Great Doctrines of the Bible—God the Father, God the Son/ Martyn Lloyd Jones

10. Good Angels

The term angel means “messenger” (103). Lloyd Jones begins the theme with this: “angels were in existence even before the creation of the world” (103). Angels are created beings, and they “have spiritual bodies. . . . as our Lord’s human frame became a spiritual body, a glorified body, after His resurrection” (104 & 105). Angels never die, and they are inferior to the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, but superior to man (105 & 106). (See Luke 20:36; Psalms 8:4-6). 

There are certain names of angels: spirit (Ephesians 1:21), holy angels (Luke 9:26), the elect angels (1Timothy 5:21), ministering angels (Hebrew 1:14), cherubim (Ps. 99:1; Ezek. 10:1-22), seraphim (Isa. 6:2), and living creatures or the beasts (Revelation 4).

Angels are “symbolic of our ultimate salvation and glorification, and of our eternal existence in the immediate presence of the glorious God” (107). The number of angels is countless (See Matthew 26:53; Luke 2:13); the Scripture tells us there are “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands” (Revelation 5:11). 

There is a division both in status and in work among angels (108). Archangel, Michael, is the chiefest of all, the supreme (See 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Jude 1:9; Daniel 10: 13). Gabriel is the angel who “stands in the presence of God, waiting, as it were, to be given a message” (108). (See Luke 1:26; Luke 1:19).

However, “there are angels that are not elect, that are lost” (109). Thus, there are good angels and bad angels (See Matthew 25:41). Good angels dwell in heaven (Matthew 22:30; 18:10).

Their occupations are these:
a). “they spend their time, in adoring God and the Lamb” (109);
b). they are “servants, and they are waiting”;
c). they are “looking into the question of our salvation”;
d). “they are looking at us”;
e). they are “the instruments of His will” (110). (Rev. 5; Matthew 18:10; 1 Peter 1:12; 1 Corinthians 11:10; Hebrew 2:2; Galatians 3:19; Acts 7:53);
f). they are “to reveal God’s purposes”;
g). they are used by God “to bless and to care for His own people” (Hebrew 1:14);
h). they are “preparing us for our salvation” (Acts 10);
i). they “protect us” (111). (Psalm 91:10-11. Daniel 6:22);
j). they “give us guidance” (Acts 6:26).
k). they are “used by God to cheer us and to give us comfort and consolation” (Acts 27:23; 2 Kings 6).
l). they are “used by God to give us deliverance” (Acts 12).
m). they “prepare us at the beginning, they watch over us and protect us and guard us and deliver us and do all these things—yes. And when we come to die they will be there to receive our spirit and to take us to Paradise” (112). (Luke 16:22-23).
n). “they execute God’s judgments on God’s enemies” (Acts 12:23).
o). they “function at the final judgment” (113). (Matthew 24:30-31;2 Thessalonians 1:6-8).