In a newspaper story I read on the Virginia Tech shootings, a student was quoted saying something like, “She was a wonderful person on earth and she’ll make an amazing angel.”

Humans don’t become angels once in heaven. They are separate entities. Paul even writes to the saints at Corinth about their heavenly future, “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?”

A preacher I like in Dayton, Ohio, David Reid of Mid-Acts Grace Fellowship, explained in a recent sermon, “Right before the tribulation, the Body of Christ is caught up into the heavenlies and the judgment seat of Christ occurs and rewards are given to the Body of Christ based upon their service.

“In the middle of the tribulation, there’s war in heaven and Satan and his angels are cast out. What that means then is all those positions formerly occupied by Satan and his angels are open, empty, vacant. Who’s going to take them? The Body of Christ . . . What happens is the Body of Christ is installed higher than the angels that are up there.”

*****

Angels are organized into different ranks and races and they carry on the business of heaven just as man carries on the business of the earth.

Jordan says, “They’re not just up there turning summersaults, running around willy-nilly bumping into each other. There are territories, dominions, travel routes they go through. There’s structured activity and direction.”

From I Cor. 4:9, we know “we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.” This means angels are watching us right now, learning from us!

In an old series of Sunday morning sermons Jordan once gave on angels, he said, “I believe with all my heart this morning that there are angels looking in the doors and sitting around listening to what’s going on. Just like the Lord Jesus Christ is observing, the elect angels are watching what goes on here today too.”

*****

From the Bible we know angels are innumerable. They are always men and they never age or die. They possess might and strength and intellect far beyond any mere mortal.

“For one thing, they’ve lived over 6,000 years,” reasons Jordan. “They’ve had a lot more experience with life than you or I. Their intellectual capacity far exceeds ours and yet the humblest, simplest Believer teaches angels. They can sit at our feet and learn.”

In today’s dispensation of grace, an angel never intervenes on behalf of a Believer (as they did for God’s people under Israel’s program). Instead, Believers have an impact on angels by being who God has made them in Christ.

Jordan says, “When you appreciate that, all of sudden, rather than trying to get them to do something for you, you realize that being who you are in Christ does something for them to the glory of God!”

Of course, this is not something most Christians understand. Preachers talk about angels doing things for Believers, not the other way around.

Among the verses they like to throw out is Psalm 91:11, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” Another is Exodus 23:20: “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.”

Jordan says, “Someone will have some kind of miraculous deliverance from an automobile accident or some other calamity in life and they’ll say God sent His angel to deliver me. You hear it on the TV all the time. But angels are never said to minister to the Body of Christ.

“Let me ask you something: If an angel appeared to you today, how would you know whose side he was on? You say, ‘Well, if he’s talking about Jesus and the Spirit of God and the Bible’ . . . You know the first words that ever came out of Satan’s mouth recorded in the Scripture? ‘Yea hath God said.’

“First thing Satan’s interested in is what God said and what Eve knew about it. He didn’t offer her a pack of Marlboros or a six-pack. He didn’t offer her something to suck up her nose or stick in her arm. He didn’t offer her a wild time on the town or money. You know what he wanted to do.

“Paul writes in II Cor. 11, ‘But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.’

“If it’s ‘another gospel,’ it must not be the right one. There’s another Jesus who’s the wrong one. Down South we got a song that says, ‘Everybody talking about heaven ain’t going there.’

“You’ll hear people say, ‘Oh, the Spirit of God’s moving in this ministry.’ Yeah, you better be careful, it might be A spirit of A god.

“II Cor. 11 says, ‘For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.’

“Isn’t that a staggering passage? Satan has preachers that preach righteousness—self-righteousness. And he has apostles. How do you know if somebody’s an apostle or not? II Cor. 12:12 says, ‘Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.’

“So they come in with the signs and wonders to demonstrate their apostolic authority but the problem is they’re all phonies. It’s not that the miracle doesn’t happen; it’s that they’re false. ‘Lying wonders’ means it teaches you to believe a lie. You notice he says there, ‘And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.’ Angels are involved in that. If you see an angel today, that’s the one you’re going to see.”