‘Angels,’ Heppe tells us, ‘are appointed to glorify God, to serve as messengers, to watch over the elect, to support them in bodily and spiritual need, and to bring their souls to eternal rest.’
On earth, angels are devoted to God’s service. While their ‘ordinary’ action in heaven is absorption in praise, ‘their extraordinary ministry is to accompany the history of redemption at its cardinal points.’
Angels are usually unseen. When Scripture does record them appearing, though, what it describes bears almost no resemblance to the images our culture has settled on.
Angels reside in heaven (Luke 2:15) — the heavenly court and throne-room, where they’re obedient to God’s Word and devoted to enacting his will (Psa 103:20-21).
As we seek to understand angels we do well to remind ourselves that, ‘Belief in a spiritual world is rooted in and profoundly expresses the truth of revelation; only God can make it known to us, and he has done so in Scripture.’
