2.1.10 Fallen Angels

Moving along from that we move on to the question of fallen angels which was, I believe, the second point of Mr. Heaster's outline. There are a couple of points here; verses such as Hebrews 1:14 were referred to which say that all angels are ministering spirits. Incidentally, there was a very interesting comment made that there is no spiritual realm or something to that effect, perhaps I misunderstood, only corporeal beings, or something like that - perhaps I just misunderstood, but that sounded very foreign to me because I do believe angels are spirits and Hebrews 1: 14 says angels are spiritual beings apparently without physical bodies and that sort of thing. That's what Jesus was getting at in Luke 20 which we will get to in just a moment here.

But in Hebrews 1: 14, this is a good point - - it does say that all angels are ministering spirits. So then does this seem to rule out the existence of evil angels? I believe it does not. I believe that this is a figure of speech and we have been talking about figures of speech a lot so I guess we will talk about this one. It is called synecdoche. This figure of speech is a figure in which the all is used for a part, or a part for the all. For example, in John the Baptist's preaching, all Judea went out to hear him preach. Now did every last man, woman and child in Judea go out to hear John preach? No they did not. But the greater majority of them did. There the word all is used in a figurative way to describe large crowds of people. Similarly, I would suggest that Hebrews 1: 14 uses this figure of speech to describe most of the angels who are God's ministering spirits.

Now the statement was made that the Bible does not distinguish between good angels and evil / fallen angels. I believe that it does. For example in 1 Timothy 5:21, we read of elect angels. Now if there are elect angels, it follows that there are angels who are not elect. We also read about evil angels elsewhere. For example, Matt. 25:41 which says that the devil and his angels will be destroyed in the lake of fire.

Now, moving right along, the next argument that was laid out about angels not being able to sin was based on a logical construction from Luke 20 and Romans 6:23, I believe. Luke 20 which states that in the resurrection we will be made like the angels because they do not die, and if death is the wages of sin, and angels cannot die, therefore angels cannot sin. It sounds like a good argument but I believe that it is based on a false premise. It is based on the premise that immortality is predicated on one's inability to sin. That is to say, that immortality is predicated upon one's lack of free will. In fact what Jesus meant there was not that angels are incapable of dying. Clearly they are, because God can destroy them. The Bible talks about that. What Jesus is talking about, and we must balance this scripture with other scriptures, such as Matthew 25:41. Jesus' point was that angels do not grow old and die and they do not suffer injury like we mortals with our bodies do; but in fact, they are do not die in that sense. However, God can certainly destroy an angel of His own creation. If God cannot destroy a single angel, certainly He is not very powerful.
I believe this is also strengthened by reference to 1 Timothy 6: 16 which says that God alone has immortality. That means immortality in and of Himself, innate immortality. Now the immortality of the angels is not innate immortality but derived immortality. They derive their immortality from God and God can take that immortality away at any time. But I do believe in fallen angels. I don't believe the Bible talks very much about them, but I believe it does talk about them a little bit. As I've said, I have written a paper about that which will be available later on.