The veneration and worship of angels has always been a danger to believing people. Paul explicitly warns the Colossians against it (Colossians 2:18). The Jews, who had “received the Law as ordained by angels,” were in particular danger (Acts 7:53; Hebrews 2:2). Therefore, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Spirit of God shows how much better than angels Christ is—even as a Man. The angels are “ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). Worshiping angels is not fitting and is not accepted by them either (Revelation 19:10).
However, one can and must learn something from angels: their attentive interest in all the deeds and ways of God.
When the earth was created, the angels saw the power of God and rejoiced (Job 38:7).
Every conversion of a sinner brings about joy in heaven, in which the angels take an interested part (Luke 15:10).
Into the things that have been proclaimed to us in the gospel, the angels long to look, although they are neither recipients nor proclaimers of the gospel (1 Peter 1:12; see also Hebrews 2:16; Acts 11:13.14).
The ways that God takes with believers here on earth, and that are often associated with suffering and contempt, the angels follow with interest (1 Corinthians 4:9).
Angels are interested in God’s created order just as much as in the multifaceted wisdom of God that is to be seen in the assembly. They observe with interest the head covering of the women and how the great mystery of the heart of God concerning Christ and the assembly is practically administered, that is, realized here on earth (1 Corinthians 11:10; Ephesians 3:9.10).
And with what joy and attentiveness the angels watched when God the Son, who had also created them, came to earth as a Man, “seen by angels” (1 Timothy 3:16). They filled the fields of Bethlehem and praised God, whose good pleasure in men they marveled at in the birth of Jesus. We see angels after the temptations in the wilderness and in Gethsemane. They knew of His death and testified at the tomb of His resurrection and on the mountain near Bethany of His ascension and His return to the earth.
They are not redeemed; they do not have the relationship to the Lord Jesus that we believers have; they form the outer circle when they surround the throne of God, we the inner. But they know that He has been slain as the Lamb of God and has acquired the dignity of dominion over the entire universe in the Millennial Kingdom—and they worship Him (Revelation 5:11.12).
And even when the Lord Jesus will then actually take up this dominion, the angels will again be present to serve Him and worship Him (Hebrews 1:6; Psalms 97:7).
What high regard for God is shown by these “doers of His word,” who listen attentively and obediently to the “voice of His word” (Psalms 103:20). With interest they follow God’s actions and ways, rejoice in them, and worship. We sing:
The angels are raised up
to serve and to praise,
yet sons are they not.
No death ever bound them,
no lofty price redeemed them,
no arm led them from night to light.
But what about our interest and our joy in the things of God? Do we not sometimes, in our indifference and joylessness, fall behind the angels?
In Psalm 103, David calls on the angels to praise the Lord. But this psalm, which describes the manifold deeds of God’s goodness on behalf of us human beings (not the angels), ends with the words: “Bless the LORD, O my soul!”
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