of earthly condition, or diverse economies, or separated ages of the world, of this mansion or that, in the rest of paradise, and this task or that in the countless hierarchies of heaven, are all brought up into, and meet in this centre. The most exalted seraph draws the breath of his immortality from Christ, just as much as the newly departed infant whom he folds in his wing to lay in the bosom of Jesus, as privileged heir of salvation, gathered early from the toils of time.
D. Moore, Penny Pulpit,No. 3273.