angels    In recent years there has been a lot of fascination and speculation about angels. It often involves questions like: Are angels real? Is it possible to see one? Why do angels exist? What can angels do? Should we pray to angels?

    At times, religious people’s interest in angels has gotten so intense that it has even been called “angelmania.” At one point in the late 1980’s, five of the top ten religious books were about angels.

    Some of the more popular books about angels make some amazing claims. For example, some say that angels can help you contact your dead relatives, provide guidance for important decisions, empower you to achieve your goals, bring healing to your body, and a whole host of other outlandish claims.

    What should we believe about angels? Everything that God has told us about them! One  fact about angels that you may have never heard is that they are inferior to humans. That is what the Bible reveals. In spite of the fact that angels (for the present) have abilities that we don’t have, like invisibility, strength, instant unhindered movement, they never age, etc., God has actually placed a higher importance upon men than He has upon angels.

    Let me show you how I know that is true. Read this passage from the Bible carefully. “What is man, that You

[God] remember him? Or the son of man, that You are concerned about him? You have made him for a little while lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and have appointed him over the works of your hands; You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in subjecting all things to him, [i.e. mankind] He left nothing that is not subject to him….” (Hebrews 2:6–8).

    From the beginning of the Bible, we see that God made the superiority of mankind very clear. When God first created human life on the earth, He declared, “‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:26–28).

    In other words, God made mankind to be the master of this world, not angels. That sounds odd to us, doesn’t it? If we are ruling the planet, we sure aren’t doing a very good job. This world is a mess. Many animals are dangerous to humans. We are largely helpless before hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and a host of other natural disasters. We struggle to keep people from stealing from each other, and we can’t even keep some people from killing other people.

    What went wrong? Sin is what ruined everything. When Adam and Eve rebelled against their all loving Creator, a barrier was created between them and their Lord. Life no longer worked like God intended. It’s been pretty much downhill ever since.

    What is the solution? Do we need to ask angels to intervene in this world and straighten things out?  Angels are not the answer. The Bible warns us against that idea. “Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind” (Colossians 2:18).

   The solution is so amazing and so wonderful, that only God could have thought it up.

    Since we have all failed to reflect our Creator’s holiness, God has come to our rescue. God came to earth, became one of us (when Jesus was born in Bethlehem), and then lived the perfect life that none of us could live. “Therefore, [Jesus] had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God…” (Hebrews 2:17).

    Then Jesus offered Himself up as a perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. The Bible makes this very clear in verses like this one:  “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9).

    Since angels are under Christ’s rule (see Ephesians 1:21, Colossians 1:16; 2:10 and 1 Peter 3:22), He is the only One who can straighten out our mess. Angels can’t solve our most important needs because only Jesus can wash away our sin and change our hearts. When we put our complete faith in Christ we will, “… have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:15–16).