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Angels

elijah23 said:
You don't think angels are people?
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No, angels were created by God before He created us. There are two distinct differences between mankind and angels. The first is that angels lack free will while man does not. The second is that angels have eternal life and be in the presence of God. Mankind does not since Adam and Eve did not eat the fruit from the Tree of Life. By eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, man expressed free will to follow God's commandment or not. The punishment for Adam and Eve's failure to abide by the commandment they were removed from the presence of the Lord and would suffer eternal separation from God.

Genesis 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
 
CalledToServe said:
No, angels were created by God before He created us. There are two distinct differences between mankind and angels. The first is that angels lack free will while man does not. The second is that angels have eternal life and be in the presence of God. Mankind does not since Adam and Eve did not eat the fruit from the Tree of Life.

Genesis 3:22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.â€
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Maybe Adam and Eve didn't eat from the Tree of Life, but the Lord is just and wouldn't punish us for something Adam and Eve did.

It seems to me the Lord would give everyone, including the angels, free will. How could anyone be happy without free will?
 
elijah23 said:
Maybe Adam and Eve didn't eat from the Tree of Life, but the Lord is just and wouldn't punish us for something Adam and Eve did.

It seems to me the Lord would give everyone, including the angels, free will. How could anyone be happy without free will?
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The Hebrew word that is translated as angel is mal'akh. It means messenger. The concept of how we view angels now originally began in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, written roughly 300 BC, is about Enoch's journey to heaven and being given prophecies by God.

However, everything that God has created He did so with a purpose, even when we cannot understand why He did it. 1 Corinthians 2:16 says "16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?â€" Genesis 50:19 also says, "But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?"
 
Jman96 said:
Angels are in heaven with Jesus! How can they not be happy?
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I think they have free will. I think they do the Lord's will out of choice, not because their free will has been taken away.
 
CalledToServe said:
The Hebrew word that is translated as angel is mal'akh. It means messenger. The concept of how we view angels now originally began in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, written roughly 300 BC, is about Enoch's journey to heaven and being given prophecies by God.

However, everything that God has created He did so with a purpose, even when we cannot understand why He did it. 1 Corinthians 2:16 says "16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?â€" Genesis 50:19 also says, "But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?"
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I suspect angels do more than just deliver messages.
 
I suspect angels do more than just deliver messages.
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Oh they do... they also do spiritual battle against their fallen counterparts, the demons... and they carry out tasks for the Lord here on earth. God sent angels to deliver Lot from Sodom.

You never know, you may have entertained an angel, or helped one out, without even realizing it was an angel.

But, angels are a completely different creation than us. They are not "people" in the sense of people who once lived on earth and then died and gone to heaven. Lots of people believe this, but it is not correct.
 
elijah23 said:
I suspect angels do more than just deliver messages.
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According to scripture that is all that they do. They serve God since that is what they are created to do without any free will. If you look at every instance of the word Angel in the Bible they all do the same thing, which is to deliver God's messages, whether to humans or to worship the Lord as in Revelation and other passages.

Our focus should be on God and not on any of His creations. In every case in the Bible when man tried to worship angels they were rebuffed and told to worship the one true God.
 
Hebrews 1 says angels are ministering spirits, send to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation.
 
CalledToServe said:
According to scripture that is all that they do. They serve God since that is what they are created to do without any free will. If you look at every instance of the word Angel in the Bible they all do the same thing, which is to deliver God's messages, whether to humans or to worship the Lord as in Revelation and other passages.

Our focus should be on God and not on any of His creations. In every case in the Bible when man tried to worship angels they were rebuffed and told to worship the one true God.
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I don't think Scripture says angels do nothing but deliver messages. As a matter of fact, Psalms 91:11 (RSV) says angels do this:

For he will give his angels charge of you
to guard you in all your ways.
 
farouk said:
Hebrews 1 says angels are ministering spirits, send to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation.
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Ministering is a form of delivering a message.

elijah23 said:
I don't think Scripture says angels do nothing but deliver messages. As a matter of fact, Psalms 91:11 (RSV) says angels do this:

For he will give his angels charge of you
to guard you in all your ways.
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I'll explain it like this, an angel has no free will and is a messenger of God. If an angel has a mission to guard you then the angel is still a messenger of God. The angel is following God's command to guard you and that in itself is a message that you are in the Lord's favor and keeping with His commandments. All things come from God* and the book of Job is a good example of how angels work plus the confines they have to work within. Job has everything taken from him to test his faith in God and to see if he would ever blaspheme Him.

*Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
 
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Please correct me if I am wrong,but an angel IS a mesenger according to Hebrew lexicon. Also, angels DO have free will. Lucifer, the evil one, the devil , the Dragon was an angel of the Lord, "The Angel of the Lord of Lords"...

Am I making this up or is this just SDA lore...
 
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