Angel, I Need a Good Parking Spot!

Continued from page 1

Besides being a generally accepted tenet of the Christian faith, can we find any other evidence for the existence of angels? A recent poll indicated 71 percent of Americans believe in angels—a number far greater than Americans who attend church. My wife wrote an article for Guideposts magazine about a woman who had had an angel experience. In response to that article she received over 8,500 letters from readers. A great many wrote about their own encounters with angels and their fear of other people's disbelief or disapproval. Reading my wife's article, however, they felt safe sharing experiences with her.

Often, when I speak to an audience I also ask, “How many of you have had an experience with an angel?” On every occasion, many hands are raised. It surprises many skeptics to learn that a great number of people believe in angels because they or someone they know has had an angel experience.

Skeptics argue that if angels are active in our world, we should be able to find evidence of their activity. In fact, such evidence does exist—people of every gender, age, and race have had direct encounters. As St. Thomas Aquinas observed, "Angels transcend every religion, every philosophy, every creed. In fact angels have no religion as we know it...Their existence precedes every religious system that has ever existed on Earth.

For more information on angels, you can read:

• Angels and Us, by Mortimer Adler, particularly the chapter "The Reality of Angels."
• Angels: History of Mystery?, by Sharon Linnea

I've read that the common perception of cherubim as little baby-like angels is incorrect. Instead, cherubim are winged animals with human heads and are extremely fierce warriors. Are cherubim cute little cupids we see on Valentine's cards or are they fierce beasts?

Also, I've heard that the east gate of Eden is protected by cherubim with a flaming sword that slashes back and forth. Does one of the cherubim wield the sword, or does the sword move on its own?
--Samantha S.

Cherub is often recognized as the singular word for cherubs or cherubim even though cherubim is also referred as the singular word for cherubims. It's also interesting to note that the word cherubs, not cherubim, is usually equated with cute cupids (such as Raphael's popular little angels) seen on Valentine's Day cards. Yet these baby-like figures have nothing in common with the biblical idea of the cherubim. In Numbers 6, angel statues built for the Temple were 15 feet tall and had a 15-foot wing span, but because they were so tall, many people still had a hard time discerning their appearance.

So what do cherubim look like? Well, cherubim are angels and, like all angels, are spirit beings. This means they cannot be seen by the human eye unless God allows them to assume a physical form. In scripture, verses reveal that not all cherubim look alike. Some have lion-like features and human-like faces (See Ezekiel 1:10) while others do not. But even though cherubim do not appear as cute human babies, they always appear as exceedingly strong, majestic, magnificent, and awesome creatures.

As for your second question, you asked about the flaming sword in Genesis 3:23-24: So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

The Garden of Eden was a big place so there were probably many warrior cherubim guarding various entrances. All we know about the flaming sword is found in the verse above. The four explanations usually believed are:

1. The flaming sword was held by one of the cherubim and turned every way.
2. The flaming sword was an angel since angels may also appear as flames or fire.
3. The flaming sword was similar to the pillar of fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness.
4. The flaming sword was a form of the Shekinah glory.