As I’ve said, the Apostle Paul discussed an Angelic Hierarchy in Ephesians. He noted that our struggles in this world aren’t against Flesh and blood but against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of darkness, and spiritual forces in the heavens. I’ve broken the Angelic Hierarchy into four groups of different types of angels. I’m only scratching the surface regarding celestial beings for this video. We’ve already discussed the Assistants, divine beings who assist God. These are Ministers, Messengers, Watchers, and Witnesses. The second group of angels are the Sanctifiers, who are the angels that display and overwatch the glory of God. These are Worshippers, Cherubim, Seraphim, and angels called Morning Stars – or praising angels. The third group is the Authorities, the divine council members consisting of the Holy Ones, the Mighty Ones, the Archangels, and the Sons of God.
In this episode, we will look at a fourth group of angels called the Principalities/Powers. These are the Great Angelic Powers of all existence. Before we can understand who these great, mighty angels are and what they are, I have to provide some background to establish God’s purpose for them. First, let me list them. There are 7 Great Angelic Powers: The Angel of Death, The Angel of the Abyss, The Mighty Angel, The Angel of Great Authority, The Angel of the Lord, The Angel of God’s Presence, and The Satan. My goal as we move forward is to explain these Great Powers in a way that helps us to understand what the original writers and audience understood about them from their cultural viewpoint. We must grasp this point before we get into who and what they are so we can discover how God utilized them and why they were crucial to his ultimate plan for creation.
First, the question of How God used the Angelic Powers (Isaiah 55:8-9). God used the angelic powers to interact in all different aspects and circumstances throughout the history of humanity to make us aware of God’s sovereign nature and character. We should put into our thoughts how God operates on a cosmic level. God’s thoughts aren’t our thoughts. We don’t think like God, and he doesn’t think like us. Therefore, to help us understand his purposeful thought process, he used these angelic powers anthropomorphically and in human ways. However, they aren’t human to carry out God’s righteousness and sovereignty on the earth so that we could learn even a sliver about God’s character and wisdom.
Second, why did God use the angelic powers (1 John 4:12)? No one in the scripture has ever seen God. People have seen representations of God; Moses saw a burning bush. In Genesis, Jacob wrestled with an angel, and he said, “I’ve seen God face to face.” But he didn’t see God; he saw a representation of God by an angel. No one has seen God himself. Why has no one seen God (John 4:24)? We can’t see God because he is Spirit. God isn’t “a” Spirit. God “is” Spirit. We can’t even begin to comprehend what that means, much less what “Spirit” looks like. Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind. You can’t see the wind. You can see what the wind is doing, but you can’t see it. That’s God. We can’t see him, but he reveals some things about himself to us (Deuteronomy 29:29). The things the Jews knew of God were revealed to them through the Tanakh (Law, prophets, and writings). And within the Tanakh, they had God’s revelations about celestial beings who interacted with mankind as assistants, sanctifiers, authorities, and these great powers. These were the things God revealed, but much more wasn’t revealed until Jesus came into the world.
I’m trying to help us understand that God revealed himself by using Israel as his human and angelic representatives. These great angelic powers, which we will discuss in the coming weeks, were how God revealed himself and his nature to Israel and, subsequently, to all humanity through Israel and the Tanakh. Each of these great powers reveals something about the nature of God on earth, as these powers influenced the entire creation.
But Israel and the rest of mankind still didn’t see or know who or what God is. Try this experiment and ask anyone to describe God to you. Then, keep asking people and see all the different responses you’ll get. As little as people know about God today, they knew even less 2,000 or 4,000 years ago. Even after Jesus taught his disciples for three years, they still had difficulty understanding who God was. In John 14:8-9, Philip asks Jesus to explain God to them. He said, “Show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.” Jesus answered him, saying, “Have I been among you all this time, and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” To “know” God is to “see” God. Philip said, “Show us the Father.” Jesus responded, “If you know me, you’ve seen the Father.” Knowing is seeing. The Angelic Powers worked in the world so the Israelites could know God. By seeing the actions of the Angelic Powers in their history, they saw their influence and effects on their lives, their communities, and the entire world. But then, like today, there were many interpretations of these Angelic Powers and what they revealed about God’s nature and person.
As we look at these Angelic Powers, we will get into this in the coming weeks. As we end this introduction, I want to begin closing this episode by reading Hebrews 1:1-4. Once Jesus came into the world, humanity received the “exact expression” of what God is. And because he fulfilled his father’s purpose in the world, he surpassed every angelic being and inherited a name more excellent than theirs.
What name did Jesus inherit from God that’s more excellent than any Angelic Power (Hebrews 1:5-6)? Jesus, the Son of God, is the Father’s exact representation of himself to all humanity. Mankind cannot see God because God is Spirit. We don’t even know what a Spirit is, but we do know Jesus Christ, and as the Son of God, all the power, glory, and knowledge of God is seen in His Son. But the angels had an important task: to prepare and lead Israel and all humanity to the revelation of God’s Son as the Power above every power in the cosmos.
