Devout Christians still to this day believe that the " angels of god" where a type of ethereal being created by god and who sometimes perform miraculous acts on behalf of their Lord. None of this is true of course and we know this because scripture itself makes it very plain that "angels" are no more ethereal than you or I, that is to say, that they were very flesh and blood. But this, like many other biblica thorny facts are hard to understand and or accept for many Christians.
Is it because of verses such as :
“Praise ye him [God], all his angels ... let them praise the name of Jehovah; for he commanded, and they were created” (Ps. 148:2, 5).?
“[God] made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts ... and the host of heaven worships you” (Neh. 9:6).?
It seems that these angles were even a puzzle to those that witnessed them:
Hebrews 1:14
"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation"?
The word - Angel - means nothing more than messenger. The Greek is - Angelos. Malakh, the Hebrew word for angel, also means messenger, and both words coincidently originate from the Persian word for angel, angaros, meaning a - courier. These are simple facts that the devout Christian will still deny although biblical scholars are in agreement with these translations.
Christians have no trouble whatsoever accepting that John the Baptist for instance was a flesh and blood man, but when they are informed that he was an "angel", they somehow recoil at the shock that such a thing can even be suggested, yet right there, in their own scriptures it clearly states from god himself:
Matthew 11:10
This is the one about whom it is written: “‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.
And as any reader of the bible will attest, it was John the Baptist who goes before and who was to "prepare the way" for the Christ.
The argument against this is usually put thus:
'All that was created by god came into being during the first week (Ex. 20:11), and since the angels “shouted for joy” when the “foundations of the earth” were laid (Job 38:4, 7), this proves that angels came into existence during the initial stages of God’s creative activity.'
So according to Christians angels were created in the heavens and therefore were here before any flesh and blood being and since the beginning of time and are spirits.
Lk. 24:39 tells us spirits do not have flesh, bone and one assumes any blood either "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have".
But whatever it was that Luke and Christians understood these beings to be, they were definitely not ethereal /spirit. And we know this because once again it is the biblical scripture itself that tells us as much and the one extremely good example has to be Genesis 19:1-11. And not wanting to be accused of "quoting out of context" here is the story with the salient points highlighted and interjected by me in italics:
Genesis 19:1-11
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet (these would be flesh and blood feet) and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
4 Before they had gone to bed, (they sleep too it seems) all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.
5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? (men??) Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” (angels having physical sex???)
8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, <<< (men? not spirits not ethereal beings?) for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
The biblical evidence above as to the real nature and makeup of the "angels" will of course not be accepted the devout Christians. But the biblical facts speak for themselves.
